Chapter Text
Sage didn’t understand why Dawn always looked worse in the mornings, or why Moon kept pressing her tail over his shoulders like she was trying to hold him together, or why Sun would go quiet whenever Dawn’s breathing turned uneven mid-sentence, but it all kept happening anyway and never stopped long enough to feel normal.
Dawn still tried to act like it didn’t matter, still tried to follow Sage outside when they were allowed to leave the nest, still tried to walk like his body wasn’t failing him even when his steps dragged and he had to pause just to breathe properly before continuing.
“I can keep up,” Dawn would say, even when he clearly couldn’t, even when Moon kept looking toward Sun like she was waiting for something neither of them ever said out loud.
Sage didn’t know what they were waiting for, so he complained instead, because it was easier than watching Dawn fade a little more each day or noticing how Moon stayed closer and closer like she was bracing for something she already knew would happen.
One night, Dawn didn’t wake up when Sage nudged him.
At first, Sage thought he was just being stubborn, because Dawn always said he was tired and still woke up eventually, but Moon moved too quickly across the nest, and Sun didn’t follow her right away, and the air outside felt wrong the moment they stepped into it.
“Is he just sleeping?” Sage asked, because that was still the only explanation that made sense to him, even though Moon didn’t answer and Sun didn’t look at him at all.
Dawn didn’t wake up again after that.
Moon didn’t stay much longer either.
And the nest felt empty in a way Sage couldn’t explain, like something had been removed from it and nothing in the world had been built to replace it.
Sage waited anyway, because Dawn had always said he would get stronger, and Dawn had always said he would come back when he was ready, but no one spoke his name anymore, and after a while Sage stopped hearing it in his own head too.
When Sage was old enough to be seen as almost grown, Sun died too.
There wasn’t a long explanation for it, just absence that turned permanent, just silence that didn’t shift back into anything familiar again.
After that, Sage didn’t stay in the nest much.
A foster mother, Flaketail, took him in. Sun did talk to a cat right before he died, he figured this was the cat. She was a cat from outside their small group who didn’t ask many questions and didn’t speak much about the ones that mattered. She fed him when he forgot to eat, told him to sleep when he stopped doing it properly, and didn’t react when he went quiet for too long, which made her easier to be around than anyone else had been.
Moon was already gone in a way that still didn’t feel fully real.
Sun was gone in a way that felt final.
Dawn was gone in a way that no longer had a shape in his memory. His face, scent, voice. All gone from his mind like he never existed
And Sage kept growing anyway, even if it didn’t feel like becoming anything.
Much later, Sagerise lived in a forest long after meeting his old friend, Spike. He had lead a clan at this time. Moonclan. But he always felt off. After the deaths of many of his friends and mate the name Sagerise didn’t feel correct to him.
The wind moved through the trees the same way it always had, but it didn’t feel familiar anymore, like it was passing through a place that had lost too much and stopped remembering what it was supposed to be.
Then it shifted enough for him to feel it press against his fur.
And when he looked up, there was a voice he hadn’t heard since before everything broke apart.
“I said I would catch up, but I guess you forgot”
Sagerise didn’t move.
Because even before he turned, something in him already knew what had come back.