Leafpool watched as her sister bit sharply into the vole's neck, killing it instantly. It had been a clean catch, as Squirrelflight's catches usually were, and the prey hadn't even had time to cry out before she had killed it.

"Here," meowed Squirrelflight, dropping it at Leafpool's feet. "This can be yours. I'll take the squirrel from earlier."

Leafpool sighed. "I feel bad taking credit for your catches," she told her sister. "You're such a brilliant hunter, and the Clan isn't getting to see that."

Squirrelflight just shrugged. "I can catch enough for two of us. Feeding the Clan is what matters, not getting glory for it. I want them to see you bringing back prey."

This wasn't the first time they had had this argument, and Squirrelflight always won. To be fair, Leafpool never fought that hard. She felt bad taking credit for the work Squirrelflight did, but she also needed to do it. ThunderClan already hated her enough. Hated her for breaking the warrior code, hated her for lying, and hated her for being so useless as a warrior. If they knew she couldn't even catch prey, they might just want her gone from the Clan altogether.

Learning to be a warrior after spending her whole life training as a medicine cat was hard. Cinderpelt had shown her a few fighting moves so they could defend themselves in case of an attack, but they were so elementary that she still had basically the same training as a brand-new apprentice. And besides, she had never had much interest in this training, so she hadn't put as much effort into it as she probably should have. But unlike Cinderpelt before her and Jayfeather after her, she had only ever wanted to be a medicine cat. She had had no desire to learn anything else.

When she had first been forced to step down as medicine cat, Firestar had offered to assign her a mentor so she could learn to be a warrior the way all other warriors in the Clan had. She had declined. It was humiliating enough being forced to become a warrior. Being forced to act as an apprentice would have been more than she could bear.

Fortunately, she had Squirrelflight to help her. When their secret had come out and Brambleclaw had cast Squirrelflight out as his mate, she had been scared it would make Squirrelflight hate her. After all, it was because of her mistake that Squirrelflight had been forced to lie to her Clanmates and her mate. Squirrelflight would have every right to resent her. But in the end, the revelation had only brought the sisters closer together. They were both outcasts within their Clan. The sons they had both loved as mothers despised them both. And they had both lost their daughter.

Squirrelflight stuck close to her side, defending her from any cat who tried to make disparaging comments on her pathetic attempts at learning to be a warrior. And she brought Leafpool out in the forest to teach her to fight and hunt, so she could learn in private instead of making a fool out of herself in front of her Clanmates.

Learning to fight was a big challenge. She found herself able to memorize complicated sequences of moves fairly easily, since having to memorize all the herbs in the forest had trained her memory well. But actually executing these moves was a different story. She didn't have the strength of the cats who had been training as warriors their whole lives, or their reflexes, balance, or speed. She knew she could get physically stronger, but part of her worried if by not learning these skills as an apprentice if it was already too late for her to gain those other abilities.

Still, as hard as learning to fight was for her, hunting was far worse. Her inability to hunt wasn't just physical. She actually had gotten the knack for it fairly quickly, and within a quarter-moon, she was ready to try catching something real.

"There's a squirrel sitting just under that tree," Squirrelflight had whispered. "See it? Chewing a nut. Use your hunter's crouch, keep your hips still, and it won't know you're coming until you're on top of it."

Leafpool had nodded, determined to finally do something useful for her Clan again. Dropping into the hunter's crouch, she had crept silently up on her prey, her belly fur brushing the ground. The wind was blowing her scent away from the squirrel, so she knew it wouldn't smell her approaching. Slowly, carefully, she had crept closer and closer until the squirrel was only a tail-length away. And then, finally, she had bunched her haunches beneath her and pounced. As her paws had left the ground, the squirrel picked its head up abruptly, finally detecting her presence.

But it was too late. Before it had had a chance to move, she was upon it, and she killed it by biting its neck sharply, just as Squirrelflight had taught her.

But she didn't have Squirrelflight's experience, or her precision. When Squirrelflight killed prey, her killing bite was perfectly placed, and the prey died instantly. When Leafpool had done it… As her teeth sank into the squirrel's neck, she heard it cry out in pain and she pulled back. Beneath her, the squirrel was bleeding heavily from its wound. The wound that she had given it. It had twitched feebly, as if trying to get up, and Leafpool had just… frozen.

She knew this wasn't a cat. Of course it wasn't. It was prey, and they had to kill prey to survive, and that meant that now she had to kill prey for her Clan to survive. But in that moment, the squirrel beneath her was bleeding out in the very same way a cat would. The very same way a cat would bleed as she tried frantically to save it back when she was a medicine cat. The same way Cinderpelt had bled, the same way Molepaw had bled, the same way Sootfur had bled. Her job had once been to heal wounds like this. How was she now meant to inflict them?

"Good job!" Squirrelflight had exclaimed, padding over to her as the squirrel had breathed its last breath. "It never even saw you coming. We'll make a hunter of you yet." Leafpool had opened her mouth to respond and found she couldn't speak around the lump in her throat.

Oh, StarClan, how can you make me do this? she demanded silently. She felt her breaths coming shorter and faster, as if there wasn't enough air in the whole forest to breath.

Squirrelflight's eyes had gone wide, and she had rushed over to press her pelt against Leafpool's. "What's wrong?" she had demanded. "Leafpool, that was really good. Especially for your first time. You did good."

It had taken her a long time until she had calmed down enough to be able to explain her issue to her sister, and even then she suspected Squirrelflight didn't really understand. How could she? It didn't make any sense. She had nothing against killing and eating prey morally. She knew they had to do it to survive. But the feeling of a life slipping away in her teeth was unbearable.

After a few days, she had decided she had to try again. Surely it would get easier with time, right? But she couldn't get the sensation of the squirrel's death out of her head. Whenever she tried to hunt, she would feel it all over again, and she would stumble and make noise, or hesitate to pounce, or attack clumsily and allow the prey to escape. She wasn't doing it on purpose, but she knew she was physically capable of making these catches. It was her mind working against her, and she didn't know how she could fix that by training harder.

Every day she thanked StarClan for Squirrelflight. Her sister, refusing to let the Clan know she couldn't hunt, would give half her catches to Leafpool to pretend they were hers. Leafpool had told her she didn't have to do that countless times, but she insisted.

They almost always went out hunting with just the two of them. Usually, patrols were organized to have more cats on them and switch cats around to not always hunt with the same groups, but Brambleclaw was in charge of organizing these patrols and it was clear the less he had to think about Leafpool and Squirrelflight the happier he was. So he voiced no objection when they went out on their own hunting patrol every day.

Today, Squirrelflight had caught a squirrel and a vole- one piece of prey for each of them. "The prey is running well today," Squirrelflight commented. "It seems like the forest is finally coming back to life again after the drought." That summer had been the hottest Leafpool could remember, and to make matters worse, it had hardly rained at all. Firestar had been forced to organize "water patrols", whose sole job was to go and retrieve water from the ever-shrinking lake for the Clan to drink. Though Leafpool didn't miss the drought, part of her did miss the water patrols. They had been the only warrior duty she hadn't been a complete embarrassment at.

"Well, it also helps that you're such a brilliant hunter," meowed Leafpool with a smile. She had known Squirrelflight was well-respected by their Clanmates, but seeing her out here, it was clear why.

Squirrelflight smiled back faintly, but there was a darkness behind her eyes.

"What's wrong?" asked Leafpool.

Squirrelflight sighed. "Nothing. It's just… I'm just thinking about Hollyleaf again. I always think of her when I'm hunting. She was so good at it. Whatever she did, she always put her whole heart into it. I just… I just really miss her."

Leafpool's smile fell. She missed her every day, too. Even after everything she had done, revealing the secret of their parentage at the Gathering and trying to force Leafpool to eat deathberries, Hollyleaf was still her daughter. She could never not love her. She had died right after this had all happened, and Leafpool had never had a chance to sit down and talk to her. Had never had a chance to apologize for lying to her. Had never had a chance to tell her how much she loved her, and how she had only ever done what she thought would be best for her kits. Hollyleaf had died thinking Leafpool hadn't wanted her, when that couldn't be farther from the truth.

"I miss her too," she meowed softly. She didn't know what else she could say that they hadn't already said.

"Have you seen her?" Squirreflight asked desperately. Leafpool blinked, not sure what she meant. "In StarClan, I mean. Have you seen her in your dreams?"

Leafpool shook her head. "StarClan doesn't visit me anymore. Not since I stopped being medicine cat," she meowed. That might be the worst part of all this. Cinderpelt had always praised her for her unusually strong connection with StarClan. Her connection with their warrior ancestors had been her greatest pride. Even when she had given birth to Crowfeather's kits, StarClan had been angry with her, but she had still been able to share dreams with them, even when she wasn't at the Moonpool. Now, they had gone completely silent. Apparently, now that she wasn't a medicine cat anymore, they had no more interest in her.

Squirrelflight sighed. "I figured you hadn't, or you would have told me. I just hoped… well, I thought if you had just seen that she's happy now, this would be a bit easier to bear. Knowing she's safe and well-fed and that we'll see her again someday… It wouldn't hurt so much," she meowed.

Leafpool was silent. In all honesty, she hadn't even tried to visit Hollyleaf in StarClan. She wasn't able to talk to StarClan from their camp anymore, but she knew she might be able to if she visited the Moonpool. But she had been too scared to try. What if she went there and StarClan still refused to speak with her? It would mean they really were done with her forever. Or what if she managed to get to StarClan, only to see Hollyleaf was still just as upset as when she had died? What if Hollyleaf wouldn't talk to her? It was easier to just pretend she knew Hollyleaf was happy, and not risk seeing that she wasn't.

But Squirrelflight had a point. If she could see her daughter one last time, she could tell her all the things she wished she could have before she died. She wouldn't have to live the rest of her life regretting not saying them. And she could reassure her sister that their daughter was okay and happy, and maybe even pass along a message.

The half-moon had just come two nights before, so she knew no medicine cats were likely to be at the Moonpool tonight. Leafpool could go and talk to StarClan, and no one would ever have to know. There was still the fear that they would refuse to see her, but then she would have no less contact with them than she did now. And she owed it to Squirrelflight, and to Hollyleaf, to at least try.

So it was decided. That night, she would go back to the Moonpool, and she would find her daughter.