[ the end of the road ]

[Slug !]

Story Title: The End of the Road
Author: Slug
Rating: PG-13
Warning: character death, mild violence
Genre: angst/family
Main Character: Snow-whisker
Other Characters: Willowpaw
A/N: FANCY WORDING IS RETARDED WORDING, BUT OH WELL. Final part in the Road Saga, yes! also I feel like a total spammer
Summary: There is happiness in death.

First part of the Road Saga: Road of Thorns
Second part of the Road Saga: A Fork in the Road

The End of the Road

He knows it’s time.

Snow-whisker has been waiting with baited breath and a tight chest; hurting as he watched the little kit stumble on through life. His death had left a gap—a pit. A giant, ugly pit, and Willowpaw had fallen right into it.

And at the worst, the greatest, the last possible moment, Willowpaw was brave. Snow-whisker watched the dim, dying soul become a bright inferno, the most beautiful light he had ever set his eyes on, and the apprentice flung himself at the howling dogs and—and—

He wanted to look away; to not acknowledge the dark, depressing world down below; to yowl all his fury and pain at his starry siblings, blaming them for all the wrongs. The needless... so needless pain...

But he watched. He watched those dogs tear into flesh and fur, listened to every terrified scream, and stood by as the grass turned from green to dirty, cold and red. The inferno pulsated ever-brighter as the she-cat returned; latched onto her warmth and words. Determined, saddened, sorry.

And so he waited, mourning the death too soon to come.

It started with a whisper; soft, weak, and struggled like a flying baby bird, before the stars awoke, twinkled with blues and purples and blinding white; thundered and roared and twisted into being. A shape, so familiar, yet so missed.

“Hey there, kiddo,” Snow-whisker rasped, smile all bitter and no teeth.

There was a sound; terrible, pitiful, and Willowpaw runs at him. Graceless and tumbling, the blinding white collided with hues of silver and grey, wrapped so safely in the pelt of dawn. A murmur from night, shadows quivered and the darkness fled; it had no place here, not now. Not ever.

Snow-whisker stayed, curled tight around his grey morning; for once, for final, that drop of sunlight given to the weeping branches. The drizzle of starlight rain; the sweet air of unreachable sky.

Though it missed pieces of skin; of darklit bark and roots of ivory, with deep cracks in it's heart, the tree of dawn grew, silver and elegant.

In it's ugliness, it's hardships, all it's flaws... it is beautiful, isn't it?