Sunspidersolace was curled up inside of his nest in the warrior’s den, staring at the tokens of her leadership, memories preserved carefully and tucked into the moss where she slept. Specifically, her eyes were drawn to the last remnant of the horsetail that had killed Leafhopperflight. The dead warrior seemed all but forgotten now… just like him. It was… strange, almost. How easily Sunspider had faded into the background after she’d fallen. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to a friend. Well, besides Fishmothfrolic, who was… complicated. He had no idea if they were really friends /now/. It had shocked him so, /so/ much when the one friend she’d known he could trust had turned on him, but Fishmoth didn’t seem to notice that he’d done anything wrong. And perhaps he didn’t do anything wrong, really. Maybe they were all right, just like Silverfishso—no, Silverfish/star/— had said. He deserved this. ‘You make promises you can never keep. You claim to listen and care, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it,’ the deputy had said back then. At that time, he’d been frozen, unable to believe they would really think that about him, knowing in his bones that he’d tried his best, that she’d helped the Clan, but now… Cider didn’t know what to believe. They had all made their choice. And if they all believed she had been unstable and unaccountable and uncertain, then they must have been right. If even his friends had turned against her, it had to have been her own fault. Cider shook his aching head, sitting up with a shiver. His short fur didn’t do much to protect him from the biting wind as she stepped into the center of camp, not seeming to care that his pelt was unkempt and his paws were dirty. There wasn't much reason to keep up appearances anymore. No one was looking to her now. No one was waiting for him to make the right decision, or watching to see whether he'd make the wrong one. It should have been freeing, this new life of his. He’d forever wanted to just be Sunspidersolace, to follow a simple path and help in small ways. The pressure that had once crushed him was gone, and with it, the endless arguments in his head, the desperate need to prove himself, the constant fear of disappointing everyone who depended on him. But Cider didn’t feel free. He felt empty, untethered. She'd never had the chance to discover what kind of warrior she wanted to be. He'd been chosen to lead, and so she'd become a leader, shaping herself around the expectations that came with it. The mold that he’d been forced to conform to, despite its tightness, had at least given his days a shape. Now, they all seemed to blur together, and Cider couldn't remember the last time he'd felt truly present for any of them. So as his blank amber gaze skipped over the snow-covered boulders and the bare branches of the birch trees, the warrior felt increasingly /wrong/. He didn’t belong here, in the MossClan camp, because Sunspider/solace/ was not a MossClan cat. Sunspider/solace/ was never a cat at all. This place wasn’t her home, these cats were strangers to him, that sheep huddled by the den was not his companion. All of those things belonged to Sunspider/star/. Everything familiar felt alien, as though he'd taken over a stranger’s body. As he stood, she began to feel more and more out of place, his skin crawling with every second that went by. /I shouldn’t be here/ became the only thought drifting in his empty void of a mind, and before he knew what was happening, she was running. The wind bit at his ears as he tore across camp, his paws carrying her past the dens and through the entrance, not bothering to even decide where to go. At least that was familiar, the lack of a destination, the shame she felt leaving the camp behind. Cider had made a habit of running in his leadership days, as soon as she realized that the pounding of her heart was enough to silence the whispers of her traitorous thoughts. Simply running away had been a brief respite from the pressure, back then. This time, it wasn’t exactly the same. He wasn’t running away anymore, because there was nothing left to run from. Instead, she was almost /chasing/, running /after/ something, something he couldn’t quite name, couldn’t quite reach. Perhaps it was purpose, or happiness, or simply something that could convince her she still had a place in the world. An anchor, of sorts, a pathway to becoming the Sunspidersolace he’d always imagined. The brambles scratched at his face as Cider ran deeper into the undergrowth, never bothering to slow down, to look carefully at the ground like she used to. Her lungs screamed in agony, his legs burning, begging him to stop, but he kept going. There was no destination in sight, there was only the chase. How could he stop when some piece of her might be just out of sight, when some magical realization of purpose might be a few seconds away? But the forest stretched on, unchanging. After what felt like ages, the trees began to blur
together, Cider’s strides shortening, his vision greying at the edges. Then, she stumbled, just enough to lose the little momentum he had left. She tried to steady himself, to force his legs to carry him a little farther, but the trees swayed around her, and the earth seemed to tilt beneath his paws. He almost expected to faint again, but the familiar blanket of blackness that often rose up to shut off the world never came. No, Sunspidersolace could still see, the snow-covered trees around her exactly as they had been moments ago. Yet somehow, they didn't seem quite real. For a heartbeat, the shadows between the trunks became rosebushes, and suddenly she was remembering the rose clearing. Dobsonflydaydream stood before him once more, waiting for words he hadn't known how to say. Cider shook her head, and the memory dissolved. But then he blinked again, another memory forcing its way forward as the frozen ground became summer grass, a log morphing into the deathly still silhouette of Leafhopperflight's body. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that did nothing to block out the accusations of Silverfishsolace that rang in his ears, then Fishmothfrolic's voice as he voted against her. The memories came one after another, so vivid that she almost forgot where he really was. Those were all different moments, different mistakes, different versions of herself, but he’d felt the same helplessness all of those times as she did now, the same awful feeling that if he could only do something, say something, change something, then perhaps he could make everything right again. It felt like so much had changed, but where it really mattered, he hadn’t changed at all. She was still here, staring into the distance, looking back upon his wasted life. The ex-leader shook his head with a gasp, and the memories dissolved. The snow-covered trees returned to focus, the frosty air stung her nose, and the forest floor was cold beneath his trembling paws. Cider could only stare into the distance for a moment, slowly backing up and slumping against a tree trunk for stability. She stayed like that for a while, letting the trembling in his legs subside and waiting for her breathing to return to normal. Then, just as he was beginning to gather himself, a strange noise came from the bushes a few fox-lengths away. A rustling sound. At first, Sunspidersolace stayed leaning against the tree, shutting his eyes and ignoring it. He was exhausted, her legs still ached from the run, and next to all that had happened in these past moons, whatever may have been hiding amongst those branches seemed the least of his concerns. There was nothing particularly unusual about the forest making noise, after all. Even if it was some sort of danger, what did it matter? She still had those extra lives he didn’t deserve, he could afford to lose a few. But then came another sound, a squeak this time. Strangely enough, it didn’t sound like prey. /I've heard that somewhere,/ she thought, although his face stayed frozen in an uncannily blank expression. Slowly, Cider pushed himself away from the tree. Her legs protested, but he managed a few unsteady steps toward the bushes, parting the tangled branches. There, tucked amongst the undergrowth, was a strange brown container. It was made of some sort of stiff, papery material, folded into a cube with four flaps sticking out from the top. The corners had grown soft and soggy from the snow, and one side had begun to cave inward. The ex-leader recognized it as a Twoleg object, though he couldn't remember what it was called. A few loners he'd met had slept in things like these before. They were hollow inside, weren't they? Sunspidersolace slowly approached it, dully noting that he was correct, there was some sort of opening right above his eye level. There really was no reason for her to look inside. But… Sunspider/star/ would have looked, wouldn’t he? Sunspider/paw/, too, he wouldn’t have turned around and felt sorry for himself. She'd always wanted to help back then. And now, Cider could just picture her younger self coming closer without hesitation, knowing that he /had/ to look if there was even the slightest chance there was something or somecat in there that needed help. It was a strange thing, to remember being someone so clearly and yet feel so far removed from them. Cider could remember the certainty she'd once carried, the way he'd always believed that if he could just do something, anything, then she ought to. She remembered thinking that helping was simple. You saw something wrong, and you tried to make it right. He couldn't remember the last time something had felt that straightforward. His gaze drifted back to the opening. She wasn't that cat anymore. She didn’t know how to be him again, she didn’t even know if he /wanted/ or /deserved/ to be her again, but… there was no harm in looking, was there? At least, that was what he told himself as he rose onto his hind legs and nudged one of the flaps aside with a paw.
