Bonus chapter! Originally, I was against the idea of giving Crowfeather a turn. After all, the whole point was to have his three mates 'fight' each other for him, but in the end each give him up. I purposely didn't share Crowfeather's opinion on this all.

But then I just had to write another chapter, so I shrugged my shoulders and gave Crowfeather a voice. So here's our favorite grumpy wiry sexy gray WindClan tom:

Crowfeather:

I used to feel love like the pale dawn rays of sunlight unfurling in my body's shadows – It warmed me. I desired nothing more than to bask all day.

But then it began to be a burden. I carried it upon my back and I ached every step I took. Through the dark, just one step after another.

Once, the thought of love had been liberating, like I was a bird, and my ropes were cut for the first time. Feathertail and I had been so, so in love. Bubbling and bouncy and beautiful, she was everything I wished for and everything I wanted and everything I knew I had to stay away from. But I couldn't keep stepping back for long.

When I was younger, I had said I didn't want love. But it came to me anyways; great StarClan, it did. In fact, love chased me over the mountains and back again, crying in my ear like a pesty fly, "She's the one, Crowfeather! Why can't you accept it?"

Somewhere along that trip (maybe under the waterfall, maybe in the tall grass, maybe as I lay by Feathertail's side and realized that she was beautiful), love caught me in its tiny claws and carried me away.

But Feathertail died, just like that. It was so sudden I don't remember even grieving for her. Shocked, I had forgotten how to walk and how to breathe. StarClan was punishing me for letting love lift me so easily. No wonder our realization had taken so long – our ancestors did not approve.

After that, they beat me every night with merciless dreams. The nightmares got even worse as we journeyed through the mountains again, with this empty space by my side. I would wake up in the morning and see the sunlight breezing into the cave, and start to purr as I saw her face, for one second forgetting-

Then the wind would whisk the silver cobwebs away and I would remember with a jolt. She was dead. The spot by my side would be empty for the rest of my life.

But as time went on, I found that I could move more easily. My legs moved again, and I could find the spring in my pawstep! I could look at the stars and admire them for just what they were – stars. Not the glittering dead, the ones who were gone.

Perhaps I moved on. But I never forgot her, just as I had promised.

Now, Leafpool, I could breathe her because she was the summer wind over the moors. She floated, she soared, and I was captured by her grace as I set eyes on her. There was tension between us. We had almost never spoken, but we were in love. How- I don't know. I thought at first that StarClan had wished it.

She had fallen, and I caught her with both paws, afraid to let go. Over the edge, I pulled her back up. She asked me why, and I said the only truth I knew: I loved her.

But the look in her eyes – it was the same as Feathertail's. The same eyes that Feathertail had worn the moment she died, and when she looked at me I felt that Feathertail was alive, just for a second. But maybe she'd forgive me, but maybe not.

I just wanted someone to say, "I forgive you." Anyone. I needed it.

Feathertail was my young romance, and I hoped that she could let me move on. She could never tie me to the heavens because I was grounded as could be. Leafpool kept me tethered like a TwoLeg kite, and as often as I bobbed into the sky, as often as the wind swept me up and tried to reclaim me, she reeled me back in.

I suggested we run away together, because- because it was real, even a bit more real than Feathertail had been. I let myself think that with only a tiny bit of guilt. But I couldn't help how I felt.

We ran into the hills and I loved her more than anything, but she was unhappy. Her pawsteps and movements that once were as soft as the breeze whistling across the green grass, became as slow and heavy. Like she was walking upriver. And as we traveled farther and farther away, the current became stronger, until I was holding on to her with both paws. I was reminded of the first time I had caught her from falling.

But this time, her eyes begged me to let her go.

And so I did, with a whisper, "I'll never forget you." Just as I had with Feathertail.

As soon as I released Leafpool, she was swept away. I padded back to my clan with sore paws and I was so broken, again.

Nightcloud was there, waiting for me. "I knew you'd come," she said the night we mated for the first time, when we were lying side by side and the moon was bright and full. StarClan approved, they approved, but all I could think was that I didn't love her.

I felt sorry for her, in some ways. Her love lashed her to my every need, and I used it against her. Our son, Breezepelt, looked so much like her that I couldn't stand him: There was just too much Nightcloud, too much of the she-cat who constantly reminded me that I was a traitor. I betrayed my Clan. I betrayed both my mates.

In fact, I asked myself- Who was the one? Was it Feathertail, of who love had whispered "Accept her," or was it Leafpool, flowing in her river and soaring on her wind, or was it Nightcloud, who StarClan and my Clan approved of wholly?

I don't know. But does it matter?

-Now I am dying.

I cough and spit and know that soon it'll be over forever.

Nightcloud is by my side, and I hate her for loving me so much when I can give nothing in return. I want to scream, "Go find someone who can give you what you want! It's the least you deserve!" but all that comes out of my mouth is a dribble of blood. She regards me coldly, and for a moment, I wish her all the happiness in the world after I am gone. I hope she forgets about me, for her sake.

And then I want to tell her that I love her, to see her smile, and to know that she'll be alright after I die.

"Nightcloud, I-" I start to cough. "I lo-"

Her eyes start to cloud over, but she sits proud and pure.

"I love-" And I can't. I can't say it. I can't love her because I don't, I think, and I never will. On my deathnest I won't lie to the one that has given me so much. "…I'm sorry, Nightcloud."

I have to close my eyes so I can't see her face, carved from cold black marble. "Forgive me, p-please, forgive me."

"I forgive you," she whispers, and suddenly I am liberated- I am soaring and dying and breathing and flying and circling the darkness a thousand times but it doesn't matter because I am finally free.

It isn't Feathertail who fetches my soul. It's Ashstar, my mother. She bows her head and flicks her tail, signaling for me to follow her up the starry path into the black sky. I leave this world and look back only once, to see Nightcloud sitting motionless beside my dead gray husk.

"Mother," I murmur, and she smiles. Our fur is made of tiny glowing stars that shed upon each other, brush and flow, and I am alive once again.

"Where's Feathertail?" I ask quietly once we are in the tall grass of StarClan. The wind is ripe, the soil is soft. I someone to hold on to, just for a moment, and to tell me I've made it.

Ashstar nods her head vaguely towards the river. "Careful, Crowfeather. Things have changed." She murmurs, "Don't hurt her."

But I could never hurt Feathertail. This is the moment I have been waiting for, for moons upon moons, for every sun that rises and falls like the faithful tide.

I pad towards a silver cat on the shore of the river. "Feathertail?" I ask cautiously, and she looks at me with that same look that she had when she died.

"Crowfeather," she whispers. She stands as if she is going to run to me, but stays still. I twine myself with her and purr and it is almost the reunion that I dreamed of, except that something is wrong-

"I'm not your mate anymore," she meows. I take a step back, reeling as if I have been hit.

"I'm letting you go," she meows. "I've watched you with Leafpool, I've watched you with Nightcloud. Crowfeather, you can't be with me." Her eyes are blue and broken glass. "You've grown up. I've never grown up, not since the day I died. I'm still the same-" she breaks off and steadies her paws on the rocks beneath her because she is trembling. "Crowfeather, when Leafpool gets here, love her. Don't think of me."

I take another step back and my foot hits the water. It drags at me, hungry. "But Feathertail-"

"Just go," she whispers. "I'll still be here. I can walk between StarClan and the Tribe of Endless Hunting, so you'll see me… around." And her starlit pelt fades into the river, and she is swallowed by the tide that rises and falls.

I sit and I wait, broken more than ever before. She's gone. But Leafpool will join me soon, and now I know that Feathertail is willing to let me go. She releases her grasp on my heart and I breathe in like I have been holding my breath all this time.

Many moons later, Leafpool arrives. She sparkles and I fill my lungs with her air as she walks by. I follow her to the field. She hasn't noticed me yet; she's too busy watching the open sky with wide eyes. What is she looking for? She won't be seeing her ancestors up there-

I quietly sit down by her side, and she turns in surprise. "Crowfeather?"

"Hello, Leafpool."

"Crowfeather," she murmurs, and leans in so that our noses brush. Her eyes are glowing.

"Wait," she says, and my heart drops. No, not again.

"What's wrong?" I whisper. I don't want her to answer because I want us to stay like this forever.

"I can't be with you," she mutters.

"What?"

"I'm a medicine cat." She's said it so many times before, and now it gets me angry. It's an excuse for something more.

"Not anymore! You're not a medicine cat – You're dead!"

"I have to be loyal."

"Up here? We are one Clan!"

"Crowfeather, I can't love you," she says, and says the words so lightly it's as if the stars are breathing in. "Do you remember how you acted when you found out that we had kits together? You were disgusted with me. You said Nightcloud was your only mate. You have to- you have to stick by your word. Nightcloud is your only mate now, and if not her, then Feathertail…"

"No, Leafpool, but- " I can't comprehend. "I want our kits! I want to be their father! I love you, Leafpool."

"You let me go, once, a long time ago." She looks away, up to the stars that hold empty meaning. "Now I'm just returning the favor."

I close my eyes and hope that I'm dreaming. Scratch me and I'll wake up. Oh StarClan, please. I never should had let her go, never should have released my hold.

So she's gone as well, I think as I pad into an empty den. As is Feathertail. I always thought I'd be lying next to one or the other in StarClan. I never thought I'd be alone.

Being alone for the rest of my eternity scares me more than anything did before, scares me until I want to scream, and I'm drowning in the loneliness.

But there's still a chance for me, isn't there?

Nightcloud is dying tonight, I've heard. I will be there, as she was there for me.

I race to the path that will lead me to her side. Her brother, Freezepaw, is already waiting there, ready to bring her up. He died when they were young, she told me. I push him out of the way and he doesn't fight back.

"Nightcloud," I call as starlight gets caught in her fur, as she twists out of her dead prison of a body. She looks up and surprise lights her eyes aflame.

"What are you doing here?" she hisses.

"I'm here to take you up," I meow.

"I wasn't expecting you."

"Well, I'm here."

"Why?" Her amber eyes are burning coldly.

It's a good question, and I don't lie as I murmur, "I don't want to be alone."

I take a step forwards to touch my muzzle with hers, but she turns her face away.

"Is that the same as what you told Leafpool and Feathertail?"

"Am I the last resort, Crowfeather?" she asks. "Am I?"

"That's what I thought," she meows, and doesn't look back.

And then she descends that damn starry staircase all by herself. As she goes, I watch her and think- she's beautiful. So beautiful. I see the shine in her sleek pelt, the ark of her back, the sharp stride. Her head is still held high.

What have I lost?

I carry my love on my back all the way back up to StarClan. With every step I take, I ache. It wasn't my fault, was it? Says the cat who once thought he would never fall in love. Says the cat who made too many promises.

They didn't love me. With every starry step, I begged forgiveness. Oh, please.

All I did was love too much.

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