Fallen Warrior

The world reflected Leafstorm's mood. Heavy gray clouds broke up the otherwise cool blue sky, but they didn't bother to stay long enough to properly rain on the Forest, and instead drizzled halfheartedly as they scuttled across the sky.
Leafstorm wasn't paying attention.
He hadn't been truly alive since before the burial, before... everything.
And now...
Already ferns had begun to grow over Thistlepaw's grave, new life bravely facing the winter. Specklefang's was awfully dark, the color of freshly overturned dirt. The grave itself was hardly more than a lump in the ground, the opposite of the fallen warrior. She had been larger than life in everything she did, so brave. She seemed so... unbreakable. She didn't deserve this. She deserved a grave so beautiful that no cat would be able to look away. Not this. She didn't deserve any of this.
And if he could spare her life? If he could trade her life for his, would he be able to do it? Would she be standing here right now? Would he be able to look down from Starclan and smile? Most of him wanted to scream yes, to insist that he'd do it in a heartbeat, but a soft voice in the back of his mind whispered that he'd just... stand there.
Like he did. Like he was doing. Unable to move. Unable to do anything other than watch as his world came undone, as the family that he had built himself moon after moon, with love and time and heartbreak, slowly tore apart. He was too weak, too selfish. Too scared that he would wake up in a cold, dark forest instead of the grassy plains of Starclan. Even now he was scared. Scared that Specklefang's death was his fault, his doing. Scared that if he had just eaten the berries.
Tears began to well up in Leafstorm's eyes as he stared down at the grave, his heart racing as it tried to discover what was missing, why there was such an empty hole in his chest. Why the warm feeling he got when he looked at her had been replaced by cold, unfeeling emptiness.
She was gone. She was gone. She was... gone. The love of his life had left him alone.
He was so... alone. And he was scared. He closed his eyes, tears falling steadily onto her grave. His shoulders shook with the weight of the world, but he couldn't bear to give it to someone else, just to have them be unable to hold it.

They're watching. He tried to quickly build himself back up, to hide behind the walls that the war had torn down.
Deep breaths. Sunpaw. Straighten your back. Open your eyes. He felt himself straighten out, a light breeze playing across his face. He heard every breath he took as he opened his eyes, stared around at the others. I'm here.

Leafstorm's whiskers trembled as he looked away from the grave. Shut it out, push it down. They didn't deserve to see this, to see him so broken. Nobody else needed to watch him shatter. Nobody was going to help him piece himself back together again, and Leafstorm was scared that if he managed to fix himself somehow, he'd do it wrong. Lose pieces. Rebuild his heart crookedly.
It was so much easier, so much better to just stay broken.

Why? Ever since he had met Specklefang, Swoopnose had made it his life’s goal to become her friend. And he had tried. Everyday as an apprentice, he would try to warm up to his mentor, get something more than her usual harsh responses. He had been close when Thistlepaw died. Then he had to start over. Not as an apprentice this time, but as a friend. She had started to stop ignoring him when this happened. His second chance was gone forever. The cat he had been so determined to help was dead. The mission he had been on for half his life was over. The results were negative. He had failed. She had taught him everything. His name would still end with paw if it weren’t for her tireless teaching. The least he could have done was pay her back in some way. Or even just apologize for being a pain. But none of his hopes would ever be fufilled. Earth itself didn’t seem like a big enough grave for for in its whole entirety, but somehow she fit in this small space under the surface. Because Ivystar for some reason thought that she was the leader of ThunderClan as well. That she could just march into the camp of an already weak clan and kill or kidnapp as she pleased. It was dispicable. But Blizzardstar had just let her do it. The warrior dug his claws into the ground, resisting the urge to growl. This was to honor the fallen warrior. Not to be angry at how two stupid leaders caused her death. Maybe it wouldn’t seem that way when the pain left his mind. But the dead didn’t just come back out of the ground, so how would that happen?