Ruby

Ruby bounded across the marsh, her massive form awkward among the delicate tufts of grass. Each leap sent ripples through the inky water below, her talons breaking the surface with quiet plunks. Frustration rumbled in her throat as another patch gave way beneath her weight. With a surge of membrane and muscle, she unfurled her wings and launched herself back to solid ground, her scales shimmering as she shook off the marsh's clingy inhabitants—leeches and other dark creatures that had hoped to make a meal of her.

The elder dragon's eyes narrowed to gleaming slits as the patrol emerged from the undergrowth, their movements betraying their warrior training. At their head strode a cat whose pelt blazed like autumn fire in the filtered light. Before he could speak, Ruby noted how his shoulders tensed, how his claws sank into the boggy earth.

"Who are you and what are you doing here on ThunderClan's territory?" The tom's challenge rang across the marsh, sharp with territorial fury.

Ruby's wing membrane rippled in what might have been amusement. She let the silence stretch for a heartbeat before answering, her voice rich with ancient knowledge. "I am Ruby, and I seek only to hunt in these marshlands." Her head tilted, studying the flame-colored warrior. "But you, Fireheart—you're far from home. A ThunderClan cat prowling ShadowClan hunting grounds? How... interesting."

Fireheart's tail shot up like a signal flame, and as if summoned by shadow, a sandy-pelted she-cat materialized at his side. Her fur bristled like thorns, but her voice carried the practiced chill of diplomatic ice. "We are here on Bluestar's orders," she declared. "We seek audience with Cedarstar."

Ruby launched herself skyward with a powerful thrust of her wings, leaving the politics of cats behind. Spies playing at diplomacy, she thought bitterly as the wind carried her over unfamiliar forest canopy. A new scent cut through the pine-sweet air—another female, but not dragon. Not cat, either.

Banking toward a fallen tree, its trunk soft with rot and heavy with the sickly-sweet perfume of decomposing frogs, Ruby descended. She lowered her head to investigate and found herself staring into a scene that stopped her heart: there lay Yellowfang, the notorious medicine cat, curled protectively around three tiny bundles of fur. The battle-scarred healer had become a queen, and by the looks of it, a secret one.

"Well, well... I never took you for a queen, Yellowfang," Ruby murmured, her voice soft with something between pity and understanding. The medicine cat's amber eyes blazed with maternal fury as she swiped at Ruby's snout, claws extended. The dragon barely felt the strike against her armored scales.

"Get away from here, you traitor!" Yellowfang's voice cracked with desperation, a far cry from her usual sharp-tongued confidence.

Ruby's ancient eyes swept over the tiny forms, seeing what Yellowfang couldn't—or wouldn't—admit. "I'm here to help," she said gently, nudging the weakest kits, their pitiful squeaks barely audible, closer to their mother's warmth. "The she-kits... they're already fading."

With delicate precision that belied her size, Ruby coiled her tail around the rotting trunk, splintering away a section. Using a fragment like a mother cat's scruff-hold, she lifted the strongest kit—the tom, his angry protests louder than his sisters'—and carefully settled him between her wing joints.

"I'll raise him myself, Yellowfang." Ruby's voice held no judgment, only certainty. "The others... they won't see tomorrow's sunrise." She offered a brief, sad smile to the medicine cat. "StarClan may guide us, but even they can't prevent every tragedy. Care for these little ones while you can."

Ruby padded away from that place of death and secrets, each step measured to avoid jostling her precious cargo. In a sun-dappled clearing where life still flourished, she gently deposited the kit onto soft grass, her wings creating a protective shelter around him.

The tiny kit's plaintive cries pierced the forest quiet, each mewl a desperate call for the mother he'd never truly know. Ruby's claw, gentle as falling leaves, stroked his downy head. "Hush now, little Brokenkit," she crooned, her voice carrying centuries of maternal wisdom. "Your path changes here."

With practiced precision, she snapped a milk bee's honeycomb, letting golden droplets fall between his tiny jaws. The sweet sustenance worked its magic; his angry squeals—so like a badger kit's defiant growls—softened to contented purrs. Ruby curled her massive form around him, creating a living fortress of scales and warmth, and felt him snuggle into her protection.

A smile played across her ancient features as she gazed down at the kit whose destiny she'd just altered. In her mind's eye, she saw the shadows of what might have been—a tide of red washing through ShadowClan's territory, a legacy of brutality that would have stained the forest for generations. But now, cradled in dragon-warmth instead of bitterness, perhaps Brokenkit's tale would write itself anew.