The seasons had turned many times since the war.
The forest was green and full of life again, but it bore the marks of what had passed - scars in the earth, fallen trees, and whispers of those who had fallen.
Alderidge had grown older, her pelt grayer at the edges, her steps slower but no less steady. She no longer fought at the front lines, but her presence was a constant pillar in the Clan.
She watched young warriors learn to stand in the storm.
She watched apprentices grow into something fierce and true.
She was the shadow at the edge of every patrol, the silent guardian who did not need to be called.
Some nights, she would sit beneath the alder tree where she had been born - a place no longer just a tree but a symbol of endurance and life’s unyielding pulse.
The Clan spoke of her in low tones.
They told stories to kits of the warrior who never broke, who bore loss and duty like stone.
They called her The Stone Sentinel.
And in their voices was something deeper than admiration.
It was the knowledge that some hearts - like stone - may weather every storm, but beneath that hardness, they hold the roots of every life they touch.
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One evening, as the sun set fire to the sky, Alderidge felt a quiet stirring within her - a soft call to rest, to step back from the walls she had held for so long.
She did not fear it.
Because she knew.
The stone does not fall.
It endures.
And when it rests, it becomes the foundation for everything that grows.
She closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of the forest - wild, free, and unbroken.
Alderidge, the Stone Sentinel, would forever stand.
Not just as memory.
But as a promise.
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