goodbye, so long, farewell (solo)

After Crookedlight left to become a kittypet, Ambersun really did have no one left anymore. SkyClan was the place she called home, but it didn't feel like home to her, not since she came back. At this point, even following Crookedlight to be a kittypet seemed appealing, even if she knew she'd never be happy imprisoned with the Twolegs like he would. Perhaps she needed some sort of... fresh start. A do-over, where she could go out and make new friends, run into new enemies, and live life the way she was supposed to. Because right now, she wasn't living.

She felt bad for her clanmates, for leaving without any notice right after another clanmate did, but... but she didn't feel as bad as she thought she would. Perhaps it was because she never felt like SkyClan, that she wasn't there when SkyClan had to stand together and that the one cat who even slightly understood her was dead. 'My connections are what keep me in SkyClan,' she once thought. Silverwing and Crookedlight, her two closest friends, helped ground her from leaving when Felix told her about the world outside of the forest. Now, her connections were no longer in the clan, so Ambersun's tether started slipping away.

Ambersun took a bird off of the fresh-kill pile. This was going to be the last piece of fresh-kill Ambersun ate here. It was... a bittersweet feeling, like honey-laced traveling herbs, but she knew that it was what she needed to truly feel like herself again. The quicker she ate, the more of a chance she'd be able to get away. Her plan was probably to head for Twolegplace, maybe catch a couple pieces of prey before she left the territory, then disappear into the town. Perhaps she'd find those bigger Twolegplaces called cities as she traveled, or even make it to the ocean.

Once her meal was finished, she walked out of camp as if she hadn't been planning anything. Once she was a far enough distance from SkyClan camp, she turned back to look at it one last time. She still had some attachment to the place - she cared about SkyClan, about the warrior code, about their well-being. And she was leaving them behind. Perhaps it would feel like a betrayal for many, but Ambersun couldn't just stay and sacrifice her own well-being for their sake. "Perhaps I'll see you again," she said, making her way towards Twolegplace - and a new life.