Whaaaaaaaat, I totally didn't miss an update...

Chapter Eighteen, Deadeye's pov

I shake out my fur as the survey patrols leave, calming my nerves about sending warriors away from the group where there could be foxes. The stench of them were still in the air, making my fur bristle.

"They're gone," I hear, and turn to see Pufftail padding up. "You don't need to worry about anything."

"I can't help it," I sigh, sitting, and look over to Needleclaw, who was taking deep breaths as he tries not to be sick. "And Needleclaw was hurt and feels sick because of what happened."

"You aren't blaming yourself, are you?," she asks me. "We were traveling for a while before they turned up. And you were the one who noticed in the first place."

"I just feel like I could've done more."

"You did all you could," she says, and sits next to me. "Just because you have the gift of bravery doesn't mean that when something happens to someone it's automatically your fault. Sometimes, bad things happen, and we can do nothing to stop that."

'But I could've,' I think, remembering what Moongaze and I had found out. Then I look around at the group at all of the other different 'We all could've.'

"Hey," she says, and I look at her. "Just take a few deep breaths. Don't go into your flee mode." I lay my ears down in embarrassment and she laughs, purring when I bump my head into her shoulder.

"I love you," I sigh, placing my head on top of hers. "Have I ever said that?"

"Only a few million times," she says, making me laugh. Then she is silent for a moment. "I hope the kits are okay..."

"They're fine," I reassure her. "They have been warriors four almost two whole season cycles now. They know not to get into trouble and to listen to who is in charge. Nothing will happen."

She sighs. "I know. I just miss them."

"I do too," I tell her. "And honestly, it could be worse. Think about Needleclaw. Snowflight and his kits are back at the camp, and Smokekit is only one moon old."

"But what about Lilykit?," she asks me. "She's a kit too."

"But not ours," I say. "She's Willowspot's, and both Willowspot and Spoteye are back home to protect her. She'll be fine."

"I hate to break up this moment," I hear, and open my eyes to see Mudsplash.

"Don't worry," I say, moving my head off of Pufftail's. "What did you find?"

"There's a fox den not far from here, and it smelled like there was milk," he reports.

"So there's young foxes," I say to myself, and stand. "Thanks. Where's the other patrol?"

"They got back the same time as mine. Ravenstorm scratched her pad though so I reported for her," he says, walking with me over to Skystar.

"Skystar," I call, and he looks at me. "The patrols found a fox den with a milk scent not far from here."

"They must have moved to the den here," he says.

"Darkpelt said the den here looked bigger than the den from before," Mudsplash tells us. "Its very possible the den from before wasn't big enough."

"Strange that they are in a group," I say. "They're usually independent."

"Its possible they may have joined together to protect their young ones," Skystar says. "Either way, there are foxes here. We need to move as soon as possible."

He then stands, and I follow him over to Moongaze and Needleclaw, the warrior talking with the medicine cat. They both look up as we approach.

"Do you feel any better, Needleclaw?," Skystar asks.

He nods. "Yeah. Still feel a little nauseous, but I'm not that dizzy anymore."

"Are you feeling good enough to travel?," I ask, and he nods.

"I would wish that we could stay put for a bit longer to make sure, but we do have to go," Moongaze says, agreeing.

Skystar nods and turns to the rest of the cats. "We have to go."

The group looks at him for a moment before those sitting down or laying down stand up, waiting for him to go ahead before beginning to follow.

"We need to figure out how to get past the mountains," I say to Skystar, padding beside him. "We don't want to get stuck up there for too long."

"Yeah," he says. "If we need to, we will go up and over. But I would rather find a tunnel or something of the sort so we can just go through."

"What if it caves in, though?," I ask him. "Or if we get lost? You remember the tunnels by Windclan and Thunderclan territory."

"I know," he sighs, and look at me as we pad on. "But I'd rather take that risk than have one of our cats get greencough from the cold in the mountains."

"I guess so," I say. "But we would also need to hunt, and there won't be much prey in the tunnels. Our only hope would be to carry a bunch of extra prey with us so that we can eat on the way."

"Good idea," he tells me, facing forward, and a long silence follows.

But he breaks it once we reach our next rest point. "Could you organize the patrols so that I can go around and see how everyone is doing?"

I nod. "Of course."

Before I pad away, though, he puts his tail on my shoulders. "I couldn't have asked for a better deputy or friend. Thank you for being by my side since we were young."

"I'll be helping you until we die," I tell him. "And you've been a great leader to look up to. Thank you for leading us so well for so long."

"Thanks," he says.

"And for what I said about helping you until we die," I start, whiskers twitching in amusement. "I guess that means that'll end soon, because if I know you, you tend to get yourself into trouble."

"Says the one who was backed up into a tree by foxes," he laughs.

"Says the one who I saved from foxes when we were kits," I shoot back, and he laughs loudly.

"Okay. Okay. You win. Go organize the patrols."

I nod to him, letting him pad off as I sit and think through who to send.

The patrols are sent off after long, and once they return we eat from the prey the hunting patrols found. By then, the sun was high in the sky and with the heat of the greenleaf sun beating down on us, we all were very tired.

"We should rest," I hear Moongaze suggest to Skystar. "Traveling at night would be better right now. The heat will make us thirsty and tired, and we won't make much progress."

I turn just in time to see Skystar nod, and he faces the group. "Let's rest here. We'll continue at nightfall."

So, I forgot about updating any story until Tuesday, and by then it would just be weird to update, so I decided to wait. Sorry about that.

But, yeah. There's the chapter. Seriously have nothing to say about it really without spoiling future chapters, so... yeah.

I really hope you enjoyed this episode! Bye!

Ttyl

-TheRealDigiGal

Edit: Okay, so apparently I was super dumb and wrote the ANs for this chapter at one point, but then never actually updated the story with this chapter. My bad XP

Also, and this is for all the stories I'm working on, I have decided to update every three days or so. Doing updates once a week makes it easy for me to forget to do it, so hopefully doing an update every three days will help me with actually putting these chapters out there rather than just having them sit in my devices.

But, yeah. Ttyl!