Epilogue

"Attack on the border patrol, sneak attack!" Doveheart glanced up, tensing, as two dark bundles of fur detached from the trees above their heads and came hissing and spitting onto the ground. The smaller one landed on her paws and lashed out at Mouseclaw, who bopped her on the head with one paw and sent her falling, whining, as she rubbed her now-sore ear. The bigger of the two rolled a little ungracefully and came spinning to a stop at Berrynose's feet, looking up guiltily.

"What are the two of you doing?" said Doveheart, looking around. Nightpaw and Marshpaw, who had been apprentices for a full three moons now, shuffled together and looked at each other to see who would explain first.

"What they're doing is tree attacks." Doveheart glanced over to see Dustfur and Mountainstone part the bushes and lazily walk towards them. "Badly," added Dustfur.

"What are you talking about?" Nightpaw puffed out her chest. "I was great! Wasn't I, Mountainstone?" She turned to her mentor with big eyes, and he sighed heavily. Doveheart couldn't help but laugh, even though Berrynose looked ready to lecture them.

"Be glad we're just a border patrol, not a hunting patrol," said Doveheart. "Especially Cloudtail's. He would have taken your eyes out!"

"Don't think I'm not considering it myself," said Berrynose, lashing his tail. "What, do you want to alert everyone in the forest where we are?"

"They needed to try it out on someone else," said Dustfur. "They keep getting distracted otherwise."

"Well, we didn't hear them coming, so good job," said Mouseclaw. Marshpaw puffed out his chest in delight. "But you probably don't want to yell before you attack from the trees like that."

"I sounded awesome," said Nightpaw.

"We'll work on it, among other things." Mountainstone shook his head. "We'll leave you on your way."

Doveheart watched as Dustfur and Mountainstone herded their apprentices back into the trees. She laughed to herself, looking at Berrynose and Mouseclaw.

"They're a little too old to be cute, don't you think?" said Berrynose.

"Don't be a grouch," said Mouseclaw. "They're your own kits!"

"Exactly," said Berrynose. "Do you think I went around dropping on Thornclaw and Sorreltail when I was an apprentice, because I did not."

"No, you just got your tail chopped off," said Mouseclaw, taking a playful swing at Berrynose's stump of a tail. Doveheart laughed as they made their way back to camp, not even bothering to be careful about the noise they were making.

It had been just over three moons since the battle, and Doveheart couldn't hear across the lake anymore. She thought it would be more of a loss, but she could still run and fight and hunt, and she still had rather good senses anyways. Being powerful was overrated. She was just happy being ThunderClan's deputy.

When they walked into camp, Mouseclaw shifted from paw to paw with added urgency. Doveheart smirked.

"No report needed," she said. "Go check on your mate."

Mouseclaw was gone before he could think twice, and Berrynose laughed before heading off to join his own friends. Doveheart decided to follow Mouseclaw towards where Honeyleaf was playing with the kits, dodging their attacks as they tried to pull her to the ground. Flamekit had the makings of a great warrior and hadn't inherited his father's small size. He looked more like Mountainstone or Lionstar with the strong shoulders. Gingerkit was smaller and lither, like a WindClan cat mixed with the best parts of ThunderClan cats. She was smart as a tack, and as Honeyleaf dodged Flamekit's more aggressive moves, Gingerkit took advantage of the distraction to shoot underneath Honeyleaf's paws and tip her over. The beige warrior toppled, laughing, but rolled so she wouldn't squash Creamkit. Dustfur and Snowfeather's kit had been born only a moon or so after the battle had ended, and Flamekit and Gingerkit had considered her their littermate from the beginning. She was small and extremely fluffy, looking more like a puff ball than anything.

She looked up as Skysong emerged from the nursery almost as soon as Mouseclaw left it, talking happily with Greyheart as he nudged their moon-old kits into the sunlight, as they had been doing over the last couple of days. Skysong and Greyheart smiled, seeing Doveheart. Skysong walked towards her, elegant even with an obvious leg cramp.

"Hi," she said. "Come say hello, will you? I seriously need to take a walk."

"Leave it to me to distract Greyheart," said Doveheart, smiling, and she approached Greyheart and bent down to look at their kits. Finchkit was the biggest, quiet and dark grey like his father, but with white paws. He blinked a few times at Doveheart as she approached. Dewkit was speckled grey-and-white and recoiled a little bit, tripping over his paws and splattering onto the dusty floor before picking himself up slowly. The only she-cat was Swirlkit, so named because of her swirling mottled pelt like Skysong's.

"They look excited to be here," said Doveheart as Skysong streaked away from the nursery as fast as her paws could take her. She felt like Skysong was the type of cat that loved mothering, but loved being free and restrained even more.

"They're still terrified of camp," confessed Greyheart, whiskers twitching. He looked over his shoulder for Skysong. "Hey, where did…?"

"Oops, guess you're here watching the kits." Doveheart tapped him on the shoulder with her tail as she passed, poking her nose into the nursery again. She had been coming here more and more, maybe because she felt like this cat was the closest thing to her own kit she had. Willowleaf and Birdfeather were bickering, Mouseclaw hovering uncomfortably by them.

"I'm going to be fine," protested Willowleaf. "I don't need to be any warmer."

"I'm just telling you, you tend to get colds when you don't have a lot of moss in your nest," said Birdfeather, flicking her tail from side to side.

"Doveheart!" Willowleaf's eyes lit up. "Tell Birdfeather to leave me alone."

"I'm trying to keep you in the best shape possible for when you have kits." Birdfeather shuffled her paws.

"I'm fine," said Willowleaf.

"You should listen to Birdfeather," said Mouseclaw hopefully. "For their protection as well as your own."

"There's nothing I could do to hurt my kits," said Willowleaf, looking down at her swollen belly with a long, soft look. Doveheart smiled. It meant so much to Willowleaf, maybe even more than the others, that she no longer had any sort of powers. Birdfeather too, had been more free and unrestrained lately, dealing with her guilt for killing so many by reasoning with herself that she was a new cat. She was shaping up to be as great of a medicine cat as Jayfeather was.

"Oi, Birdfeather, what's taking you so long?" On cue, Jayfeather's voice wavered towards them, and the medicine cat apprentice sat up abruptly.

"Oh, right, other things to do," she said. "Willowleaf, you're fine, but Mouseclaw, go get her more moss for her nest."

"I don't need more moss!" whined Willowleaf, but Birdfeather was already gone. Doveheart laughed and settled with them, exchanging a few words with them about mundane things. When she turned back around, she heard Lionstar calling her name and trotted over to him.

"Just checking on the evening patrols," said Lionstar.

"All good," chirped Doveheart.

"Then you can handle if I steal him for a bit?" said Icecloud, smiling from Lionstar's other side. Doveheart shrugged. Icecloud purred, guiding their leader out of camp. Doveheart hoped they enjoyed themselves. She sat down where she was, watching the kits play and hearing Jayfeather lecture Birdfeather or something and feeling in her heart this light, airy feeling, that she had actually accomplished something.

"You have that look on your face again." Doveheart glanced over at Ivypool as she approached and smiled. "Happy?"

"I'm always happy now," said Doveheart.

"Me, too," said Ivypool.

"Funny how we got here," said Ivypool. "Really, all those prophecies have it right. Nothing is as it seems."

"But that's not a bad thing," said Doveheart. "It's because of all of them that we're happy now, isn't it?"

Ivypool nodded and leaned into her sister. Doveheart sighed in contentment and basked in the light of the day, feeling the air turning and the earth steady beneath her paws and from far in the stars, a paradise and its guardian strong and united like it had never been before. All the pieces had fallen into place, and ThunderClan would go on, stronger than ever before, with new generations to hold it in power. Doveheart knew they would surpass her, and she was fine with that.

For nothing was as it seemed, great had overcome good, and finally, Doveheart and Ivypool and Jayfeather and Lionstar and Willowleaf and Mountainstone and Birdfeather and Skysong and even Littlefalcon could finally rest knowing that things were going to be alright.

The End.

(Take two of my heartfelt note. Curse you, backspace = go back function.)

I just wanted to say that this has been an amazing and wild experience for me. I had no idea five years ago that this idea I had floating in my head about cats with elemental powers would result in this gargantuan fic that has devoured, well, five years of my thoughtspace and an incredible number of plot documents and writing documents in my Dropbox. There were so many times along the way that I just wanted to give up, but I didn't, and I'm so proud of finally getting to the finish line. I know that I have remaining Elemental-related chapters to write on the spinoffs, but this is the real deal, and it has finally come to a close.

I wanted to thank a few people. I listed everybody the first time I did this, but I lost that heartfelt note, and there are a lot of you out there. So here we go:

I want to thank the reviewers of this fic: Cinderpaw11, Silver Shadows in the Night, Aspenfur, Tigertail24, The Age of Awesomeness, XxSilverpeltofMoonClanxX, Silverwind of ForestClan, and all the Guest reviewers I can't directly reach out to or name. Much love from the bottom of my heart. You guys and your actual words of encouragement have been a lot of what keeps this fic going.

I want to thank those that have followed or favorited this fic: amberxmist, Arianna Flamepelt, Aspenfur, Aspen of a Mourning Rose, Cinderpaw11, Crystalfang's Tribal Pack, Delta1327, Fireblaze of ThunderClan, KittyMew113, Silver Shadows in the Night, Silverwind of ForestClan, Stormkit, Team Sonic Forever 4910, The Age of Awesomeness, Trekkie7, and walkswithwheels. Thank you all for showing the world that you like me or for getting emails for the last up-to-40 things posted.

There are so many to list, and I'm sorry for not taking the time to do it, but I want to also thank everybody who favorited me as an author or is following me as an author. Whether or not you read Elemental, Fidelity, or my miscellaneous other works, thank you so, so much for your time and support. My dream is to become a legitimate author, so to know that so many people support me even on my lowest priority project (which is not to say it isn't important to me!) is more than I can say.

Thank you as well to everyone who read previous Elemental fics but haven't gotten to/made yourselves known on this one yet. You guys rock, truly.

Lastly, thank you invisible readers who read without saying hello. I know you guys are out there, and I'd love to hear from you, but with or without that, THANK YOU for continuing to read my words.

So in conclusion, THANK YOU. THANK YOU ALL. It has been a very long time, and it means a lot to me to have a great support base. This has been so much fun.

Also, if you guys still have questions (which may happen, because there's a lot going on here), drop me a review, and I'll probably post some public Q&A on my profile or something.

Much love,

~Elsi