Swiftheart had been used to a complete lack of the warmth and comfort of other cats around him for much of his life… as used to it as one could be, anyway… but this time it felt strangely… foreign… alarming… enough so to cut through the extremely fragile and unsettling fabric of his half awake, half asleep state despite it being the closest he had gotten to true sleep in… weeks? moons? He jolted upwards, wide awake now, and realized with growing horror where he was: in the leader's den, without Squirrelstar by his side. Why wasn't she here?! She never left the den after moonhigh, she was always out like a firefly by then, if not restless before that point, often with half-dreams, half-imaginings of Brambleclaw… What if she had… Swiftheart tore through the camp and towards Squirrel's clearing faster than he ever had, faster than he had been even when he had been faced with different dogs many moons ago, his frantic pawsteps completely drowned out by the ringing in his ears and the pounding of his heart in his chest. It couldn't be, surely even StarClan, their starry ancestors who apparently hadn't felt like using some of that power of the stars in their paws to help her escape from Brambleclaw, wouldn't be so cruel as to let this happen?!
Swiftheart burst into the clearing, staring in terror as Squirrel shook Squirrelstar around like a piece of prey. He shouted… something, probably as he desperately leapt onto his head, clawing at his jaws with all his strength for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he dropped Squirrelstar, his love, his mate the full distance from his head to the ground, laughing despite the unimaginable, unquantifiable horrificness of what he had just done to the most wonderful cat that ever lived. With shaking legs and quickly dropping adrenaline, Swiftheart jumped to the ground, grabbing her by the scruff and dragging her away from that wretch who had dared to do this to her. He paused, shock and panic coursing through him like venom as he realized that his efforts were… forcing her entrails further out of her… they-they were catching on debris… something had already come completely loose, he didn't know what it was, he wasn't a medicine cat… Swiftheart moved towards it, seething with more fury than he had ever thought he'd be capable of, even with Brambleclaw, as Squirrel smugly picked it up in his stupid jaws, eating it… not that his plan of putting it back in her somewhere had been that great…
Swiftheart spun around to face Squirrelstar as she weakly said something resembling his name, burying his now teary eyes into her neck. "Don't die, Squirrelstar. I need you. Please, please don't die." He pulled away from her, clumsily attempting to get her… remaining entrails back in her with his front paw while praying to StarClan with every fiber of his being to please, please not give up on her like they had with Tigerstar. If he managed to get them back in her okay, maybe that'd be enough for them to work with? Was that really too much to hope for out of cats who could grant extra lives and tell the future? Swiftheart slowly looked up at her in horror as she gasped, a long, drawn-out gasp before her head lolled to the ground. Before he could react, she had lifted her head again weakly, looking him in the eyes with an unfocused but determined gaze. "...You know… the dog said the strangest thing just now. It said that Brambleclaw and Firestar were already inside." She spasmed slightly, her head lolling again, before she perked back up… as much as she could in her condition, and Swiftheart dipped his head to her, practically letting it touch the ground as he reeled with guilt.
"...It's true… I did it… I fed them to it…" Squirrelstar nodded contemplatively, alarming him further as her nod turned into another head loll, before she got it back up and focused on him again. "Brambleclaw always made sense to me, he was awful, but why Firestar?" As Swiftheart crafted a response with all the carefulness he could manage in this situation, Squirrelstar's head lolled back again briefly, prompting him to hurry up. "...He saw me with Brambleclaw's body… he… he was gonna exile me away from ThunderClan, away from you… I-I'm so, so sorry, Squirrelstar…" Much to his… the closest thing his mind could muster to relief now, Squirrelstar gently lifted a front paw to his cheek, briefly pausing as another spasm and ensuing head loll interrupted her before continuing. "...It's okay, Swiftheart, you were just defending yourself. Defending us. I understand." He felt her claws against his cheek for a moment as she gasped from pain, letting her front leg drop back to the ground along with her head as it lolled, and the extremely unwelcome knowledge of what was happening every time her head dropped slowly, horrifically broke through his awareness; she was losing her lives. Oh, StarClan, if they could find it in their collective heart to spare her even one it would make up for all of their prior cruelty tenfold… please, please…
As if they were playing a cruel joke on them, Swiftheart's earnest, desperate prayer was answered with yet another spasm and head loll. She had… two lives left… Oh StarClan… Squirrelstar smiled slightly, weakly at him. "...You know… when you're leading our Clan, with a life I gave you and me watching over you, it'll be like…" She flinched harder than he had ever seen, lolling her head back and bringing it back up with much more difficulty than the last seven times. "...in a way… we'll always be… together…" Swiftheart stared at her desperately as she spasmed, hard, before her head lolled down to the ground of her beloved ThunderClan for what he knew was but was praying wouldn't be the last time. He buried his face in her neck, unaware of the heaving sobs that wracked his body until they had forced them down at her side. Squirrelstar, his love, his mate, the most wonderful cat that ever lived, the most amazing and strong and kind and beautiful… amazing to tolerate even him, the thorn in the side of her and all of ThunderClan, and he had killed her by insisting that that stupid, foxing DOG be allowed to live and stay here…
She would still be here, bringing that inherent and inherently valuable light that radiated within her to all the territories and her beloved ThunderClan, if he had just died to his last encounter with dogs like he was supposed to… he never shouldn't been able to come to their new territory, now when he had foxed everything up for her… maybe his survival until this point had been another one of StarClan's cruel jokes, on Squirrelstar, on his Clanmates, and on himself… so he might as well shove that one back in their stupid collective face and take that traitorous dog with him in one fell swoop. Swiftheart slowly untangled himself from Squirrelstar's limbs and entrails, solemnly walking towards the accomplice in her murder while tears still dripped from his face. Said accomplice's smug fox dung eating grin from before somehow still hadn't been wiped off his face by the absolute horror he had just witnessed, the light he had seen extinguished. "I told you I could break you-" The dog's stupid, infuriating words turned into an oh so satisfying yelp of pain as Swiftheart lunged for his throat, closing his jaws around it as hard as he could and scratching his claws into his chest as if he could somehow bring Squirrelstar back this way.
Just as quickly, he felt himself thrown off into the base of a not so nearby tree. After a long moment, Swiftheart managed to stand up, expecting to find Squirrel pulling at his leash but instead seeing him standing in front of him, towering over him, freed from the chains that had kept ThunderClan safe from him and his unusual cravings for so long. Swiftheart briefly looked at him in shock before recovering and lunging at him again, only managing to get a few good claw scratches in before he was unceremoniously shoved down to the ground head first, the dog's obnoxious, mocking laughter competing with the ringing in his ears. "Bye bye, Swiftheart!" As Squirrel's huge paw pressed his head into the ground, crushing it, the last thing Swiftheart saw was Squirrelstar's strangely serene body.