⊹₊ Fidgetfire

Fidget was apprenticed to the three ParaClan oracles at the time: Gorsedapple -- the eldest, Ebonyfang, and Skyheart. She was downright estatic to have more cats to chatter at, and very quickly became close with Skyheart, considering her to be somewhat of an older sister . Gorsedapple, however, was a different story. Fidget had never really been disciplined so much as she'd been ignored, so the strict and grumpy old tom proved to be a foreign and unwelcome intrusion on her antics. On his end of things, Gorsedapple had little patience for Fidget's noted lack of work ethic... and her habit of falling asleep during his herbal lectures. Still, the oracles were a family, and regardless of their bickering Fidget and Gorsedapple did, ultimately, care about each other.

It quickly became apparent that Fidget had little natural talent for healing, but she more than made up for it with her spiritual abilities. Through Ebonyfang's training, Fidget grew more and more spiritually sensitive, until eventually she was able to notice and speak with even the most forgotten of ghosts. This soon became overwhelming for the young she-cat, though, and she would often collapse or have to lie down in the middle of lessons.

The night after a particuarly harrowing day, Fidget blinked open her eyes to see that she was being visited in her dream by Lightstar, the second-ever leader of ParaClan. He showed her how to tune out spirits that she didn't want to listen to, and helped hone her spiritual abilities even more. After a few such meetings, Lightstar confessed that he, and not Sumire, had initially been the one to notice her spiritual abilities and reccomend her for the oracle position. Grateful to Lightstar for his tutelage and his role in getting her into the oracle position, Fidget grew very attached to him and would listen to any advice or instructions he gave her, considering him to be one of her closest friends.

After getting a better handle on her spiritual abilities, Fidget threw herself back into her studies with a new vigor. She would accompany the full oracles on visits to various ParaClan territories, and proved to have a cheerful and comforting bedside manner, even if her actual medical skills still left a bit to be desired. These visits incited her love for gossip and for romance, despite Skyheart warning her about love's potential pitfalls and telling her the story of Skyheart's own disasterous love affair. Sure that she would never fall prey to a romantic tragedy, Fidget nevertheless grew to idolize the idea of love and eagerly awaited the day she would meet her soulmate.

At twelve moons old, Fidget would be made a full oracle, Sumire bestowing upon her the name Fidgetfire for her passion and energy. Cheered for by Comfreystar, Gorsedapple, Ebonyfang, Skyheart, Lightstar, and even Sumire Herself, Fidgetfire finally felt like her life was perfect.

Of course, nothing could stay perfect forever.

One night, all four of ParaClan's oracles were visited by Sumire and given prophetic instructions. Every ParaClan cat between the ages of ten to twelve moons was to embark on a perilous quest to reclaim Sumire's Tooth from Swan's Cliffs; an artifact that was supposedly of their Goddess Herself. Fidgetfire, thirteen moons old at the time, just barely didn't make the cut.

Over the following days, the journeying cats would assemble in camp and Gorsedapple would grow more and more weary of Sumire's orders, eventually culminating in him and Comfreystar calling off the whole affair altogether. Working together with the traveling cats, Fidgetfire helped them convince her fellow oracles to let them leave. She was quickly enamored with a particular young tom named Lotusfall, due to his elegant mannerisms and gentle nature, and also made fast friends with a ParaClan warrior named Hazelpounce. When they left, Fidgetfire felt a little... abandoned, although she tried to convince herself that it was nothing.

A few weeks later, Lightstar visited her in her dreams and instructed her to go after the traveling cats, as he feared they were wavering in their faith to Sumire and wanted Fidgetfire to keep an eye on them. Ever the adventure-seeker, Fidgetfire enthusiastically obliged, and caught up with her Clanmates just as they were escaping from the Nouveau Flame. She treated her Clanmates' wounds after the fact, although the way she dodged their questions somewhat alienated her from the group. She finds some comfort in Lotusfall, who gathered herbs with her. This only solidified her feelings for him.

Only a few nights later, the travelers were shaken when Fawnlight brought the dead body of Tawnystalk back to camp, claiming that Tawnystalk had slipped and hit their head. Fidgetfire declared them dead and felt guilty, believing that she could have saved them had she been on the scene. Tawnystalk was the first Clanmate who she had to bury on the journey, but they wouldn't be the last.

When the travelers reached the Big City, Fidgetfire elected to follow Sunspirit and cut directly through the city. The small group was apprehended by an AlleyClan patrol and brought to their leader Pennystar, who prevented them from leaving until she could double-check their story with the rest of the travelers. While in AlleyClan's camp, Fidgetfire got into a heated argument with AlleyClan warrior Papercut, who had been insulting Sunspirit. He ended up clawing her on the cheek and she was brought to AlleyClan's medic, Miss, for treatment.

During the Polix Massacre, Fidgetfire was held hostage as leverage to make the ParaClan travelers fight on AlleyClan's side. She wound up being rescued by a loner named Abstract, and upon her return to the travelers she would vouch for his acceptance into the group. Canarywhistle immidately began to blame her for the death of Corviddusk, who seemingly lost his life in the massacre, and Fidgetfire was more than willing to yell right back at her, upset that no one had even seemed to notice her absence.

Remarkably, Corviddusk would make a miraculous recovery. While treating him, Fidgetfire could sense that he had been in contact with Lightstar, but didn't bring it up.

While collecting herbs one day, Fidgetfire was approached by Crowswoop, who offered to help her with her job. She accepted his offer, although she quickly derailed the task into teaching Crowswoop how to climb trees and get over his fear of heights. They watched the sunset together before returning to camp, and Fidgetfire was estatic to have made another friend. Later, she would gossip to Crowswoop about Canarywhistle and Lotusfall's new relationship -- and wasn't too enthused about Crowswoop's friendship with Canarywhistle, since she disliked the she-cat.

Despite Crowswoop urging her to avoid the situation, Fidgetfire conspired with Corviddusk, who was also in love with Lotusfall, to break the new couple up. This went very awry, and only served to piss Canarywhistle and Lotusfall off. Still somehow unaware of her romantic advice being godawful, Fidgetfire would later provide Featherdrift with similarly terrible ideas about how to win over Sunspirit, and blamed Doepetal and Spiderbranch for their own relationship problems when Hazelpounce approached her for comfort.

When a flash flood struck the travelers, Fidgetfire was swept into an underwater cave with Featherdrift, concussed and losing blood after hitting her head on a rock and cutting open her leg. She woozily tried to apologize to Featherdrift for the bad advice, but only served to irritate her. Eventually, they located the way out and reuinited with their Clanmates. In her groggy state, Fidgetfire failed to save the life of a fatally wounded kitten named Five Minute Instant Noodles, and also spouted cryptic prophecies until passing out.

As they neared the cliff, Fidgetfire was shocked and incredibly discomforted when Lightstar hit on her one night while they shared a dream. She'd never seen him like that, only as a mentor figure and friend, and was further put off when he confirmed his intentions to make her his mate. Fidgetfire belived that it was her own moral failings that made her not return his feelings. After all, who wouldn't want to be mates with a God? Unable to avoid him in her dreams due to her position as a oracle as well as Lightstar’s spiritual powers, Fidgetfire began to refrain from sleeping as much as possible, causing her mental state to deteriorate. Her lack of sleep and uncharacteristic discomfort with physical contact was noticed by quite a few of the travelers, but Fidgetfire brushed their concerns off.

Corviddusk would come to her for advice about Lighstar, and told her that Lightstar had asked him to so something he didn't want to do. Sleep deprived and guilty, Fidgetfire told him that he should do anything Lightstar asked of him, in the process finally mentally resigning herself to her own fate. Canarywhistle would go missing later that same day.

The travelers ascended Swan's Cliffs, and tragedy struck. Larkspring knocked Doepetal off of the cliffs and Hazelpounce dove after him, dying soon after. Lotusfall would push Larkspring off the cliff as well, although she ended up surviving. Fidgetfire stayed behind to tend to Doepetal -- and, secretly, Larkspring, hiding the fact that she was alive as she was sure that the group would attempt to have her killed for what she had done.

Despite her attempts to stay out of it, Lightstar commanded her to ascend the cliffs as well, telling her that she had to recover the tooth. She found Lotusfall and Featherdrift fighting over the tooth, neither attempting to return it to ParaClan, and intervened, accidentally confessing Lightstar's misdeeds in the process. While they were distracted, Eclipseweb killed Sunspirit with the very Tooth they had been questing for.

Fidgetfire watched as Sunspirit's clouded eyes opened. Green.

Sumire had returned to the world of the living.

Fidgetfire followed her Goddess home with the rest of her Clanmates, although she awoke one night to find that over half of the remaining ParaClan cats were deserting, Crowswoop among them. He confessed his feelings to Fidgetfire and she tearfully reciprocated, though her love for her fellow oracles and her lingering scraps of loyalty to Sumire prevented her from leaving with him. She watched him go, and he took her heart with him.

Fidgetfire returned to ParaClan camp and numbly watched as Sumire executed cat after cat for their misdeeds. Larkspring, the cat who she had worked so hard to save, was among the victims. It all seemed so meaningless.

But she was back home, with the family she'd chosen, and even in the presence of her Goddess, in the flesh. She should have been happy. Because her life was perfect.

...

Wasn't it?