Fading Memories

Prologue

Mapleshadow strained against the pains of birth. The medicine cat, Brightsnow, telling her to push. Her voice sounded worried. Through her pain Mapleshadow thought she smelled blood. Her mate, Dustfeather, was beside her, sending words of encouragement. Then, Brightsnow said "Two beautiful she-cats! Quick, lick them to warm them up." As she was passed one of the kits and started licking she felt something building up in her throat. She suddenly coughed up blood. The cats around her gasped. She coughed up more and more blood.

Her mate rushed to her side. "Mapleshadow? Mapleshadow!" Dustfeather's voice was scared. She looked up at him, her vision starting to go black. She faintly saw her sister and mother rush in. "Mapleshadow!" Yelled Lilacpath. Her sister spotted the kits and started licking their fur the wrong way. Lilacpath rushed to her daughter's side, panicked. "Did you know she was sick? What illness is this? Is it curable?" Mapleshadow suddenly thought she saw ghosts, flickering in front of her vision. She heard Brightsnow say "It's to late. She just gave birth and lost a lot of blood. She's tired. I don't think she'll make it." Dustfeather growled. "There must be someway to save her!" "Dustfeather" she managed to choke out. Her mate turned at the sound of her voice. 

"Dustfeather, you shouldn't worry about me. It'll be okay." More coughs racked her body "Worry about the kits. They need you. When I go... you'll be all they have left." Dustfeather's eyes were welling with tears as she continued. "Before I go, I would like one thing." "What, my love?" He asked. Mapleshadow looked out over her kin. Crystalblaze, her sister, Lilacpath, her mother, her kits, and she was starting to see new faces. The faces of lost clanmates and kin. She saw Liontail and Gemstone, sitting side by side, she saw Honeywing and her old mentor Hollypelt. And she saw Ryepaw, her father. With all her remaining strength she leaned close to her mate and whispered "Take care of my sister, don't let the clan drive her out." She relaxed back onto the moss. "Goodbye, my love." She murmured, before letting the blackness engulf her.

Dustfeather POV

Dustfeather stared down at his mate, watching her ragged breathing grow shallower and shallower until it stopped. He let out a wail of grief that echoed through the ThunderClan camp. He collapsed next to Mapleshadow's still, lifeless body. A tail gently rested on his back and he looked up to see Lilacpath, her eyes filled with sorrow. He looked over at his kits, the only thing he had left. His mother had died, his sister had died, and now his beloved Mapleshadow had died. He walked over and curled his body around the small bundles of fur.

Crystalblaze came over to him. "Let me take them." She said. "They need a mother's milk." He numbly let her take his kits and place them in the nest next to her own. Lilacpath looked up from her daughters body and asked "What are you going to name them?" He studied the kits. The first one was white with one light grey paw. The other was brown. "Gemkit, for the white one, after Gemstone, and Maplekit, after her mother."