The nights had gotten longer, the temperature had dropped. No longer was it the soggy and muddy ground of leaffall that stuck to one’s paws as she trudged through the edge of it. It was instead frozen over. It was frigid and freezing and there were days where she had no interest in leaving the warmth of her nest. Despite her ability to grow quite the thick winter fur, her fur was still short and did not offer opportune protection against the harsh winds and freezing blistering cold. Some days it just hurt to move when she was outside, and that was the days where Doepaw decided that returning to her nest hungry would be the better decisions. Rather hungry than stuck in a drift of snow she would be unable to escape and thereby starve in the warmth. It was a decision that often her stomach didn’t agree with but it was what she thought was best. Live warm to see another day than freeze with a filled stomach.

But this leafbare, this winter seemed to hit on harsher than she’d ever expected and not for the first time she longed for the comfort of her clan, longed for the comfort and warmth that being curled up next to the other apprentices brought. It was a strange thing, her only ‘good’ memories of warmth from the clan of thunder had come during her short time as an apprentice. When she wasn’t under the custody of Sagefeather… who hadn’t even done anything positive. But… that was normal. Or so she’d grown up to believe. Sagefeather had told it was normal. Thereby, it classified as such, or so it did to Doepaw’s naïve beliefs. Nothing like that could be nothing but the truth. And thereby she trusted in that.

The day was cold. There was no way about that, and after having stuck her nose out into the cold and immediately felt the little water drops on her chin freeze over, returned to her nest. The cold made it hard to move, made it hard to get food, to get access to anything in truth. And that was why she’d barricaded in the den, snowblocks preventing the heat from escaping and just leaving the smallest hole for her to check wherever the weather seemed to have gotten any better – which it hadn’t at this point in time. And so, curled up in her nest, she did what she longed for all winter. Sleep.

Sleep it seemed was what was the basics of this leafbare. And thinking. Thinking and reviewing her life… and she didn’t know how she liked it. It wasn’t exactly preferable, but it gave her time to think through the past. Already in her life she felt old. Should a barely… how old was she now? She’d spent… long in this hole, this den. She couldn’t even remember how old she was anymore. Was that a bad thing? Doepaw didn’t know. She just knew… that it had been a long time. That wasn’t to mention the fire that she’d experienced ravaging through the territory and leaving no prey. She knew it had happened in Thunderclan but… it had still hit wherever she was. She didn’t even know where she where anymore. All logical thought had disappeared with time.

Was it the cold that was making her this reflective? Doepaw didn’t know but she knew… knew if Sagefeather had been there, she would have been told to not dwell on the past, to not care about a clan that couldn’t even bother to care about her. And that was why she’d not returned to Thunderclan yet. Because… they didn’t care about her. They wouldn’t care about an apprentice who’d ran away. And… and as Sagefeather had told her, as Sagefeather had told her in her dreams, she’d been to blame. It was her fault. Why would Thunderclan accept a murderer back in its ranks? Why would they accept someone they didn’t care about that someone who’d murdered two warriors and then gone off to live her own life and abandoned her clan? If it were Doepaw herself making the decisions she wouldn’t accept herself back. She knew that for sure.

Life was hard enough without these thoughts and closing her eyes, her blind eyes that still saw nothing except for the occasional bright flash that left her shivering and shaking in her nest from the horrors, from the event, from the memories of what had happened that day, she drifted off to sleep. To hopefully a peaceful sleep.

But nothing was ever peaceful with Sagefeather around. Nothing was ever peaceful, ever normal when you had a mother living and breathing down your neck every time you went off to sleep. But… this was what her life was. Just not something she particularly liked to admit, but it was a part of her life, nonetheless. And she was not surprised to her Sagefeather’s voice in her ear. Or in her head more like. “Welcome, little monster.” The typical greeting. Not surprised. Monster. Because she was a monster. Monster was another of her names… many names by Sagefeather. But Monster was the most commonly used name for her… monster was what she was called. “Once again, it was your fault. If you had not suggested the patrol, neither your father nor I would be dead. You would have been safe, within a clan that hated you and I would’ve protected you.” But… would she? Doepaw didn’t remember any circumstance of Sagefeather protecting her… it had always been Deerstride. “Your father he despises you so much he couldn’t even bother to show up here. Did you know that he blames you? Without you, he wouldn’t have died. He would have lived such a beautiful life with me and… oh and you of course little monster. We could’ve been happy… but you had to ruin it.”

But… she didn’t ruin anything. All that these dreams did was leave her… tired. Exhausted. And waking up in a cold sweat, shivering she didn’t know what to believe. Had it been the truth? Had she been the cause of her parents’ death? Did… did Deerstride really hate her? Did he really never want to see her again? It hurt.