Dawnstripe's muscles ached and her paw pads were ripped a slightly bloody. It wasn't freezing yet, but leaf-fall was making its presence's known. The ground was still soft enough for digging, but the deeper she dug the more small rocks she found and cuts she gained on her pads. After it was deep enough, she laid Icestar's body to rest and begun burying it.
It was a job that Elders were tasked with, but felt the task to honorable for someone like Owlfeather to handle. She didn't care what blood ties the elder cat thought she had, Dawnstripe wouldn't allow it. Once the body was buried, Dawnstripe let her legs collapse underneath her as she laid down, resting her crossed forepaws on the fresh dirt heap and her chin atop her forepaw.
"How could this had happened?" She muttered to the forest.
"When you finally come to your sense and make me your rightful deputy, damn Hailstorm had to ruin it. We don't understand why you needed to go." Her tail brushed crossed the grass, flattening it with its angry lashes.
"How did I not see it coming?”
She asked herself the same question repeatedly, seeking for the logical part of the answer that she must have missed the first time. The cruel cycle of recalling every recollection and replaying it back begins.
Over time the crisp memories would blur, and the question would remain: “Why?”
It was a question she knew she'd never get the answer to, so she wasn't going to try and find it. This grief surged with every expelled breath, always reaching higher peaks, never sufficiently soothed by her long intakes of the damp spring air. Tears began to spill from her helpless eyes onto the newly growing grass. The emptiness in her heart, the numbness pounding her brain, the sheer nothingness that now took hold of her soul threatened to engulf her. Dawnstripe knew then and there that she was truly alone in this world. Mother had been all she had, and now there was no one.
"Why'd you have to go, mother, we don't want to be alone. They all hate me and want me dead, I don't know what we did wrong, but I don't want to die. It's scary all alone." The she-cat weeps all her worries and insecurities to the dead and the trees until her eyes stung and her nose burned from her paw rubbing at it.
'Don't be blue, we're with you. We'll take a vow, and stay for as long as we allow. Survive we must, to give mother's memories just.'
'If we kiww dem we don't have to wowwy about dead. We won't be sad. We won't be scawed. Piwe up de bodies! piwe! piwe! piwe!'
Dawnstripe growled to herself as she slowly stood up and shook out her pelt. Survive, alright, she could do that. She didn't need anyone but herself to do that. Mother wanted ShadowClan to be strong, considering they got their asses handed to them by WindClan, ShadowClan was far from that. Dawnstripe would have to make the strong again, she'd focus on doing that. Madness needed to be appeased too, the traitors, the rebels, the rats. Madness can play with them. Everyone was happy, everyone. Dawnstripe slowly padded out of the grove, a tear trickling down her face and a manic grin stretched ear to ear. This would be fun.