A/N: Before I wanted to make a multi-chapter fic, even before I wanted to do a 50sentences thing, I wanted to make one of these.

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Title: A Taste of StarClan

Characters: Firestar, Spottedleaf

Genre: General Sadness

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The trees were different now, smelt different.

The forest was gone.

These trees remained a ghostly testimony to the cats who had met beneath them once a moon, faithfully, to keep some sort of peace.

Instead of wading through a shallow stream, lurid from the glare and brightness of passing monsters, he crawled through fence after fence to get here. And only to find the Great Rock desecrated by the small twolegs, crawling all over it and never understanding its true worth, never feeling the beat of a hundred pawsteps which pulsed in the very veins of its being.

He would have liked to stand there again, meek and nervous as he took the place of Bluestar as she slowly lost her mind, confident and apprehensive as he rose to the position of leader at last, weary and worn down as he prepared to leave his only true home.

He could almost see the crowd assembled below, their scent almost carried on the empty breeze, not the sound of lawn mowers and barking dogs flowed into his ears, but the hushed gossip of queens and the rash strutting of warriors and apprentices alike.

He did see Spottedleaf in the center of the clearing, waiting for him, like always. She had led him here, back over the mountains, past the Moonstone, to this clearing, the only remains of what was once a great civilization now surrounded on all sides by lush green grass and its keepers.

On his ninth life, his grandson Jaypaw expressed disbelief when Firestar had ambled into the medicine cat's den and told him he was going back to the forest.

But what forest was there to go back to? It was all destroyed by the twolegs.

I must go back to the forest, Jaypaw.

And so here he was, walking towards Spottedleaf steadily, feeling his strength flow back into him like a stream, no more sting from his bleeding paws, no more chill from the wind, his coat was as full as it had ever been, glowing yellow and bright as a lion.

The leader of LionClan.

Fire will save the forest, Spottedleaf.

He touched her nose with his own, and she smiled. There was nothing to say. A rush of energy hit him like the newleaf flood, and he bounded after her when she ran playfully into the lush foliage, the sky appearing closer than ever, and the wind carrying tales of squirrels and pigeons and rabbits, many more than would ever be fought over.

He ran, his gift of tireless energy coming back to him in a flash, felt the wind ripple into his pelt, felt like he could run forever and ever.

He reached a peak in the ground and looked back down at the clearing, saw a careworn, war-torn, old tomcat laying curled up in the dust, smiled down at that cat. That cat would never hunt again, but here there was nothing more to hold Firestar down.

Spottedleaf called to him, again he raced after her. There was nothing to be done looking at that cat. That cat would never walk again. This was what he always had to look forward to, even more than love or life itself. He knew that world, but he felt this freedom.

And as they ran into the darkness together, he though he could almost taste the sound of the stars.