Shellpaw never made it very far. When he made the decision to run away from ThunderClan, he didn't have a set destination in mind. He just ran through the freezing cold and the falling snow without a plan. Throughout all of it, from attacking Slatefur to running away, he had never had a plan. His choices were instinctive. Irrational. Not thought out. He was a doer, not a thinker. He always had been.

The snow was slowing him down immensely. His paws kept getting stuck in pits of deep snow. He was getting incredibly annoyed, both with himself and with the weather. His teeth were chattering with the cold. He felt his paws growing colder, almost to a point in which it became painful to walk.

Don't look back, he thought. I don't need ThunderClan to be a warrior. I'll show every cat in the clans what kind of warrior I can be!

Shellpaw pushed himself forward, despite the pain in his paws and the increasing feeling of heaviness in his heart. Wind began to push against him, slowing his progress. He felt the snow beneath him growing deeper, and before long his strides turned to a crawl. His legs began to protest against him. Still, he pushed onward.

Until he couldn't take another step.

He took a final step, still not knowing where he was going. He misjudged the depth of the snow, and he felt his paw break through the surface. He fell headfirst into the snow drift, and above his head, snow covered the top of the hole. Shellpaw was encased in darkness and freezing cold.

He shouted in fear. He struggled to move. He thrashed his paws, hoping to find a foothold somewhere, but he found nothing but more snow. He writhed around in complete panic. He screamed for help, not knowing if anyone was nearby or if they could even hear him if they were.

Help! He thought fearfully. Help me, please! StarClan, please!

Shellpaw felt something sharp jab into his side and he felt the warmth of blood seeping out of the wound. His panic increased greatly. He tried desperately to reach upwards and pull himself out, to no avail. The air around him seemed to disappear and he found himself suffocating in the snow.

Then a ray of light broke through the darkness of the pit. Shellpaw looked up, seeing the paws of a brown tabby pulling away the snow above him. When there was enough room, the head of the she-cat appeared at the surface. Immediately, Shellpaw saw her sky-blue eyes and he thought of how pathetic he must look. Still, he wasn't too stupid as to turn away the help that he desperately needed.

"Sit still!" the she-cat demanded. "I'll get you out!"

She reached down and Shellpaw felt her teeth grab his scruff. With a burst of strength, the she-cat pulled him up through the deep snow. Shellpaw helped her as much as he could, pushing his way through until his head broke the surface. He unsheathed his claws and used them to find a grip in the ground. The she-cat assisted him until he found his paws beneath him once more on solid ground.

He shook the snow from his pelt and began to shiver strongly in order to regain feeling in his body. Then he remembered the cut in his side and he suddenly felt dizzy.

"You're hurt," the she-cat pointed out in concern.

Breathless, all Shellpaw could do was nod in response. All at once, he felt tired and defeated. He allowed his head to droop a bit as fatigue hit him like a stone. His eyes began to close and he began to sway on his paws.

The brown tabby she-cat pushed against his unhurt side and whispered in his ear, "You need to stay awake. Keep still while I go get something to treat your wound."

Shellpaw tried his best to stay standing, but the world was spinning around him. He felt the weight of the she-cat disappear and he nearly collapsed back into the hole that she had just rescued him from. But he did as he was told and kept his eyes open and his mind alert. He watched the blood seep into the snow around him, staining it crimson. He found the sight oddly beautiful, despite the circumstances.

Stay focused, Shellpaw, he told himself. She's going to save you again. Just stay alert.

He waited for what felt like an eternity to him for her to return. Finally, he was aware of her scent washing over him once more. It smelled eerily familiar to him, and for a moment he wondered if she was a StarClan cat.

Then he recognized the scent of WindClan in her fur.

He stood rigid in his place as he felt her begin to work on dressing his wound. He felt her lick some sort of herb into the wound, and then she dressed it with cobwebs. He understood that she must have been trained in this regard, and clearly quite well. To him, she seemed like an expert.

She finished with him quite quickly. Shellpaw turned to face his savior, and he wanted to thank her for her assistance, but he couldn't find the words. His rescuer was stunning. With her inviting sky-blue eyes and and warm tabby fur, he immediately found himself breathless. He stood there looking like a stone.

"What? Badger got your tongue?" his savior asked jokingly.

Finally, he rediscovered his tongue in his mouth and he said, "Thank you… I think I would have died if you hadn't found me."

She nodded in unnecessary agreement. "I saw you fall in. You were lucky I was nearby."

Shellpaw glanced around, trying to judge where exactly they were. He thought they might still be on ThunderClan territory, but there were only a few trees nearby.

"Where are we?" Shellpaw asked her.

"You managed to stumble over the WindClan border," she answered. "If I were a warrior, I would claw your ears off for being here. Since I'm not, though, I should just tell you to go home. I won't tell Harestar you were here."

Shellpaw shook his head lightly, once again feeling tiredness seeping into his muscles. "I can't go home. Not now. Probably not ever again."

The pretty she-cat leaned forward and sniffed him. "You don't smell of any clan I know of. You just smell like herbs and water." She wrinkled her nose for added effect.

"Good," Shellpaw responded. "I want to keep it that way. ThunderClan isn't my home any longer."

The she-cat looked incredibly curious now. She tilted her head to one side and looked at Shellpaw wonderingly. Her eyes were glazed as she thought about what he meant by his words. He thought he had been quite clear in his statement, but she seemed confused nonetheless.

"Why can't you go home?" she finally decided to ask.

"Because I made the choice to leave," Shellpaw answered. "Because I don't want to go back. Bramblestar, Squirrelflight, everyone. They all treat me like a kit when I should be a warrior by now. They don't realize that I don't need them."

"Clearly, you need someone," she replied immediately.

"Not anyone from ThunderClan," Shellpaw told her stubbornly.

Once again, the pretty she-cat seemed to enter her own world. She looked to be deep in thought as she considered Shellpaw's situation and the choice he was making. She couldn't think of a life she would want to live without her clan. The life of a kittypet was too boring. The path of a rogue was too unruly. A loner's life was just too… lonely. Life in a clan was perfect. A cat could have kin. Friends. Loyalty! What would life be without a clan?

"Where will you go?" she decided to ask.

"Anywhere else. Nothing will make me go back there," he replied sternly. "Not even you."

She considered this further. She thought about cats she had met that wandered onto her territory. For the most part, cats outside the clans seemed okay. Content, even. She thought of a couple cats who lived in the horseplace on WindClan territory, and suddenly, an idea struck her.

"I might know a place for you, then. If you're up for the walk," she explained.

Shellpaw considered her offer for a moment. His paws still felt like stones, but at least he wasn't in too much pain. He thought about it for a bit longer, then he nodded slowly.

"Show me."

The walk was difficult for Shellpaw, but he managed. He followed the beautiful she-cat to a place he had only heard of in stories. He recalled Daisy's stories of the horseplace, where she had come from. Mousewhisker and Berrynose had been born there, along with their dead sister, Hazeltail. He remembered asking them about it, but neither tom had recalled much of their experiences. They only remembered the scent of their father, Smoky.

The two clan cats entered the horseplace silently, and Shellpaw immediately sensed that something was off. There was a strange scent in the air, one that he had never smelled before. It was sickly sweet, but at the same time offputting. He felt something squirm in his belly.

"Oh no…" his companion whispered as they fully entered the place.

Shellpaw heard a sniff from somewhere within the den. He padded forward cautiously, expecting a fight. Despite his condition, he decided that he would fight off whoever the predator was so that his companion could get away. He owed her that much, and his life meant little to him at this point in comparison.

"Coriander!" the she-cat shouted.

Shellpaw immediately shushed her, hoping that whatever was lying in wait for them hadn't heard her.

Instead, a tortoiseshell and white she-cat's head popped up from behind a haystack. Shellpaw recognized the look of grief in her eyes, and he realized that the strange scent was that of death. The new cat's amber eyes were glistening with fresh tears.

His companion ran to the she-cat, and the two touched noses like they were old friends. The tortoiseshell cat pressed her face into Shellpaw's companion's shoulder. He could hear her sobbing. He watched as his companion ran her tail down the newcomer's back gently.

Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Shellpaw broke the silence.

"What happened here? Who is this strange cat?" he asked rudely.

The tortoiseshell broke away from Shellpaw's companion. She looked at him with a mixed look of grief and anger.

"My name is Coriander…" she broke off in another sob. Shellpaw waited for her to get ahold of herself again. She was about to speak again, but she choked. She began crying again.

Shellpaw turned to his companion and gave her a look of curiosity. She shook her head, knowing it wasn't her place to explain. Shellpaw was getting frustrated now.

"Tell me what happened here!" he demanded. "Please!"

"Smoky…" Coriander managed to say.

"What about him?" Shellpaw pressed on.

"For StarClan's sake!" his companion yelled. "How can you be so inconsiderate? Smoky was Coriander's mate. He's been sick for moons now, and I've been bringing herbs here to treat him. But they didn't work like they were supposed to."

"He died last night," Coriander confirmed, choking back another sob.

Shellpaw was taken aback, and he began to mentally scream at himself for not putting the pieces together. Of course he had known some cat was dead, but he hadn't known who that cat was. For all he knew, it could have been someone passing through. But Coriander's mate? That, he had never considered.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize…" Shellpaw began.

"Don't be," Coriander broke him off. "He's at peace now. He's been sick for so long… I guess in some way this is mercy for him."

"I'm sorry I couldn't save him," Shellpaw's companion sympathized.

"You did everything you could, Lilacpaw. Don't be sorry for something that isn't your fault," Coriander told her.

Lilacpaw? Shellpaw thought. She's a medicine cat! No!

Coriander led the two of them to the grave that she was halfway done with digging. To its left, Smoky's body lay surrounded by dead leaves. Shellpaw supposed that Coriander had done what she could to give him a proper vigil. With the season, there were no flowers to lay around him. Dead leaves were as close as she could get.

"I was just going to bury him," Coriander said quietly.

"Let us help you," Lilacpaw suggested.

"Thank you," the grieving she-cat replied.

Lilacpaw began to assist Coriander with digging the grave. After a moment's hesitation, Shellpaw joined them. They spent a good portion of the day digging, and then they helped Coriander lower his body into the shallow grave. All the while, Shellpaw couldn't help but notice the other grave just a foxlength away. It was marked with a stone that had scratches on it. He remembered Daisy speaking of another cat named Floss. He figured she must have died as well.

After finishing the grave, the three cats sat in silence for a long time. Shellpaw felt like an outsider, and he knew he was. He only knew Smoky from stories. He had never met the loner, personally. He knew he was the father of Mousewhisker and Berrynose, but that was essentially it. Daisy had once been his mate.

"Why are you here?" Coriander eventually asked, breaking the silence.

"He needs a place to go," Lilacpaw said, pointing her tail at Shellpaw.

Shellpaw turned to face Coriander. He saw distrust in her amber gaze, but he also felt that he could gain that trust if he needed to. The horseplace, to him, seemed like a decent place to live. It was sheltered, and he could hear all the mice scampering around. He could have a nice life here, if he wanted.

"My name is Shellpaw," he began. "I know I didn't make the best first impression. Frankly, I'm not very good at those. But if you'll have me, I'll do what I can around here. I'll do the hunting. I'll protect you from whatever is out there."

"You speak as if I'm unsafe here," Coriander responded. "I've never seen or heard a predator of any kind while I've lived here. The biggest threat we face is sickness… and Smoky couldn't take that."

"He means well, Coriander," Lilacpaw suggested lightly.

"I've nowhere else to go. I can't go home," Shellpaw begged.

Coriander sighed and lowered her head. "It's not my place to judge whether or not you can stay. Smoky would have allowed it, so I will as well. Just don't take advantage of my kindness. I may not look it, but I can fight if I have to."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Shellpaw agreed.

"Then stay," Coriander relented. She looked at Smoky's grave and began to shiver with a mix of cold and grief.

Shellpaw wanted to comfort her, but decided it wouldn't look right coming from him. He looked to Lilacpaw, who rolled her eyes at him. She began to run her tail down Coriander's back again. Shellpaw felt like he was taking advantage of the grieving she-cat, but he also felt that he couldn't go anywhere else. Lilacpaw had brought him here for a reason. Perhaps she thought that he and Coriander could help each other in some way.

"Good luck, Coriander," Lilacpaw said gently. "I'll visit again soon."

The WindClan medicine cat apprentice turned to leave, but Shellpaw caught her eye one more time.

"Thank you again, for saving me and all," he said, knowing the words were such a cliché.

"Don't mention it," Lilacpaw responded. "Just don't make me wish I hadn't."

With that said, Lilacpaw left Shellpaw with Coriander in front of Smoky's grave. His heart was beating at a rate much faster than usual, and he found himself wondering when he would see her again. With a pang, he realized that he would miss the pretty brown tabby. Already, his mind was filled with images of her sky-blue eyes. He thought she was beautiful.