take me home

She had parted at the boarder with the Drifters who guided her on the journey from the distant Garden. Instead of bounding home over the moor as she yearned to do for so long, she had settled politely to wait for a patrol to pass. She was quiet and walked the way to camp with the patrol slowly. What was one more moment after all she had waited.

She had flinched at the brief and distant roar of the gorge where she fell on the night darkness stained the moon red and swallowed the stars. She had looked down at her paws carrying her home, at bones mended by the mysteriously powerful medicine-humans. Her frame still hummed with a restless need to run that she knew since taking her first breath, her yellow-orange eye alight with hope as warm as the sun in the sky. For the first time in a long time, the rosy-furred she-cat was home.

A member of the patrol had drawn Shrikestar's attention. He looked over to see Whisperear speaking with another cat. He bristled at first, thinking an outsider had been let into the camp, but as he lowered his hackles and took another look, he felt familiarity rise. Hurrying over to where they were, he realized exactly who it was. Time had changed her, certainly, but there was no doubt that it was still her. "Rosepaw?" He went closer, until he was side by side with Whisperear, examining the former WindClan apprentice. She seemed no worse for wear. In fact, she looked like she hadn't been gone a day. Well, besides the moons that had passed, that had aged her. "I don't believe it. You've returned."

Batsong was in her med den working on some things. A gathering of her clanmates could be heard outside and it peaked her interest and curiously she glanced out. Lots of cats were gathered around someone.. she tilted her head hopeful had birch gaze been found??


Eagerly she hurried over. She stood shocked and fully suprised seeing it was not birchgaze at all.

R-rosepaw?! she purred in delight and it took a bit for her to believe her eyes. But it was true! Her long lost friend and apprentice from what felt like a lifetime ago was back home standing before her!

She hurried over to rose paws side with a very happy purr and smile I have missed y-you s-so much she stuttered over herself.

She quickly looked over her good friend for any injuries but to her relief found none. I’m s-so glad you are home… are y-you hungry? C-come get something to eat

Rosepaw’s ears pricked. When she turned to Whisperear, they were not the only one to believe, for a moment, they were mistaken. As they rushed out from the shelter of the gorse wall, where the two of them had once slept side by side within the nursery, Rosepaw felt impossibly as if they both were kits again.  

Her heart leaped with joy as she closed the distance in lopsided skips, her mended bones not fit back together the same, but as always graceful and clumsy at once. She collided lightly with her friend, trembling ear-tufts to tail-tip with exhilaration and loud purring. “Whisper…” she forced out between purrs, then with a stifled laugh, “it’s funny, I don’t know your name.” She met their disbelieving amber eyes. “I’m still Rosepaw.”

She looked up at them, grown so tall, angular and elegant; their quiet and soothing voice made quieter and raspy; their large ears twitching observantly and amber eyes warm; thin bright fur radiating the heat of the day. They smelled of sunshine, and of home. However, Rosepaw had been to the sea and there truly was an ocean of change, of missed time, between them. “I smell of the hu- uh- twolegs.” she apologised.

“Shrike…star,” she greeted with a polite dip of her head. A weight she didn’t know she had carried let go when the leader’s fur smoothed as he recognised her. “I almost don’t believe it either…" Her voice trailed off, drowned out again by purring as her eye found the shocked black she-cat hurrying over.

“Batsong!” She brushed her cheek gently against her friend’s. The scent was more familiar to Rosepaw than even her big brother, mama and papa who had gone to StarClan during the invasion and then, she had seen, crossed the sky as shooting stars to fight once more. Rosepaw pressed her fur against Batsong's. Intertwined were the distinctive scents of many flowers and plants. Sweet scents shared by the herbs of the moor and the distant Garden carried between Batsong’s sleek pure black pelt meeting hers of wispy soft rose. Her mentor’s soft stutter was so comforting. Rosepaw's eye shone with emotion. “I’ve missed you so much, too, both of you.”

Appraising looks were all satisfied. She had shared tongues a final time with the Drifters, and Rosepaw’s fur was decorated with flowers, before her travelling companions said farewell. She had turned her paws towards home rested, clean and cheerful. She paused for breath, and was about to say she wasn’t hungry, when her tummy awkwardly interrupted with a loud growl. “Well that answers that,” she giggled.

Batsong couldnt remember the last time that she was this happy.  She nodded and walked along side Rosepaw over to the fresh kill pile to get the apprentice something to eat.

She also picked herself out something so that they could eat together and catch up a bit too on what all had happened.  She made plenty of room too for Whisperear too and anyone else that wanted to join them all.


"its s-so good to have you b-back home" she purred softly as she ate next to her good friends.

"hmm s-since you left I b-became the clans medicine c-cat" she explained to Rosepaw

"I l-like it alot and am getting alot more used to it.  I l-like helping the h-hurt or sick and I still g-get to hunt sometimes and I d-dont have to fight as much this way either"

She thought about how her mother Swiftspirit told her she would be good at this in her starclan dream.  It had taken her a while to realize just how correct Swiftspirit was.  

"hmm maybe I c-can take you out and we can g-go look for herbs together." she offered.

"Once you g-get some rest of c-course first" she purred

Getting to be out with Rosepaw again on the windclan moors would be just like old times.


Batsongs ears perked up a little thinking of something...
t-that r-reminds me" she hummed quietly to herself as she quickly scampered off into her med den for just a moment before reappearing just a short while later carrying a black feather.

She had remembered how much her friend liked collecting little things such as this... The blue feather that she had originally given to Rosepaw had been lost actually and the rock that Rosepaw had gifted to her she actually had recently given to a burrkit for helping out at the med den.

"Is f-for you" she purred quietly setting the black feather down for Rosepaw to inspect.

"s-so... tell us w-what you have been up too?" she purred quietly curious to hear about her friends adventures as well

Looking to Shrikestar first to ensure she was welcome to eat from WindClan territory, Rosepaw padded alongside Batsong, mouth watering at the smell of food from her home. While Batsong picked something for them all, Rosepaw turned to Whisperear. "Where was your sunning spot?" she suggested gently.

The three of them went to sit in one of the most sheltered, sunny, and comfortable spots in camp and Rosepaw flopped down with a soft sigh. "It's just as cosy in here as I remember..." Quietly, she concentrated on not eating too fast. Sitting snuggled with a friend on either side, joy burst in her chest as well as a deep ache at Batsong's purr, a bashful warmth tingling and creeping from her toes to her ears from her friend's words.

At the next words, Rosepaw's ears pricked with interest. She nodded along between bites, "You must be good at that, Batsong!" she said enthusiastically, echoing her friend's thoughts. Then she added with a little laugh, "I know you are. You had more practice at that with me than at anything else," she joked. The harsh season Rosepaw, Whisperear, and Batsong's adoptive siblings were born in was a distant memory now flowers bloomed and the sun was shining down on the three of them. Batsong suggested looking for herbs together and, “I’d love to,” Rosepaw replied warmly. “Only if you are rested yourself, it sounds like a big responsibility.” Batsong hummed with a knowing excitement, and scampered away to get something, making Rosepaw feel like a curious kit again.

Whisperear hadn’t stopped looking at her. She turned her face fully to look at them, drinking in their amber gaze like honey, as they shifted to press more tightly against her. Rosepaw had often imagined the presence of her two friends to get herself through the moons without them both... but the reality of Whisperear beside her now had a quality that couldn’t ever be dreamed up, no matter how unbelievable it really was.

Batsong quickly ran back as well with a black feather, “I love it… it reminds me of you!” Rosepaw touched her nose lightly to her friend's cheek in thanks, ducking her head to nudge against Batsong’s shoulder in a hug as well, then tucked the feather into her fur where it shimmered dark against her bright fur and the flowers woven through it. As Rosepaw contemplated her friends’ question, she absent-mindedly took a soft pink flower from her fur for each of them.

Whisperear sat on her right, on her blind side, but they did not seem to mind. They were so tall now that if Rosepaw’s large tufted ears folded a little, she probably could tuck her head under their chin, where scars slashed from the left down and across their throat. This Rosepaw did not mind either. She felt comforted as they shifted even closer to hear her story, laying their tail over her back.

“These cats from a place called the Garden- like if all the moor was a flower field and it reached all the way to overgrow the twoleg place- they guided me home. It was a long journey, especially with the colder seasons and the world shaking. But they’re guided by the stars, too, differently, to be far travellers.” As she spoke, Rosepaw fiddled, picking the flowers out of her fur and setting them in the close cosy walls of gorse, or in her friends’ fur, or on the earth around her paws. It brightened the plain, softly lit space.

“The twolegs, I escaped as soon as I was healed enough, but for moons they took care of me as well.” Put back together her shattered bones and, she tilted her head, neatly closed her right eye. There was a scar over her winky eye down the right side of her face where, “I hit my head, chased away from the gathering and tumbling into the gorge. When I woke up, I didn’t have a leg to stand on to escape- all broken,” she could laugh now. Those paws had finally carried her home.