Chapter Four

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She dimly registered quite a few muzzles and paws nudging her, and there was a silver and white she-cat sobbing next to her. The yellow tom she had seen in her memories earlier was there, too, his voice frantic.

She slipped into a daydream sleep, fleeting thoughts of, I saw them. I'm okay now, if I die, floating around her mind.

The gray she-cat let herself fall into a deeper sleep, her aching muscles yearning to curl up in the ThunderClan warriors den.

ThunderClan. Did she live there? I think I do, Bristlefrost thought.

It sounded like a mighty name. Safe, too.

As she dreamt, she had a sense of belonging fall onto her.



There was silence. As Bristlefrost drifted in and out of dreams, she regained all her memories.

Five names kept repeating in her head.

Ivypool, Fernsong, Thriftear, Flipclaw!

Rootspring...

She did want to see them, she really did. But her StarClan forsaken body kept making her fall alseep.

A warm body was pressed into the nest beside her, the comforting scent one she had known all her life.

It was Ivypool.

Struggling through the mist that shrouded her mind, she managed to croak, "Ivypool," softly into the still air.

Her mother leapt up and then settled back down, calling, "Alderheart! Jayfeather! She's awake!" before murmuring into Bristlefrost's ear, "My precious kit, your alive! I love you, so, so, so much."

As Ivypool murmured loving strings of comforting words into her ears, she saw the gray tabby form of Jayfeather and the warm shape of Alderheart.

"About time," Jayfeather grunted, though sharp relief was apparent.

"You had us worried there, Bristlefrost," Alderheart murmured. He added, "Welcolme home. You saved all the Clans; now let us coddle you."

She struggled up and pressed her pelt against Ivypool's, craving the warmth.

"I love you," she said in a raspy voice to her mother.

"As do I, my kit, as do I," her mother replied as she started to groom her daughters pelt from head to tail.

Enjoying the feeling of being a kit again, Bristlefrost asked, "Where's Thriftear and Flipclaw? And Fernsong?"

"Sleeping," replied Jayfeather briskly. "I gave them all poppy seeds, since you shocked everyone so badly."

The gray she-cat glanced around again, hardly believing she was home. "What's new?" she asked, wondering how much had changed.

"Well, Spotfur had a lovely litter of kits- Graykit, Spotkit, and Bristlekit," Ivypool told her. 

"Bristlekit?" her daughter echoed, frowning. 

"You were declared a Light in the Mist-a title for cats who ventured into the Place of No Stars," Alderheart said offhandedly as he dug in a herb pile for something.

"Oh," she said faintly.

"Ah, and Flamepaw is now Nightheart, and he switched Clans to be with Sunbeam, who then came here when Nightheart came back," Jayfeather added.

"What?"

While Ivypool, Jayfeather, and Alderheart filled her in on the changes to the code, Graystripe dying, Fernstripe, the hapenings in RiverClan, and the Squirrelstar and Brambleclaw thing, Bristlefrost eventually fell alseep again.

"Poor dear," Ivypool said affectionately, giving one last lick to the top of her head.

And out in the camp, hunched under a juniper bush, Rootspring waited to see Bristlefrost.






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