Slash stared at the lifeless cat, feeling as if she was going to be sick. She held her food down and her tears back.
"T-thank you." She managed to choke out, feeling disgusted with herself. She padded away from the alley, attempting to comfort herself with familiar sights. Eventually everything dissolved into a gray mist…
She opened her eyes with a start, finding herself in her usual place by the dumpster. When am I going to stop having these flashbacks? It's been a moon-cycle already! Now that she was awake, she ran to fetch their meals, something that had quickly become habit. She idly kept her eyes on the cringing cats skulking in the alleys. She felt pity for them, caught under Ice like she was, but of a much lower rank. She decided to try the suburban buildings this time. It was greenleaf, and that meant that sometimes Twolegs would go outside and cook food over fires. In some houses they were burnt and thrown away. She licked her lips and headed to the fence-line near the woods.
"Leafpaw!" The cry went up around the camp as Leafpaw proudly held her head up. She thought again about her sister, for what seemed like the thousandth time, before the calls died down and she made her way to Cinderpelt's side.
With dawning horror, she'd realised that over time the exact memories of what Squirrelkit had looked like had started to fade – she no longer recalled her sister's exact shade of ginger or the precise colour of her eyes. But StarClan would be kind, and when they were finally reunited she'd know her when she saw her.
"Come on, Leafpaw." Cinderpelt said tactfully, aware of the significance of the moment. "Let's go herb-gathering."
The sisters both got on, in their own ways. While Slash didn't kill again, she still had to maim as per her job description. And Leafpaw went on as well, although she always wondered why her sister never visited at the moonstone. Fate has a funny way of working though, and it was a blustery leaf-fall day that saw Slash being reconnected, in part, with her birth Clan.
The city's weather had turned harsher as more cats struggled to find food. Usually a cat could catch at least a pigeon, if they were skilled. But leaf-fall had seen a decline in the number of Twolegs who fed them and they had started to roost too high for cats to reach. As Slash walked along the fence of the suburb again, a brown shape stopped her routine.
"What are you doing on my territory?" She asked.
"This is ThunderClan territory. Go back to your housefolk."
"And you think that just because I have a collar I'm a kittypet? You forest-dwellers really are stupid." She leaped off the fence, allowing the unfamiliar tom to get a good look at the teeth of cats from various punishments. The stained teeth of Bronze sat pride of place, inserted forcefully by Ice.
"You wouldn't dare attack us. ThunderClan beat BloodClan twice."
"But you're not with ThunderClan. I'm telling you to get off BloodClan territory before I get someone else."
"You don't know what I'd be doing in the meantime. All I want is for you to get off ThunderClan land before I show you my claws."
"And I wish for you to get out of the BloodClan territory."
"What? Twolegplace? I wouldn't go in there if you gave me a pheasant."
She relaxed a small bit. This cat seemed rather presumptuous, but it seemed that he wasn't threatening her. She jumped back onto the fence.
"Brambleclaw, what's taking you so long?"
"Oh, just a rogue. She's leaving now."
"Need help to chase her off?"
Slash went away quickly before any trouble could be caused.