I'm back with another chapter!
Reviews!
Hissing Mist: She's observed before, back when she was very new to being an apprentice. But this is her first time actually helping! Well, Stormwhisker's going to be a little important in the future, but I'll let you decide for yourself if you like him or not. And thanks for the suggestions! I love all of those :)
Flamewing: LOL no worries! Thank you so much, here's your update!
Fastbreeze37: Thank you so so much! You're definitely going to see more of that in the next few chapters, especially the next one, before it dies down for a bit (temporarily, of course. What kind of story would it be otherwise?) so thank you! And wellll no, not Hawkpaw... not this time, at least ;)
Honeyflame: Yep, that's exactly it. You'll find out why a little later... and as for Stormwhisker, you're on the right track! Thank you for the suggestions! I didn't use any of those this time, but please suggest more when I ask again :D
Sapphire-Glow: I really appreciate how you put so much detail into this review! So thank you so much! And I love the suggestions (you're actually the second person to suggest Larkkit, what's with that?) Thanks again :)
For the kits, I've chosen Larkkit (thank you to Fastbreeze37 and Sapphire-Glow) and Applekit (courtesy of Hissing Mist). Thank you all for the great ideas, and please keep them up!
Now... for the chapter. *evil laugh*
I don't own Warriors.
CHAPTER 6: HERE THEY COME
Leopardwish recoiled from the floundering queen, whirling around in shock. "What do you mean? What did you see?"
Hawkpaw cursed under her breath and braced herself for the worst as Brackenhaze caught her breath before launching into an explanation. The gash in his throat had reopened, it seemed, as if he had torn it open on a stray thorn in his nest, and far worse than before. According to the aghast golden-furred she-cat, she had never seen blood spurt from a wound so fast.
Sandstrike jumped to his paws. "You can't take her! Cedarfang needs her."
"He's dying," Brackenhaze hissed, lashing her tail. "Do you want his blood on your paws?"
"Do you want the blood of these kits on yours?"
Hawkpaw watched the interaction out of the corner of her eye, though most of her attention was focused on the trembling queen before her, whose jaws were parted as though she wanted to speak, but couldn't make a sound. The next kit was on its way, as Leopardwish had said, but her ginger mentor was caught between two spitting warriors.
The first kit flailed uselessly beside her mother, as if she couldn't stand the tension any more than anyone else, and Hawkpaw placed her forepaws on Cedarfang's round abdomen as Leopardwish had done. But where in StarClan's name was the second kit?
Cedarfang met Hawkpaw's ice-blue stare, the same question reflected in her panicked eyes, but Hawkpaw willed herself to appear placid and soothing. This would be painful, no doubt.
"That's enough!"
The interruption came from Leopardwish, who had raised her mew to be heard over Sandstrike and Brackenhaze. Startled, Hawkpaw stumbled backwards, almost toppling into the moss, and shook out her black pelt, turning to the medicine cat with no small annoyance.
But her mentor only gazed steadily at her, sizing her up as if she were a piece of prey, and Hawkpaw balked, uncomfortable, and murmured weak consolations to the thrashing queen. The second kit would be a powerful one—that is, if it ever left its mother's body.
"Hawkpaw." She looked up, finding that Brackenhaze had vanished and that her mentor was staring all-too-intently at her. Leopardwish opened her mouth, but fear had already gripped Hawkpaw, who had taken one look at the fuming Sandstrike and was now certain she knew what her mentor was going to say. "I need to help Stormwhisker."
It would be a brutal blow to ThunderClan to lose such a young, promising warrior. But kits—kits were the future. Leopardwish had to choose between one cat and many, and she had chosen one.
"You understand, don't you?" Leopardwish sounded uncertain, desperate, even, as if her apprentice's approval was the most important thing in the world. "Stormwhisker's situation is more dire than Cedarfang's, and I need to help him."
"You're giving up on a queen and her kits." And all for one warrior.
"No!" Leopardwish mewed, with such ferocity that Hawkpaw's head snapped up. "I'm not. I need to help Stormwhisker, but you're perfectly capable of delivering Cedarfang's kits."
She scoffed. Yeah, right. Hawkpaw twitched her whiskers, searching her mentor's amber scrutiny for the familiar flicker of amusement that had never failed to comfort her, but there was only dark determination there, fixed solely on the apprentice, not on the protesting Sandstrike or the screeching Cedarfang.
"What, are you serious? I've never delivered kits. You haven't even gotten to that part of my training."
Leopardwish bared her teeth. "I'm going to help Stormwhisker. Would you let Cedarfang die?"
"You're letting her die!"
"I know she'll be in good paws, if you choose to help her."
"You might as well have Sorrelkit deliver these kits. She knows about as much as I do."
"Well, we delivered the first she-kit." The uncertainty in Leopardwish's tone had shifted to a mix of desperation and resignation. "Please, Hawkpaw, I don't have much time. Please help her."
StarClan couldn't have picked a worse time, Hawkpaw reflected, as the queen snapped the chervil root in two and clawed up massive chunks of her nest. Her gaze flickered from Cedarfang to the small, unnamed she-kit, and she placed a tentative forepaw on the queen's belly.
"Of course I'll help her," she snapped, but Leopardwish had already disappeared.
She moved her paw in soft circles, ignoring Cedarfang's plea to stop as she felt for the stubborn kit, then paused, narrowing her eyes as she tried to pinpoint which part of the kit was where. She could feel a larger, rounder head, but the rest of it was splayed strangely across the she-cat's abdomen. Hawkpaw shook her head, trying to clear her senses as she focused until her eyes ached. There was something wrong with it, though she couldn't place what it was.
The first kit, she recalled, had been slick and small and shriveled at this point so low in her mother's body, but this one... this one...
It's the wrong way around, someone finished in her ear, and Hawkpaw whipped around, ready to claw Sandstrike's ears off for disrupting her. But Sandstrike was on the opposite end of the nursery, speaking urgently to Honeypool as he paced back and forth, and the voice in her head was a she-cat's.
Go on, keep massaging her like you were, the voice continued, and Hawkpaw obeyed without a second thought. There, you see? She's close, but needs to work just a little harder.
"Cedarfang," Hawkpaw mewed, fighting to keep her voice from wavering like her confidence, "I need you to push again. I know you're tired, but—"
The queen's furious yowl cut off her words, and Hawkpaw could have purred at the sight of the unyielding resolve in her cloudy, half-lidded eyes as her flank convulsed again, sending a large kitting sac slumping into the soft moss. Thank StarClan!
Hawkpaw released the second kit, licking it furiously until she could almost hear its chest rising and falling and then pausing to inspect its slick, gray fur.
"A tom," she announced, placing him by his mewling sister, but Cedarfang was crying out again. Her paws felt for the next kit, praying it would be the last when her muscles trembled visibly in distress, even though her heart was swelling with pride. I did it. I delivered a tom!
Hawkpaw could have sworn she felt a soft body press against her, even though she found no one there. Don't let her sleep. She's still alive, Hawkpaw, but she needs to finish kitting fast. Hawkpaw didn't bother looking around for the cat at this point, but she did venture a glance at the two squirming kits at her paws. They needed their mother, and Hawkpaw was not going to let her die.
Hawkpaw! Quickly!
Cedarfang groaned, and Hawkpaw padded up to her head to push the longer end of the splintered root back between her jaws before placing herself in the right position once more. With her soft forepaw, she pushed down just above where she could feel the kit's lump.
Don't rush, the voice mewed, and Hawkpaw bit back a retort. How was she supposed to deliver this kit quickly without rushing?
But moments later, the sac slid out of the gasping queen, and Hawkpaw shuddered as she noticed its pinkish tinge before biting it gently. She frowned at the tiny creature for a long moment. Maybe it was just the fact that the tom before had been huge, but this kit was absurdly small, and—
Lick her, Hawkpaw! Her tongue rasped over the bundle of fur—which, as the cat had somehow known, was in fact a she-kit—and she couldn't help but lick harder and harder when the tortoiseshell refused to breathe as deeply as her littermates. But at least she was breathing, and that was something, right?
That's enough, Hawkpaw. The fourth kit is already on its way.
The next kit's delivery started out with far less trouble than its siblings, but Hawkpaw stopped short as the queen's exertions grew even more feeble, with only a small, kit-like whine escaping her barely-open jaws. She wasn't sure whether to keep trying to push the kit out, or let the queen rest for a moment first, or—oh, StarClan!
But it wasn't the emerging kitting sac that drew her attention first when she dropped the weak she-kit, or the new cat faintly materializing beside her, but the thin trail of blood along Cedarfang's body that the third kit had left in her wake. StarClan help me!
"StarClan help me!" the queen ground out, as the fourth kit tumbled into the moss with a soft thud, but even as Hawkpaw nipped it free, she could sense that something was wrong.
"Another she-kit," she mewed, and Cedarfang finally—finally, thank StarClan—flopped and went still with an exhausted heave.
But the she-kit, a carbon copy of her mother, didn't seem to be responding to Hawkpaw's vigorous licks, and her head simply fell back to one side, even as her fur spiked and stuck out in all directions as if she had been alive and given the chance to roll around in thorns.
What do I do? she snapped to the cat beside her, and she blinked as she recognized the hazy silhouette. Cinderpelt?
I'm sorry, the gray medicine cat said, lowering her head for a moment before flickering and dissipating into nothing but a final whisper. They are on their way to StarClan.
"No!" Hawkpaw licked the she-kit again, as if it would somehow bring her eyelids to open, but she had already recognized the death-scent from when the previous deputy had died of greencough when she herself was just a kit.
Wait. They?
Hawkpaw dropped the motionless she-kit and scanned the others. Her heart cried out as her gaze fell on the impossibly tiny tortoiseshell she-kit, whose shallow breaths had already faded.
She started to warn the queen, but she was already pulling all four of them to her chest with her tail and calling her mate over. Cedarfang sniffed at the damp furballs, and Hawkpaw stared at her paws, waiting for Sandstrike to hurl himself at her and rip her apart. But it was Cedarfang who noticed first, nosing the too-little she-kit that she had kitted third. Hawkpaw tensed. She had known something was wrong when the kit had come out too small, and...
"I'm sorry," she murmured, as the queen turned her horror-stricken eyes to the other motionless kit, the stillborn she-kit. "I... tried my best. I'm so sorry."
Then, without bothering to meet Sandstrike's undoubtedly-accusatory eyes, Hawkpaw turned and stalked out of the nursery.
Poor Hawkpaw... Next chapter is going to be a little more of emotional one, where we see her struggling with everything that's just gone down. Obviously, it wasn't her fault, but SHE doesn't understand that... and we're going to see another cat returning, yay!
Please, please review!