Chapter Text
Prologue: We Change Our Path
“I’m expecting kits,” Leafpool told her sister in a hushed tone, inside the quiet safety of the medicine cat den. She knew her belly would soon be too large to conceal, and worse: the queens would notice it before any other cat. This is why she made the one choice she knew she could before it was too late, and why she chose the one she-cat perfect to help her.
Squirrelflight is who she trusted most with this information right now, who she needed help from. The dark ginger tabby blinked at her, forest green eyes wide with shock. They drifted to Leafpool's cream-colored belly, then back up just as quickly again. Her jaws opened, but no words immediately came out. Then:
“Kits? With . . .” she trailed off, glancing behind her as if to check for any prying ears.
It was early in the morning, just past dawn. Brambleclaw was busy sending out patrols for the day, and they wouldn't be bothered unless Dustpelt needed Leafpool to check on Ferncloud or the Elders had something wrong.
“Yes,” Leafpool murmured, not able to meet her eyes.
Her very short affair with Crowfeather had given her the ultimate consequences. First, the death of her beloved mentor and friend Cinderpelt. She died protecting Sorreltail and her newborn kits with the bravery of a lion. Now, now she was being punished — this couldn’t be a blessing, could it? — by carrying his kits.
More reminders of the tom she loved, and how she was paying for that love.
Squirrelflight watched her, then brushed her feathery tail towards her until it wrapped around Leafpool’s, the thick dark ginger fur overtaking Leafpool’s as it entwined with it. The green in her eyes glinted in the way Leafpool had seen when they were apprentices and she was determined to follow Brambleclaw to the Sundrown place. This wasn't just a sister helping her sister, this was Squirrelflight throwing herself into the entire disaster tenfold.
“How can I help?” she meowed, her tone self-assured and ears perked. There would be no attempts on Leafpool's part to keep her out of it if she tried. She had wanted advice, yes, but Squirrelflight was determined to get fully involved and do what she could to help her sister in any and all ways she could. That was Squirrelflight. That was her beautiful, lovely sister.
It was the way she asked . . .
"I-" Leafpool trembled, even with the support she had right there in front of her. "Oh, Squirrelflight."
“I want to keep them,” Leafpool told her, ashamed of herself for such an admission. So selfish, selfish for wanting to keep the little ones growing inside of her, and selfish for continuing to break the Code as a result. “But I’m ThunderClan’s only medicine cat, Squirrelflight. I don’t have that luxury.”
Squirrelflight scoffed, brushing her paw against Leafpool's belly. Her eyes narrowed into dense slits for a brief moment, and Leafpool desperately wished she could have known what emotion had been passing behind her gaze before it disappeared. Then, her eyes widened again, whiskers twitching. Leafpool knew this look as well.
"What is it?"
“What if you did? Have the luxury?” her sister pushed, shifting closer until Leafpool’s creamy belly brushed against Squirrelflight’s flank, paw never leaving where it rested against Leafpool's belly. “What if you could keep your kits and stay Medicine Cat? Be able to raise your little ones, but give up your duties for a while while you do?”
That - now that not normal, even for Squirrelflight. Her amber gaze flickered up to her sister's gaze, finally able to meet hers and not looking away any longer. Her shame seemed to leak away to make room for confusion and surprise. “What could we possibly do that wouldn’t go against StarClan?”
"StarClan isn't here, Leafpool," Squirrelflight told her, meow taking on a more desperate and emotional tone than before, the thick fur on her spine standing up as she bristled. "We are. This is not about going against them, anymore. This is about paving a future for your family without punishing you for loving another cat. If you see it as going against them, then yes. That's exactly what we will do if it means you can keep your kits without losing everything you have here."
Go against StarClan? The idea of it made Leafpool’s stomach turn. Her whole life has been nothing but dedication to their ancestors — obeying their every whim, giving devout loyalty to them — and now the simple answer is . . . just to not?
She struggled internally with herself in the early morning light, the sunlight peeking in through the yawn of cave and shining shadows on the floor. Her seasons of training and oaths she took to her practice and ancestors taught her that she answered to StarClan and their wisdom whenever they called. She obeyed their laws and treated her clanmates without regard to her own emotions or desires.
Then she felt them, forcing her out of her thoughts. The movements in her belly. She hadn't felt them move before, really. They had shifted some, which is when she had suspected at first she had been expecting them at all, but this . . . this was the first time she had felt them move so strongly.
"Squirrelflight," the light brown she-cat whispered as she stretched her neck to where her sister's paw was still resting to see if she could spot the movement under her fur. Squirrelflight was purring so loudly, paw pressing firmly back against the movement as if to tell the kits she were there.
"Hello, little ones," Leafpool murmured, choking on her words as she did so. They went still after a few moments, and when her sister removed her paw again, she was able to meet her eyes once more.
Her whole heart already loved these kits with every single part of her. From the tip of her nose down to the last hair on her tail, and she wasn't sure she would be able to give them up now. She couldn't leave her clan, her home, as she felt like she still needed to complete her duty to her clan and loved her work. But she wanted these kits, and she wanted to be able to mother them and be the reason they grew up to be amazing cats for ThunderClan.
Even as seasons of her training dug it's fierce claws into her spine and dragged dragged dragged all the way down, until she was nauseous from the pain she felt, she knew what she had to do. It was a very familiar pain, one she had experienced for the first time when Crowfeather had saved her on the cliff.
One she felt again when she met with him in secret, and then ran away again. Oh, it had been painful, but it was the type of pain that came with love that one couldn't simply give up. Leafpool had been willing to bear it for Crowfeather once. Now - now, she was willing to let it stay with her for a lifetime for these kits. Her instincts told her, yowled in her mind to speak to StarClan. But she ignored them.
Instead she closed her eyes, as she always knew to do before taking a deep breath, to calm her nerves and ready herself for the extreme change about to occur in their life.
When she opened them again, her jaw was clenched. “What do you have in mind?”