If anyone were to ask what Willowlead thought of a perfect world, she would always say, "A world devoid of betrayal and sadness." Many would agree with her, though this idea was indeed foolish, for there would always be treacherous villains in the forest, ones that had a dark ambition to kill and cease their yearning to rule, the idea was sensible. I, on the other hand, would be one of the few who would have to disagree with our wise medicine cat. I would answer immediately, "A world which had no death." Yet without death I would not have a story to tell, and though I'm not an optimist, like Crowstar or my long dead mother, Leafpelt, I do, in fact, dream of a perfect world.
When I was an apprentice, my favorite time of day was to sit down and listen to the elders' stories, about the old forest and the memories still embedded there. Like Firestar and his kittypet lineage, despite the hardships, became the forest's most cherished leader. And Tigerstar, whose ambitions to become Clan leader took over him until he killed innocent cats, thirsty for control. Before she died, Mousepelt once spoke of the Moonstone, the diamond-bright, stark white stone deep under the ground where past Medicine Cats communicated with StarClan.
But the stories that most intrigued me, pulled me in their depths, were the stories of the ancient Clans - LionClan, the golden cats whose manes were made of the rays of the sun; TigerClan, the muscular cats with thick bands of black striping their fur; and lastly, LeopardClan, the lithe, swift cats whose pelts were stippled with fallen stars.
Swiftwind told me I resembled a cat from LionClan; my courage and stealth was impeccable. When I was his apprentice, and he my mentor, he told me that I was one of the best fighters the forest had ever seen. I shared my mother's skills, her silent strikes and fast retaliation was one-of-a-kind. I would see Swiftwind's eyes gleam with pride as I pinned him to the ground, paws on his throat.
I suppose you could say I was to tad too ambitious for my own good - and that is still true. Yet I feel this ambition ebb as I grow older, like a scar that once was fresh and painful, but heals into something reminiscent of your past.
But before I become too immersed in memories, I must tell the story woven into my pelt. My mother was born in WindClan, though was abandoned by her mother, so RiverClan took her in, convinced that she was there to stay. Her name was Leafpelt, and though I don't remember much, she had the softest, most beautiful pelt, richly colored and dabbed with hints of almost any color you can think of. Her eyes were like shards of ice: a pale abyss that wasn't cold or warm. I was firstborn under the celestial light of the stars, and then came my brother, who did not live long enough to see his first sunrise.
I remember always loathing the color of my fur: long, lustrous and was the shade of the fresh night sky. Alongside my den mates, Redfur and his brother Lionstep, and Littlebrook with her brother Grayclaw, I was constantly arguing against the theory that I wasn't just a "pretty little kittypet" as they assumed I was.
The major flaw of my apprentice life was that I never learned that death really did happen. When Leafpelt died, grief claimed my heart for many moons afterward. Little did I know that everyone had their share of grief in their life, and this was just the very beginning of mine. But grief and sadness is like the ice of Leafbare: its peak will freeze your heart, but fades into a fresh and glorious Newleaf every time.