The swollen moon, nearly full, hung heavy in the greenleaf night as a gentle breeze swirled the grasses where the desert and prairie met. Sitting on a smooth, flat rock was a young tomcat. He had his eyes closed and face tilted up to the sky, as in basking in the light of the moon. A ring of cardinal flowers surrounded the rock, the tall stalks nearby obscuring the cat.
“Emberpaw,” a black she-cat slid from the scraggly shrubs of the desert. Her eyes were full of sorrow. “We have to talk.”
“What’s there to talk about, Nightlight?” The tom asked softly, his eyes opening to focus on her.
Nightlight was struck by how those eyes resembled Solstar’s – they were tired and cold as if the weight of the world had settled on Emberpaw’s shoulders. Where had her bright and happy apprentice gone? Where was the child whose eyes shone like the sun and whose heart was full of warmth, who cried into her fur when he had nightmares and brought her pretty feathers?
“You led RavenClan to our – to ScorchedClan’s – camp. You fought against Burningpaw.” Nightlight’s heart hurt as she said the words. It was as if she was finally facing the truth after hearing Sootfeather scream the words at her.
“… so, you have to listen to your leader, but I shouldn’t?”
“What?”
Emberpaw’s eyes narrowed, grief pooling into the lilac depths. “You had to listen to Solstar when you abandoned me,” the words were harsh, filled with layers of betrayal and pain, “but you think I was wrong for following Bunnystar’s orders?”
Nightlight’s heart wrenched in her chest. “It’s not the same… we didn’t know if you were alive, Emberpaw, we-”
“Because you never bothered to check!” Emberpaw shot to his paws, his fur beginning to bristle. Nightlight remembered how it would bush up when he was a kit in the same way. “You stayed within your borders. You followed orders. You didn’t go down the Chasm because you didn’t know if it was safe.” His voice was choked with rage and pain. “I hauled my broken body through that tunnel for days. My wounds festered. I was delirious from hunger. Do you know what drove me?”
Nightlight closed her eyes, digging her claws into the ground, and wished they could go back to when he was a tiny kit nestled against her side. “… what?”
“I wanted to see your face again!” Emberpaw’s voice rose to a shout. “I wanted to play with Sunpaw and Daypaw. I wanted Silversmoke to show me how to fight, and Sootfeather to dress my wounds and tell me stories. But that never happened. I endured misery. I wanted to die. I thought that, no matter what, my family would be there to rescue me. I told myself that they would take care of me, even when I couldn’t be as strong or as fast or as clever as them.”
Nightlight’s throat was too tight to respond as Emberpaw continued.
“But none of that happened, did it? No.” Emberpaw’s voice hardened. “I crawled my way out of that place, and what did I find? No one even bothered. You were all safe in your nests while I bled on the ground. ScorchedClan ate while I starved. ScorchedClan was safe while I was dying of infection. ScorchedClan was together, and I was alone.”
Emberpaw was breathing heavily now, and Nightlight wanted nothing more than to rush to him and pull him close like she did when he was young. But there was a divide between them now, a river of pain that she wasn’t sure she could ever cross, and she found that she didn’t dare take a single step closer. “I…”
“You always said-” Emberpaw’s voice cracked and for a moment he was that tiny, defenseless kit who was asking why his father didn’t like him and his mother didn’t want him. “You said that you would always be there for me. That you would take care of me when no one else would.”
“I can still be there for you, Emberpaw.”
Emberpaw turned his face away and crouched down, completely concealing himself among the cardinal flowers. “Until Solstar tells you otherwise. Until Sootfeather says you can’t visit. Until it’s between me or Daypaw and Sunpaw. You’ll always choose them. ScorchedClan has always been more important to you than me.”
“That’s not true!” Nightlight surged forward, but how could she explain her feelings? There were no words for her sadness, her grief, her love. She couldn’t put a single sentence together to convey what she meant – she wished Emberpaw could feel the pain in her heart and the way his words tore through her. “Emberpaw, I’ll always love you. You’re my son.”
Emberpaw was silent for a while, then he said, “I was supposed to return home during that Gathering.”
“What?”
“I had told Bunnystar that I was going to return home. To ScorchedClan. That’s why I was there, to return with you.”
Nightlight felt dizzy suddenly. “The desert isn’t the right place-”
“I don’t care about the stupid desert!” Emberpaw screamed, shooting to his paws. “ScorchedClan could live at the bottom of the sea, and I still would have returned. I don’t care that I overheat and have to sleep a lot, or that I would have never been as good as my littermates. I just wanted to be home. With you. That was my home.”
Nightlight felt sick as she saw the raw pain on Emberpaw’s face and he continued, “I just wanted someone to want me to come home. Just one cat. Anyone. But no one…” His voice faltered. “… last moon, I was fishing. I was sucked under by a riptide, and I thought ‘This is it. I’ll die here. It’s too dangerous for them to save me.‘”
I didn’t even know he was strong enough to go swimming in the ocean. The thought was so bizarre and irrelevant, but something about it still made Nightlight’s heart clench. She desperately didn’t want to hear the rest of the story, but Emberpaw continued on anyway.
“Darkmoth and Snowbloom, they didn’t even hesitate. It was reckless and stupid and dangerous of them, but no one even questioned it.” Emberpaw’s voice had fallen to a pained whisper. “That’s when I knew it. They really did love me. They rushed into danger just to try and save me, even though it was my own stupidity that had almost gotten me killed. Nightlight…” Pain and rage brimmed in the apprentice’s quiet voice. “Was I ever loved in ScorchedClan?”
Nightlight’s heart shattered. “How could you say that?” Her voice cracked as she spoke, but she felt too dazed to care. “Emberpaw, I…”
“There’s nothing more I have to say.” Emberpaw interrupted. “And there’s nothing more I want to hear. I… I just wanted to see you before… Nevermind. I’m becoming a warrior soon. I forsake my ties to ScorchedClan. This is my path. I didn’t want it, but there’s no going back for us now. I’ll always-” His voice cracked, but he continued, “I’ll always love you. Goodbye.” He hesitated before turning away and slipping into the cardinal flowers. The red flowers obscured Nightlight’s beloved son, and then he was gone forever.