Firestar is the new leader of ThunderClan and Graystripe is still a RiverClan warrior looking after his kits. So when an evening patrol capture a prisoner, Firestar realizes that he has been changed…for good…
Firestar lay awake in his den. Although it was far from dawn and too early for moonhigh, he wouldn't be able to get to sleep anyway. Too much was going on inside his head to put aside. Firestar got up and shook the moss from his fiery pelt. If he could find some cat to talk to, maybe they could reassure him and he could get to sleep some time before sunhigh. He padded out of his den and sat in the middle of the clearing. He ran through a list of cats who he could talk to. The first name that popped into his head was Cinderpelt. Firestar padded toward her den and paused outside.
"Cinderpelt?" he mewed. He waited for an answer and when he didn't get one, he peered inside. In the growing moonlight, he could see the steady rise and fall in the young medicine cat's flank. Firestar headed for the warriors den to see if Sandstorm or Cloudtail were there, silently praying to StarClan that they weren't asleep already too.
When he got outside the warriors den, he called out for Sandstorm the way he had for Cinderpelt. Frostfur answered and said that Sandstorm had gone out with Cloudtail and Brackenfur to hunt.
After Firestar had thanked Frostfur, he backed out into the clearing and sat at the base of the Highrock and started to clean himself. He had run out of cats to talk to. Cinderpelt, Sandstorm, and Cloudtail were his best friends but they couldn't talk. Firestar desperately tried to think of another cat. His mind landed on one. But Graystripe chose to be a RiverClan warrior long ago and he had to except that. Just then the last patrol of the evening came through the gorse tunnel and snapped Firestar out of his sad memories.
"Firestar! Firestar! We have a prisoner!" Firestar's apprentice, Bramblepaw exclaimed as Fernpaw, Tawnypaw, Swiftpaw, Ashpaw, and Darkstripe came through the entrance. All the cats in the patrol were circled around the prisoner but Firestar could still smell RiverClan. He could also smell blood, which showed that the RiverClan cat had put up a fight before coming to the ThunderClan camp. But Firestar could smell something else too; a smell he would not soon forget…
"Graystripe!" Firestar exclaimed with glee. By now the clearing was full of cats who had heard Bramblepaw's noisy entrance. Sandstorm, Cloudtail, and Brackenfur, their mouths full of fresh kill, were among them.
"Yea, it's him, the traitor," Darkstripe answered in clear and utter disgust. "We found him by Sunningrocks, no doubt looking for fresh-kill."
"Yea, but we got him real good; he could hardly walk back here!" Bramblepaw added proudly.
Firestar stared at him in horror and then slowly looked up at Graystripe. He was covered from head to paw in claw and tooth marks. He had a pretty nasty cut across his shoulders and one through his nose.
"Go get Cinderpelt." Firestar mewed angrily at his apprentice.
"But…" Bramblepaw looked confused.
"Now!" Firestar spat.
"Yes, Firestar." Bramblepaw mewed quietly.
Firestar watched his apprentice hurry across the clearing to Cinderpelt's den.
"Now let me talk to Graystripe." Firestar looked at his Clan angrily.
"Fireheart." Graystripe choked out.
"Firestar now." He corrected his friend.
Graystripe's eye's grew wide. "Wow…" he croaked and went into a coughing fit. "Your Clan leader now?"
"Yea, don't worry, Cinderpelt will tend to you."
Moments later, Cinderpelt had patched up Graystripe the best she could and he and Firestar were left alone in the circle of cats.
"Listen, Graystripe, I…" Firestar started.
"No, you listen," Graystripe looked up at Firestar, his eyes full of sorrow.
"I'm limited" he sang "Just look at me, I'm limited. And just look at you, you can do all I couldn't do, Firestar." His eyes were clouded with tears and his voice shook, but he went on, "So now its up to you… for both of us. Now its up to you." He held out the note and stopped, so Firestar went on.
"I've heard it said, that cats come into our for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are lead, to those, who help us most to grow, if we let them, and we help them in return." Firestar looked at Graystripe; his friends eyes were filled with tears. "Well I don't know if I believe that's true." Firestar shrugged and slowly drew him self to full height, "But I know I'm who I am today because I knew you." Firestar looked down at Graystripe, who was smiling, so he went on. "Like a comet pulled from orbit, as it passes the sun. Like a stream that meets a boulder, half way through the wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better but because I knew you." Firestar smiled at Graystripe. "I have been changed for good."
As Firestar held out the last note, Graystripe took over the shakiness gone from his voice.
"It well may be that we will never meet again, in this life time so let me say before we part, so much of me is made of what I learned from you. You'll be with me, like a pawprint on my heart." Graystripe stood up and gazed at Firestar with his amber eyes. "And now whatever way our stories end, I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend." He held out the last note and kept singing. "Like a ship lone from it's mooring, by a wind off the sea. Like a seed dropped by a sky bird in a distant wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but because I knew you."
"Because I knew you." Firestar sang.
"I have been changed for good." Firestar and Graystripe's voices came together and Firestar let the warm feeling wash over him, but Graystripe continued on.
"And just to clear the air, I ask forgiveness," Graystripe bowed his head and went on singing "For the things I've done you blamed me for." Firestar knew he was talking about seeing Silverstream and leaving ThunderClan with his kits, so he answered.
"But then, I guess, we know there's blame to share." Firestar knew it was partly his fault for letting Graystripe see Silverstream in the first place.
"And none of it seems to matter any more!" Graystripe held out the last note longer and soon both were singing at the same time.
"Like a comet pulled for orbit," "Like a ship lone from it mooring,"
"As it passes the sun." "By a wind off the sea."
"Like a stream that meets a boulder," "Like a seed dropped by a bird,"
"Halfway through the wood." "In the wood."
The two den mates came together at the end, "Who can say if I've been changed for the better…"
"I do believe I have been changed for the better,"
"And, because I knew you." Firestar had tears in his green eyes as he stared at his big gray friend as if it were the last time.
"Because I knew you," Graystripe's amber eyes looked like Firestar's as they both sang the last words together.
"Because I knew you, I have been changed," they hung onto the note for a long while before ending in hardly a whisper.
"For good……"