SAGEPAW

Swiftpaw got slowly to his feet. His senses were being bombarded by scents, sounds, feelings and sights. The forest was dark and the sky was full of stars.

The crickets were the first thing he noticed. They chriped and chirped. He liked the sound. He could smell dirt and mice and birds and cats. And the dirt under his paws, crunchy and hard but soft with dead leaves and ferns, made him shiver.

I'm in the living world, he realized with a growing sense of excitement. His heart wanted to start swelling. He glanced down at himself.

Around his paws many little stars, or more like pricks of white and yellow light, played at his feet, trailing tinier stars. They sparkled and shone brightly. By the way the fur on his legs was so neatly combed, Swiftpaw knew he was still beautiful. Wait till his Clan saw him like this!

He started through the forest, his paws crunching on dirt and pine needles. He stopped to take a drink from a tiny stream and relished the freezing, tasteless water. If only the water in StarClan was that cold, instead of pleasantly warm.

He knew this place. He knew these trees. He was getting close to ThunderClan. He couldn't wait. Oh, he didn't want to go back! He loved this forest! It felt so much like home, so alive. Oh, he wanted to stay here forever!

What will my Clan think? He wondered. They'd know he was a StarClan cat by his beauty. Oh, if only there was a way to make it seem like he'd never died! Then he could visit this place every day and act like he was still a part of the Clan, only going back to StarClan at night.

Suddenly, that seemed like a really good idea. Already, he could feel that he was meant to be here and not up in the feather land above. Maybe he could try to make it look like he was still alive. They'd guess soon enough anyway, and he could laugh and say yes, he was a StarClan camp. It would at least be a fun entrance joke to play on his former Clanmates.

He looked down at his paws. How was he going to hide the stupid sparkling? Maybe it wasn't noticeable from if you didn't stare at it. He decided that was the best idea. He shook out his fur to make it look imperfect, but when he looked back at it, the hairs he had shaken out of place and had fallen back to perfect order. Oh well. He'd just get to be beautiful.

He could see the edge of the quarry ahead and he hurried foreword. He went around the edge of camp, looking for the entrance.

Suddenly, he stopped. There was something scuffling in the bushes ahead of him, something moving around. He stood, puzzled. What could it be?

"Hello," he called out softly in his gentle voice.

Whoever it was gave a tiny, short scream and raced out of the bushes. Swiftpaw caught a glimpse of russet-red fur before the thing disappeared behind a tree.

"I'm sorry," He called gently, "I didn't mean to startle you. I...I'm not here to hurt you." he wasn't sure to introduce himself or not. As far as he knew, his Clan thought he was dead.

A head poked around the tree. For a second, Swiftpaw was repulsed at the mishaps the face was covered in. One ear wasn't as tall as the other, there was a scar over the nose, the eyes were wider and not as round, the whiskers thin and scraggly. Whoever is was was must be really ugly! The green eyes, however, were pretty in their own way and the darker stripes coating the dark red fur had a nice thing about them.

"Oh...it's okay," the she-cat said with a short laugh, "I was making dirt and I didn't think there'd be anyone out here right now." She emerged from behind the tree and were long eyes searched his perfect face. He noticed that her tail was a nose-length to short.

"Wow," she whispered, "You look..." But she caught herself just in time with a cough and said, "I mean, who...are you?"

"It's..." Swiftpaw started and then closed his mouth. What was he supposed to say?

And all of a sudden, he knew who he was talking to. It was Sagepaw, one of the apprentices. He'd never gotten along with her at all when he'd been alive, but all of a sudden he was seeing another, nicer side of her. He hadn't thought Sagepaw, mean, beautiful, Sagepaw, could be nice. She didn't look beautiful to him anymore. Not at all.

"It's Swiftpaw," He said as straightly as he could.

Sagepaw gave a laugh. Her green irises moved across the length of her long eyes to look at the ground to her right before traveling back to his face. "Oh, I know how that one is. Yeah, we all miss him. Poor cat."

Swiftpaw's heart pounded at how strange that sounded, but he forced himself to remember that he had expected this. "I...I am Swiftpaw. "That was all he could say.

"Swiftpaw's dead," Sagepaw meowed in puzzlement. She leaned closer and he looked into those long eyes that weren't even close to as big and open as the eyes in StarClan were. They looked so foreign to him. "I don't know who you are," she said, "But you don't smell like ThunderClan. I have to tell you to get off our territory."

"But I'm Swiftpaw!" he gasped in desperation, "I'm not dead!"

Sagepaw looked at him, her solid green (they really were solid green!) eyes drilled into his round, perfect blue ones. "You know...you do look like Swiftpaw," She rasped with a tiny shake of her head.

"I am Swiftpaw," He muttered softly, turning his beautiful gaze straight into hers.

"But you're dead," Sagepaw said softly, "You were killed by foxes while trying to keep them from getting any farther into out territory. We sat vigil for you. We even buried you. I swear."

Her long green eyes traveled down to his paws where the little stars sparkled.

"Why are you sparkling?" She asked airily.

"I never died," Swiftpaw told her, a lie forming in his mouth, "I got away before I was badly injured. It must have been someone else you buried. A fox chased me far away from the territory and I ran into a cave. I stayed there trying to survive for several days, afraid the fox was still out there. When I got enough courage to venture out, I realized I was safe and made the long journey back to ThunderClan. Here I am."

He knew his story sounded preposterous on her ears. His pelt was perfect, much, much to perfect for a cat who as surviving in a cave for days.

"But..." Sagepaw padded closer to him and stopped, looking at his flanks. "You're so beautiful."

The words made his head swim. Nobody had ever said that to him before, and it sounded especially strange coming from Sagepaw. Swiftpaw had never been handsome when he was alive. Not ugly, no, but not handsome either. Just...average.

His head swam more when she brushed her nose very gently to the soft, straight hair of his shoulder and ran it along his neck. Then she pulled it away.

"I don't feel any different," He said truthfully.

Sagepaw looked him in the eyes and said nothing. Her long green eyes just stayed there, gazing into his perfect blue irises. He just stared back at her, letting her look at him. He looked at the way little lines, each a different shade of green, moved away from her pupil. They were plain eyes, but they were so oddly shaped. So long! His felt so wide open compared to hers.

Finally she looked away, staring down at the ground. "I-I-I don't know. I don't know if you're Swiftpaw or not. I swear we buried Swiftpaw's body. Who else could it have been? I remember sitting vigil for him."

"I want to see ThunderClan," he whispered, amazed at how much he was hiding from the poor russet she-cat..

Sagepaw sighed. "Alright. Come with me. Or, well...I assume you still know how to get into the ThunderClan camp?"

"Ah...yes. Yes I do." He nodded swiftly.

She followed behind him as he moved around the hollow to where the entrance was. He let Sagepaw go first, however, as they walked into camp.

He stopped when he reached it, and looked around. He saw the warriors den, the apprentices den, the Highledge, the elders den and the nursery. It was all there just as it had been when he left it. Oh, how he missed living here.

"Swiftpaw? Are you okay?" Sagepaw's large eyes searched his.

"Uh...sorry," he muttered, "I was just looking at the camp."

"What should we tell Fawnstar?" Sagepaw asked.

"About me?"

"Yeah. She won't believe it."

"We'll tell her I never died. It's the truth."

Sagepaw sighed. "This is going to be hard, Swiftpaw. But you can still help us, I guess. Fawnstar will be glad to have another four paws helping us. We've been having some...trouble lately."

"Trouble?" Swiftpaw asked her.

"Yes. RiverClan recently lost their leader, Troutstar. Foxstar took his place. She's got high ambitions."

"Really?" Swiftpaw asked, amazed that the stable leader of RiverClan had been replaced in just the short period he was gone.

"It's too late to do anything now, anyway," Sagepaw said with a sigh, "You'll just have to sleep in the apprentices den. Come on."

Swiftpaw smiled to himself. He loved the warm apprentice den, with its sleepy cats tired after a long day of training. He padded in and lay down, Sagepaw on the other side of the den, near her friend, Bluepaw. He was a pale tom, slightly dimwitted, but they enjoyed each other's company anyway.

Swiftpaw lay down but he could not sleep. The starchy, stiff moss below him didn't have the sleep-sucking quality that feathers and fur did. Oh well. He'd have to get used to that if he stayed here.

But he knew he'd have to go back. StarClan had said he must come back. He could not disobey them. They were his Clan now, much as he wanted ThunderClan to be.

He should probably return tonight.

Maybe he could slip back, announce he had returned, and then come right back. Nobody in the living world would have known he'd gone.

But he didn't know how to get back.

Maybe there was a way.

For now, though, he didn't know what it was. So he would stay here.
He fell asleep and didn't wake up until a cat screamed above him and the sounds of fear and chaos broke out.