It was a cold night, and stars shone down on everything and nothing in particular. A white cat, with bright blue eyes stained with loss and blood, walked through the empty night air, her breath appearing in puffs.

She trod through the forest, her pads cold as solid ice. Her heart was warm and open.

She was going to see an old friend.

She walked towards it tentatively, on the boundary between what had been and now what always would be. The others had not received graves, but her spot was marked by the flowers that grew over it. It was as if she lived on through them, weak and fragile as her spirit must be.

I wonder if you chose to remain here, Icestar thought to herself, to keep this place safe.

It was true, her old friend had nowhere to go. StarClan would never accept her after everything she'd done. She would never accept to go to the Dark Forest either. No, her Cinderstar would never do that.

"I wonder if you can hear me now." Icestar wondered aloud, but the flowers gave no answer, nor the body lying beneath the soil which had of late been stained with blood, now eternally and blissfully silent.

Cougarpaw lumbered up behind Icestar, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement. "Why did we stop here?" She protested, "You said you'd show me the whole territory! It's my first day as an apprentice!"

Icestar laughed, "I just thought I'd pay my respects."

Cougarpaw looked down at the grave, and said quietly, "Who died there?"

Icestar replied, "An old friend."

"Was she a good cat?"

"No."

"Do you miss her?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I believe things could have gone very differently, if only she hadn't decided so young." Icestar sighed.

"Do you miss her as much as Firepool?"

The she-cat's ears pricked with surprise, but she shook her head. "No. Never."

Cougarpaw looked up at the brave leader she knew so well, and asked the most solemn question she could think of, "What was is like when you got your nine lives?"

Icestar knew the rules well- not to disclose the information to young kits, if anyone, but Cougarpaw had always been an exception, the last surviving child of herself and Firepool. "I remember it like yesterday, there were glowing cats everywhere, smiling at me. I recognized many. Then Mothstar came down and nudged me past him, to a cat whose past was bloody and cold.

My grandfather. I recognized him immediately, but Mothstar whispered, 'Do you forgive him now?'

I looked at him and said yes."

"What happened next?" asked Cougarpaw.

"His eyes glittered with stars, and he nodded to me slowly. 'I'm sorry.' He told me. 'You never needed a prophecy to be special.'

I shook my head, 'No, I never did.'

Then the ranks of starry cats closed around me, my old friends and family laughing and cheering me on. I will never remember my disappointment, even for a brief moment, when I saw that I would never have- she may have been evil. She may have died a terrible death, but StarClan does have mercy. For even among their ranks, and the ranks of the Dark Forest who I could see on the edge of the glittering forest, Cinderstar was not among them."