Some scars heal with time, but others aren't so easily forgotten. That was what the healer had told her; Owlskip was inclined to agree with him.
Sometimes her old burn scars throbbed, and often they just ached. But Owlskip's scars never seemed to lay dormant. Whenever she forced herself to groom her fur, the smooth raised ridges of skin seemed to ridicule her, at at those times she was grateful her pelt was long enough to conceal them.
The dark-furred she-cat had memorized the spontaneous patterns long ago when they were still fresh and searing with incurable pain. Her dreams were haunted every night by the scents of burning fur and flesh.
Owlskip had woken every night after with the same horrifying visions: burning dens and a raging fire through the grasslands. She hadn't slept through the whole night in seasons; she couldn't remember the last time she had but the she-cat knew it had once been true.
How she longed to have been one minute faster. Maybe if she had not hesitated then she would still be free to follow her passion.
But she had not and Owlskip knew in her heart it was not worth pondering over something that could never be changed.
And yet, how she longed to sprint over the moors as gracefully as she once had. The breezes tugged at her heart, but she could not bring herself to chase after the wind. And so she made her peace with her disabilities - or so she thought - and settled for simply being content with watching others.
And then the nightmares became less frequent. Every so often Owlskip would sleep through the night - the visions that danced through her head became those of lost memories; of when she had been the most talented of WindClan - the fastest, the best hunter, most skilled fighter.
But the fire had burnt more than her body. In some ways Owlskip felt the fire had burnt away part of her spirit, a tiny fraction of her soul.
Most days she felt inadequate under the gazes of her clanmates. The brown tabby could almost always hear tiny, invisible voices lingering around her head. Knowing that she had been the best and one accident had reduced her to practically nothing never helped the mental conflicts within the confines of her mind.
And yet, something had changed with the appearance of the former rogue, who Owlskip had saved from chance by one of he forest clans. The young loner who had claimed she had a fierce desire to learn the art of the wind clans. Her name was Featherpaw now, but the most awful trainee Owlskip had ever seen, despite being under the guidance of Larchclaw.
And Owlskip knew somehow that Featherpaw's change was good. Slowly, very slowly, but surely, she began to finally heal her emotional scars. Sure, they still hurt nearly all the time, but the good days now almost outweighed the bad.
And so she had taken it upon herself to teach Featherpaw the art of the moors. And slowly, very slowly, but surely, the young cat began to finally improve. But even though Featherpaw had restored a bit of herself that the fire had stolen away, Owlskip still felt despondent to herself.
Maybe that would never change. But for Owlskip, that was good enough, because for however painful her scars were, they were a reminder that she had survived. Maybe her internal scars would never fade completely. But that was okay.
She may have been pushed down, but she wasn't dead yet.