"Mossthorn… I-I was supposed to meet Brambleclaw here… I think it was here… an hour ago, but I haven't seen him… What if I'm in the wrong place? What if he…" She trailed off and looked up at him as Mossthorn managed to force himself to approach her, stopping just short of making contact with her in any way. And then it took a good long moment for him to figure out something, anything to say to her to make this situation better or at least not make it worse instead of just standing there stupidly with his mouth open. "...He's not going to be doing anything to you anymore… I saw him, uh… leave ThunderClan territory for good… said he couldn't handle living down Tigerstar's legacy anymore…" Squirrelflight tilted her head in confusion, processing this, and Mossthorn prayed to StarClan that she would believe the lie he had apparently decided to tell instead of the truth. "...He left just like that? If I had a piece of prey for every time he's told me he'll make the Clans forget who his father was if it's the last thing he does I'd be able to feed the Clan for a whole season…" Mossthorn laughed nervously, instinctively wiping his front paw on the ground as if the blood of her late mate could be found on it. "...Yeah, it is pretty weird…"
Desperately, he tried to figure out a way to switch the topic to something besides the flaws of the story he had just told her, that she had obviously been smart enough to figure out… "...At least there's a lot of… nicer toms that'd give anything to go out with you." Even before she had turned away from him with hurt written all over her expression, he was reeling from how bad of a new topic that was… possibly the worst one he could've gone with besides 'Hey, y'know how sometimes deputies get eaten by dogs?' "I don't deserve a nice tom, Mossthorn." Mossthorn tried and failed to get himself to bound back to her side. "That's not true!" Squirrelflight shook her head dejectedly, sitting down facing away from him while lashing her tail and digging her claws into the ground. "My relationships with other toms are probably the real reason he left… they're why I deserve a creep like him, anyway… Shrewpaw, and Stormfur, and Ashfur, and…" She briefly met his eyes, tearing up slightly after a long moment before looking away from him and back down at the ground. "...He was right, it was stupid and foxhearted of me to lead them on by trying to be friends with them when the only thing they could possibly value me for is…"
Squirrelflight paused, dipping her head down and indicating her body by moving her tail down her side a few inches away from it. "...and even that's pretty loose…" Mossthorn could barely hear that last part over her no longer suppressed sobs and his horror, and he sprang to her side, sitting beside her and thinking better of wrapping his tail around her at the last second. "Squirrelflight, you did nothing wrong. He was wrong, there's so much more to lo-value you for! value you for than… that… Y-you're amazing and strong and kind and beautiful…" His rambling immediately halted as she pressed her head up against his throat… purring? Oh StarClan, she was purring, her intoxicating warmth and silky fur mingling with his… After a long moment, he managed to gather the courage necessary to wrap his tail around her, and she melted further into him, smiling against him and causing his heart and mind to race like a rabbit on the moor. "Thank you, Mossthorn." Mossthorn managed to stammer out an "Of course," praying to StarClan to let this moment never end before looking up from her in apprehension and alarm as Firestar entered the clearing, the sound of his voice causing her to pull away from him guiltily. "So! It seems the plot is thickening among my clanmates."
Mossthorn gained the presence of mind to dip his head to him respectfully, desperately hoping that he would leave him and Squirrelflight alone soon. He started to speak, quickly trailing off as Firestar interrupted him. "Squirrelflight, I wonder if you'd excuse Mossthorn and me for a little while." Mossthorn looked up at him, aghast, only for his horror to increase as he looked at him threateningly. "Perhaps you'd like to go visit that deputy freak." After a pause, Squirrelflight dipped her head to him, all too briefly running her side against Mossthorn's front leg and chest before moving to exit the clearing, giving him an affectionate look that caught his breath in his throat before she was gone. "You love her madly, don't you, schmuck? Mossthorn whipped around to face him, oddly unsettled by the sarcastic and mocking tone of his voice if not the contents of what he had said. "F-Firestar, you scared me, I…" He trailed off as Firestar interrupted him, digging his claws into the ground in anger. "I scared him? After what I've seen, I scared him?! You think I didn't know, huh? Oh, I knew. I knew you'd wander around the territory and dream about her. But I didn't know the lengths to which you'd go… the depths to which you'd sink!"
Mossthorn backed away from him slightly, confused and unnerved. "...What depths? What sink? What are ya talkin' about?" Firestar moved closer to him, towering over him. "Are you trying to suggest you were just taking his corpse on a pleasant sunset stroll?" Mossthorn stared at him in horror, reeling from the revelation that he had seen him with Brambleclaw's body. "...It's true, I had his body, but I was just burying it!" He flinched as Firestar took his front paw to his throat, his claws unsheathed and pressing up against it. "Tell it to StarClan." As Firestar dragged him in the direction of the lake, forcing him to walk with him by digging his claws into his throat whenever he faltered, images of Brambleclaw doing the same to Squirrelflight flashed through Mossthorn's mind along with some of him succumbing to the same fate that foxer had by his leader's paws. After what felt like an eternity, they emerged into Squirrel's clearing, and Firestar paused, contemplatively looking down at his sleeping form… no, he wasn't really sleeping, he always slept on his chest, never his side… he was just pretending to sleep… for a long moment before slowly and hesitantly removing his claws from Mossthorn's throat, still looking at the dog.
"You know, Mossthorn, it kills me doing this… But considering that Brambleclaw really was awful to Squirrelflight, I'm thinking… maybe I could let you go." Mossthorn looked up at him, surprised. "You could?" Firestar padded to face him, and Mossthorn quickly moved so that he was directly facing Squirrel, causing him to move perfectly in between them. "I'm thinking… what if I kept my mouth shut and let you leave the lake?" Mossthorn tried to not let his heart beat out of his chest or look too conspicuously at Squirrel as he briefly opened his eyes, licking his lips and clearly slobbering at the thought of getting to make a habit out of this whole 'eating cats' thing. "...You'd do that, sir?" After a pause, Firestar nodded slowly. "You could lay low for a while, say, thirty, forty seasons. Meanwhile, I would keep the dog." He looked back at Squirrel, causing him to shut his eyes just in the nick of time and Mossthorn to nearly have a heart attack. "The dog?" Firestar once again met his gaze, thankfully no longer looking at Squirrel. "Of course, you'd have to teach me how to take care of it while you're away. Give me your secret care instructions. But then, if you'd rather meet our ancestors… What do I have to do?"
Mossthorn swallowed several times, trying and failing to free himself from even a portion of his anxiety and horror, before giving up and answering him. "...Just feed him…" Firestar looked exasperatedly at him, seemingly not noticing that he was now slowly backing him towards Squirrel and his dangerous, scary teeth. "Just feed… him what?!" Mossthorn dipped his head to him slightly while still backing him up, not knowing what else to do. "...Oh… anything we eat, really, squirrels especially… and water three times a day…" Firestar nodded with unsettling enthusiasm… although the unsettlingness didn't compare to pretty much everything else about this situation. "Oh, yes." They were nearly there now, if the trembling in his legs didn't ruin this whole thing… "...But whatever you do…" Firestar leaned in slightly closer to him, still pacing backwards. "Yes?" Mossthorn forced himself to keep facing forward and not look away from the soon to be dead cat in front of him. "...Whatever you do…" Firestar lashed his tail in enthusiasm, accidentally hitting Squirrel's jaws. "Y-Yeah?" He turned around to face him after his tail had evidently hit his teeth, looking at them with a mix of apprehension and opportunism. "...What in the name of StarClan is…"
His words were followed by a shout of pain as Squirrel suddenly thrust upwards, surprising both of them by clamping his jaws down on his neck and shaking him repeatedly. Mossthorn couldn't look away as his leader, Squirrelflight's father was shoved around like a piece of prey… except they were expected by StarClan to respect even their prey more than that… his blood and even some chunks of flesh staining his warrior and the grass of his territory… After what felt like an eternity, he had gone completely limp, and Squirrel settled down, immediately starting to dig in to him as if the way events transpired hadn't been completely horrific. Mossthorn shakingly tried and failed to stand up from the fearful crouching position he had gotten into as soon as Firestar had been lifted into the air. Despite his terror, he managed to think clearly enough to grab a big, bloodied tuft of Firestar's fur in his claws at the last second before he was completely consumed by Squirrel, knowing that he would need it to make this lie more believable than the last one. Squirrelflight… the Clan would never believe that their leader had abandoned them alongside their deputy… so this one would require a bit more thought and a bit less stupidly blurting out whatever came to mind. If it was even possible at all…