This one was a lot of fun to write. I got a suggestion from Lux Leroux for a Whitestorm&Bluestar, and, as promised, I wrote it. It takes place after my Oakeheart&Bluefur one, while Bluefur is deputy. It's a lot lighter than all my other ones (mostly because it doesn't involve a huge tragedy). Redtail and Lionheart make appearances as young warriors, and I loved writing them in a different light...
Thanks for the suggestion, Lux Leroux!
Whitestorm watched as Bluefur came back from hunting. She set her prey in the fresh-kill pile, keeping a vole for herself, and then padded over to the nettle patch beside Redtail, speaking to him in between bites of prey. Quickly he made his way over too, perhaps a bit too energetically for the casual tone that he attempted to speak in.
"Hi," he meowed. "Do you mind if I eat here too?"
Redtail shook his head and then turned back to Bluefur. "Did you hunt by Sunningrocks? Did you scent RiverClan?"
She nodded, a steely look coming into her blue eyes. Whitestorm stared at her eyes for a moment, perhaps too long. They reminded him of the sky on clear newleaf days. He quickly snapped to attention as she spoke. "They definately crossed the border. I'll have to report it to Dewstar."
Redtail growled. "I swear, they dance across our scent marks just to annoy us."
"And they steal prey along the way," added Whitestorm.
Bluefur gulped down the last of her vole, and Whitestorm detected something else in her gaze, somethign she wasn't saying. It must be about RiverClan. But what did she know that she wouldn't tell him and Redtail, two of her best friends?
Bluefur set off for Dewstar's den soon after that, and as soon as she was out of earshot Whitestorm slid closer to Redtail. "Do you think she likes me?"
Redtail rolled his amber eyes. They had been through this many times before. "Why wouldn't she?" he responded finally. "You're smart. You're a good warrior. You trail after her like a bad smell does to a badger, and- apart from myself, of course- you're the most handsome tom in ThunderClan."
"Apart from you?" teased Whitestorm, narrowing his eyes. "Why would any she-cat look twice at you? If you climbed up a tree they might mistake you for a squirrel."
Redtail's long ginger tail bristled. "Oh, well I suppose I was imagining it that Dappletail was eyeing me yesterday," he meowed with a twitch of his whiskers. (A/N: This is back when Dappletail was a queen, not an elder)
"Probably," nodded Whitestorm, mischief gleaming in his eyes.
"I'll fix you!" Redtail gave a playful growl and leaped upon Whitestorm. They tussled across the nettle patch, the insults they threw at each other almost incoherent through their laughter. Frostfur walked by them and rolled her pretty blue eyes. "Toms."
&&&
The next day Whitestorm plucked up the courage to ask Bluefur to go hunting. He decided that he would tell her how he felt sometime during the day. When she told him she wanted to go, he felt an odd mixture of elation and anxiousness.
"Just tell her!" Redtail coached as he waited with Whitestorm for Bluefur the next morning.
"What's the worst that could happen?" threw in Lionheart, who was also there.
"Shut up, Lionheart," Whitestorm growled. He didn't want to think of the worst.
"Hi, Whitestorm." The big white tom jumped about a tail-length in the air and spun round to see Bluefur emerging from the warriors' den, blinking sleep from her blue eyes. "And Lionheart and Redtail. Are you coming with us?"
"Uh, no," Lionheart meowed, while Redtail gave Whitestorm a greatly exaggerated wink. "We've got the sunhigh patrol, and have to stick around until then."
"But I gave that patrol to Darkpaw and Tigerclaw," meowed Bluefur, looking confused.
"Oh...but Tigerclaw asked us to go with him," meowed Redtail. "To help teach Darkpaw how to catch birds."
As if Tigerclaw would ever ask anyone to help him mentor, thought Whitestorm, but Bluefur only nodded. "All right. Then I guess it's just Whitestorm and me. I thought we could head up to the Great Sycamore and- what are you two doing?"
Redtail and Lionheart, who had been mouthing advice to Whitestorm behind Bluefur's back, froze like guilty kittens. "Nothing," they chorused.
Bluefur stared at them. "You two are weird today." She turned to Whitestorm. "Let's go."
As the two cats disappeared down the gorse tunnel, Redtail turned to Lionheart. "Do you think he's got a shot?"
Lionheart licked a paw and drew it over his ear. "Nope."
&&&
It took a long time for Whitestorm to gather his thoughts enough to say something to Bluefur beyond, "Uh, yeah" and "If you say so". Finally he summoned up the courage to say, "Bluefur, I've been thinking..." but she hushed him quickly.
"There," she murmured, pointing with her tail. A squirrel was up ahead, its tail twitching as it busied itself with digging a hole. Its whole head was inside the dirt, and it didn't see or scent the advancing cats.
"You go that way, I'll go this way," whispered Bluefur, and they split up, their bellies brushing the ground as the cornered the rodent. With a twitch of her ears that was the signal, Bluefur struck, leaping forward and frightening the squirrel backward, straight into Whitestorm's claws. He bent and snapped its spine in a single bite.
"Good catch," Bluefur meowed.
"We're a good team, aren't we?" Whitestorm mewed, his heart beating faster. This was it.
"We certainly are," Bluefur agreed.
"We're a good hunting team, Bluefur," he went on falteringly. "But I was thinking...hoping really...that we might be, you know, a little more than that. I like you, Bluefur. A lot."
Bluefur froze partly through a yawn, and her mouth slowly closed as her eyes grew wider. She stared at Whitestorm as if waiting for him to say he was kidding. Finally she rasped, "More than that?"
"Yes," Whitestorm mewed earnestly. "I care about you, Bluefur."
"I care about you too, Whitestorm," Bluefur replied. "You're one of my very best friends."
"But you don't like me...that way," Whitestorm concluded glumly, his head drooping. He should have known.
"I'm sorry," Bluefur meowed, lifting her tail to touch his shoulder. "I think that maybe we could have once been mates, but I know we can't."
"But why not?" Whitestorm asked. "If you like me and I like you..."
"Remember my kits, Whitestorm?" Bluefur murmured, a faraway look in her eyes.
"Of course I do," Whitestorm meowed, tipping his head to one side. "I searched the hardest of any warrior to find them."
"No one could find them..." whispered Bluefur, and for a moment a look of guilt crossed her face. But it was gone so quickly that Whitestorm shook his head, thinking that he must have imagined it. Bluefur stared at him for a moment, then went on, "The cat that fathered my kits...I can never forget him. I don't love him, at least I don't think I do, but I'll never love another after him."
"But you never told anyone who fathered your kits!" Whitestorm protested.
"Yes, and I won't now. But that doesn't mean I'll forget him."
"Does he know he fathered them?"
"Yes, he does," Bluefur murmured. "But trust me, Whitestorm, we will never be together again."
"If you can't be together, why can't you and I..."
Bluefur cut him off, stepping forward to push her side against his. "Whitestorm, oh Whitestorm," she meowed softly, "We'll always be friends, the greatest of friends. But I don't love you, and deep down you must know that we aren't meant to be."
She licked his ear in a kindly way, and then grasped her squirrel and set off back towards the camp. Whitestorm looked after her, wondering at many things. Who was the father of her kits? Why didn't she tell him how she felt? And why wouldn't she put him behind her?
He suddenly raced up ahead, struck by a sudden thought. He caught up by Bluefur, who was walking along, her head looking as if it were full of stars. "Bluefur," he meowed.
She snapped to attention. "What is it?"
"Even if we can't be mates," he meowed breathlessly, "You should know that I'll always be your friend. Always."
Her blue eyes grew soft and she leaned forward to touch noses with him. "Thanks, Whitestorm. That means a lot."
Next up...Ferncloud and Dustpelt. Then maybe I'm done. Unless I get another suggestion...