I wonder
is it all in my head?
If I gave you my heart,
would you cherish it dear
keep it always near
or crush it instead?
He's looking right at me. But I can tell he's not seeing me. His eyes— deep, vibrant amber, like leaves in the falling season— are vacant. How I wish he saw me, saw me truly, saw me the way I see him. He has never looked at me like that, though, and now he probably never will.
My own eyes fall on his front leg, and I wince at the sight. He's always tucking the paw under his body, shifting his weight so his long, creamy fur hides his twisted leg. He still has pride, even though he's fallen so far. I feel his anger and frustration like a haze around him, despite the fact he's all the way across the camp from me.
It's been four moons since he lost the toes off his right front paw, since the dog got its teeth around his leg and shook him until the bone snapped like a twig. The bone has healed slowly, but it has healed, thanks to Leafpool's ministrations. However, his foot was so mutilated, and his leg so weakened, that the medicine cat pronounced him unfit to fight and hunt.
I watched through the whole thing. I sat outside the medicine den while he moaned and Leafpool murmured. I walked a fox-length away as he took his first shaky steps with his new handicap. I dreamed of a day when, after having dropped out of the race of life, he would find that I was keeping pace with him all along. And he would accept me. And love me.
A fantasy, that's all it's ever been. A fantasy, and I know that now. I feel so much older than before, when I was Honeypaw, gazing starry-eyed at the newly-named warrior. I realize that he would never have looked my way then, when his head was full of himself and his heart was glutted on pride.
But— what of the future? He's been named an elder. He barely leaves the den, sometimes just lying by the entrance, eyes distant, wishing for something he's now too slow and weak to grasp. Warriorhood— I know he still must feel the echoes of the thrill of hunting, of fighting, of fur between claws and blood staining teeth. It's something I have sometimes wondered about, for even though I am technically a warrior, it's not what I want. I can sometimes feel that rush of adrenaline, but it leaves me empty, unfulfilled. I do not want to kill.
Berrynose is still looking at me. My heart is twisting, even as I know he does not truly see me. Perhaps, though, someday he will. We are still young, and I will walk beside him till the end.