Two moons later...

Fawn(paw)

I walked around my nest slowly, testing out my bad leg. It was healing somewhat, but I knew that our medicine cat would have to break it again if it was ever to heal fully. It healed slightly off, so I walked at a bit of an angle. I couldn't cover ground properly, but I didn't mind. I knew that wouldn't get in the way today. Today, nothing could get in my way.

Lillystar and I had planned this for moons. Whenever we got a second apart from Speckle, we planned. We would drop conversation instantly. Sometimes we even talked in code. She would ask me how my herb gathering was going, and I would update her on my leg. Now that my leg was fully healed, I had quite the stash of herbs.

I sometimes asked her why the Clan had never come to save us. She had explained sorrowfully, "I told them that if I ever disappeared they shouldn't look for me. I didn't think I ever would, but I didn't want to start a war because I changed my mind about Speckle. Of course, I regret it now, but what's done is done."

I accepted her answer. Now that I was with Speckle, I understood her dilemna. Speckle was a jerk. I would never deny that. He scratched me whenever I didn't catch enough prey, or whenever I messed up my puny pile of herbs. If I messed up when patrolling our border, I could say hello to another scratch. I accidentally get him wet? Scratch.

However, Speckle wasn't a complete jerk. Sometimes he was really nice, which got super confusing. Sometimes he even said sorry to us for hurting us, which came as a great surprise the first time. He patrolled borders for us farther than I could go with my bad leg, and he protected us well from outsiders. If he ditched us, I would've been doomed. I couldn't run if someone attacked me. I guess I did have one reason to be grateful.

Speckle seemed to think I was an idiot. Today, I was going to prove otherwise. Of course, he wouldn't be able to know that. He also didn't know my leg had healed. To the best of his knowledge, I could barey hobble around. He rarely took my hunting because of that, but today he said he wanted a lot of food. I was going to go hunting with him and Mom.

We were going to split up. Speckle wanted to see how well I could hunt on my own at this point. Of course, he would guard Mom, but she could handle herself. She was Mom. She knew how to fight better than he did. The only reason we hadn't won yet was the fact the he outnumbered us.

"Fawn, it's time to go!" My mom called for me. I tried in vain not to scowl when she used my loner name. I was Fawnpaw and she knew it. One of the things I most looked forward to when going back to the Clan was being called Fawnpaw again until I became a warrior.

Speckle led us to the field, watching Mom as I limped along. He knew Mom wouldn't attack him. She couldn't. If she hurt him, he hurt me. Mom would never be able to accept that, so she seemed perfectly submissive.

"Fawn, you're going hunting on your own for the first time today," he informed me. "I just want to see how well you'll do, ok?"

I nodded, kneading the ground. I wanted to hurry up and get back home. He seemed to take my impatience as eagerness to get hunting, and he left. I turned into the huge field, easily disappearing into the tall grass. I almost stopped hobbling, but barely caught myself. I couldn't have my plan falling apart now.

I pretending to be hunting, making it look like I was following a scent trail while I slowly made my way towards our camp. I didn't think I had a guard, but I couldn't be too safe. Once I thought I could make it to the camp with ease, I took off, running as fast as I could.

It turned out, I had a guard. I could hear the cat following me as I ran, but I knew the chase was hopeless. I knew my way around the territory. I took a winding path, making sure to go past any blocks I could. I could hear the cat slowly falling behind, but I knew it wouldn't give up easily.

I kept running, pushing myself to my limit. I didn't have much practice with running, since most of my walking time was spent pretending I had a limp. I could feel myself slowing, but it didn't matter anymore. I hit forest and knew I was almost to the camp.

"Fawnpaw? Is that you?" I ran past Yellowfeather, our medicine cat.

"Sorry Yellowfeather, can't talk. Reaching camp." Yellowfeather started running beside me, seeming worried.

"Are you okay? You're not running normally."

I forced myself to breathe more normally and respond, "Broke my leg. Healed wrong. Need to reach camp."

Yellowfeather seemed to understand, and she fell back a bit. "Someone's following you," she told me, not questioning. I nodded anyways, and she kept running a bit behind me. "I'll make sure you get back to camp." Yellowfeather wasn't a warrior, but I knew she could fight better than some rogue. I was safe.

I burst into camp and saw Lillystar pacing around anxiously. She ran up to me and nuzzled me. "You made it! I was worried I would have to go fight Speckle some more."

I licked her. "We made it, Lillystar," I said, tears filling my eyes. I was finally home.

"I know, we're-" Her voice cracked, and she stopped for a second before continuing. "We're safe, Fawnpaw."

You get one more happy story. Likely only one more happy Warriors story ever. Honestly, I've done a bit of research on things like this (not quite this specific, but abuse and the like) and I tried to write Speckle like the examples I knew of. Abusers are conundrums.

I finished fleshing out my old one-shot! I hope whoever it was that asked me to turn this into a story liked it. I'm not sure how many chapters you hoped for, but I think you got six. Yay!