It was an unguarded moment. The large tabby tom sat silent and immobile at the gnarled roots of a shadowy tree, looking as vunerable and lost as an abandoned kit. Which he had been, earlier in life.

He didn't move when the darmp ferns a few fox-lengths away swayed; but when the broad giner-and-white she-cat cut neatly out of them, he started violently and snarled. 'Mapleshade?' he said in a startled, horrified tone, but quickly refined himself. 'Mapleshade,' he meowed smoothly, calmly licking his ruffled pelt. 'Greetings.'

'I don't have time for suave, dramatic cliches today.' She spoke in a harried tone that challenged him to argue. 'I don't want to have to cope with the exxagerated expressions and the evil laughs, all right?'

'Um… sure.' Tigerstar wasn't used to speaking informally. He liked to be a smoothly imposing figure. 'What do you want?'

'Have you won over Tawnypelt?'

He winced a little. 'This isn't your affair. I don't plan to involve you in it-'

'So she refused?'

'Well… I can change that.'

'Your daughter's mindset, or the plans that exlude me?'

'Mapleshade, this has nothing to do with you whatsoever,' he snapped, standing to match her height. 'I don't need her, anyway. Our plan doesn't require a weak she-cat. Any weak she-cats.'

'Did I ever tell you I can't stand misogyny?' She paused. 'Now you've got me speaking in cliches too. I never knew that it could be so infectious-'

'Mapleshade.' Her name becomes a desperate plea. 'I can do this. I failed last time, but I won't let anyone down anymore.'

'And what about StarClan?'

'They aren't a threat yet.'

'No, they're too concerned with the love life and imminent death of the ThunderClan medicine cats. But they won't be a pushover forever.'

'I can do this!' he snarled. 'Scourge, the dog pack, TigerClan- those were kit's fantasies. But you can trust me now. Please. I swear that I won't fail this time.'

A fleeting silence.

'I don't believe you. But we have time. Don't screw up too badly, Tigerstar. I really don't enjoy treating you like a kit.' Mapleshade turned to push back through the bracken.

'How did you find me?' he called after her arrogantly. An attempt to recover the pride he'd lost begging. 'We're supposed to be on our own.'

'We aren't supposed to visit or watch living cats. You've broken the boundaries. Tigerstar. This place is getting less like a prison every day.'

She disappeared, and her mediocre scent vanished with the tip of her tail. Tigerstar stared at the unshaken patch of fern, then ran his claws over the glowing moss he sat on.

The love life and imminent death of the ThunderClan medicine cats…

'The cripple,' he hoped.

StarClan was tranquility personified. Placeonified? Spottedleaf puzzled over it for a moment, then shook it off. It was only a passing thought. It had no significance. Nothing did in the afterlife.

She was crouched among some eye-wateringly silver bushes, the tantalizing scent of prey that would turn out to be tasteless flooding her nose. The bloodless corpse of her untouched squirrel was scratchy under her paws. All around her, the façade of the utopian StarClan was shining in a way that never shut off when she closed her eyes.

She hated it here. The whole thing seemed so unhealthy, sinister, so fake, that it made her uneasy. There was a rule against saying dead, because it upset so many cats. Her exchanges with other cats were painfully superficial; speaking about the wellbeing of the Clans below was frowned upon because their duty was to sit up here and sparkle while the wise goodness of the five founders worked things out. While cats below died in vain, fighting for pride and barbaric supersticion.

As a 'special' cat (she still hadn't worked out what made her special; the other dead medicine cats didn't have any particular jobs) she had to make regular checks on the pools that they looked at the Clans through. She saw a lot more of them than she would have liked. Some cats she knew in StarClan she couldn't look in the eyes any more.

She tossed aside the squirrel and rose stiffly, her face void of inner conflict. The seeing-pool was only a few foxlengths away from the sprawling bushes; she glanced into it and frowned at the misty moorland. Nightcloud dashed sharply across it in pursuit of an elusive rabbit. 'Working order,' she said out loud, out of habit.

It was mid-day, and the pale, cold, bright sun was bursting overhead, but she had little else to do for the day. Spottedleaf retreated into the garish bush and curled up to nap.

She dreamed that she was a mouse, and she was doomed to be caught by a Clan cat and go to StarClan, only to be captured and eaten there and return to the mortal ground; she ran furiously, unrefined terror controlling her flimsy body, desperate not to feel the teeth on her back and the claws on her side, desperate not to become a bloody pulp gulped down into monstrous jaws; but she knew she was helpless, she would never live, death was unavoidable but never bringing relief.

She ran frantically through the trees, unsure of where she was; she turned for a moment to see herself thundering towards the mouse body she was in. She fled, but felt her own claws impaling herself, and listened to the crunch of her own bone, under her own teeth.

She could smell her own scent, and she hungered for it.

'Spottedleaf!'

An insistent paw jabbed at her in the ribcage. The tortoiseshell moaned slightly and rolled over. 'I found her,' the owner of the paw called. 'Spottedleaf, get up right now.'

Her eyes flickered open. 'Uuurgh… you, you have to give me the… honeycomb… can I have some… wakey-upperey leaves?…'

'It isn't even evening yet,' the small tom leaning above her snapped. 'Spottedleaf, did you forget about Cinderpelt?'

'Oh, my goodness!' She sprang up instantly, furious with herself. 'Is she dead yet? Is it too late to reincarnate her?' Fear flitted across her face.

'Hurry up.' He turned without a word and began to race through the trees, leaving her to tear after him and worry furiously. They needed the last three ThunderClan medicine cats for the reincarnation ceremony; everyone (everyone high-ranking enough to have an opinion considered important) agreed that Cinderpelt deserved it, but it had to be done at the exact moment of death and birth.

They arrived panting and their pelts in disarray at the biggest seing-pool, where silvery stones shone under the pale sun. Cats were scattered anxiously among the trees; Bluestar (do you have any idea how much I'd like to tear your throat open?), Yellowfang and Featherwhisker were stiff and impatient at the shores. Spottedleaf raced frantically up to them. 'Is she dea-?'

'Not yet.' The silvery tom had his eyes fixed on the image in the water, of Sorreltail straining and in pain, of Cinderpelt battered and bleeding, whispering hoarsely to Leafpool.

'Begin the ceremony,' Bluestar said quietly, giving a nod to Featherwhisker. He stepped forward and bowed his head.

'Tonight, we of StarClan have assembled to witness both the pain and suffering of death, and the hope and purity of new life. We hope to intertwine the two, and give this deceased cat an opportunity for a second life of both improvements and new misfortunes.' He stooped to swallow a single gulp of icy starlight water.

Spottedleaf knew her cue. 'Tonight, we of StarClan forsake the innocent life of an unborn, and bestow upon it the refreshened soul of a cat gone. We give up the memories of this previous life; the knowledge gained, the losses endured, the pleasures forgotten. May this cat carry her name.' She stepped forward and sipped at the pool.

Yellowfang was to finish. 'Tonight, we of StarClan allow stilled paws to walk the earth once more; we allow glazed eyes to see, and all that was thought irretriviably lost to be given to this hostess. We give Cinderpelt the opportunity of a second life, to shed her light and thoughts over the four Clans; we reincarnate her, and allow her to do the rest.' She dipped her scarred muzzle into the pool.

It was done. The whole of the corrupted StarClan stilled for a moment.

Then the wind, with the carried scents of jasmine and hope and fire and ice and dusk, stirred up again. Spottedleaf stared tensely at the pool, suddenly feeling insecure about her role in the ceremony. If they had begun too late, it was their fault, and neither Cinderpelt nor her failed reincarnation would live a moment longer, or return to the afterlife.

Bluestar leaned into the pond and muttered something. It clouded for an instant, then flickered into an image of a terrified-looking Cinderpelt crouched amongst a colorless forest. The place that freshly-dead cats went to, to be held until another StarClan member arrived to escort them into their new territory.

Cinderpelt shifted, and her mouth dropped unnatrually wide. Blood began to seep out of her eyes, and she disentigrated into the insubstancial grass.

On the earth, Sorreltail leaned over her writhing kits. The one that had been still a moment ago was now making her way to the swollen teats. She sighed in contentment, willing herself to not look over at her medicine cat's body.

Spottedleaf gazed into the pool, frowning at the blurred image. Across from where Cinderpelt had huddled, there was a tiny dark brown she-kit, pelt slick with fluids and blood, eyes firmly closed.

'Did it work?' Bluestar's voice was high. 'The reincarnation. Did it-?'

'Not the way we wanted it to.' Yellowfang turned away from the water and faced them. 'Cinderpelt's been reborn. But the kit who was supposed to become her…'

They stared down at the shivering kit.

'She's died. But she never lived.'

Greenflower says I'm a special kit. I'm the only one that gets bigger, out of all the other kits here. I like being special.

I'm not allowed to look in the pools yet. I don't know why. I really want to. Last time I tried to, Dappletail stopped me but I bit her really really hard. Greenflower says I could have made her fade but I didn't get in any trouble. That made me happy. Greenflower treats me nice.

Like the other day Snowkit had a big magpie and I wanted it so I took it away. Snowkit jumped on me even when I said I wanted it and I scratched him really big. Greenflower let me have the magpie. I don't know why Snowkit tried to stop me, because everyone gives me what I want, but I think it's cos he's stupid and can't hear right, so he didn't know I wanted it. He would have given it to me if he knew I wanted it.

I like to play with the other kits but they're stupid and they say I hurt them. I attack them if they don't let me play games, and once a kit got me back. She scratched me a lot, but Greenflower got really mad and hurt her lots and she told me it was revenge. I haven't seen her. I think they took her away because she was mean to me.

I'm smarter than all the other kits. I'm the only one that gets big. One day I'll be a big cat and I'll fade all the Dark Forest cats and they'll all go away. I bet Greenflower could make them go away if I asked her but I want to fade them all myself. It might be lots of fun and that would be good.