EDIT: 200+ favs? sdgjbhdsjg guys thank you so much ;_____;


Warning: spoilers.

Ignoring a furious hiss from Tigerclaw, Fireheart leaped down into the gully, scraping his claws painfully on the sheer rock. As his paws touched the ground, Cinderpaw came to meet him. She was carrying a very small kit with its eyes closed and ears flat to its head, dark grey fur plastered to its body.
"Is it dead?" Fireheart whispered.
"No!" Cinderpaw set down the kit and patted it towards him. "Lick, Fireheart! Make it warm, get its blood flowing."
As soon as she had finished speaking she turned in the narrow space and went back to Silverstream. Her body blocked Fireheart's view of what was happening, but he heard the apprentice medecine cat begin to meow reassuringly and an anxious question from Greystripe.
Fireheart bent over the kit and rasped his tongue over its tiny body. For a long time it didn't respond. He began to think Cinderpaw had been wrong and the kit was dead after all. Then he felt a tiny shiver run through it and it opened its jaws in a soundless mew. "It's alive!" he gasped.
"Told you," Cinderpaw called to him. "Keep licking. There's another one coming, any moment now. That's right Silverstream...you're doing fine."
Tigerclaw had come down from the rock and was standing in the mouth of the gully with a look of thunder on his face. "That's a RiverClan cat," he hissed. "Will one of you tell me what's going on?"
Before any cat had time to reply, Cinderpaw let out a shout of triumph. "You've done it Silverstream!" Moments later she turned with a second tiny kit in her jaws and set it down in front of Tigerclaw. "Here. Lick."
Tigerclaw glared at her. "I'm not a medecine cat."
Cinderpaw's blue eyes blazed as she rounded on the deputy. "You've got a tongue, haven't you? Lick, you useless lump of fur. Do you want the kit to die?"
Fireheart flinched, half expecting Tigerclaw to hurl himself at her and slash her open with his powerful claws. Instead, the dark tabby bowed his huge head and began to lick the second kit.
At once Cinderpaw turned back to Silverstream. Fireheart heard her meow, "You need to swallow this herb. Here, Greystripe, make her eat as much as she can. We've got to stop the bleeding."
Fireheart paused for a moment in his own vigerous licking. His kit was breathing evenly now and it seemed to be out of danger. He wished he knew what was happening in the gully ahead of him; he heard Cinderpaw growl, "Hold on, Silverstream," and a louder, panicky mew from Greystripe. "Silverstream!"
At the sound of his friend's distress, Fireheart could not stay back any longer. Leaving the kit, he pushed himself forwards until he could crouch beside Cinderpaw. He was in time to see Silverstream raise her head and feebly lick Greystripe's face. "Goodbye, Greystripe," she whispered. "I love you. Take care of our kits."
The silver tabby's body gave a massive shudder. Her head fell back, her paws jerked, and she was still.
"Silverstream!" whispered Cinderpaw.
"No, Silverstream, no." Greystripe's mew was very soft. "Don't go. Don't leave me." He bent over the limp body, nuzzling her gently. She did not move.
"Silverstream!" Greystripe reared up and flung back his head. His wails of grief split the quiet air. "Silverstream!"
Cinderpaw crouched over the body for a few moments more, nudging at Silverstream's fur, but at last she admitted defeat. She sat up and stared ahead, her blue eyes bleak and cold.
Fireheart got up and padded over to her. "Cinderpaw, the kits are safe," he murmured.
The look she gave him made his heart freeze. "But their mother is dead. I lost her, Fireheart."

--

Sorry, long extract I know. But sersly Y_Y that scene upset me so much when I first read it, and Cinderpaw's last line just gave me chills...Probably because I was younger at the time, but still Silverstream's, Spottedleaf's and Whitestorm's were the only deaths that really got to me. And a LOT of cats die in Warriors |D;
I'm really happy with the shading on the characters, spent longer on that than usual :3 though of course I failed background-wise, again. I spent hours trying to improve those boulders and this is as best as I could get them so try to ignore their crapness.
This really helped with stress!


Art (c)
Characters & storyline (c) Erin Hunter