Why hello there. My name is Spottedleaf. I am a tortoiseshell she-cat, and other cats think that I'm beautiful. But sometimes, I don't really care. I just want to cure other cats. Oh, I didn't tell you? I am a medicine cat, and I live in ThunderClan. This is a story about my life, and how I got to be a medicine cat.

This is how it starts…

My mother was from ShadowClan. She was a beautiful tortoiseshell, just like me. Her name was Queentail, since she was so pretty. My father always told me that I looked just like her. Oh, my father you ask? He was a brown tabby, under the name of Birchstripe. He was in ThunderClan. That was how I was born: a forbidden love.

They met each other at a fight. ThunderClan against ShadowClan. And that was how it went down. My father, he was fending off my mother, when he looked into her amber eyes and said, "I can't fight you." She gave him a questioning look, and he quickly explained. "You are too beautiful to fight. Your eyes are like honey, glittering in the darkness. Your fur, it's just so pretty. Dapples and everything, almost like an angel. Am I dreaming?"

She wouldn't take it. She raked her claws down his flank, but he just kept standing, ignoring the pain. Not a scream of agony or anything. "I have seen you, Queentail. In my dreams. I have met you, and I think that I love you. You are my dreams come true, Queentail."

Now my mother was freaked. Her amber eyes were widened like pinecones, and she had no idea that this tom knew her name, and why. Suddenly, her eyes grew wider. "Birchstripe?" she asked. She couldn't believe it; this was the tom she had met in her dreams. She had gotten to know him too, and she knew…How else would they see each other in their sleep? StarClan had destined them to be together. She sighed with excitement and mewed, "It's really you!" and buried her face in his fur. They pressed their flanks against each other and purred as they kept nudging. And get this: nobody, not one, found out.

They saw each other in their dreams. That was how. For moons, they happily loved themselves to ribbons, until that one day when their fate was decided. My mother woke up, feeling her kits inside and feeling happy. It had now been about six moons since she had first woken up feeling her kits. Feeling me. That day went from good to bad. To terrible. She gave birth to me at the edge of ThunderClan territory, right by the tunnel under the Thunderpath. Birchstripe was so happy I can only imagine. But they had company. A ShadowClan cat, Clawface in fact, had followed Queentail. He saw her, there, with Birchstripe, nuzzling her kit. And that made him angry.

You see, when he and Queentail were just apprentices, he had WANTED her. He fell in love with her, and he thought that she had felt the same. But apparently not. He had no idea that they had been meeting up, especially in a way that was in their dreams. So he had tried to make her mate with him, to be her mate. But she refused. When she had refused to, she had cost her life. All for the sake of her mate, Birchstripe. Clawface killed her, and that was about the worst day of my life. My father ran away from Clawface in time to get me to a nursing queen, Speckletail in fact. Just then, Clawface stormed in, and killed my father.

How do I know this, you ask? Speckletail told me. My father, Birchstripe, had told the whole story to her. And when I grew old enough, Speckletail told me. And now, I am stuck with my history. I wanted to know what had happened to my real parents once Speckletail mentioned it, but I never believed it would be that bad, for I thought that both had died fighting. But that is only the first chapter of my story. There is more to come of MY life, not just my parents'. Stay tuned.