The Ember of a Dream

She had had a dream once, as a young cat. A dream of going out in the world and conquering. Not of healing, not of floating above the grime and the dirt, but being a part of it. Coating her pelt in blood and dirt alongside someone whose eyes were brighter than the stars that she wound up following.

It changed, as dreams do, and shifted when she chose the path lined with herbs rather than foes. She learned how to reach out, how to fake a smile, how to fake tenderness. A medicine cat was meant to be a certain way, after all, gentle and open-hearted. They were supposed to heal and nurture, not tear apart and hiss and shriek…scream into the dead of night when no one could hear them.

She found herself isolated when her mentor glided away. She couldn’t particularly bring herself to care either way, their path had ended. Hers was still moving onwards, and she found herself still glancing off of it, beyond the carefully cultivated masks and herbs, to the fire that had burned within her. The ember that had originally woven dreams through her mind. But she never allowed herself more than a glance. She had chosen her path, and the dream of anything else was the dream of a younger, different cat.

But when the new lands were settled, when the leader she had calmly followed was spun away, his own path altering, and a new leader stepped in. Well, she saw eyes brighter than the stars, commanding the Clan. And she, for her own reasons, falsified the position of the leader in the place of StarClan. She verified stories and tales that wove power beneath Chickadeestar’s paws. And she watched as cats in the Clan divided, shifting and hissing and curling away from one another when they had once stood united.

Paths were changing.

But surely hers could not be one of them.

And yet. And yet. And yet…she watched as Snowlily faded to the stars, leaving behind her mate and kits. She watched as cats grew closer, saw Tawnyblaze and Sparkfeather spending more and more time together. Saw Lionpaw and Ashenpaw seeking comfort in one another. Everyone seemed to have someone, and she could only look around and see herbs and masks.

So she slipped on her mask and she sorted her herbs and she stayed true to the path she had chosen. After all, you didn’t get a chance to change. Not this late in life, not this far along a specific path.

And yet.

If Chickadeestar could change her path, could rise to become leader, then perhaps…perhaps there was hope. And so, Embersight shifted, staring back at that ember in the distance, the fire of a dream that she had told herself was dead so often she had come to believe it. But looking upon it now, she saw the fire had grown to consume her entirely. It lapped at her herbs and burned them to ashes beneath her paws, it stole her attention from her masks until they shattered as she fully cast them aside.

She kept but one. A slender thing that would cover her, shield her, remind her of the path she was leaving behind. Peering through the cracks of it at the leader that allowed her to step down, she spent her first night in the warrior’s den. Her first night on a new path.

Her first night chasing a long-ago dream.