As she crept down the tunnel towards the sound of the fox cub, the darkness felt even more solid than usual. The closer she got, the more she began to wonder if she was making a deadly mistake. The fox might only be a cub, but it was still enormous, much larger than she was. It could still kill her.
The cub's whimpering echoed off the walls, disorienting her as she got closer. But when she couldn't rely on her hearing anymore, its scent was so strong she could follow it easily. She reached a small branch and heard a tiny scraping noise, as if soft pads were shuffling against the stone. It must be right down this path.
Hollyleaf took a deep breath and stepped into the tunnel. Almost at once, the fox let out a shriek as if it had heard her approaching. "It's all right, I'm not going to hurt you!" Hollyleaf called into the darkness. There was a fast scrabbling sound, and a wave of fox-scented fear rolled down the passage toward her. Hollyleaf reminded herself that this was just a lost and scared cub, and it didn't want to hurt her. She padded closer. "Hush, don't be frightened," she murmured.
The scrabbling stopped, and Hollyleaf guessed the fox was pressed against a dead end with nowhere else to go. It let out the tiniest whine. "Poor little scrap," Hollyleaf mewed, as if she were comforting a kit. "Did you get lost?"
The absurdity of the situation was not lost on her. She was deep underground, trying to comfort a scared fox cub that was probably twice her size. Of course she had no kits of her own, nor had she ever planned to, but she had seen enough of how ThunderClan mothers interacted with their kits to know how it was done. And fox cubs couldn't be that different, right?
She took another step forward, and her muzzle bumped against soft, strong-smelling fur. Trying not to gag, Hollyleaf gave it a lick. The fox tensed, rigid as a rock, then relaxed as she kept licking. Feeling bolder, Hollyleaf moved closer to where she guessed the cub's head was. Her nose touched the tip of a feather-soft ear. "It's all right, you're safe now," she whispered between licks.
The cub's head drooped until it rested against Hollyleaf's chest. She felt the faint tickle of its whiskers as it tucked its chin under its front paws. Hollyleaf wriggled closer until her body was curled around as much of the fox as she could reach. She could feel its breath slowing and becoming steadier. She stopped licking and rested her head on the fox's neck. "Sleep, little one," she murmured. She pressed close to the cold fur beside her, hoping that some of her warmth would seep in. It crossed her mind that none of her former Clanmates would ever believe she had slept next to a fox. But she wasn't in the Clan anymore, and this cub needed her, just as a kit needed its mother. Hollyleaf shifted her head into a more comfortable position and closed her eyes.
She was woken by something pinching her front leg. Hollyleaf opened her eyes in a panic. Was she being attacked? A shape loomed over her, and when she looked down at her leg she saw tiny white teeth sinking into her fur. "Ow!" she yelped, scrambling free.
The fox cub tipped its head to one side and looked at her. "Yip!"
Hollyleaf backed away. The cub was bigger than she remembered, twice as broad as her across its shoulders, and its teeth were small but definitely sharp. "Okay," she mewed, trying to stay calm and taking another step until she was safely out of reach. "Let's get you out of these tunnels."
The fox bounced to its feet. Hollyleaf braced herself. There was no sign that the cub thought she was prey; in fact, it looked as if it wanted to play. It let out another high-pitched bark and bounced on its front feet. Hollyleaf turned and looked back over her shoulder. "Come on!" she meowed.
She took a few steps forward. The fox ran after her, then stopped and whined. Hollyleaf looked at the tunnel ahead. It vanished into blackness, compared with the pale light that filled this section. "It's okay," she told the cub. "This is the way out, I promise." She padded into the shadows, but the fox stayed where it was. There was a soft thump, and Hollyleaf realized it had sat down. Sighing, she turned back and squeezed in beside it. "Get up," she urged, nudging the cub's flank with her muzzle. "You can't stay here!"
She jabbed its haunches with her paw and the fox jumped up with a yelp. Hollyleaf gave it another shove with her nose. "Come on, I'll be right beside you." The cub took a cautious step and Hollyleaf stayed close, pressing against its flank. "That's right!" she mewed.
While comforting the fox felt strange to her, guiding it came naturally. Was this what being a mentor was like? Of course if she had ever had the chance to have an apprentice, it would have been able to speak to her, and it wouldn't have been, well… a fox. But she regretted that she had never had that opportunity. And now I never will.
Slowly, they inched their way along the tunnel. She continued following the scent it had left when it had run down there, but she took a slightly different path to avoid the spot where she knew Breezepelt would be sleeping. She didn't want to risk either of them hurting the other.
The fox stopped dead when they reached the first major junction, but Hollyleaf nudged and shoved and encouraged it around the corner until they could feel the breeze from outside on their faces. The fox let out a cheerful-sounding yelp and broke into a trot. Overconfident, it crashed into the opposite wall and sat down with a bump, whimpering. Hollyleaf ran forward and licked the fox's muzzle. She couldn't taste any blood, so it wasn't seriously hurt. "You silly thing," she scolded. "Stay beside me until you can see, okay?"
She knew the fox couldn't understand what she was saying, but it still walked more slowly as they rounded the curve in the tunnel. Gray light spilled in ahead of them, painfully bright even though they couldn't see the exit yet. The fox blinked and whined, rubbing its eyes with a front paw, and Hollyleaf found herself wanting to do the same.
She hadn't realized how much her eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. When she had first arrived, she had had to squint to see anything. But now, even deep in the tunnels where only tiny cracks of light were slipping in, she had been able to make out the details of Breezepelt's face. Unfortunately, this also meant that the outside world was blinding, even though she hadn't even reached direct sunlight yet.
The cub whimpered again, burying its face in its paws. "It's because you've been in the dark for a while," Hollyleaf explained. "Keep going; you're nearly there!" She reached up and licked the cub's ears, and a picture of Squirrelflight doing the same to her burst into her mind. She'd fallen into a puddle and her mother had whisked her back to the nursery to dry her off. Her mother. Suddenly Hollyleaf missed Squirrelflight with a physical pain.
The fox jumped up and trotted on. It picked up speed as its eyes grew used to the light, and Hollyleaf hung back, resisting the urge to stay pressed against its warm fur. The cub didn't belong here. It needed to be back with its mother, in their den in the woods. Suddenly the cub stopped, right at the entrance. It looked back at Hollyleaf and let out a questioning bark.
Hollyleaf shook her head. "I can't come with you, little one," she meowed. "This is my home." The words caught in her throat like a gristly piece of fresh-kill.
There was a loud yelp from beyond the mouth of the tunnel. The cub's head whipped around, its ears pricked. It let out a yip, and there was another bark, confident and joyous. "That's your mother, isn't it?" Hollyleaf whispered.
The cub bounded forward and vanished into the circle of whiteness. Hollyleaf crept along the tunnel until she could see the trees outside. The tunnel opened into a wood much like ThunderClan territory, with a mix of trees and dense undergrowth. The light crashed into Hollyleaf's eyes and she narrowed them as much as she could. Her ears rang with the sound of leaves rustling, birds singing, and the thunder of paws as cub and mother fox raced toward each other. Blinking, Hollyleaf watched as they collided in a tumble of russet fur. The cub let out a volley of excited yelps as its mother bundled it over, sniffing every part of its fur.
"You're safe now," Hollyleaf murmured, trying to ignore the lump of sadness in her chest. "You're back where you belong." The sight of the cub butting his mother's belly for milk mixed with images of Hollyleaf squirming with her littermates in the Clan nursery, bathed in comforting scents of food. I was happy then, before I knew the truth, she thought. But that life is over now.
Now, if she returned to ThunderClan, she would get no such greeting from her own mother. From either of the she-cats she could consider her mother. She still thought of Squirrelflight, the cat who had raised her, as her mother sometimes, until she caught herself and remembered the truth. But after she had revealed Squirrelflight's secret in front of all the Clans, there was no way Squirrelflight would ever forgive her. She'll never look at me like that again, she thought despairingly, watching as the mother fox licked her baby's head, gazing down at it with such a clear expression of love that it transcended their inter-species differences.
And of course, what she had done to Leafpool was even worse. Not only had she revealed her secret, which she realized would likely mean Leafpool couldn't be a medicine cat anymore, but she had also tried to force her to eat deathberries as punishment for her actions. Hollyleaf wouldn't regret telling the Clans the truth, but she did regret that. If only because Leafpool deserved to live with what she had done.
The fox cub turned then to look back at Hollyleaf one last time. "Go on, my love," she whispered. "Be with your real family." Almost as if it had understood her, the cub turned around, and then it and its mother walked off together.
Watching them go, Hollyleaf wondered for the first time if there was ever a time Leafpool had loved her that much. Had she loved her kits, even though having them violated the warrior code? She couldn't have. She couldn't have loved them, or she wouldn't have given them up. She wouldn't have lied to them. Maybe Squirrelflight had loved them, even though they weren't really hers, but she was certain Leafpool never had. How could you love something whose existence is so wrong?
When she returned to Breezepelt, he was awake and pacing around in tight circles. He looked stressed. Was he worried about me? she wondered.
"Hey, Breezepelt," she called out. He jumped. "It's just me," she told him, stifling a mrrow of laughter at his surprise.
Embarrassed, he sat down and began to groom himself, not meeting her eyes. "I knew that," he muttered. "You just surprised me, that's all."
"Of course," she meowed indulgently.
"Did you find your fox?" he asked. He seemed entertained by his own question, like he didn't believe she really would have been able to help it.
"As a matter of fact, I did," she informed him. "It was just a baby. It didn't know where its mother was, and it was scared. I-" As she told the story, it suddenly hit her that he wouldn't be able to understand the connection she had felt with the fox. The strength of the urge to take care of it that she had felt. She didn't even really understand it herself. If she told him she had slept next to a fox, groomed it, reassured it, he would think she had gone mad. "Well, I helped it find the way out," she finished.
Breezepelt shook his head. "Like I said, I will never understand ThunderClan," he meowed. "But I'm glad the noises stopped." A moment of silence went by while Breezepelt looked at his feet, seemingly choosing his next words. "I never thanked you for saving me," he muttered finally, as if the words pained him to say. "You could have let the fox kill me. I'm not sure I would have saved you, if our roles had been reversed. But even after everything I said to you, you saved me from the fox. And afterwards too. So… thank you. And I'm sorry for the things I said to you before. You don't only think of yourself- you just proved that."
Hollyleaf was surprised. Of course Breezepelt did owe her gratitude. She had saved his life. But she hadn't realized he was even capable of being genuine like this. He hadn't thanked Purdy for saving them from the dogs, he had just insisted they would have found their own way out. And apologizing for his words was even more surprising. Maybe this was a sign of growth.
She nodded. "You're welcome," she told him. Silence hung awkwardly between them. She wanted to make a joke to lighten the mood, but couldn't think of anything to say.
"I'm sorry too," she meowed finally. "I still think everyone deserved to know the truth about Leafpool's lies. She broke the warrior code, and she shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. But you're right, I wasn't thinking about how it would affect anyone else. I didn't think about your family," she confessed. "I was just so angry I didn't care who I hurt. So, I'm sorry."
Understanding flashed in Breezepelt's eyes as she spoke the last line, before returning to their usual glower. It seemed like he wasn't ready to forgive her just yet.
Would she do the same thing again, if given the choice? She still believed firmly that secrets and lies couldn't be allowed to stay hidden. The warrior code was the most important thing they had. It had to be upheld.
And yet, she had broken that code herself when she had killed Ashfur. It had seemed utterly necessary at the time, but killing her own Clanmate was just about the worst possible violation of the code.
And yet, her very existence was in defiance of the code. If Leafpool hadn't violated the code in not one but two ways, having kits both as a medicine cat and with a cat from another Clan, she would never have been born. Nor would my brothers, she realized, missing them suddenly with a pang. As furious as she was with Leafpool for breaking the code like this, she had no right to wish she hadn't.
But there was no point in reflecting on what she should or shouldn't have done in the past. She would never go back to ThunderClan again. Even if she missed her Clanmates desperately, she had done too much harm to ever return. By this point, surely Leafpool had told the whole Clan she had killed Ashfur. If she returned, they would just have her exiled or worse. She could bear the knowledge that she had left her Clan forever but she couldn't bear the idea of her beloved Clan forcing her to leave.
Looking up, she pulled her attention back to Breezepelt. He seemed to be almost completely recovered now. He still seemed a bit weak and underfed, though it was hard to tell with WindClan cats who were so naturally skinny. But he wasn't hallucinating anymore, and he was on his feet and walking around. Which meant he was well enough to leave. Which is what I want, she reminded herself. I don't want to be stuck with Breezepelt forever.
"I found the way out," she meowed casually. "I followed the scent of the foxes. I can show you, when you're ready."
"Oh." Breezepelt looked frozen. "Oh, yeah, I mean, at some point. For sure. That would be good." He took a breath. "I was thinking… maybe you could show me how to fish now? If you wanted to, I mean." He shrugged, as if he would be doing her a favor by letting her teach him.
Does he not want to leave? she wondered. Maybe he still felt too weak to walk, and he didn't want to admit that. But she couldn't ignore the unmistakable fear that had flashed in his eyes when she had offered to show him out. Why wouldn't he want to go home?
"Do you… do you not want to go back?" she asked carefully. "I'm sure your Clan must miss you."
"Oh, yeah." Breezepelt looked deflated. Had she said something wrong? "Yeah, no, I get it. You want your solitude. You don't want me disrupting it."
"No!" she exclaimed quickly, surprising herself with the intensity of her outburst. She hadn't realized how badly she didn't want solitude until Breezepelt had suggested she did. The half-moon she had spent before finding Breezepelt was the only time in her life she had ever been alone. Her whole life, she had been a part of a Clan. She had slept in the nursery, then the apprentice den, then the warriors den, always surrounded by her Clanmates. Even during her journey to the mountains or her brief time as a medicine cat apprentice, she had never truly been alone until she had come to the tunnels. And she didn't think she ever wanted to again.
Breezepelt was staring at her, eyebrows raised. "No?" he meowed.
Hollyleaf tried to act casual. "No, I mean, you should stay if you want. Or go. You're not bothering me either way."
Breezepelt shrugged again. "Great. Well, yeah, I don't know. Then maybe I'll hang around a bit longer. If it's all the same to you."
Hollyleaf nodded. "Great," she meowed, trying to hide her relief that he wasn't going to leave her just yet. "Then in that case, let's go fishing."
(A.N.: As you have seen, this chapter pulls some lines from the original Hollyleaf's Story. I really liked this storyline, and wanted to adapt it for my own "retelling", since ultimately my goal was to improve on that story rather than create my own intellectual property. This is the only chapter that reuses such large portions of Vicky's writing, however).