Dream [One-Shot]

Applestar tossed and turned in her nest.

No burr pricked at her skin. Nothing kept her awake besides her thoughts. Her imagination. Her dreams.

She gazed up at the stars between the bare, gnarling tree branches. The cats of Silverpelt twinkled against a dark blue-black background. The night was cold and clear, but she did not mind the cold. Her body was already too numb to notice.

A glittering pelt descended from the heavens, majestic and graceful, just as she had always remembered it. The sparkling form perched on a branch above her nest and peered down at her, and with friendly flicks of its whiskers and a purr reverberating in its throat, it dropped down to her nest. Applestar imagined the starry cat curling up beside her, but her eyes saw nothing. There was nothing. Only her thoughts and imagination. Things that couldn't turn her dreams into reality.

She wished to feel the warmth of another body beside her, or to feel chills from a starry pelt, just anything at all. But there was nothing. Only her thoughts, her imagination, her dreams.


Goldenstar called a Clan meeting that day. He said that they were going to strike DawnClan at its core to show those rabbit-chasers the consequences for messing with ThistleClan. She and her mother were both eager for this battle, but Applewhisker was to stay back and defend camp, while Cedarheart went ahead on the attacking patrol.

She could still remember the excitement of her mother to have this chance to teach DawnClan a lesson. She promised to tell her daughter about all the action that went on, the look on Skystar's face when he saw them burst into camp, the cats she had to fight, and yet her daughter can't even remember what her mother's pelt looked like without all of the scratches and blood. All she could see was a tail, its owner lost in the midst of a sea of pelts, exiting camp. Leaving her forever.


While the other warriors were gone, she played badger with the kits. She never was the best with children, but they were bored of the queens and found her to be the next best source of entertainment. Applewhisker didn't mind, though, as it gave her mind something to focus on other than the pit of worry growing in her stomach.


She should have gone. She should have been there to protect her. She should have said something sooner.

But it all was over now.

The warriors returned that evening, carrying more than just a somber air. Goldenstar announced that the plan was a success, but that every success must also come at the cost of a failure. And it was then that Applewhisker saw her. With a blood-stained corpse and the medicine cat shaking his head. With regrets and faults and screams. With shattered dreams.


She wished her mother to be alive again. She wished she could have been there to watch her be voted deputy, to see her first apprentice return home from his Trial and receive his warrior name, to touch her nose when she became leader and feel her mother's warmth, not a surge of pain from a dead warrior's life.

She wanted to be open to finding a mate and finding love, not so scarred and scared that everyone she cares for will die. She wanted things to be different. In her dreams, they were different. There were her mother and father and mentor and her mate and kits.

But when dawn arrives, the cold is always there to remind her, to wake her up.