Heya there WillowClan! My entry for the July contest. Prompt was Tears and Rain, James Blunt, given to me by the awesome XxJayfeatherxX! This is what you get when you mix me, that song, and the main character's name is what you get when I read too many fallen angel books. 80 First she was Fadepaw... Then Shadowpaw... Then Fadepaw again... and first she was black with amber eyes... then blue eyes... and finally this description. But I hope you all like it! I'm not really sure what to make of it myself...

COLD

Her paws pounded the ground. Her legs moved quickly, too quickly, through the cold evening air. They moved with a steady rhythym, and a strange grace.

She came to a huge tree. Its massive branches stretched out in every direction, the moss and leaves hanging on them barely noticeable in comparison with the shadowy branches above. It was a dark clearing, the earth bare of moss or leaves. She came here so often.

Fallenpaw of ThunderClan. Her name was always a mystery to her. It was so very different from the other cats' names, yet they said it without blinking once. They were used to it, used to her. Fallenpaw came to a stop. She growled in the darkness. She didn't want this. She didn't want her limbs to move fluidly with an ease they never possessed in the daytime. It felt unreal - cold. Everything felt cold. Not the air, but herself.

As soon as she'd left camp, she'd began to run. Fallenpaw had wanted to feel the burning, gasping need for air. Something real, far from the camp. She couldn't wait to start running, but she couldn't do it in view of her Clanmates.

Now she'd come here. To her huge, imposing beech tree. It felt solid, safe - nothing could tear this away from her.

To sort out this mess. The mess which was her life.

*.*

Small things no one else would think about had started to add up. If they'd happened once, no one would have noticed. But time after time, she'd snapped at her Clanmates. Become difficult. Unwilling.

That had been only the beginning. The other day in training, she'd hurt Branchpaw. She'd apologized and they'd gone off to hunt. That's when Branchpaw fell.

Down the ravine. Brown limbs flailing helplessly, down, down, down. It made her sick to think of it, the haphazard way the brown shecat had been tossed from side to side.

She was badly hurt, Fallenpaw knew.

*.*

And so she ran. Fear coursing through her as she walked away. The silver shecat with her deep blue eyes wanted to run as soon as she'd stepped out of the apprentice's den this evening. Fallenpaw wanted to run away from all of it. Away from the suspicious looks, away from the horrible images that flashed through her mind, twisting and turning in her sleep, away from the sick feeling she got whenever she went past the ravine.

There were no words for what she felt. Only the cold.

There were no good reasons for it either. Or were there? The hurt apprentice in the medicine cat den was very real, very hurt, and very much her fault.

How can I live with this? Fallenpaw wondered. Can I live with this?

Branchpaw had been hurt two days before the gathering. Chirpy, social, cheerful Branchpaw had been looking forward to going. Fallenpaw had gone after she was hurt, and had hated it. She'd had to tell other apprentices she didn't know, from other Clans, about Branchpaw.

It's my fault.

None of it seemed to make sense. She had gone here so as to assess the situation calmly and reasonably. Fallenpaw had to put away these swirling, confusing thoughts and focus.

To do that she would have to recall the memories. No. She couldn't do that, couldn't ever.

What if the conclusion she drew was that it really was her fault?

*.*.*.*

Fallenlight of ThunderClan. She looked delicate, frail. Blue eyes silver shecat.

Watch out for her.

That was what they said.

Trouble fallen from StarClan.

Branchpaw had not recovered. No longer cheerful, but rather melancholy and sad, she had become the medicine cat apprentice. While Roseleaf, their tortoiseshell medicine cat, had been glad to have help, Branchpaw had never forgiven Fallenlight.

It couldn't be easy, she knew, to sit in Roseleaf's den and watch Fallenlight excel as a warrior. Except she hadn't wanted to excel... exactly. Sometimes there was a burning need to be better, more. More often than she would like, Fallenlight wanted more than anything to be the best. The rest of the time she only wanted run.

Fallenlight enjoyed fighting. Every border skirmish, every fight, she was there. She enjoyed the flick of claws, the rake, spin, jump, run, everything about it. Then she was graceful, moving fast and with a purpose. Not the shecat who tripped on the way out of camp. Sometimes she wondered if her old name, Fallenkit, had been a cruel joke.

She loved fighting. She loved trouble. But she was afraid, too. Afraid of Branchpaw's angry glare, afraid her Clan Leader's motives sometimes, afraid of herself.

Branchpaw had refused to take a medicine cat name, as a symbol of... Well, Fallenlight supposed it mus be a symbol of not accepting her fate. Or simply the only resistance she could have to her fate. She was afraid Branchpaw hated her.

Why had Redstar given her the name Fallenlight, she wondered. My mother apparently thought I was one of StarClan fallen to earth when I was born. I thought by now it would have been obvious I was nothing close to StarClan. Or was it that she had been a light, and had fallen to become a shadow? She shook her head. Their ginger leader had probably not thought about it. It irked her that she thought about it, however.

Her greatest fear was everything about herself. She was bad. She was wicked. She had killed a cat in battle more than once, and stolen another's life by mistake.

I'm going to the Dark Forest, she thought.

It filled her with terror. To wander there, forever lost? StarClan help me.

But why would they help her?

Fallenlight, who didn't make a noise as another cat fell, just watched.

Fallenlight, who was too scared to talk to Branchpaw and apologize.

Fallenlight, who just wanted to run away from everything.

Fallenlight, who took comfort in knowing she was better.

Fallenlight, always the trouble maker.

Fallenlight, who loved to fight.

No.

No one would help her.

*.*.*.*

This story would not end under the light of StarClan. This story - her life - would end on a bloody battlefield once she ran out of time. Ran out of energy. Ran into too much trouble for once. It would be over, a cold flash after the heat of her life. The heat of blood. The heat of anger. The steady beat of her heart. It would end someday, and then what?

It would end in that surge of emotion words could never describe. As she stood there under her beech tree, the same one she had stood under long ago, rain slipped down through the bare branches. Fallenlight wanted to make it all right again, make her peace. But it was too late, wasn't it?

She stood there a long time. It would be so easy to simply run away. Shatter her life here into pieces. Run away with the cold. Run away from the trouble.

Rain soaked her fur. Fallenlight was cold, but she didn't shiver.

I don't know what to do.

Uncertainty circled through her mind.

Uncertainty was always there.

The rain kept coming down, harder and harder. Pounding on her fur, plastering it down to her skin. She felt like she might collapse to the ground at any moment under the weight of the water, pouring down onto her. Everything had gone wrong. Her apprentice friend had fallen. It was her fault. How could she go on, how could she go back to the camp one more time?

So easy to run away. So many things circling through her mind as she simply stood in the rain. Stood as it hit her again and again. Stood as it ran down her whiskers, down her sides, all over her.

She could not move. Could not decide. Could not do anything.

The rain gradually eased, coming only as a gentle but steady stream of clear water, somehow sparkling even in the dull gray light.

It didn't help. She almost wanted the heavy rain back.

I have never felt this cold.

I have always felt cold.