7I haven't used this site in forever, haha. This is a rewrite of a story I wrote in 2017, my 'best' piece of writing at the time (it used to be on this site, before I deleted it). Looking back at it, I felt an urge to rewrite it because I absolutely hated it. I think I've improved a lot from when I was eleven. I haven't been in the Warriors fandom for years, but I guess I'll post this. If I messed up anything about the Warriors' world, please tell me. Hope you enjoy.
When I first saw her, it was at a gathering—we had both just become warriors and weren't expected to stick with our mentors anymore. Something compelled me to talk to her—I'm still not sure what it was. I walked over to her and congratulated her on becoming a warrior, and she did the same to me. She told me her name was Streamflower (a beautiful name for a beautiful cat, my traitorous mind remarked). That night was the first time I didn't listen to the news from the other leaders. We just kept whispering and laughing the night away.
At first, our friendship was restricted solely to gatherings and rare meetings when both of us were on patrol, as per the warrior code. It was on our fifth or sixth gathering together that she suggested the idea of meeting up at night. "We're just meeting up as friends," she convinced me. "We'll still be loyal to our clans."
I shouldn't have had, but I agreed. We met up every week to talk about our lives and our clans, although we quickly diverged into random, meaningless topics. Sometimes, we played games in our territories and went on adventures together. It was fun. I loved it.
I started to realize that I might love her too. The mere thought of that was terrifying, but it still made a tingling feeling of warmth spread through my body. I couldn't deal with it. I couldn't deal with her hating me if she knew. She would hate me—we were supposed to be friends and nothing more than that.
I stopped coming to our meetings. At the next gathering we attended together, she tried to sit beside me, and I stalked away. I knew she was wondering what she did wrong. She didn't know it was me, not her, that messed up. I knew she felt betrayed, and my heart ached at the thought of anyone hurting her, but I couldn't go back to her—for her sake and mine.
My chest went tight and my heart sank to my paws whenever I realized I couldn't have her, and I just couldn't keep doing that anymore. I had to distance myself, to stop these pathetic feelings from growing.
They didn't.
When Cedarleaf asked me to be his mate, I accepted with only a few moments of hesitation. In my mind muddled by love, I hoped that being in a relationship would get the feelings for Streamflower to stop. After my desperation had subsided, I realized how cruel it was to be in a loveless relationship, when my partner obviously cared for me dearly. I hoped I could train my heart to love him.
Cedarleaf fell ill with whitecough a few days before the gathering, so he wasn't able to come. That gathering was where Streamflower cornered me at the very start, and pushed me away from the rest of the clans.
"I'm sick of you ignoring me!" she yelled as soon as we were far enough that we wouldn't be heard. "Tell me what I did wrong!"
"You didn't do anything," I told her after a few moments of silence, forgetting how to breathe after not seeing her for so long. "It's my fault."
"What?" Her miffed expression immediately dropped, turning into one of concern. "Did your clan find out about the meetings? Were they mad at you? Is that why you stopped coming?"
I shook my head. At least then I would have a valid excuse. Right now, I couldn't say anything that wouldn't completely end our friendship, although it looked like it was already on the way there.
"Then what?" she snapped; her eyes held a raging fire in them, started by the spark I would always see in them during our meetings. "You didn't show up to our meetings and I was so worried! I kept wondering if you were sick or if you were hurt or worse, if you were dead! Do you know how relieved I was to see you at the gathering, just for you to turn away from me without so much as a 'hello'!?" Her voice got progressively louder, until it cracked at the end and she stared with me with tears brimming in her eyes.
All I could think was, shit, I didn't know I hurt her that badly. "I—I'm sorry," I said. What else could I say?
"You're sorry?" she spat. "I don't care about your apologies, I want an explanation!"
"I can't give you one." I watched the fire die in the eyes, switching to despair, to hopelessness, and then to something much more cold.
"Fine." She turned away from me. "I won't try to talk to you again. I don't know why you don't want to be friends anymore, but I'll respect your wishes."
Something in me snapped as I watched her walk away. I couldn't lose her as a friend, not her, anybody but her. I wasn't sure if this would do anything, if she would come back to me or if she would feel disgusted, but it was my only option.
"Wait," I called, my eyes trained to the ground. She stopped, but didn't turn around. "I'm sorry, it wasn't your fault. It was mine, for being stupid and falling in love with you. I tried so hard to get rid of my feelings, by distancing myself from you—I even got a mate to try and forget about you, but I couldn't. And I know you probably hate me for this, because what kind of she-cat falls in love with another she-cat from different clan?"
I looked back up at her. Tears from her eyes dripped down onto the forest floor as she stared at me with an unidentifiable expression. She was shaking her head and muttering to herself unintelligibly. "Do you hate me?" I asked softly.
"You idiot," she whispered as she walked towards me slowly. "You're an absolute idiot, Aspenheart, I'm in love with you too."
My heart felt light as I reached a paw out to her. "You're not joking?"
She nuzzled my neck with a purr. "No, I've been in love with you since I asked you to meet up with me. That's why it hurt so much when you stopped."
We stayed there for a while, watching the stars as exchanged quiet words with each other. She was the one who stood up first, saying we needed to get back before our clans noticed we weren't there. We exchanged goodbyes and agreed to meet up in a few days.
On the day we were supposed to meet up, my guilt overcame me and I asked Cedarleaf to talk to me behind the nursery. I rambled on about not being able to fall in love with him, and feeling like it was cruel to keep leading him on like that, and how he should find someone better than me. He looked at me with sad, understanding eyes, and told me he would always be at least a little bit in love with me. I felt bad, even after I walked away.
A few hours later, I told Streamflower about Cedarheart, about the feelings of guilt that came with the breakup. She nodded in understanding, saying, "It's for the better, though, isn't it? To leave rather than stay in a place where you're unhappy."
I nodded as I took in her words. A place where I would be happy, I thought as I listened to her voice, would only be a place where I was with her.