Warriors || Aspenrose's Goodbye

Chapter Thirteen

A leaf-fall breeze stirred the cats's fur in the stone hollow. Orange leaves swirled in the overcast sky as they fell to the ground. A cream she-cat padded up to the fresh kill pile, ice-blue eyes searching for a good piece of food.
A scar marked her left shoulder, although healed, would never go away. The she-cat was almost 12 moons old now. Her two brothers had recently been made warriors: Junipermoon and Cedarroar.
Aspenpaw bent down her head to pick up a plump mouse, and then turned to pad back to her den. The sound of the youngest apprentices made her stop.
       "I can't wait for our battle training session today," Whitepaw mewed, green eyes bubbling with excitement.
       Deerpaw nodded her head in agreement. Their mentors padded over, Thornear and Kinkclaw, and led them through the thorn tunnel.
      Aspenpaw started again toward her den. Once there, she dropped the mouse at Duskheart's paws; who was sorting through dusty herbs. Dusk started to fall over the clearing. Aspenpaw's paws ached with tiredness.
       "Get some rest," Duskheart suggested, nodding her head at the soft moss nest.
       Aspenpaw didn't refuse, curling up and drifting off almost immediately.

Aspenpaw woke to find herself looking out over the moor from a rise. A familiar gray tom with blue eyes sat next to her. Driftfrost! She knew this cat. He had visited her the night before she was made the medicine cat apprentice.
       "Isn't it beautiful?" Driftfrost waved his tail to the open moor, stars shinning above.
      Aspenpaw nodded. Then confusion hit her. "Why didn't you visit me at the Moonpool?"
      Driftfrost gave a small chuckle. "Because this is important now."
      Aspenpaw was still confused but decided not to ask anymore questions. Aspenpaw turned her gaze on the tom, relizing how serious and intense his blue gaze had become.
       "You can choose your own destiny, Aspenpaw," the intensity in Driftfrost's eyes only increased. "What do you really want?"
     At first Aspenpaw thought he was talking about her medicine cat position. But then she realized this was something more; something beyond healing and learning about herbs.
       She never wanted to tell anyone, but the feeling that had been bottled up inside her for so long finally burst out.
"I want freedom," She whispered. "I'm tired of every cat telling what to do. My father pushed me into being a medicine cat and now..."
Driftfrost looked into the distance, nodding in what seemed to be understanding.
"Ever since that Gathering..." Aspenpaw didn't want to, but she new she had to continue. "He's all I've been thinking about. I want Jaggedswirl. But I can't have him..."
Aspenpaw wanted to sink into the ground and never come back out. She had never confided her true feelings to someone. She felt almost relieved; but something deep down inside her knew that telling Driftfrost was wrong.
"You can choose your own destiny," Driftfrost repeated, blue eyes heavy with some emotion Aspenpaw didn't recognize. "Do what is right for yourself."
Driftfrost's gray figure started to fade along with the stars twinkling around him. Aspenpaw was left to stare out over the dark moor. She lifted up her head. A star seemed to shine brighter than the rest; placed carefully in the dark sky just above where the WindClan camp would be.
Aspenpaw let her gaze drop to the star-flecked lake. My secrets are out. She watched the twinkling reflections. And there is nothing I can do to change the way I feel about them.