Created after a rumor on Youtube, six months and a few hours of boredom to type it. Please review.
Squirrelflight could have never been happier. Every move, every step, she could feel her kits inside, even though they were still so small. Those beautiful little lives...
Picking up the mouse from the pile, she slid into the medicine cat den to her sister.
"I brought your mouse."
She'd been sneaking food to her sister this cold leafbare. Leafpool looked at her gratefully, gulping it down. Squirrelflight sat down besides her, sighing. "I'm worried though. I haven't started producing milk yet. Is there something wrong, Leafpool?"
"No. If, at the quarter moon, you haven't, we'll worry. Here. You might as well start eating borage now." She nosed her a few leaves.
Squirrelflight nodded, chewing it down. There was something in there, tasting cool and crinkling on her tongue. She swallowed.
"Thanks. I'll see if I can go hunt you a squirrel," she mewed jokingly.
Leafpool smiled, turning to lick her bulging form. She'd barely left her den now. The clan just might notice...
Squirrelflight left, trotting out into the forest.
It was cold and she fluffed up her fur, taking in the leafbare forest. Dry and cold, leaves on the ground crunching with every step, the trees like twisted claws against the gray sky. She shivered.
Walking as lightly as she could, Squirrelflight watched the forest and thought. Here is where her sons would learn hunting, here is where her daughters would run, there is where they would fight...
She could see it already. A brown tabby, with Brambleclaw's frame, a little ginger chasing his sister... A black furred female jumping over them b-Black? Neither of them had black pelts...
But Scourge had been a black cat, Firestar's half-brother. She knew this from Midnight. Oh, that badger knew so much...
She wondered about this strange Jake. Her father had never known him either. His mother had never spoken of him, at least, not when he was old enough to understand. He had disappeared from his father's neighborhood one day, when Firestar had first stepped outside. He'd only ever heard second-hand. Maybe.
Coming back to the moment, she scanned the forest. There, a squirrel digging in the loose soil.
She crouched, sliding quietly through the bracken. Then-LEAP!
Squirrelflight held it proudly in her jaws, a fang sunk straight through it's spine. She slipped into camp, taking it to the den.
"Please! Leafpool, I'm worried something will happen if Squirrelflight keeps leaving camp. The kits-"
"Will be fine, Brambleclaw. She's strong, healthy. In fact, the exercise will help her, if she doesn't strain herself."
"I-Ok..." He left slowly, pausing to lick Squirrelflight ear at the exit. "Been hunting, I see."
She nodded proudly, glad to not be useless to her clan at this time. Even if...It was going to her sister's betrayal.
His eyes gleamed and he left her.
Squirrelflight nosed through the plant curtain, dropping the squirrel at Leafpool's feet.
"Here."
She nodded, beginning to eat it. "He's still right though. You're due at the midway between the half and new moon. That's coming up soon. You should start slowing down now because those kits will eventually. And by then, you could damage them."
Squirrelflight sighed. "But I feel so useless! It's leaf-bare, I should be hunting for my clan, feeding them all. And I'm being forced to stop now?"
Leafpool finished half the squirrel, nosing her the rest.
"And you're due at the half-moon. What will we do then? How will you tell the clan-"
"Starclan will provide. Eat."
Squirrelflight nodded, taking a bite, and another, and...
She finished the squirrel without meaning to.
"I can delay my birth, Squirrelflight. Queens have done that before, even for weeks."
"But it's damaged the kits and queen," she pointed out, cleaning her whiskers.
"So will an early birth, which are also much more likely to have stillborn kits."
Squirrelflight reached out a paw, swiping her sister's whiskers.
"See you soon, Leafpool."
Leafpool nodded, organizing several herbs she didn't recognize.
*. *. *
It was time, very definitely. She knew, when her sister's call came to her through her mind.
It was the middle of the night. Squirrelflight picked her way out of the nursery where she had been curled against another queen.
Leafpool had managed to get out of her den on her own.
"Lean on me, sister. You'll be ok."
She glanced back. There was no pre-birth discharge yet. They would be fine for now.
They crept up to the cliff, and swallowed.
"I hate to ask you to-"
"I'll...make...it..."
Slowly her sister eased up the cliff. It felt colder by the second, the clouds looming.
'Starclan,' Squirrelflight thought, 'Please...Provide...Help...'
A tiny break in the clouds, but then they were thicker than ever.
'Don't be mad at her,' she thought, gently gripping Leafpool's scruff as they walked through the forest. 'She only loved as medicine cats should. She didn't mean to go so far, to focus her love on one... Please...'
Snow began to fall, and Squirrelflight used her tail to shelter her sister's belly.
Suddenly, all her muscles tensed.
"Over her!"
She'd only seen one birth, and didn't know what to do. She guided her sister to the hollow in the tree roots.
There was that discharge.
'We'll never be able...' Squirrelflight swallowed. 'We can't hide this...When we come back, it will be obvious, Leafpool broke the rule...'
She knew now why it was there. For a female medicine cat, pregnancy, birth, caring for kits... It would take from their duties. And a tom might not be there when he was needed, with his mate or watching over his kits.
And then all of Squirrelflight's muscles tensed with her sister's. They were paying a heavy price, for their close bond.
'Starclan...Send help...'
"Looks like you two got yourself in a fix."
Squirrelflight looked at the cat looming over them. Her sister was too busy with her own pain.
It was a female, a loner.
"He..lp... Don't know..What.."
"You two queens don't worry. I've seen plenty births, some my own." Her eyes scanned them, freezing on Squirrelflight's belly. "Oh...No..." She stroked her ear. "Another..."
Then the loner was all business.
"Right. You, bright, over here." She patted a spot aways from Leafpool. Squirrelflight dragged herself over.
"And you, little Princess. Ok, that's right. Pre discharge...Muscles tensing...And there we go! The blood!" The dark-furred female swept up several snow covered leaves, scooting them under Leafpool. "You're ok, honey. Just let your instincts work, and focus on the images you see. Those are important."
She spoke in a soothing tone. Squirrelflight felt her eyes blur over, counting time with the pain flashes.
"I'm so sorry, honey," the loner whispered to her. "I know what it's like, to have it so early...It's ok...Just keep breathing..."
Her words became meaningless, her tone was all there was, and her hindquarters became frozen and soaked, and there was these images of the black female, and suddenly-
It was over. She nipped at the sack, and looked at a brown tabby. She licked it, but... It didn't seem to move...
The loner pulled it away. "The second dead on this night..." She tucked it against herself. "Don't worry about this one, honey. There's a few others; one might live."
And the flashes again, and again, then the slow coming back, and here she was, Squirrelflight, lying in bloody, wet snow, with one black kit curled against her. Three kits were tucked under the gray loner, the dead.
One ginger tom, one brown tabby girl, one black tom. She looked at Leafpool, who stared back sadly. "I'm so sorry, Squirrelflight. I had already held out for two days, and I didn't know it would..."
Squirrelflight stood, shakily.
"Go back to camp, honey, princess. I know you two are clan cats. I'll bury them."
Leafpool picked up one, laying Squirrelflight's only kit on her back.
"Wait, Leafpool. We need to name them, so they can...get to..."
She nodded, letting down the golden tom again.
"Crowkit, black tom."
"Briarkit, the brown she-cat"
They looked at each other. "Flamekit, the ginger."
"As a loner, I proclaim them dria, the born again. As clan cats, you proclaim them stars, gone to your afterlife. Go to your clans now, tell of this night's sadness. I will bury them with all the rights deserving of innocence lost."
She spoke with a beautiful wise tone, like a leader.
"Goodbye."
She raised a paw. "My name is Feather."
They nodded goodbye.
"I will remember that, Feather. You saved my son, even though the other had to die."
Feather nodded, looking at the gray kit.
They walked away.
"I am a liar though. It was Featherstar. Leader of a clan now destroyed."
She picked up the kits, placing two on her back, like Squirrelflight did with her own. One did not bury dead kits on the spot of their birth.
At a spot beneath a holly bush, she paused. Briarkit was breathing.
"Well. How long have you been alive?"
She mewed.
So it was not all tragedy. Two would be buried, not three.
*. *. *
Squirrelflight lay in the nursery. The other cats flitted past.
"Jaykit, Lionkit."
The plan spun around in her head. These three were now hers, and Leafpool's treachery was still unknown.
But those words made her feel even more distant from the three, one still unnamed.
'Would I call her feather? No... It's not her...'
They'd been born in the snow...
'But she doesn't have anything white, except for that white on her lips and ear tip. And those just might fade...'
...In the shadow of a hollybush, still green in leaf-bare like all others.
'She survived, when her brother and sister didn't. She survived the cold. She survived coming early. She survives, like the holly.'
"Hollykit."
And now she felt a little closer, finally having named one of them herself.
*. *. *
But in the end, she still felt more and more distant as the seasons wore on, because she couldn't do anything. She couldn't feed them because milk wouldn't come. She couldn't tell Lionkit or Jaykit who their mother really was. She couldn't tell Hollykit about her lost siblings or why she chose holly. She couldn't...
And when the secret came out to Ashfur, she could taste that bitter lie. 'Except Hollyleaf' hovered on her tongue. But what if he just targeted her then?
She kept this lie, unwilling to tell about the loner, about the dead...About what she remembered of those flashing images of Hollyleaf.
And then it was too late, Hollyleaf was gone in that tunnel.
With Brambleclaw's love.
*. *. *
Leafpool spent seasons watching her sister fall apart inside, starting with those lost kits. She spent seasons walking in her dreams and heart. She spent seasons watching those kits, treating Hollyleaf like one of her own because she saw Crowkit in that black pelt. She spent seasons in a lie. She spent seasons training Jayfeather, and naming him for a loner, and his father. She spent seasons watching things grow darker. She spent seasons watching a coming battle. She spent seasons trying to support Squirrelflight.
And now Squirrelflight had reached her end. She couldn't go on, because she had nothing. Her clan had little trust of her, the others rejecting her completely. They still believed she killed Ashfur, many of them. She lost her final kit. She'd lost Brambleclaw, pushing aside Ashfur and making him an enemy, just so he would stand beside her.
She was still a young cat, but her eyes spoke otherwise. They were dull, dry, empty yet filled with thousands of sadness.
And Leafpool had enough.
Brambleclaw was leading this hunting patrol, with Squirrelflight trailing at the back only because Leafpool had asked him to let her come.
Leafpool could see that longing. Squirrelflight wanted death, a way out. Leafpool needed her sister.
The hunting patrol branched out. Brambleclaw was ahead. Leafpool grasped her sister's scruff like she had done so long ago, helping her walk.
"Brambleclaw!" she called. He looked at her, ignoring Squirrelflight.
"Is this important?"
"Yes." She let go of her sister, who immediately lay down. She padded forward, head high, cool and angry. "Sit down. I have something to say."
He did so. "If this is about Squirrelflight," he hissed.
"Aye, it is. It's ALL about her, and you will listen to every word."
He looked shocked at her tone.
"I know that many seasons ago, Lionblaze, Jayfeather and Hollyleaf were born."
"They were yours, not hers, like she claimed. This does not need to be discussed." He began to stand.
"Yes it does. Want to know why? Because Hollyleaf was YOURS."
He froze.
"She was pregnant too, remember? Or did you forget that with your love? The night Lionblaze and Jayfeather was born, when I went into labor, so did she. You know we have a bond?"
He nodded.
"We paid for it, very dearly, because she began to birth early. I couldn't help her, and...Two kits died. One...One looked like you."
Silence reigned.
"But Holly-"
"She never heard the whole tale. She assumed that, because Squirrelflight was incapable of producing milk. Even now, I don't know why. Squirrelflight has paid for my treachery, my misdeeds. She has lost her kits, she lost her clan, she lost seasons of her life. She lost you as well. And..." Leafpool dropped her voice. "I'm afraid she might lose her life."
For the first time in seasons, he looked at Squirrelflight. She was displaying everything she'd bottled up now, and it was apparent; dull coat unkempt, dark eyes, lying on the ground. He shook, bowing his head. "I..."
"Just think about it, Brambleclaw. You're deputy. You're supposed to think things over. Even if you don't love her, at least...Be her clanmate again..." She stepped past him, leaving the two alone.
They came back to camp. They weren't close, not touching, but Squirrelflight had a squirrel clenched in her jaws, her eyes were slightly brighter, and Brambleclaw walked in time with her.
Leafpool smiled, eating her mouse.
She couldn't be happier.
...Until Hollyleaf Marched into camp in The Forgotten Warrior, completely sane.
What's this in the corner? A plot bunny with Briar and Featherstar? What? How strange...
And FF was a bitch when I was uploading this. I had to copy/paste over an already existing doc '^.^
Please review and tell me if I should do anything with Featherstar and Briarkit in a different story