oneshot would i always look for your beautiful face, in every crowd, every place?

[slateheart]

Love is a concept wholly unfamiliar to Slateheart. Perhaps he felt it for his mothers and their soft teachings, but tens of moons have passed since he had last seen Adelaide's face, and Silverfoot felt as distant as she was when she was gone. Maybe he would have learned to love his father, if not for the longing of the past that kept his heart strong. His littermate, perhaps the closest of his family, was unpredictable and strange, and Slateheart could never put his tongue on what their relationship meant to them, or to himself.

How could a cat like him, who had ever known love, feel it now? How would he ever recognize it?

In truth.. he thought he did, if only for a fleeting moment. He thought he found it - he thought he felt it, in soft brown fur and deep oceanic eyes. Slateheart thought, if love was what everyone said it was - happiness, belonging, pure goodness - that he could find it in the unlikely friendship that quickly blossomed. Borders be damned, he didn't care that the smiles that tugged at his mouth and the moths that fluttered in his stomach came from a RiverClanner when he visited her time after time at the bridge; and he certainly didn't care when he risked his life for her the day they got captured.

But, the boy does not know love like others. Maybe that's why he let himself get so carried away, so attached. Maybe that's why he let her take his heart and run with it.

It's reasonable that Slateheart didn't see Troutsnout after they were released from their kidnappers. There was a suspicion placed on their heads - both Clans knew that they were at the bridge together that day. There had been nights that he returned to that border, if only to glance across for a moment in hopes that fate would bring them together with their love for nightly walks. It wasn't until after his own trespassing with Bluepool and Dimmingsun that the tom began to grow anxious and antsy.

With his trust regained with time, he returned to that bridge. Three nights he went and waited under the moon, their magnum opus. Three days did Troutsnout not return.

It was tonight, on his fourth, that his heart finally began to sink. It swelled with sorrow first, then pulsed with fear, and finally cracked with a bitterness that bared his gritting teeth. Troutsnout knew, he thinks, of his betrayal when he crossed the border to hunt. It felt deeper to him than any other, to forsake the kindness that was afforded to him personally.. he can only imagine how her trust in him disintegrated then. She would not meet him anymore - she did not love him anymore - because he abused their goodwill and hunted on their land. Surely, that was it?

Or, perhaps.. Slateheart is just a lonely fool, mistaking her simple friendliness for love in his desire to be someone's someone.

How mistaken he was. He was not serene and beautiful like the moon, as she once said he was. Maybe she wasn't even happy to be with him, either, in the Twoleg nest. Maybe, he thinks anxiously, he may have even imagined it all! It was too good to be true, after all, and he was far from deserving - far from an ideal, loveable cat in his own eyes. With a heavy heart, the tom parts from the bridge for a final time, begging for her soft-spoken words and memories of her fur against his to leave his thoughts..
​

CHARACTER INFORMATION — ♡ ˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ♡ — OUT OF CHARACTER

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  slate slatepaw slatetooth SLATEHEART
  ━━ MOOR-RUNNER WARRIOR of WINDCLAN
  ━━ 24 MOONS,, ages every 6th
  ━━ LYNXTOOTH xx ADELAIDE xx SILVERFOOT
  ━━ SIBLING to GRAVELSNAP and ASHPAW
  ━━ MATE to none | PARENT to none
  ━━ MENTOR to BEEPAW | MENTORED by LYNXTOOTH​
  ━━ HEALTH ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♡ | generally healthy, but experiencing shortness of breath.
  
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• speech is #bbbb88​