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[wifewoof]

Part 1: Mapleshade's Thoughts
WARNING: Canon Typical Violence, mentions of drowning and murder. Biased narrator,  and non-canon characterization. A bit of my own idea of what Mapleshade could've been.

Spoiler:

The tortoiseshell stood alone at the border. After everything, after all that has and was, she thought. She thought about the was, what led to her existence trapped between the River and a rotting hellscape of a Forest. She thought about the has, what kept her from redemption by conspiring with those many times worse than her. She thought about her kits more often than not. For all her snarling, and her posturing, she was tired.

So tired.

The rage that burned in her was doused. She was so tired of holding on all the anger and the drive for revenge. The grief and pain.

She supposes she'll never see her kits, who's to say they faded, forgotten from memory? Does anyone ever tell the story of Mapleshade anymore? If they do, she doesn't know. She haunted the River more than the Forest.

She never really understood her anger at Sandstorm, or Spottedleaf. Or really anyone afterwards. It was just there. She had to blame someone, she was jealous of so much.

All these storybook endings, yet why did her's end up with her kits dead from an unfair exile, her ex-mate not caring, and seeing her dead kits, wondering if StarClan actually cared to take them.

She just wanted her kits to be safe, she wanted them to leave her alone. She wanted her precious children to live another day, to be innocent children.

To say she regrets what happened would be an overstatement. In the fever of grief, she didn't (and still doesn't) regret her justice. She was proud of it even.

She regrets not doing more. She should've gone upstream instead. She should've waited until the river wasn't as full. Should've could've would've.

Hindsight, she didn't obtain until now, things would've gone better if she just did anything other than what happened. If she slowed down and stopped to think. If she didn't fixate on her ex-mate so much.

She liked to imagine it, if she didn't lose her kits, if she never went to the River, what would life look like for her and her kits?

She liked to imagine, she'd be happy.

She wished she never crossed the River.