[of satellites and starry skies]-DovexSwan-PRIVATE

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Dove

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The gentle stirring of the night wind brought comfort to Dovepaw as she ambled along the border with PineClan. Of course she would be sent out on a night mission to scout the border in the middle of the night. She was an apprentice on FogClan, the lowest of the lows, and none of the warriors wanted to lose sleep over such a ridiculous request. Mistpelt seemed to be getting crazier every day. Of course her mentor, Volepelt, always the loyal lackey, was more than willing to offer his humble apprentice for the task. It would help with her training, he said. It would give her fortitude and stamina and help her to remember her place in the clan. Hah, as if she could forget. He had reminded her of it every day since he'd stolen Smokefur away from her and taken over her training himself.

Go scout the borders. Oh, and while you're at it, pray to StarClan to give you guidance. You're a corrupt, evil child, and you know not the implications on your soul of what you do. And when you come back, you can clean the dirt pile and in the morning change the bedding of every den in the entire camp! Now doesn't that sound absolutely amazing?

No. No it does not.

Dovepaw rolled her eyes, smacking at a pebble with her paw. If StarClan always forgave, and FogClan was supposed to be like StarClan on earth, then where was the forgiveness? Her clan was, and she was embarrassed to admit it, in large the most judgmental clan in the entire forest. They judged other clans, but even that was minuscule compared to the amount of judging they turned toward each other. This task she was set at was just punishment for being different than her clanmates, because she doubted Mistpelt's doctrine and consorted with "rebels" at times. Could they expect her not to visit her old mentor? They slept in the same den now, for cripes sake!

It was her fault. It was all her fault and it made her miserable. She turned her eyes up to the faraway, winking lights in the sky. They were beautiful. It didn't matter if StarClan existed or not; at least, it didn't matter right now. Right now all that mattered was that the frost on the trees was glittering with millions of miniature stars, and that one of the lights in the sky was moving across the darkness so slowly that it almost looked like a dust mote. Maybe if she could just reach up and bat it out of the sky...

She wondered what the star was running away from. Was it running from the other stars? And why was it going so slow? Her heart had already beat a hundred times and it wasn't gone yet. Dovepaw was riveted.

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Swanpaw

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Swanpaw was sitting under the roots of a tree. Not a place you would expect a cat to be found, but there she was. It wasn't like she had accidentally found her way to the roots of the tree then just happened to find her way under them, though if anycat found her, she'd be sure to tell them that is was. No, Swanpaw knew this tree, with it's slightly elevated roots that she fit so perfectly under. She loved this place. It was her place of sanctuary that she escaped to when she needed to be alone.

Swanpaw closed her eyes, breathing in the crisp night air. The silence around her was accepted with a gentle sigh as she tucked her paws under her. The silence enveloped her for quite some time before she heard a sound.

Her ears twitched to and fro, trying to detect where the sound was coming from. Slowly one eye blinked open, then the other. Oh, how Swanpaw had really not wanted to be bothered. She crawled out from under the roots of the tree, expecting to find her mentor or another warrior's glare, but instead she saw another stark white cat walking along the FogClan boarder.

Swanpaw's ears hit the back of her head, oh how she really didn't want to have to confront a cat, let alone from FogClan. FogClanners held the highest belief in the bogus that was StarClan, and Swanpaw would have rathered not interact with such cats.

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Dovepaw

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The reek of PineClan hit Dovepaw's nostrils before she heard a scuffling sound, muffled by dirt and frost and distance. She rolled her eyes again. This was just great. Some idiot PineClanner was spying on her clan. It was probably that new apprentice everybody was talking about, the one who had joined after saving somebody from rats or something like that. They said he'd been a loner before. That was strange. Why would a loner want to join a clan? Just imagining the freedom made Dovepaw's heart soar! She wouldn't have to answer to anyone but herself. It would be better than stupid FogClan, that's for sure. She was almost a loner in that place anyway.

Dovepaw sighed and turned around to face the border, eyes narrowed. If she had to fight this loser PineClanner, she would not be happy. She didn't like that weird clan at all. As much as she admired them for standing up to Mistpelt's mousedung about StarClan, the idea of an entire clan not believing in StarClan was strange to her.

She saw another white cat, a she-cat by the smell of it. She'd never seen her before. Maybe she was a troublemaker and never got invited to any Gatherings. "Hey, what do you think you're doing? Spying across the border? Huh?" The fur on Dovepaw's neck raised straight up, a fire flashing in her eyes. Her reaction reminded her acutely of Smokefur, but she shook it off. Maybe if she did well with this one task, this simple thing of arguing with a PineClanner, Volepelt would be less harsh on her.

But... there was something familiar about this PineClan apprentice. Her fur and build seemed to be almost identical to Dovepaw's, and when their eyes met, Dovepaw was yanked back in time by the same eyes that had laughed at her kittypet name. Yes, now that she paused, there was something familiar about her scent underneath all that PineClan stink. That she-cat hiding in the roots of a tree for some strange reason, was her sister.

"Vanilla?" she called, all trace of hostility gone from her voice. "Vanilla, it's me. Marshmallow! I can't... it's you. I can't believe it." Dovepaw was almost in a trance as she walked toward the border. She hoped that her sister wouldn't leap across and attack her, although she would deserve it for what she'd done to her. The scent wall halted her just before she performed an unforgivable breach of clan scent security, but she was so close. Vanilla was so close. She thought she'd never see her again.

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Swanpaw

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Swapaw had been trying to slip away unnoticed by the other cat when she heard, "Hey, what do you think you're doing? Spying across the border? Huh?" Anger rose in Swanpaw like bile. How dare this cat accuse her for spying on FogClan! She hadn't even left her side of the border! She had every right to be where she was, and without a stupid FogClanner's harsh opinion about it.

Swanpaw whipped her head around to glare at this cat that thought they were the queen of everything. Swanpaw studied the cat quickly and predicted that she must be an apprentice about her own age, for her body was still too small to be a warrior's. It looked like the cat was new to the harsh life of the clans, though more seasoned than she herself. Her pelt was the same stark white as Swanpaw's and when their eyes met a familiar green color greeted her.

She knew this cat...

"Vanilla, it's me. Marshmallow! I can't... it's you. I can't believe it." Swanpaw watched as her sister stepped over the border into PineClan territory to greet her, making a note that she would have to cover the scent up the best she could when they were done here. She honestly didn't believe that this cat could be her sister. The oddity that they would both be out at night and just happen to stumble upon eachother...

Swanpaw's eyes widened as Marshmallow drew nearer. This was definitely her sister. She walked a bit different, probably from the muscle that she had acquired, but she still had her Marshmallow-y sense about her. Not sure to what to say, Swanpaw just nuzzled her sister, in a bit of shock.

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Dove

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Dovepaw was speechless for a long time. She had tortured herself about what she'd done to her family every day since it had happened. All she had been able to think about, aside from her immediate survival, while lost was what her parents and sisters must think of her now. If they even made it home, Sugar and Vanilla would have be terrified out of their skins. The guilt had weighed on her heart ever since. What if they'd gotten lost too? What if she never saw them again? What if she never got to tell her sisters that she loved them?

That was her biggest regret, not telling Sugar and Vanilla that she loved them before running off to have adventures in the big scary forest.

"Hey, I got that adventure I always wanted," she murmured, nuzzling her sister back. She was still in a state of shock. This was her sister. She was touching her sister. This was the cat who used to poke her in the side whenever she did something silly, who would tease her about her name, who always looked at her with a twinkle in her eye.

She would probably wake up tomorrow morning and discover that this was all a dream. But she was okay with that. She could keep on dreaming for now. It was better than reality, if it was a dream. It probably was. Reality couldn't be this fantastic, not for her, the resident cursed Benedict Arnold of FogClan.

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Swanpaw

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"Hey, I got that adventure I always wanted." Swanpaw smiled at her sister. Despite being quite thrilled to have found Marshmallow, she could not shake the overweighing guilt she had about Sugar right at this moment. Marshmallow had told Sugar and herself to stay put, not to follow her, that she'd be right back. She had come and found the clan life. Swanpaw herself had done the same thing. Told Sugar to stay put, that she'd be right back. Then she had gone and found the clan life. Without even knowing it, Sugar had been betrayed twice by her sisters, and in th same exact way each time. Swanpaw bet that Sugar thought the two of them had been killed. What a horrible way to live, thinking that your only two sisters had been killed.

Swanpaw was drug back to reality with wet eyes. "Marsh, we both left Sugar..." Swanpaw realized that her sister's name was no longer Marshmallow, but she didn't know what else to call her in that moment, they had not gone over what their new names were. And besides, Marshmallow would always be Marsh to her, no matter what any leader named her.

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Dovepaw

Things suddenly got to be very dark. A cloud had passed over the moon, blocking its ethereal light from reaching through the trees. It gave Dovepaw a bit of a start, and she looked up at the sky with wide eyes. In any other situation it would not have mattered to her that the light went out, but now everything had a cast of bone-chilling shadow about it, even her sister. It was really creepy. Oh, but Vanilla was there. Her sister was there, and she was warm and real and that made everything okay.

"Yeah, but I did it first, and I left both of you." Tears would have begun to well up in Dovepaw's eyes had it been physically possible. As it was, she looked down. She didn't want her sister to see the pain in her eyes as she remembered their past. As cheesy and pathetic as it was, she wanted to protect Vanilla. It's like they say (though nobody knows who exactly 'they' are), old habits die hard.

"Oh, and I'm Dovepaw now. What did Gingerstar name you?" She paused for a moment, wondering whether to give in to her curiosity or to bite her tongue. Ah, but the light was back, and she could see her sister's face again. It was more than just a ghostly outline against the pine trees, shining dimly because it was white. It had life again. How that helped Dovepaw make her decision is anybody's guess, but she went and asked her question.

"Vanilla... why did you leave too?"

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Swanpaw

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"Yeah, but I did it first, and I left both of you." Swanpaw didn't see the pain in her sister's eyes, but she felt it, the raw emotion floating off of her pelt, engulfing the both of them. One thought was in Swanpaw's head: Sugar. "Oh, and I'm Dovepaw now. What did Gingerstar name you?" Swanpaw focused her attention on the present one more and managed to croak, "Swanpaw."

Something felt so incomplete about the fact that Sugar was not with the two of them. They had always been a trio. Now Dovepaw and she were a duo and Sugar was alone. It was wrong. Swanpaw had thought that she wanted to find Marsh, now Dovepaw, but the guilt was almost enough to make her regret finding her. No, she mustn't think such things. It was good she found Dovepaw. Now she knew that she wasn't dead. They would be able to see eachother at Gatherings. They wouldn't grow up like most siblings did in the clans, but they would grow up knowing that they had found eachother. Dovepaw was in FogClan. Swanpaw was in PineClan. Their clans were such opposites, one being the most religious, one not believing at all. Swanpaw was sure there would be a battle between them one day. A battle where her sister might be involved.

Swanpaw promised herself that if Dovepaw and she ever met in battle, she would not harm her sister. She couldn't. She wouldn't be able to do such a thing... Would she?

"Vanilla... why did you leave too?" Swanpaw blinked away thoughts of battle and looked at Dovepaw. "I went to find you," was the only thing she said. Swanpaw was known as the silent cat to her clanmates, even as a kit she had been a bit quiet, but not as much as she was within PineClan. Swanpaw tried to shake the silence from her so that she could act the way Dovepaw remembered, but she just couldn't. Words had become something she would rather not use. Already she had said more to her sister than she had said to any single cat in PineClan.

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Dovepaw

"Hm. Swanpaw. We're both birds!" Dovepaw purred with a smile. How appropriate was that? The two most different leaders in the entire forest had chosen a common theme for their names, and without even realizing it! Well, technically it had been Owlstar and not Miststar who had chosen Dovepaw's name. It still worked.

This situation might actually be difficult, Dovepaw realized with a jolt. Swanpaw lived in PineClan. Their clans hated each other even more than clans usually did. Something about the philosophies of the enemies made them tick. Personally, she couldn't see why they hated each other so much, not now that she knew someone in PineClan. They were all just cats, after all. Just trying to survive.

But who was she to talk? Before she'd recognized her sister, Dovepaw had been just about ready to go to battle against a faceless PineClanner near the border. She would have blindly attacked her enemy just to get our her frustration with her own clan. Clan rivalry had been so ingrained into Dovepaw's lifestyle, even in Owlstar's time, that hostility was usually her first reaction to anything not FogClan. It was sad now that she thought about it. It was sad and pathetic. Ahh, but it was what her clan expected of her. What was so wrong with the world that killing each other was the only answer?

Dovepaw would never attack her sister. She wouldn't let herself, not even if she was in a battle with PineClan. Heck, in that case, she might actually fight to protect her sister! It wasn't like she cared about anyone in her clan except for Smokefur, Brightnose, and Finchpaw. Frostpaw could fend for herself well enough. She didn't even care if Swanpaw would do the same for her.

She might, though. After all, she'd left their home to find her. "You went to find me? Well.. that's... awww." Dovepaw hadn't smiled so wide since the first time she'd genuinely surprised her mother. Oh yes, that had been a good day.

"I love you too, 'Nilla."

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