CHAPTER 19-Letdown

When Len first saw them, when he first pushed through the opening in the den that smelled sweet yet bitter at the same time, when he saw the mess that the patrol had brought home he ignored the bristling of fur and the beginnings of a warning and strode forward briskly. After he's breathed in the scent of the two cats that lay before him and caught the eyes of the warriors who had gathered around, only then did he think, Oh.

He couldn't think of anything else. Nothing else but the two cats who lay there on the green moss, dried moss that was now turning wet and red and soggy.

Oh, no, he thought. It's happening again.

He saw the two broken apprentices shriveled up on the nests. The cats are rushing to and fro, yelling orders, panicking, deciding to ignore the lynx who had suddenly decided to barge in on them.

Len's ears were deaf to the cries of terror and wails voicing all around him, and the only thing he could hear was the breathing of the apprentice's lungs, the soft rising and falling of the sides, the hearts beating and beating still. The heart hadn't given up yet, and neither will the bodies.

What a fragile thing a body is, he thought. The skin and fur was as soft as butterfly wings and as easy to tear. The muscles might as well have been leaves, the bones as brittle as twigs. Len concentrated on the heaving of their flanks, staring intensely as if, just by staring, he could magically make them heal. He was afraid that if he turned around and stopped looking, the lungs would cease to rise like the plummeting of a bird from the sky.

They were much too young to die, the lynx thought. If only he had been there when it had happened. His claws were massive, his shoulders powerful, and yet he still couldn't protect them.

Giving the medicine cats more room to work, he backed away until he was pressed up against the grimy wall. The den was dark, the only light filtering through the narrow opening, or what light that was left. Dried herbs were clustered in neat packages and stashed in a corner. The air was musty and dry, a fine layer of dust settling over everything. Len wasn't alone. The rest of the apprentices were nearby. Their emotions were different; Len could tell by looking at their eyes.

Wolfpaw was gazing down at her paws as if something had caught her attention, but he knew that she wasn't thinking about anything else except what had happened. Her brow was furrowed, her gaze unfocused and somehow darker in color. He noticed that her claws were unsheathed and sunk deep into the ground.

Silverpaw was huddled up next to her, their tails intertwined. She kept casting glances over to the two broken shapes, before finally sighing and collapsing into a lying position. She was upset; upset but mostly worried.

Featherpaw, sitting neatly next to Silverpaw, had a stony expression on her face that reminded Len of the mountains, of the huge, enormous mountains with their sharp-tipped peaks and eagle cries, high enough to almost touch the clouds.

How such a small and young cat could possess an expression as hard and as old as the mountains, he didn't know. She was angry, he knew, but not as angry as the black she-cat who was standing at the opposite end of the room. The cat who radiated a poisonous aura.

She looked like a monster. That was the only word to describe her with her ears flat against her face and her claws extended, kneading the ground until it was scarred with countless cross-marks, in dirt instead of in flesh. Her teeth were bared, as if she was facing an invisible enemy, but she kept quiet and her glare was lingering on the two apprentices. She was mostly watching the tortoiseshell one with the marred pelt and the wrecked shoulder.

The medicine cats didn't seem to notice the presence; they were too busy leaning down, exchanging whispers and worried glances, dashing back and forth to fetch new herbs.

The black she-cat looked like a monster, but what frightened Len the most was how she kept silent. Her nostrils were flaring, she was breathing heavily in fury, but still, she didn't utter a single sound. She kept her eyes fixed at the unmoving tortoiseshell cat. Her spine was rigid. She might as well have been a statue with a face bold enough to frighten away mountain lions.

Her dark brown eyes were wide, glaring. The fox and the dark grey tom were next to her, but they didn't seem afraid. And there was another tom, one with a tawny pelt freckled with spots and blotches, whispering reassuringly to the black cat.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting and breathing and watching and hoping, the medicine cats leaned back with tired sighs. To Len, they looked like robins with their feathers ruffled, like birds who had been out during a rainstorm. Weary. Dusty. Wanting nothing more than to lie down and rest.

It suddenly occured to him that the sun was no longer shining and if it weren't for his night vision, the den would be as dark as pitch. It had changed from noon to night in a single hour, just as fast as that. He shifted uncomfortably, not realizing that his paws had gone numb from sitting in one place for so long.

The air was no longer filled with hushed whispers and the rustling of herbs and frenzied pawsteps. Instead, it was silent. The cats were all glancing at each other, refusing to look at each other's eyes but blinking with questioning looks, as if they didn't know what to say or do next.

It was Dewstep who finally broke the tension. "How are they?" he asked carefully, in a soft and gentle tone that did not seem to fit his scarred face and tense muscles. They were all worried.

Jayfeather seemed glad to break the tension. "They were badly beaten," he reported, slipping on one last pulp of marigold to Scorchpaw's neck. "But we've done everything we've could. If they're still alive by next morning, then they'll be fine."

Silverpaw gasped, "But if they don't..." She gazed pleadingly up at her sister. Wolfpaw drew her in closer and let her rest her head on her chest.

Pawsteps sounded from outside, growing nearer and nearer. Len stiffened, while Jayfeather and Briarlight suddenly stood up. When only Bramblestar and no one else pushed in through the opening of the den, they relaxed and sat back down.

"Is everything going along alright?" he murmured. When his amber gaze fell upon the two apprentices curled up in the center, his eyes narrowed just a fraction of an inch. But Len saw.

Briarlight mewed briskly, "Fine. Now all we have to do is wait."

Meanwhile, Shadefrost still hadn't spoken or made a single noise. Not a sigh, not a growl, not even the scuffling of a paw. She was perched there in the corner with her hackles slowly rising and her eyes watching in front of her, just watching and doing nothing else. Like a sinister owl, or a shadow.

Bramblestar then turned to the spotted tom that was resting next to Shadefrost. "You said WindClan did this?" he asked. "I wouldn't be surprised if they did." There was venom in his voice, but it was quiet and hardly trembled. Len was uneasy. It reminded him of an adder just waiting to strike.

The spotted tom met the leader's gaze. "I'm certain," he said. "Their scent was strong. And I thought I heard Harespring's voice."

Bramblestar lifted his head and gazed up at a crack in the ceiling. After a long time of silence, he blinked, and for a few seconds, his eyes flared up.

With a determined appearance, he nodded to the tom and meowed, "Alright then, Spottedblaze. Tell us everything that happened."

OOoOOoOoOoooOooOOoOoOooOOOOOoOOOOOoo

The lynx came running as soon as he heard the bloodcurdling scream that made his pelt stand on end. There, staining the white snow a brilliant, bright shade of red, as red as poppies, were three bodies sprawled out against the white. It made his heart lurch and his blood run cold, a feeling he hadn't known since he had left the mountains.

Their limbs were splayed out wildly. A mess of awkward angles and broken faces and things not right where they should be, tails and paws and half-opened eyes. It was like stumbling across and finding a badger in the snow, stopping just in time to stare in shock and then not knowing what to do after.

After. Worry about it after. Think after. Breathe after. Right now, the only thing he should do right now, was to carry them back to their Clan.

He recognized them even though they were a bloody pulp of mangled fur and sliced-open flesh. Tortoishell. Ginger-and-white. But who was that other body lying next to them? Brown with white paws, although he wasn't sure since the blood absolutely stained the pelt almost completely crimson.

Another cat came running out of the woods in the opposite direction of where he had come from. Len, seeing the intruder, spat menacingly and stood over the broken bodies, shielding them as best as he could.

The cat shrank back suddenly, eyes widening in fear, but when he saw the blood on the snow they narrowed, although the fear was still there.

"Wh-who a-are you?" he hissed, unable to keep his voice from trembling. "What did you do to them?"

Len could understand. Even if he didn't know their language, he could understand the way the cat's fur was fluffed out like a porcupine's, the scathing tone and the way the claws itched. The look in the gaze, frenzied with the terror and yet desperatley trying to cover it up.

It wasn't an enemy, the lynx finally decided. It couldn't be, because why else would the cat just stand there, facing everything instead of running away. Why else would the cat hiss and spit and ask, 'What did you do to them?'

It wasn't an enemy who was coming to take Stormpaw and Scorchpaw away from Len. Because if he was, why was he suddenly darting forward, ignoring the threat of the lynx, and lapping away at the stained pelts in an effort to wipe away the blood?

"Hang in there," the spotted cat was murmuring in between licks. "I'll get you back to ThunderClan. Just hang in there."

When the lynx shifted uncertainly, he snapped his head back up and hissed.

"Who are you?" the cat demanded to know. "Why are you on ThunderClan territory?"

Despite the anger in the voice and the threatening gesture of the claws, Len felt relieved that the tom had come. He hadn't met a lot of comforting cats on his journey; most of them just froze up and hissed until he left. But this cat was different.

The tom's question to him hadn't been a dismayed shriek of 'You did this, didn't you?' or 'Filthy murderer! This is your fault!'

Instead, despite the trembling anger and overwhelming look of sheer terror, the spotted tom had faced the lynx and asked what he was doing here and who he was.

"Do not worry," he told the cat. "I am a friend of ThunderClan. I know these apprentices. Please, I need your help in taking them back."

The tom blinked, once or twice, and Len was suddenly certain that the next thing the cat would say was to leave this place and never come back, and make sure you stay out!

He was taken off guard when the spotted cat casted a nervous glance down at the mess, before looking up again, directly into the lynx's eyes, and meowing calmly, "Alright. I'll help you."

Utter trust. Faith that Len wasn't the one who did this, wasn't the one who had leaped onto the apprentices and stained the snow brilliant red. It took a lot to look at a lynx directly in the eyes.

"We need to hurry," the spotted cat meowed urgently. "But wait, who's this? He doesn't smell like ThunderClan." He bent down to sniff at the third body before reeling backward in shock. "He's hardly alive, but he's from WindClan. What's he doing on this land?" He shook his head hurriedly. "But never mind that. We need to take him along with us either way. Are you strong enough to carry two cats?"

Len nodded, and as gently as a giant could, deposited Scorchpaw and Stormpaw over his shoulders as gently as if he were carrying eggs, before he started running again.

They were jostled and bounced a bit by the pounding of his paws through the snow, and he was terrified that he would hurt them even more. They didn't move and hung limply, heads lolling and limbs dangling like broken tree branches. It seemed that they were dead, and this thought spurred him to run even faster.

The spotted cat sped alongside him, trying as best as he could to keep up. The WindClan cat was sprawled out on his back, looking as dead as fresh-kill.

"Don't slow down for me," the spotted cat gasped. "Just keep on running. Don't look back."

It seemed like a lifetime of running. Run. Run. Run. The trees and snow seemed to never end. And yet, the cat's words brought in an inkling of a memory that almost made him want to stop.

'Don't slow down for me. Just keep on running. Don't look back.'

Those words had been spoken before by an entirely different tongue that was no longer with him. It brought a pang to his heart, but still, he surged on, his paws never faltering. When he had heard those words the first time, in the midst of the mountains, claws reeling, lynxes fighting, he did slow down, stop running, and turned around to look back at Chogan.

This time, there was no second chance, nobody to cover for him in case he fell. His friends' lives were on the line.

The camp finally loomed into view, and it made his heart sing out in relief. Ignoring the gasping of the other cats, he broke in through the gorse tunnel, oblivious to the sting of thorns, and immediatley followed the smell of herbs to the medicine cats' den.

"What happened?" Shadefrost asked, eyes widening. Her voice became high-pitched and alarmed, like a bird's song right before the predator strikes. "Sam? Sam, can you hear me?"

A flurry of voices.

"Make room! Get inside!"

"Stop pushing! Briarlight! Get me some marigold and cobwebs. Move, now!"

"Hurry, hurry!"

The voices blended in together until everything turned into chaos.

OoOOOOooOoOoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoOooOO

"And that's how it happened," Spottedblaze finished quietly. "We carried them back as fast as we could."

Silverpaw asked nervously, "What happened to that WindClan warrior? Isn't he Weaselfur?"

"He's dead," the fox said without hesitating. "I checked just now." She broke off abruptly, as if she had wanted to say more but decided to change her mind.

They waited. Ember let out a small sigh through her nose and blinked down at her paws. "He couldn't have lived either way. There was a slash on his neck. Almost deep enough to cut his head off."

A ripple of shock spread through the den like a stone plummeting into a stream. Shadefrost didn't move, but Bramblestar did. He surged upward to his paws, his eyes blazing, teeth bared.

"Was it the same cat who had killed Moleclaw and Sedgewhisker? Who did this?"

Spottedblaze suddenly perked up, as if he had forgotten to say something, but then cowered back when he caught sight of the leader's enraged form.

Bramblestar forced his fur to lie flat, and tried unsuccessfully to calm down. "Go on, Spottedblaze. Is there something you want to add?"

The small cat flickered his gaze from one end of the room to the next, nervously. "F-from what I found, it seemed that Stormpaw and Scorchpaw were fighting with Weaselfur over something. They were near the ShadowClan border, but Weaselfur was deep in ThunderClan territory. I think, that maybe...Scorchpaw and Stormpaw spotted the intruder and that's how they got in the fight."

"But they were all badly beaten, and one of them wound up dying." This time, it was Dewstep who spoke. "I hardly think that two apprentices are able to do that much damage to an experienced warrior. No, the murderer who killed Moleclaw did this. I'm sure of it. Like Ember said, we've got the mark on Weaselfur's throat to prove it."

Len was lost now. Murderer? Was there a killer on the loose?

"But we'll have to ask Scorchpaw and Stormpaw to confirm it if they wake up."

If they wake up. Not when. Len shuddered.

It was then that Shadefrost moved. She shifted her stance until she was standing up, and even then the intensity of her gaze did not waver. It was like watching a snake wake up. The sliding of a scaly gaze void of any warmth. The glint of fangs hidden just underneath the lip. The slender, darting serpent tongue. Poison.

Shadefrost shifted again, sliding her eyes to stare at the motionless bodies before her, before slowly warming up and trudging outside.

She spoke. "We'll have to return Weaselfur's body to WindClan, I suppose. Leave it to me." The snake tongue flickered again. "I need to have a word with Onestar."

Dewstep, Ember, and Spottedblaze immediatley began to pad toward her, but she shook her head. "Stay and look after Sam and Scorchpaw for me. Please." A command, not a request.

And then she was gone.

Len was unsure what to make of it. He was surprised at how she acted. When he first met her, she was as warm as the sun, with a kind smile and grinning eyes, but now, she had completely and utterly changed.

Seeing Stormpaw like this set her on fire, he realized. He almost felt pity when he imagined just what kind of a 'talk' she was planning to have with whoever Onestar was, and he was sure that it wouldn't be pleasant.

"Clear out, now," Jayfeather meowed. "I don't like so many visitors crowding this tiny den. They can rest without cats constantly hovering over them." Even though he didn't move from where he stood, the medicine cat's words seemed to shove the warriors out with invisible arms.

There was a rustling of leaves and pelts as bodies moved.

"I don't think any cat has introduced you to us," Wolfpaw mewed when they were outside.

Spottedblaze gave a small, shy smile. "Sorry about that," he said, clearing his throat. "My name is Spottedblaze. I'm one of Shadefrost's friends, and I first met her back when I was an apprentice. In truth, I had no idea that she had finally come back until several sunrises ago."

Ember leaned forward to touch noses with him. "It's good to see you again," she murmured. "It's been a long while since you've last laid eyes on Shadefrost, hasn't it?"

"Yes," the tom replied. He did have a soft voice, Len noticed, as soft as moss. Even when he did yell, it wasn't louder than the clattering of stones underpaw.

The tawny-colored cat blinked and tipped his head back to stare up at the large swath of stars that twinkled from the purple-robed heavens. "Yes," he sighed, like the sighing of the wind from the pines. "It's certainly been a while. A very, very long while." Mournful and filled with a nostalgic melancholy.

Straightening up again, he almost looked embarrassed as he said, "I think I should get going now."

Dewstep dipped his head. "Are you sure that you can't stay longer? Bramblestar won't mind."

Spottedblaze shook his head. "No, it's best if I leave now."

With a small chuckle, he added, "Rowanstar'll feed my innards to the buzzards when he finds out where I am and save my bones for the kits. See you, Dewstep and Ember."

They watched as the lithe shape walked away, gradually growing smaller and smaller until it melted into the dark shadows of the trees.

As if he could read all of their thoughts, or catch the nervous scuffling of paws, Dewstep took command and meowed, "Get some sleep. It's going to be a long night."

"What if we get murdered in our nests?" Silverpaw mewed timidly.

"No one's going to die tonight. Not if I can help it," the warrior replied, his eyes flashing with a hidden strength. "Ember and I will look after Scorchpaw and Stormpaw."

Featherpaw tilted her head to one side with a questioning but serious look. She was asking for something. When the others only blinked back at her, she nodded her head quickly at the gorse tunnel.

After a while, it was Ember who finally figured it out. "Shadefrost can take care of herself," she reassured her. "She's a lot stronger than you think."

Wolfpaw ushered the apprentices back toward their den, while the fox and Dewstep headed in the opposite direction.

"Have a good night, Len," she called, turning her head to stare at the lynx. Len nodded in return.

As he turned around to pad slowly back to his own den, he couldn't help but catch a few parting words.

"Come inside, Featherpaw." The voice was Silverpaw's. "You won't want to catch a cold. Here, I'll share my moss with you."

With a small smile, he imagined the mute, white she-cat sniffing the air one last time before ducking her head back into the den. From within came a few scufflings, soft mews, and then finally, everything was still.

He was surprised at how quickly sleep could descend on the small camp like the sweeping of an owl's wing. As he neared his own den that was filled with his own kind, he hesitated before pushing in through the opening.

Darkness inside. A few coughs and last-minute mutterings. Glowing eyes, yellow and green.

Len pressed up against the wall, hoping he wouldn't have to speak to anyone tonight. But he was wrong.

From the corner of the den came a low growling noise that was like a groaning sound from a gutter: "And where were you today, Len?"

Facing the wall, the younger lynx replied without flinching, in an even tone, "Helping the cats out. They needed a few herbs." Which wasn't a direct lie.

Silence from the ogama. Len willed himself to breathe again.

"Are you disobeying me, Len?" Ahote began again. Len could just imagine the leader's hulking, muscular body, his eyes as piercing as a falcon's despite the fact that he was blind. "You know what happens to naughty kits. The wolves spirit them away."

He knew the nursery tale as well as he knew his own heart, and a pang stabbed through it when it brought back memories of him and Kateri in the mountains, and of Chogan. He pushed them away. Those moments were over.

Ahote was silent once again. Len could hear the quiet breathing of the other lynxes surrounding him. Their eyes were glittering with a strange light.

"Please don't doubt me, my ogama," Len mewed. "I am still as loyal as ever."

The older lynx grunted, which was a reply that could've meant anything. It wasn't a happy sound.

"Loyal?" another voice said. Kateri. Although Len didn't dare to look up, he could imagine her slithering around him like a serpent. There was a faint laughter in her voice that might as well have been triumph, like a woodpecker that had finally succeeded in capturing a pesky worm. "Loyal? Is loyalty the same thing as slipping away from your own comrades to frisk around with your enemies?"

Len's head snapped up, seconds before he could control his actions. He saw Kateri's face full of spite and scorn, the yellow-green orbs of her gaze shining in the dark.

"Y-you saw?" he squeaked.

"I saw everything that you did. Laughing. Rolling around. Playing. Tell me then, Len," she spat, her voice rising at the end. "Would you make peace with your enemies rather than hunt with your own kind?"

"I-it's not like that!" Len cried, forgetting to keep his volume down. He also forgot one important rule: Never contradict your leaders. It was traitor's talk.

Ahote rumbled like thunder. "Silence." Len flinched.

"You hardly seem like one who would forget so easily, but then again, you were never very bright," Ahote rumbled on. "Have you forgotten what the cats did to our home? To our fellow comrades? What they did to Chogan?" The name came out as a hiss of steam. The other lynxes were getting riled up now. They gathered beside their leaders, staring at Len with what seemed like amusement.

Kateri sighed mournfully. "Ah, my little star," she murmured, her face wracked with grief. "Chogan was always the best of the best. Unfortunatley, it was you who managed to live."

Len said nothing but hung his head. He prayed to the gods that this cruel lecture would be over swiftly.

What Ahote said next made his blood run cold and his hackles turn to ice. His stomach tied itself up into knots.

The ogama growled, "Traitor. Betraying us all by disobeying me and dancing with the cats. How long were the planning to keep this up? When will you finally prove that you are worthy of taking Chogan's place?"

"I'm sorry," the young lynx whispered. "I'll try harder next time-"

"There is no next time. I have given you enough chances, and yet you throw them away like boulders every time. I am done dealing with you. You are now banished from my group."

Len looked up and glared at the elder full on the face, a bold move that made the other lynxes set up a wail and Kateri to cuff him at the side of the face.

Reeling, he staggered and tried to will the burning on his cheek to die down. Was Ahote serious? Was he actually...exiled?

No. He must have heard wrong. His heart thudded desperatley in his ears as he crouched down dutifully at Kateri's paws, a gesture that looked like bowing.

"Please," he whispered, choking back a wail. "I'm worthy of staying."

"You are a failure, Len. I hope you can realize that." He's called him a failure many times, yet this one cut him to the quick.

Len wanted to plead again, but he knew it was futile. Casting side glances at the other lynxes, he tried to beg them with his eyes. Please, he thought. Give me another chance.

Most of them looked away or glared back with snarls, unemotional and merciless. Even the kits didn't help. They scuffled at their mother's sides, not caring what was going on. One stopped playing long enough to peer at Len, before mewing, "Sorry, Len. Try better next time."

It took all of his willpower to not leap up and argue back at Ahote. There was nothing he could do. No more begging, no more words, no more chances.

As he trailed out of the den, he felt the eyes of hundreds burn into the back of his skull.

"A lynx is a proud fighter who hunts and puts the wellfare of his companions in front of his own," he heard one of them mutter. "He trains to be the best, the toughest, and the one most able to protect the weak and unworthy. Everything he does is for his group. Everything he does is for his ogama. Power must not be wasted."

"Hmph," Kateri hissed. "Len will never understand that. Chogan's life was a waste. Oh, my poor little star..."

Len turned away, refusing to hear anymore.

As he padded into the quiet, empty starlit clearing, he felt hollow and truly alone for the first time. What should he do? There was a piece missing from his chest. He felt half-full. For the first time, even though he had never been held highly in the eyes of his peers, he didn't have a group of lynxes to back him up. He didn't have a warm nest to sleep in or a place to call home. He didn't have any companionship, or the feeling of fur next to his as he drifted off to sleep. No fresh-kill to share with anyone, no duties, no responsibilities, no nothing.

A lone wind moaned through the tree tops, moaning like a wolf's cry, moaning like his sick heart.

He was utterly and entirely alone, and it made him feel as vulnerable as a fish out of water. For a few minutes, he felt light-headed and he staggered. His mind reeled. He wanted to vomit, but instead gave a few dry heaves. He felt like he was suffocating, like he couldn't get enough air. Maybe the Three Spirits were punishing him for failing in his duties.

He was, like Kateri had told him time and time again, a curse. Born underneath a bad star. Maybe his curse was finally catching up to him.

An exiled traitor is supposed to leave and never come back. Len knew that it was his one and only responsibility, the last task that Ahote had entrusted him. He teetered over to a dead tree and leaned against it, drawing in a few panicked breaths.

He thought about what had happened. One of the kits, with wide, innocent eyes, had said sweetly, "Sorry, Len. Try better next time."

They didn't care. They never cared. It was a rule to leave behind a dying lynx and move on to save the surviving ones. In a few weeks, the longest a moon, they would forget the whole incident and maybe even forget he ever existed. The older ones had simply turned away and refused to look at him, while the others spat and agreed with the ogama at how perfectly and utterly worthless he was. Nothing but a bad curse.

He heaved himself to his paws again and started on his way. However, instead of moving toward the gorse tunnel, the exit, he turned and headed toward the medicine cats' den.

Cautiously, he stalked his way inside. It looked the exact same as he had left it, except now, sleep had seeped its way into the walls. Dewstep and Ember were curled up side-by-side next to the wounded cats. There were several snores coming from deeper in the den, signifying that the medicine cats were residing in the other rooms.

The warriors were dozing peacefully. As quietly as he could, Len settled beside Stormpaw and tucked his paws underneath him.

Her face was outlined in the silver moonlight. She looked peaceful. Her pelt had been cleaned of the blood, and instead of the redness it was plastered with herbs and cobwebs. Every once in a while, she would shudder or her foot would twitch. Then she would calm down again.

Len's ears filled with the breathing of the sleeping cats. He reveled in it. After all, he would soon come to forget what the sound of a den filled with peacefulness felt like. He was alone, with no group to come back to and no one to miss him.

For some reason, he didn't want to leave just yet and instead sat there, eyes half open and listening to the breathing. Stormpaw and Scorchpaw were still alive. Maybe they would be dead the next morning. Maybe not. The important thing was that they were alive right now, at this very moment.

Len didn't know what drove him. In all his life, he was taught to fight for the group, hunt for the group, live for the group. His very existence was to protect the group, obey the ogama, and as the nursery tale went, naughty kits were spirited away by wolves and the obedient ones were blessed with charm and grace.

He wasn't charming nor graceful, and he still hadn't made his way down the belly of a wolf yet.

He hesitated. He didn't know why he wanted to do this. Maybe it was a shred of disobedience, a sort of revenge he wanted to pay back to the lynxes. But he wasn't angry. He was never angry. He was sad, upset, confused, and a mixture of other things, but he wasn't angry.

He was confused because he had seen how the cats treated each other. Spottedblaze, a cat from another Clan, had been willing to rescue Stormpaw and Scorchpaw. He still wasn't sure what their rules were, but he had a basic understanding that cats from other Clans weren't supposed to help each other.

'Aiding an enemy only brings trouble,' Ahote had growled time and time again.

'It's a sign of weakness,' Kateri had always agreed. 'Like standing up and allowing a moose to run you over. It's shameful. A disgrace to a full-born lynx."

And yet, Spottedblaze, without a shred of hesitation or shame, had looked Len full in the eye and said, with grim determination: 'Please, I need your help in taking them back.'

And Len had helped because these cats were his friends, and if he didn't, Stormpaw and Scorchpaw would die.

These cats were strange, he thought. Didn't Spottedblaze know that if he helped an enemy, he was weak?

And everything about it was strange in its own way. The apprentices were clearly dying. If they had been lynxes, they would have been abandoned without a second thought. 'Weak members are only a burden,' Ahote growled. 'It's better to save your effort for the stronger, honorable ones. They are the ones you should look up too."

And the mute one, the one named Featherpaw. If a lynx was born with a disabilility, such as deaf ears or crippled limbs, it would immediatley be discarded. Such signs were often bad omens from the gods. And besides, it would be too much work in caring for a lynx who was too weak to do anything in return.

But these cats were so, so very different. They took in their weak ones; they let Featherpaw stay. They saved the dying ones; they took Stormpaw and Scorchpaw back. They aided their enemies; they let Spottedblaze rescue their apprentices without a second thought on which Clan he came from.

If I were a cat, Len thought, would Bramblestar exile me for making friends with my enemies? Would their kits turn to me with wide eyes and say, 'Sorry, Len, try better next time'? It was hard to believe.

The moon was rising. It was time to leave. But this wouldn't take long at all.

He shifted closer to Stormpaw until he could see the fluttering of her eyelids like butterfly wings and the stirring of her chest, softly like the breeze.

Maybe he wanted to do this because, in all his life, from his birth in the mountains to his arrival in the forest, he had never had anyone he could talk to who was so willing and sympathetic to listen. He never had a comforting shoulder to lean on, or a place to go to when his heart needed it most. All his life, he was regarded as less than a lynx, less than worthy, useless, a curse, a bad omen.

Ever since he was young, he had wanted to leave the mountains and travel the world. He got that wish. And in doing so, he had met a Clan with strange traditions and filled with even stranger cats.

Maybe he wanted to do this because he knew that she was asleep. Everyone was asleep. No one could see what he was about to do, and no one could listen and wake up and remember, but at least he could open his mouth and speak what his heart had been rioting about.

As he talked, his chest felt lighter somehow.

With the soft moonlight filtering into the warm, sleeping den, with the hushed breathing surrounding him, Len whispered into Stormpaw's sleeping ear and quietly, he told her the story of how he was born, why he and his group had left the mountains so long ago, and why he was leaving again.