HOMG. What is this? This story's been updated after more than two years of alleged completion?

Well, I figured since I pretty much barged back into this fandom with my iPod Shuffle Challenge response, I should contribute more to this fic. That, and I wanted to show how my writing style had changed in the past two years. -sweatdrop-

Disclaimer- I do not own Warriors. If I did, this couple would not have ended the way it did, and Millie would have actually died of greencough in Long Shadows.

I buried her by the shore. She loved the river.

That's what he tells Fireheart, anyway - just one of the many lies, half and full, he's had to spew out to his fellow ThunderClanner lately.

Graystripe doesn't mention all the parts that would undoubtedly pull some tears out of his eyes, had he that ability. As it is, all it does is drive a sharp claw into his heart and wrench it as it pulls out.

He doesn't mention that as he drags Silverstream's body down the riverbank - hating the way her silver-and-black tabby coat catches the mud along the shore and adds that mud to the blood already on her pelt, knowing how clean she kept it in life (and then cringing at referring, even now, to her life in the past tense); expecting her to leap up at any moment with a playful glow in those emerald eyes and flounce past him and say I can go the rest of the way by myself, Graystripe - as he takes her to her last resting place, the icy leaf-bare wind buffets his fur and magnifies the sense of figurative and literal cold around him. He doesn't mention where, specifically, he lays her to rest; when he does, he deposits her at a bush along the ThunderClan-RiverClan boundary line, just by Sunningrocks (so symbolic of their relationship, though Graystripe's grief doesn't reach that little depth of thinking until much later that same night, when he can't sleep for wondering what he had done to deserve this). He doesn't mention how, with every kick of muddy dirt over her body, his heart gives a desperate, ragged yowl of protest, and panic surges through him - seems to say wait, no, stop, she's still alive, stop this!

He has never hated that little voice in the back of his mind more.

He also doesn't mention how, just before completing the deed, he deliberately leans down and inhales her mingled Clan scent one last time, trying to ignore the taste of blood on the roof of his mouth and just concentrate on her life-scent. Water mint and ice and fishy RiverClan.

If anyone had asked Graystripe what his favorite scent was, before all this had started - actually, he vaguely remembers Ravenpaw asking him that strange, random question in the sandy training hollow. Back then, the gray tom had laughed and said something stupid about the trees in greenleaf.

Things have changed. Now it's Silverstream.

I buried her by the shore. She loved the river, he murmurs to Fireheart as he pads back to where the ginger tom waits. In response, Fireheart's green eyes - so like Silverstream's, and yet not; the tom's eyes lean more toward a grassy shade of green than the darkest green of pure newleaf leaves - soften, and he presses himself to Graystripe's side in what's supposed to be a gesture of silent comfort.

He can't help thinking that he has never needed such comfort more.

And yet it refuses to reach him.

The final thing he doesn't mention to Fireheart - the most poignant thing of all, that even now threatens to send those nonexistent tears to his eyes - is how when the ground now fully encloses the one she-cat he loves (loved, he corrects himself dully, and then wonders why he even bothers), when it fully hits him that death has extinguished her fire and life entirely - only at that moment does he bow his head and murmur I'm sorry.

I'm so, so sorry.

Dear God this is depressing. -facepalm- Doesn't really make much sense, since I'm not in a sad mood. Well, I sort of am now. And having Shattered by Trading Yesterday on super repeat didn't help matters AT ALL.

W-well, anywhozer, updates for this fic should be slightly less sporadic now. And less angsty. Let us not forget that.

I should probably add it to the WIP section on my profile...