"Over here, Sandstorm!" a ginger tom called.
"I'm coming, Firestar!" a sand-colored queen purred. She touched noses with the ginger cat. "Bet I can beat you to the Great Oak!"
"I'd like to see you try."
The two cats were running playfully through the moonlit forest together. The oak trees were lit up in the silvery shadow. It was the height of Greenleaf, and everything was as it should be. Thunderclan was at peace. A new litter of kits had been born just yesterday. In Thunderclan, life was as sweet as catmint. They reached the tree, the Thunderclan leader running faster just by a whisker.
"Unfair!" the queen meowed. "You got a head start." She pounced on top of him, and they started to play fight in the grass, just as they had done as apprentices. Once they were tired out, they started to clean each other. Any cat who could have seen this strong leader with this loving she-cat would have smiled at the love they had for each other. But high above in the stars, a beautiful, tortoiseshell she-cat looked down at the scene with misery, her eyes filled with sorrow. She gazed enviously at the sand-colored queen. "That should have been me," she whispered.
….
As I watched the two cats down below, I wanted more than anything in the world to feel joy in my heart. The cat I loved, Firestar, was happy. I knew from the start that we could never be together. For starters, I was a medicine cat. That meant I would never be able to have a mate. If that weren't enough, just moons after I met Firestar- Firepaw back then- I died. Now I could only watch him, appear in his dreams occasionally. But still, I couldn't ignore the void in my heart that expanded when I saw what was happening below. As I said, I can appear in cats' dreams. I had been appearing in Firestar's dreams as much as possible, but it wasn't any use. Firestar was falling for another cat. It took everything in me to appear calm and peaceful when I found him in his dreams, but I really wanted to wail like a kit. Now, I observed Firestar and Sandstorm with a stone-cold gaze, until I heard pawsteps behind me.
"I know how you feel." Ashfur.
I nodded as the light gray tom sat down next to her.
"It's the worst feeling, isn't it?" I answered.
Ashfur had loved Squirrelflight, but no matter how she acted, her heart belonged to Brambleclaw. Now Ashfur had paid a huge price for his love- his life. "They say life has it's own way of working things out, Spottedleaf," Ashfur meowed.
"But we are dead," I snapped back. "Our lives have nothing else to work out."
"Think of it this way," he replied calmly. "If you had… well, been with Firestar, you'd be breaking the warrior code. You'd never be looked at the same way again. Now you can keep an eye on Firestar and keep him safe. But Spottedleaf," he turned his soft gaze on me, and I felt myself shying away, "you've got to accept that Firestar will never be yours. You've been watching him nonstop and I think you've got to let him go a little. Take a walk with me."
He stroked his tail over my back. In that moment I realized that Ashfur knew how I felt. And I knew how he felt. "Ok," I meowed. I followed him into a grassy meadow. We walked until we reached a large oak.
"Follow me," Ashfur called. "Let's climb to the top."
After all, we were both Thunderclan cats. We could climb. I hadn't climbed trees in moons, but I would give it a try. As I crawled up to the first branch, it all came back to me. Soon, I was scaling that tree like I was born to do it. I felt more alive than I had felt in a long time. Soon, we had reached the top. "It's beautiful up here," I whispered. "And I would never have come up here if it weren't for you." A crisp breeze blew, and I shivered. Ashfur pressed his pelt against mine, allowing me to share his warmth. As I sat there on that branch with him, I felt that hole in my heart closing until it was almost gone. For the first time, I wasn't worrying about Firestar. And I was so happy about it. If only Firestar could see me now, I thought. But something told me that he would be happy seeing me with Ashfur.
"Life does have it's own way of working out," I purred, wrapping my tail in his.
And in that moment, we both knew that it did.