[dino.]

// @spade, @implimm

Buckstar had watched from the ground beside the border as Lionstorm had turned away from his battered, mutilated body for the last time, the agony from being torn open life after life not there physically but remaining as a phantom pain, even in death. It had faded as he followed the tom to the camp, but his horror had only grown from that point on. He had felt StarClan tugging at him, telling him that it was his time to go, but he couldn't. He hadn't wanted to. He wanted to help them!

He'd shut his eyes as the first of his Clan had launched themselves at his killer - not that he blamed Lionstorm, the tom had been upset and confused and angry and he couldn't fault him for that - but when he opened them he was in an unfamiliar starry landscape. And he was smaller, he knew, devoid of the later anxiety that had creased his living features. He'd found a puddle and stared at himself, now scarless with a face of his moons-younger self, back when Snakeheart was still alive and with him. He wondered if she was here.

The voices behind him did not go unnoticed as they approached, and they pierced claws through his heart as he turned around slowly to face them - StarClan, not them, anyone but them - his ears flat against his head and his eyes brimming with sorrow and regret. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I tried."