Why Flowerpelt Never Came Back
My mom was getting up out of the nursery. I stirred, then yawned. I woke up, then saw her walking out of the den. I felt panicked.
"Mama! Wait! Where are you going?" She smiled.
"I'm going on a patrol."
"But I'm too young for you to leave me!" I wailed. She walked back, and sat by my side, wrapping her tail around me.
"It's only a patrol, love. I'll be fine."
"But what if something happens to you! I'm only three moons old!" I buried my nose in her black and white fur. I remembered all that the apprentices had said. If I was a bad kit, my mommy would just disappear. True, now that I think back, the apprentices always loved teasing the kits. It was Cedarpaw who started it. I think he was annoyed at my being too scared to go in the woods. Literally. I was scared of the badgers and foxes they had talked about, so I wouldn't have gone one pawstep out of the camp, even if I'd tried. He was a bit upset that he had to clean my kit-muck, I guess. But he was pretty good-natured. I blinked, and listened to what my mother said next.
"I'll be back. You can be right here. Right next to me again. Nothing will get you." My mind flashed back to what happened to Acornkit and Petalkit. I whimpered.
"But- but what about what happened to Petalkit and-?"
"Shhh, shhh," she soothed, "You'll be fine. I'll be back, you see" I paused at this.
"You promise?" She walked to the entrance of the nursery, and I started whimpering again. "Mama?" She turned around, a sad-looking smile on her face.
"I promise."
She never came back to give me another hug again. Never another nuzzle. When she went on that patrol, little did she know that it was the last patrol of her life. She never came back. Her body was there, sure enough, but her life-blood was in its true home, Starshine.
Her spirit still walks in my dreams, giving me hope and guidance. But every time I see her, my heart breaks, and time I remember those times we had together. Those three, few, short moons. Then, it all faded away.
I only had my father left. I had his green eyes, they said, but also my mother's white pelt.
She would live on forever... They said... Forever...
In me.