The final breath (open-Deerfrost's death)

A plump looking squrriel ran across the Thunderpath, as a small brown tom ran after it. Come here! He thought. He needed to catch it. It had been a few days since he had been exiled. Now he had to catch prey for himself as an outsider. He wasn't looking to see if anything was coming because it came so fast.

A loud noise. His black paws stopping. Yellow eyes looking terrified. Then it came.

Pain overwhelmed Deerfrost as hit the curb. Blood trickled from his mouth. He didn't have the strength to get up. He was dying. Amberwing. Starclan take care of her. Please Starclan do not let her be punished for what I've done. Please. Then he had his last breath. I'm sorry. Was his final thought. Then he there was darkness.

He was dead.

Summer had only wandered into this part of the new territory today, but as she neared the scene she almost wished she had stayed on the other side of the river. She could scent death even through the reek of road grime. The pale ginger-pointed she-cat had plenty of experience with the black thundering paths because of her travels, and she had seen her fair share of failed attempts to cross. She had missed the death, but she witnessed the body, and the she-cat slowed as she spotted the battered brown dappled tom motionless on her side of the road. Summer made a soft, sorrowful cluck with her tongue. "Oh, my. You poor dear," the loner murmured to the body, and then she lifted her head and immediately began sweeping her gaze around. "Were you out here all alone?" She hoped the question may draw out his companions, if he had any.

But there was silence, for a moment, until the distant growling of a car began to rumble in her ears. Summer's gaze hardened slightly. "Tough luck, darling. I'll only let them hit you once. You just rest. You'll be safe soon." She knew the tom couldn't hear her and that the days of his safety had passed when he was struck by the car, but she felt uncomfortable leaving a cat to be obliterated by careless upwalker brutes and their cars, and she also felt uncomfortable dealing with him thoughtlessly or callously. No, a breezy, nonchalant and detached kindness did just fine for both Summer's conscience and for the poor saps who weren't quite fast enough or got into the wrong place at the wrong time.

Summer dragged the body off the hard cement and onto some grass beside a budding bush. She was careful not to get blood on her paws, for she didn't want to be caught any more red-pawed than she already appeared to be. She was just a passerby, caring for a passedby. She would be on her way once she'd settled the poor tom in. Summer used a ginger paw to delicately guide his head onto a clump of some spreading plant she didn't recognize. "There, darling. Just rest now." She took one step away and dipped her slender head, sky blue eyes darkening for a moment.

Amberwing was out on her territory, looking for Deerfrost when she stumbled across the twolegplace. She sniffed the air warily, aside from thunderpath and kittypet scent there was Deerfrost's. "He's not becoming a kittypet, is he?" She was still fighting the urge to leave. She padded closer before another scent hit her. She froze, not wanting to step any closer, she poked her head through, there was a loner, beside Deer.. Oh.. Oh no. She wanted to yowl out, but she was speechless, she wanted to yell at the loner but guilt trapped her voice and pushed it deep down. She could only gasp out. "N-No."

Unaware of the arrival of the she-cat who now watched in horror from a short distance away, Summer raised her head again to look down at the poor tom. The car she'd heard growling in the distance had grown closer, and it roared past now, sending a buffeting wind of grit and reek against her and the body. Summer curled her lip distastefully but didn't flinch as it passed, knowing it would remain on the hard path laid out for it. She had said what words of comfort she could provide to the tom she didn't know, and with a flick of her fiery tail she thought, I'm sorry I can't do more. But truthfully, she had done more than was expected of her, and she hated the sensation that she "needed" to do anything other than stay alive.

Summer began to depart, still unaware of the other cat's presence as they stood upwind. It would be up to the other she-cat to either stop Summer (for whatever end), or else go to the poor tom she'd lost.