Anteros let out a pained and choking wail underneath Brandy's paws before going still, the apprentice's body going limp on the cold stone of the thunderpath. Her undoing wasn't the broken and jagged bones nor the way her spine twisted at an unnatural angle, but it was the way her windpipe lay crushed. She went still, but her eyes remained open as her paw twitched one last time. The emotion in her haunted face was desperation. And betrayel. And fear.

Tell mama I love her.

Regal stared at Brandy, her sister's animosity disturbing. Regal had killed kits before, but this seemed oddly different. Still, she saw the need, and therefore said nothing except to rest a paw on her sister's shoulder. "She's gone," she said, not acknowledging the fact that Brandy hadn't seen her since she'd left Origam's Place. Did she know that Regal was fertile?

Brandy's glazed eyes bore into Anteros' dead, suffocated body with the slightest bit of empathy evident in them. Was... Was she even savable? She barely sensed the delicate touch of her sister's paw drifting across her shoulder or her overwhelming auroma of bitter honey-suckle that induced nostalgic memories. But even if she had, the disturbed she-cat wouldn't have made a single movement.

Regal stooped, "Help me get her onto my back," she said with an air of order, never one to respect Brandy's role as leader of the gang. Especially now that most of the clan was in EclipseClan- including Regal. "And you're helping me get her back to the clan," she said simply.

"Why should I?" Brandy spoke abruptly, her tone holding a tone of immaturity. "EclipseClan isn't my clan. She isn't one of my gang members." She sat, her tail thumping against the pavement to outwardly express her plain anger.

Regal recoiled, the she-cat stepping over to be face-to-face with her addict of a sister. She was in no mood to play- she had just killed a cat, had a wife at home, and multiple kits she had to kill. She just wanted to get Anteros home so the cat could be buried without suspicion.

"Because if I don't get her back, they'll blame me for it," she bit, "I like EclipseClan, it's nice there, like the gang- but without all the fearmongering and kissing up," she was upfront with her reasoning and let the words flow without thinking, "Perhaps you could learn a thing or two about inspiring followers from them. That is, if you'll look up from your margarita bowl for two seconds."

Nightrivers's roleplayer may have been several days late to the battle, but bleeding out on the ground, his mind found an odd peace in turmoil. His vibrant blue-green gaze settled on Twinsouls, the white-furred warrior dying not so far away. They had saved Charity - saved the kits - and that would be what mattered. They could rest in peace knowing that.

Summoning the last of his fading strength, Nightrivers heaved himself across the ground, dragging himself through the dirt to his mate, where he collapsed against Twinsouls.

"Twin... I... I love you, Twin. In... this world and... the next."

It was too late. The light had left Twinsouls' mismatched eyes. His face was pointed in Nightrivers' direction, but the breath had slipped from his lungs and the blood had stopped pounding through his veins. He did not hear the words, was not able to wish a final farewell of love. He was merely still. Dead. 

Brandy screamed in frustration, the strain of having her own gang turn against her by abandoning her in the dust only pressuring her further as Regal continued to throw shade at her. "Fine! Fine! Regal, I'll __ help you just because you're begging for it so much, it's __ ridiculous! Just- just shut up! I don't want to hear it!" In her rampant bout of anger, Brandy snagged Anteros' scruff with her teeth and began to forcefully drag her mangled body across the coarse pavement. Absolutely no respect for the dead. "Hurry up, since we're apparently in a race."

Regal glared at her sister as Anteros' weight came to rest over her shoulder. It was a morose duty, carrying the apprentice's dead, dripping body. Regal had never been too concerned with corpses- she'd passed a few on her way to a client here or there. Normally, they were of cold, or hunger, or some fatal disease. But Anteros was a clanmate, and as she'd already expressed, Regal had a duty as a clan member. It was part of the social contract- be provided with food, shelter, and a gang of protectors, and she would be forced to, on occasion, provide it to another.

"Follow me if you want, Brandy, but don't expect an apology. Perhaps if you asked that Fence cat, or the leader- Hollowstar. Maybe they'd let you in." (EcC Camp)