The ThunderClan camp was asleep. Every cat was tucked away in their dens, warm despite the cold leaf-bare wind that whistled in the trees surrounding the hollow.

A silvery white moth with dark spots on its wings silently fluttered its way into the medicine cat den, like a small ghost paying a visit to those left behind.

In the medicine cat den, moss rustled beneath Maplekit as her flanks rose and fell. The five moon old she-kit's paws twitched restlessly as she drifted through a strange world, neither asleep nor awake.

Cold sweat made her gray and white fur damp and she shivered, feeling almost unbearably cold even though she was tucked underneath a blanket of moss and feathers.

Pale green eyes opened wide and Maplekit's ears pricked as she heard— well, more like sensed the silver moth flutter over her nest. It circled twice over head before gliding down to rest on a stone that was partially submerged in a small pool of rain water at the very back of the medicine cat den.

"Do you want a poppy seed?" Leafpool mewed. The light brown tabby medicine cat had been awake most of the night, watching over Maplekit's restless slumber.

Maplekit shook her small grey and white head: no, without taking her eyes off of the moth.

"I don't want to sleep." She mewed quietly.

A small huff of breath from Leafpool was drowned out by a rasping cough from Maplekit.

"I'm going to die… aren't I?" Maplekit mewed when the fit of coughing had past. Her lungs felt like they had been filled with sharp splinters. "None of the herbs you've given me have had any affect on the greencough."

It was true. Not even catmint, which was supposed to be the cure for greencough had done a single thing to help her fight the sickness raging through her small body.

It had been a long fight.

Leafpool was silent. Maplekit turned her head, not entirely sure that she would ask again if the tabby medicine cat hadn't heard her. Leafpool was staring at her small white paws, but as Maplekit opened her mouth to speak her amber eyes flicked up to meet Maplekit's pale green ones. They were like deep pools full to the brim with barely masked grief.

Maplekit's words froze in her mouth, and she had to turn away.

"I thought so." She murmured staring into the silvery blue pool of water. The moth was gone. Perhaps it had just been a hallucination from the fever.

A small ragged gasp escaped from her lips before she could stop it, and her vision blurred as her eyes shone with unshed tears. (I'm never going to be a warrior.)

The thought made her heart ache.