~ i swear, this is the last time; it has been clarified with staff ~
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Rose may as well be in exile from the moor clan. The disapproving faces of Smallbean, Sootstorm, Brackenwing, lingered in her mind. She had spoken briefly to the friends she still had, especially taking comfort from Whisperear and Batsong, her childhood friends. "
I'm a Wild Rose now. I don't know where to grow." She had needed just a moment of fresh air, the wind blowing against her cheeks, to clear her head.
It was a slow gentle walk. Wild Rose's heart was too heavy and pained to run. The now-familiar burden from the past moons pressed suffocatingly against her chest. The bright spot was the walk took her past the fields. Wild Rose could stop to enjoy it in its bloom. She felt like a plant whose whose roots lay upended in the soil like when her and Batsong had planted a garden with Whisperear. Except now, she did not know how to keep growing. It felt like forever ago she had returned to a peaceful clan and a happy life beside her friends on the moor.
If her clan had understood her, Wild Rose might have asked, I would like to become a queen. To do as little harm as possible and to nurture life was what she wished for. She understood Brackenwing's point about the need to defend life, and she had learned that early in life as a new apprentice learning to hunt in the harsh season and defending against many other predators. But she had always been gentle. She had never hurt or killed those animals' unnecessarily. Even after long days of unsuccessful hunting, when she had been fighting for her life, she had listened when Batsong suggested she let a snake she had knocked out go.
It was okay to live in peace beside other predators. It was okay to live in beside beside other clans. It was possible even in the times of most desperation. Especially in the times of most desperation, when everyone needed it most. A snake or a weasel needed to eat, too. A mama goose protected her chicks. While another animal could not be spoken to, it could still be backed down from a fight. The forest cats thought ourselves intelligent and ethical, but the unnecessary war made her question the nobility of this life, as well as the leadership of cats Wild Rose had respected in childhood or even still loved.
Her single golden eye swept over the flowers bobbing in the wind, the rippling ocean of grass, the occasional craggy rock or tree, and the hazy distant high stones meeting the blue, blue sky. She wondered which direction was forward now. She had hoped to see all of Sootstorm's kits grow into apprentices, maybe even mentor Acornkit. Marigoldkit and Duskkit she had hoped to see grow, too, and all the other kits she hadn't met yet. She had hoped to help Nectarflower when her litter came and let the kits know they were loved.
If the clan had understood her concerns, she would have asked to become a queen. But all that had met Wild Rose's words was disparagement. She was not a good cat to mentor an apprentice or help raise kits if she did not understand the forest-dwellers' way of life and they did not understand her. With a sigh, she let the cool air wash over her and tried to lift the heavy burden on her chest and the heat under her fur that had her limbs shaking and her breath coming short.
As Wild Rose bent to smell the flowers, she felt tired and weak... she would lay down for just a moment.
Laying among the flowers, the breeze ruffled the petals and her rosy-coloured fur, her body stilled.
Overhead in the blue of the sky, the sun gradually dipped and set the blue alight with its last blaze. The blue deepened and the yellow gentled, the day leaving a rosy colour. The soft fluffy clouds were pink all across the sky before the purple of the dusk was to set in, when Rose would not return home.
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