Chapter Text
There.
Between the bracken bushes, underneath a fallen tree half buried by the heavy snow.
It has to be...
Something small, furry and white catches Bluefur’s attention, and she immediately drops into the hunter’s crouch. Opening her jaws to scent the air only confirms it, it had been a rabbit! The little creature is digging in the snow, its tiny head popping up every now and then looking around cautiously.
Bluefur presses her belly closer to the ground, flattening her ears, keeping her head low. The frost underpaw is almost unbearable on her sore pads, but she doesn’t let it distract her from the meal before her eyes. Yes, the rabbit is quite small, but it will feed some very hungry bellies.
Praying to Starclan her rumbling stomach wouldn’t alert the rabbit, she crept closer.
Yes, that’s it, Bluefur thought to herself, light on her paws inching closer to the unsuspecting prey. The wind is cold against her neck, but at least it’s not blowing downhill, making this hunt much easier than it could’ve been.
Bluefur’s only a few taillengths away now, heart hammering dangerously fast in her chest. Mouth watering, she pounces, claws unsheathed and-
She lands, rabbit in her jaws, killed with one swift bite to the neck.
Thank you Starclan for this prey, Bluefur instinctively sends her thanks, and then.. She wants to jump up into the air and celebrate like in her apprentice days, but quickly composes herself and begins trotting back to camp.
“Camp,” she huffs annoyedly through a mouthful of rabbit. “Yeah right.”
Leafbare had been especially cruel this time around. Prey scarcer than ever, and the snow had all but doubled since the year before. It had been almost impossible finding a place for her.. for her clan. No, she thinks sadly, not her clan. Her kin.
There were days where Bluefur doubted her decisions to choose kin over clan, but today?
Yeah, who was she fooling; today was one of those days. She was hungry, no– starving was the more accurate word for what she was feeling right now. And she wasn’t alone in that. It was also freezing, and their makeshift camp didn’t hold the frost at bay as well as the Thunderclan camp had done. On top of that, her mate, Oakheart, was badly injured from a fight with a group of rogues, and on top of that, he had fallen ill with whitecough only a few nights prior. It wasn’t looking good, Bluefur knew that. They had had to separate him from the others, and that wasn’t an easy feat when they were already lacking space. Bluefur had slept outside, in a makeshift snowden for the past few days, and she could tell it was definitely starting to take its toll.
A strong, acrid smell fills Bluefur’s nose, and she’s thankful the scent of rabbit masks most of the tangy scent. As she nears where the Thunderpath usually comes into view, Bluefur blinks in confusion. It’s.. gone?
No. Not gone. The Thunderpath is completely covered in snow. Had it not been for the stench, she might’ve trotted along without seeing it! She shudders at the thought of a monster coming screeching down the path, and is achingly reminded of her sister, who had met this very terrible fate many, many moons ago. Not a day goes by where Bluefur doesn’t miss her dearly. Crouching down next to where the Thunderpath begins, Bluefur tentatively pats the ground, looking for the rough feel of where the monsters roam. She sniffs once, even drops her rabbit carefully by her paws, to scent the air with her mouth open. No monsters. She can’t hear them either. She picks up the rabbit, and rushes forward, surprised by how slippery the path is. Usually, the Thunderpath is hard and coarse, sometimes there’s even small rocks scattered across the surface, making it rumble even louder when the monsters screech past. But today? Nothing. It’s almost like the frozen surface of the river near.. Bluefur shakes her head, safely across on the other side. Her heart pangs, and she misses Snowfur so, so much– but she has to keep going. Has to. For her kin. They’re all she has now.
Picking up speed, she runs down the now familiar path among the dense pine trees, Thunderclan always in the back of her mind. Bluefur’s new territory bore similarities to Thunderclan’s, and she supposes, that’s why they had settled here. It felt familiar, but also wrong. There were no Sunningrocks to warm their pelts on early mornings before hunting patrol, no Great Sycamore to climb with clanmates on days off, no Sandy Hollow to train apprentices–
Bluefur stops in her tracks. No apprentices. She swallows sorrowfully. No medicine cat. No elders. No leader, no.. no Warriors.
No, I am still a Warrior, Bluefur desperately thinks to herself. But was that true? Can you be a Warrior without a clan? Without the Warrior code?
Technically, she did still live by the Warrior code, giving thanks to Starclan when she catches her prey, even though it feels like her starry ancestors have abandoned her. She never takes food before the rest of her clan– her kin, she corrects herself, is fed, and she never hunts on any of the clan territories.
But at the same time, she had broken the Warrior code on several occasions.. She chose a mate from a different clan, even bore his kits.. Oakheart had also broken the code when he chose to leave his birthclan to be with Bluefur and their kits, but he had assured her this was more common than she’d thought. After all, Windflight, a Thunderclan elder, had been the kit of Eaglestorm from Windclan, and Squirrelwhisker of Thunderclan.
But deep in her bones, Bluefur knew Starclan was displeased with her. They had laid out her destiny for her to follow, Goosefeather was not the most subtle of cats. His prophecy from Starclan was very clear; she must put her clan first. But Bluefur hadn’t. Her paws had chosen a different path, one that she now trotted alongside her mate. Her mate from a different clan. Yes, technically, Oakheart was Thunderclan at the time of their exile, but Bluefur had still broken the Warrior Code to be with him first. That one night below the stars at Fourtrees with Oakheart.. One night changed her destiny forever. And then..
Then Bluefur had gone directly against Starclans’ wishes by choosing her kin over becoming Thunderclan’s new deputy, and she had a sneaking suspicion that Oakheart’s sickness - and the lack of prey in this particularly cold and cruel leafbare - was Starclan’s punishment for Bluefur’s ultimate betrayal. A Warrior is supposed to always choose her clan over any other cat, and she had done exactly the opposite.
Tired on her paws, Bluefur lets her bellyfur brush the ground as she paws the path ahead, brushing away the fallen snow from this morning to make more room for herself. Gingerly she crawls underneath the fallen oaklogs marking the edge of their new.. well, territory. Their new home. Bluefur gives her head a quick shake, flicks her tail and bites down harder on the rabbit dangling from her jaws. The blood seeping out from the animal makes her mouth water, and she quickly ups her pace to a light canter.
Almost there, she tells herself, and can’t help but look behind, making sure no cat is following her.
Nocat is. In leaf-fall, only a few moons prior, they had a serious run-in with a group of aggressive rogue cats. Thankfully, it had seemed like they were only passing through, and there had been no sign of them this moon.
Finally, after what seemed like a whole day of tireless stalking and hunting, Bluefur crouches down and presses herself through the brackentunnel. The snow above falls down through the gaps and sends chills down Bluefur’s spine, but she manages to squeeze through and carefully eyes around the makeshift camp. Mistyfoot and Stonefur must not be back from their hunting patrol yet, because there’s no sign of them. She quickly pads over to where the fresh-kill pile would be, and drops the rabbit, pushing it underneath a bush at the edge of camp, keeping it away from the worst of the frost.
She will not eat yet, even though the hunger is so bad she’s seeing little black dots at the edge of her vision and her stomach rumbles constantly now. She quickly checks the two makeshift dens. One for her and Oakheart, and another for their kits. The den she once shared with her mate had now been turned into a medicine cat’s den– if you could even call it that, with there not being a medicine cat present.
But what could they do? They had to keep Oakheart away from the others, not wanting the whitecough to spread. Or worse. Turn into greencough. Bluefur had no idea what she would do if that were to happen.
“Oh Starclan, help us..” she mews softly, knowing full well, that they do not hear her.
“...Bluefur?” Oakhearts’ weak voice brings her back into her own body, and she quickly trots over to his den, peaking her head inside through the pinebranches. The stench of sickness stings her nose, but she bites her tongue, not wanting to make the tom more uncomfortable than he already was.
“Yes, Oakheart?” she mews, trying to cover the opening of the den with her body, not wanting another gust of wind to drag in more snow.
“Are.. are the kits okay?” he asks, panic in his eyes, and he struggles to his paws. Bluefur darts into the den on instinct, beckoning him with her muzzle to lay back down.
“Oakheart, please, lay back down,” she begs him, feeling his once powerful body tremble beneath her. He doesn’t have the strength to defy her, so he slumps back down.
“But the.. the kits?”
“They’re okay,” she mews gently. “And they’re not kits anymore, you know. They’re Warriors.”
“Warriors?” the big brown tom looks confused. Bluefurs’ heart breaks. He’d been delirious last night too, not recognizing his own mate when she came to clear out his bedding. He’d hissed at her, not letting her come inside the den, threatening to claw her pelt off should she try. That had been particularly hard, but Bluefur had to remind herself that this happened from time to time, with cats sick with whitecough.
“Yes, they’re grown now. And safe. We’re all safe.”
“What about.. what about Mosskit?” Oakheart asks, sad eyes meeting his mate.
“Oakheart..” Bluefur’s worry only increases now. Is he that confused? Is the whitecough worsening? As if he could hear her thoughts, Oakheart stifles a cough, looking at her, eyes pleading.
“Bluefur please, tell me she’s okay..” Oakheart mews weakly, and shoves his muzzle between his paws so as to not cough directly on Bluefur when the next fit takes over. His whole body shakes, and heat radiates off of him, yet his teeth chatter and he can’t stop sniffling.
“Are you cold?” she asks him then.
“I’m fine, Bluefur–”
“Are you cold?” she mews more sternly.
“...Yes.” Oakheart finally admits. “Only a little.”
“Did you eat the tansy?”
“Yes, Bluefur, but please, Mosskit–”
“She’s okay.” Bluefur interrupts him, licking him between the ears like a mothercat would to soothe her kits.
“Okay, okay, good.” Oakheart begins purring softly, but is quickly interrupted by another coughing fit.
“Shh, shh,” Bluefur mews soothingly, and feels his body relax ever so slightly. His breathing is ragged, but slows, and Bluefur keeps licking him rhythmically, hoping the tom will find it soothing enough to sleep. His body needs rest. Especially since he’s been refusing fresh-kill for the past two days.
“Bluefur!” he gasps then, as if he just realized she’s there. “Please, get out! I don’t want you getting sick!”
“Nonsense, I’m not going anywhere,” she decides then, and settles next to him, pushing the side of her body against him, wanting to comfort and warm him up. The fever radiates heat, and she guiltily wonders if that’s why she decides to stay, for selfish reasons, but no; Oakheart is her mate, and he is seriously ill.
“I didn’t find any catmint today either,” she tells him, wanting to fill the silence.
“You will,” he mews, a hint of the confident tom he used to be present in his voice. “Or one of the kits will.”
“They’re not kits anymo-”
“They’ll always be our kits,” Oakheart is the one to interrupt now. He bumps his broad head playfully against Bluefur’s shoulder.
“Yes.” Bluefur purrs with delight, a warmth spreading through her not stemming from Oakheart’s radiating pelt. The tom’s tired eyes are still filled with love and compassion, and Bluefur has to fight back the urge to look away - the intensity of his amber eyes is almost too much for her to bear. She thinks back to their time as young cats, back when she had convinced herself that he was nothing but an overly arrogant and annoying tom from a rival clan. He’d been so full of himself, Bluefur was more frustrated with him than anything. But yet, there was something there, that tugged at her heartstrings.
“What?” Oakheart asks her then, sensing amusement behind her eyes.
“Oh, I’m just thinking of what a furball you were when we were young,”
“When we were young?!” Oakheart’s ear twitches with amusement, a purr deep in his throat. “By Starclan, Bluefur, we are young! We’re barely Warriors, aren’t we?”
“Warriors..” Bluefur echoes, heart sinking.
“Hey..” Oakheart suppresses a cough, inching away from her. “We are.”
“But we have no clan!” Bluefur bursts out then, suddenly on her paws and furious at the tom. His amber eyes round, he looks to his mate, the shock evident on his face.
“We have each other..”
“Oakheart!” she hisses, her tail flicking with annoyance. He opens his mouth to respond but–
“Bluefur? Oakheart?” The voice of their kits pulls them out of the argument, and Bluefur quickly darts out of the medicine den to greet them.
Stonefur is already standing in the middle of camp, a vole laying by his paws. Mistyfoot comes squeezing through the tunnel behind him.
“Is Oakheart better?” Mistyfoot asks, stepping in front of her brother to greet Bluefur with a quick lick on the side of her cheek. Bluefur pulls away, and the hurt in Mistyfoot’s eyes brings the knot of shame back into Bluefur’s chest.
“I’ve just been in his den,” she quickly explains to Mistyfoot, and understanding fills her eyes.
“Oh, right,” she mews and picks up the vole Stonefur had dropped.
“He won’t eat, you know that,” Stonefur comments as Mistyfoot pads over to the medicine den.
“He will,” Mistyfoot says through her teeth. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“Yeah and hedgehogs will fly,” Stonefur mutters under his breath as Mistyfoot dips her head in through the den to give Oakheart the vole. Muffled mews of refusal make their way through the hanging pines, but Bluefur tries to block it out. The mousebrain has to eat sometime, and Mistyfoot is the most likely to convince him to have his share.
“Good catch,” Bluefur says then, tilting her head towards the medicine den.
“One vole?” Stonefur spits. “I wouldn’t call that good.”
“Don’t be such a grump, you furball.” Bluefur taunts, and Stonefur’s ear twitches. “It’s leafbare after all, any catch is a good catch.”
“What about you?” he asks, sitting down to groom. But then…
“By Starclan…” Bluefur can’t believe her eyes. Stonefur’s eyes widen, and he whips around, watching as a pale gray and white cat squeezes through the brackentunnel, a bunch of catmint in her jaws! Catmint! Oakheart will be okay!
“Mossfrost!” Bluefur exclaims, rushing forward to greet her kit. “You’re back!”