All the "I'm sorries" and "Are you okays?" was getting very annoying to Clawberry. She was sad, yes, but she was getting over it.

If you're wondering why Clawberry was sad, it was because Ashfeather had gone off on a quest, and for some reason he hadn't taken anyone to protect him.

Clawberry was somewhat happy, though. she had a new mate, her true love, Firedust, a strong, tall, handsome skewbald (black and white) paint stallion with fiery orange wings.

Here’s how it happened: “Ashfeather, be sensible. Bring some guards with you.”

“Don’t worry, Clawberry. I’ll be fine.”

Clawberry was mad. Very mad. Why on Nightwing’s hoof would he go to the old Snow Herd lands alone? She thought that he should bring a few guards with him. What if he was captured? What if he was killed by his birth herd? Well, Clawberry really care. They weren’t mates because they wanted to, but because that is what their parents had wanted.

“PLEASE DON’T GO, UNCLE ASHFEATHER!” cried Autumnhoney, Clawberry’s little sister.

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“I have to see my mother.”

Well it didn’t quite work like that.

He was gone for weeks, but one day the scouts came to Clawberry saying that they’d found the body of a dead pegasus, and that they thought that it was Ashfeather.

“Well, if it is him, then good riddance,” Clawberry said.

As it turned out it was Ashfeather, killed by ice tiger wounds.

Two weeks after the body was found, Clawberry and Firedust were out for a walk, when they heard a small scream behind them. Clawberry turned around and there she saw a little mare, of whom she knew was a sky herder.

“I KNEW IT!” she screamed.

“Knew what?” Clawberry asked.

“That you two were a thing!”

Firedust looked quizzically at Clawberry.

“You know, ‘Fireberry’? Everyone’s been talking about it for weeks! Everyone just thought they were rumours, but not me, I knew!”

“Umm… but what if we’re just friends?”

“You’re not, I know that for sure.”

The mare trotted off and Clawberry sighed in exasperation.

And that is how Ashfeather died.