Hollyleaf is my absolute favorite. Also, I'm getting obsessed with the way Fallen Leaves acts and talks.

Chapter 2: Rising

"So incorruptible cats," said Hollyleaf, gathering her paws closer so as not to disturb Fallen Leaves as he fished. "What makes them…incorruptible?"

"They have power," said Fallen Leaves. "They have to choose to fade. Corruptible shadow cats are directed by incorruptible ones."

He moved quickly, splashing water on Hollyleaf as he dove after a fish and caught it deftly in his paws. Satisfied, he turned around and dropped it at her paws.

"You're very kind, to keep helping me like this," said Hollyleaf, blinking gratefully at him before taking a few bites. She was getting used to fish, especially the slim little ones that Fallen Leaves could fish out of the underground river. She was also getting used to darkness, and to solitude, and to his company.

A moon had passed, filled with Hollyleaf walking more and more. She could get from the cave holding her nest to this cave, which held the river. She could navigate the tunnels on her own, and she sometimes did. She was afraid to go too far away from her little cave, but when Fallen Leaves was with her, she had no worries. Up close, the spiritual cat did have a sort of ancient wisdom about him, but he was also caught in an eternal stage of being a new warrior. He liked to talk about fish, and about the stars. Hollyleaf asked him every few days about his family, and he did tell her a few bits and pieces – they lived here, all one group. She learned about his mother, Broken Shadow, towards whom Fallen Leaves felt guilty for failing.

When she finished eating the fish, Hollyleaf looked up to see that Fallen Leaves was still there. Lately he would drift off more and more, as if he had to come to terms with something on his own. Hollyleaf had to wonder if he disapproved of her presence in the tunnels.

"You're doing better," he said. Hollyleaf sat watching him and the odd look in his eyes. "I guess you'll want to move on."

Hollyleaf swallowed back the suddenly bitter taste in her throat. She blamed the fish, although fish didn't usually hurt her chest this way. It was okay. He was asking her to leave, in his polite way.

"I suppose so," she said quietly. Fallen Leaves nodded, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Both of them felt the shift, so they turned in unison and padded back to Hollyleaf's nest, into the cave where they had met.

"I'll show you out at sunrise," said Fallen Leaves. He dipped his head and started to slip back into the shadows. So many times, Hollyleaf had just let him go, but the bitter taste in her mouth hardened her resolve.

"Thank you for all of this," said Hollyleaf. Her comment, or perhaps her desperate tone, made him pause. "You didn't have to shelter me for so long."

"I enjoyed myself," said Fallen Leaves. He tried to duck out again.

"Do you really think I should go back?" she asked. They had somehow managed to skirt the topic of ThunderClan for nearly fourteen sunrises, but Hollyleaf was sure that Fallen Leaves understood. He turned back meditatively.

"I don't know what you should do," said Fallen Leaves. "It's not really my place to say."

"But if you could help your family, you would go back," said Hollyleaf. "That's what you would choose."

"Now, I think I would," said Fallen Leaves. "Life was complicated, and it was exhausting, but it was not lonely."

"You're lonely," said Hollyleaf. She tilted her head. "You should leave."

"I've told you before," said Fallen Leaves. "This is the only home I have. I'm not really at liberty to leave."

"Do you want to?"

Hollyleaf knew the answer already. She could see it in the way Fallen Leaves fished for her, how he got so excited to show her his little slopes and dips in the earth, how he spent most of the time glancing up at the sunlight streaming into the cave. It was in the way he smelled, in the way his fur felt both warm and unreal, how he had somehow managed to retain a hopeful youth despite speaking in a sometimes harsh manner.

"I've long given up on seeing the outside world," said Fallen Leaves, and Hollyleaf could taste the lie.

"You need it," said Hollyleaf. "You need the sunshine and the fresh air."

"Hollyleaf, please," said Fallen Leaves. He stared at her paws, green eyes empty. "I don't have the right to choose where I go."

"That's not fair," said Hollyleaf. "That's not right." She knew the laws, knew that he didn't really have autonomy, but it wasn't fair for him to have to stay here forever, on his own. "You must be able to leave."

"I've been here for so long I've lost track of the time," spat Fallen Leaves. "Do you really think I would confine myself to such a lonely existence?"

He sighed heartily at her silence.

"My entire group lived here," said Fallen Leaves. "And we were happy. We lived above these tunnels, and they were a ritual for us. You went down at sunset, and if you could come up before sun-up, you would no longer be a soft-paw. You could be a sharp-claw, a real member of the group."

"What happened?" asked Hollyleaf.

"It rained," said Fallen Leaves. Hollyleaf swallowed. She remembered how the caves had filled with water, water that sloshed and spat up foam against the walls. She remembered how it suddenly became so dark that they couldn't see, and how she had clung tight to the hope that she would survive, even though it had been so apparent that she would die. She remembered the way her lungs had burned as they were swept into the lake, and how she had latched onto air and dry land with a stubborn intensity.

"So that was the night…" She couldn't finish the sentence. She could imagine Fallen Leaves struggling under the water, his body burning, unable to save himself. Drowning seemed such a horrid, horrid way to die.

"I woke up here," said Fallen Leaves. "I was told that I was a shadow cat now, and that I was to wait here. No more soft-paws came into the tunnels. It was just me, alone, forever, in the dark. I tried to get out at least every day. I searched and walked and struggled, but whenever the tunnels opened into sunlight, I couldn't leave. My paws would give out on me.

"Then I met your brother, and you and your brothers and the other she-cat came down here to help those kits," said Fallen Leaves. "You were the first cats I had seen in…well, I don't know how long it has been. I thought that maybe I could leave with you, but…" He shook his head. "I'm not waiting for something to come along, Hollyleaf. I'm trapped here forever."

"You can't think like that," said Hollyleaf. She took a few awkward steps towards him. "You have to have hope."

Fallen Leaves didn't reply.

"I-I'll hope for you, then," said Hollyleaf. She nudged his flank with her tail. "I'll hope for you."

Fallen Leaves slipped into the darkness without a response, and this time, Hollyleaf could do nothing but watch him go.

XX

At sunrise, he ended up leading her out anyways. There was no skip in his step, not even a façade of being happy. Fallen Leaves just came to her, miserable.

"Good morning," said Hollyleaf tentatively. There was no film between them, no screen hiding things from one party or the other.

"Hello, Hollyleaf," said Fallen Leaves. "Ready to go?"

Hollyleaf nodded a little numbly and followed him into the darkness of the tunnels. A few days ago, they had walked side-by-side, pelts brushing, life and death walking alongside one another. Jokes and laughter a constant exchange, sobered occasionally by a statement or a question about their pasts. Hollyleaf had somehow felt that ThunderClan was behind her when she was here in the darkness, joined only by Fallen Leaves. Their silence this morning was not the companionable silence anymore, but one more compassionate, and somehow mutually hesitant.

Hollyleaf caught sight of the light ahead of her, and her breath hitched in her throat just staring at it. This was the final day she would spend down in this forgiving darkness. She had no need to stay hiding underneath the earth, as her leg had recovered, and she was getting sick of fish and the scrawny mice that got lost under the forest floor.

She found herself standing at the edge of light and darkness, standing at that frontier without crossing the final threshold. Fallen Leaves sat beside her.

"Do you know what you're doing next?" he asked.

"I can't go back to ThunderClan," said Hollyleaf. It was the first time she had said the words and meant them without a twinge of sadness. "I wouldn't fit into any of the other Clans either." What then, the Tribe? "Maybe I'll just wander. See where life takes me."

"Enjoy yourself," said Fallen Leaves. "Maybe somewhere out there, you can find your forgiveness, and you can go back to your family."

"Maybe," said Hollyleaf. She could taste the sweet sunshine-splashed air, and it made her smile. She turned to the ginger-and-white cat at her side. "Come with me."

"I can't leave," said Fallen Leaves.

"Come with me," said Hollyleaf again. "You said you can't make your own choices because you're a corruptible shadow cat, right?"

"There's nothing you can do about that," said Fallen Leaves.

"Well, isn't it possible that I'm incorruptible?" said Hollyleaf. "Can't I make decisions for you?"

Fallen Leaves meditated on this for a second, and then he sighed.

"But you don't make the decisions involving me," he said. "Some other cat, maybe. My decisions have been made already."

"Hope, Fallen Leaves," said Hollyleaf. She took a deep breath and took a step forward. Sunlight washed over her pelt, bringing with it the cool breeze from the moors nearby and the early heat. She heard the crashing of small waves on the edges of the lake. She heard the rustle of grass and flowers, and the whisper of leaves getting caught up in the wind. It was beautiful, but it wasn't nearly as important as the young tom standing in the darkness ahead of her.

"Please try for me," said Hollyleaf. "I don't want you to be lonely anymore."

Fallen Leaves stared at her for a few seconds, and then he cautiously reached a paw into the sunlight and placed it on solid ground. A shiver ran up Hollyleaf's spine, the feeling of shattering words, a curse un-writing itself. He looked so spiritual, so thin, almost translucent, but then he stood in the sun, complete.

Hollyleaf watched as the sensation of the outside world hit Fallen Leaves at full force, whipping around his ears and his fur. He had never looked more alive. For a while he didn't speak, only reveled in the feeling of being free from the maze underground.

"Hollyleaf," said Fallen Leaves. He looked as if he might start crying. "Hollyleaf." His voice cracked on her name. Hollyleaf giggled. Fallen Leaves took a step forward, his claws sheathing and unsheathing as he felt the ground beneath his paws. "I don't know how you did this, but…thank you." He looked up, his green eyes impassioned.

"Hollyleaf." They jumped, and a slight disturbance in the wind brought Hollyleaf's attention behind her, towards the cat that sat there.

Or was he a cat at all? He was easily the ugliest cat Hollyleaf had ever laid eyes on, and was mostly bald, with oddly bulging eyes that were glassy, like Jayfeather's, but more gross. Hollyleaf resisted the urge to shy away from him, partly because Fallen Leaves had hopped up to Hollyleaf's side.

"Rock!" he cried. His eyes were wide, every hair on edge. Hollyleaf knew that this "Rock" cat must have been important.

"What is it?" asked Hollyleaf, turning towards Rock. She briefly remembered his name – had Jayfeather ever met him and told her about it? "What do you want from me?"

"You've freed Fallen Leaves," said Rock. "Just as was destined."

Fallen Leaves stood still at her side. Hollyleaf swallowed – who was he?

"You are the Cat that Walks Between Worlds," said Rock. "The In-Between cat. You must complete your destiny."

"My destiny?" Hollyleaf took a step back, her fur trembling. This felt so familiar, the rush of importance, the slight nausea that overtook her when she thought of being so valuable. She hated herself for feeling this way. "No, no. StarClan cut me out of the prophecy."

"Prophecies are a collection of words," said Rock. "There are more words than just those you hear in prophecies, are there not?"

"Yes, but – "

"Then why is it that only cats in prophecies may have destinies?" snapped Rock. He glared at her, although Hollyleaf was positive that he couldn't actually see the way she trembled. "Over the mountains, you will find a new ally awaiting you in a new land."

"Over the mountains?" said Hollyleaf, her ears perking up.

"Your path will be made plain," said Rock. "Your journeys will take you up through the mountains in search of a new home for the Four Clans – the home for the new era."

"The new era?" Hollyleaf didn't like the sound of all of this. "Why me? What am I doing? What ally am I trying to see?"

"You were chosen for this destiny because you alone have access to every future and past there is," said Rock. "Your brothers will save the Clan without you, this is true. But you have a part to play still. You will find a new home, leave the signs that will help the Clans reach it, and then you will forge the connections that help your littermates achieve their destinies."

Hollyleaf nodded numbly.

"I see," she said. A sudden swelling of pride flared up in her chest, and this no longer seemed like she was being told that she was part of a prophecy. No, prophecies didn't matter. She was the only one who could do this job. A new home for the Clans! She was like Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight now!

And Crowfeather. She was also like Crowfeather.

"What about me?" said Fallen Leaves, flicking his tail in worry. "What do I do now?"

"Hollyleaf freed you from your loneliness," said Rock. "Don't you want to pay her back by freeing her from hers?"

Hollyleaf and Fallen Leaves exchanged a cautious glance, and Hollyleaf felt the heat grow in her pelt.

"You don't have to come, if you don't want to," she said, trying to focus on anything but his eyes. What if all along, he had been trying to get rid of her? Wouldn't he want to find his family? Maybe now that he was free, he would be free to go to StarClan, or wherever he believed he would go, or whatever.

Fallen Leaves smiled – a real smile, powerful and like sunshine, not just the absence of sunshine.

"I would love to come with you, Hollyleaf," said Fallen Leaves. "You were my hope when I needed it most, so maybe I can be the forgiveness you're looking for."

"Your journey will be hard, and it will be long," said Rock. "Your enhancements should be enough to get you through the worst of it, but Fallen Leaves may step in if needed."

"Enhancements?" Hollyleaf asked, but as she said the word, she defined it. Of course – she had had power, all along. The power to understand law and code, to help her acclimate anywhere. The power to pick out who needed help, to point her in the right direction. The power of always being reserved about the truth, to point out the differences between her life and other realities. The power to share her gifts, to connect with someone and help them in their need. The power to walk through this world and the parallel ones around it.

Oh, StarClan, who was she?

Something of a WTF just happened moment, I know. I apologize for that. The next chapter will go into more detail on what just happened and what its consequences are. Promise!

Hollyleaf and Fallen Leaves are threads in a massive tapestry that spans this series. I'm getting so pumped to reveal her story, especially as she spans every time period covered so far. :D

Review if you liked it! I haven't actually plotted the next chapter in much detail, so if you have any strong opinions on what should go on between starting point and destination, I would definitely be open to hearing them! Thanks, all!

~Elsi