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“Then maybe the code needs fixing,” Jayfeather says, and plops down where he’s standing, stretching out alongside Lionblaze, “if it punishes us for something we never did.”
“But we’re not…” Hollyleaf trails off and stares at her own paws. There's bits of grit stuck between her claws, a thin rock pressed into the pad of her left forepaw. Lionblaze is an uncomfortable warmth at her side. “We were never meant to be born.”
“Yeah, but we were.” Jayfeather sighs and flattens his ears. “It’s not our fault Leafpool and Crowfeather had us. That’s on them. Why do we have to deal with their actions? Why should cats look at us in scorn because the cats who birthed us did something dumb? The warrior code is broken, I say. Or at least that part of it."
“Leafpool and Crowfeather,” Hollyleaf repeats, and then the fur along her spine stands on end and she curls her claws into the dirt, biting back a snarl.
“Holly?” Lionblaze asks, nudging her. She lets out a sharp hiss of laughter and drops her head to rest on her paws.
“Yeah, are you good? I know I’m hitting nerves here but I’m not actually mad at you.” Jayfeather’s voice is worried, and Hollyleaf doesn’t know how many times she’s heard him worried, but the number is low. Seen him worried, yes, but not heard.
“Jay,” she says, and she feels like she’s drowning, because her chest and lungs are heavy. “Jayfeather. Crowfeather. Hollyleaf. Leafpool. Who gave you your full name, again?”
“Leaf—” Jayfeather cuts himself off with a snarl. “She named me after Crowfeather.”
“And I doubt it was that hard for her to suggest -leaf for me,” Hollyleaf says, ears pressed back. “Firestar’s her dad, and mom was in on it.”
“Starclan,” Jayfeather mutters, “now I think I hate my own name. Like finding maggots in a perfectly good bit of prey.”
Lionblaze is being quiet. He's the lucky one. Doesn’t have to forever bear a reminder that he’s a mistake. That he’s wrong under the warrior code.
“You think they’ll let me change it?” Jayfeather asks, “Because for the love of Starclan, Holly, now I'm always gonna associate my name with Crowfeather and I don’t think I can do that emotionally. Starclan. I don’t know how to feel about Leafpool but I can say that I hate Crowfeather.”
“Doesn’t he have a kit?” Lionblaze says, out of nowhere, and Jayfeather stops midway through his next sentence.
“Breezepelt is our half-brother,” he says, instead, and laughs, long and bitter, “We’re related to Breezepelt. Ha! We should go tell them all, see how that plays out. March into Windclan, ‘oh, hey Breezepelt, remember that time you and Lion almost drowned in dirt? Sibling bonding! That time all of us and Heatherpaw and a couple Windclan kits almost drowned in the tunnels? Also sibling bonding!”
“Drowning in soil wasn’t fun,” Lionblaze says, and stretches his paws out in front of him, his tail sweeping a few dead leaves away.
“Sibling bonding!” Jayfeather says, purring his laughter.
Hollyleaf lets out a weak purr of her own. “Imagine if Breezepelt was our full brother.”
“I think I'd’ve just let myself die that time we were kits and I ran off a cliff,” Jayfeather says. He adjusts his position so he’s laying over Lionblaze and presses his nose to Hollyleaf’s ear.
“Yeah,” Lionblaze agrees, and rolls onto his back to kick Jayfeather off of him. “Hey, Jay, Holly, what if we all change our suffix. No more Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, now we’re…Lionfish, Hollyfish, and Jayfish.”
“Fish,” Jayfeather says, snorting, “why fish?”
“It was the first thing I could come up with,” Lionblaze admits, “it is really stupid. You have anything better?”
“Let’s just all be -feather,” Jayfeather says, “No, no, I’m Leaffeather, you’re Featherleaf, Hollyleaf is Crowpool.”
“That’s even worse!” Hollyleaf says, and clambers over Lionblaze to nip at her dumb brother’s ear. He swipes back at her, but it goes wide, and soon they’re tussling like kits, with playful growls and sheathed claws. Lionblaze’s rumbling laugh comes from somewhere near them, and then he’s in the mix, and then they’re all sprawled out in the dirt, panting and grinning and purring laughter.
Jayfeather's the first to speak. “This is a mess,” he says, “but I do have a real question. Are we telling anyone? Because Starclan damn me or not, Leafpool had no right to keep this from us and we have all the right to tell it to everyone.”
“We can’t,” Hollyleaf says, purr dying in her throat, “we’ll be cast out for being half-clan. Or everyone will treat us differently. No matter what you think about the code being broken, it’s still the law and right now, we’re breaking it by existing.”
She gets up, ignoring Lionblaze’s whine when she displaces him. “Only we know about this, and Dad, and Mo—Squirrelflight, and Leafpool, and that’s it, right? We can’t.” Even as she says it, she’s not sure if she believes it. The words are bitter and dry.
“And Ashfur,” Jayfeather adds. “Oh, fox-dung, he knows.”
Because he had been there. Ashfur was there and blocking them and all of this is his fault, isn’t it? Maybe Hollyleaf would’ve lived a lie if it wasn’t for the fire, but. But then she wouldn’t doubt herself so much. She wouldn’t have to know she was a traitor to the code. Everything would be the same.
“We can’t let him tell anyone,” Hollyleaf says, frantic. She wants to claw her own fur out. She wants to shred her ears. Lionblaze is up and pressing against her before she can, though, purring up a storm as he guides her to lay back between him and Jayfeather.
“That complicates things,” Jayfeather says, “I say we keep it secret, at least for now.”
“We should talk to Dad,” Lionblaze says, “He also had this thrust on him, right? And he’s dealt with it since we were born. He’ll know what to do.”
“Hmm,” Jayfeather says. He presses a paw into Hollyleaf’s belly as he stretches, and she bites down the urge to claw at him.
“I just wish this was all…” Hollyleaf trails off and sighs.
“I know,” Lionblaze says, “I wish we didn’t know either. I wish we were Mom and Dad’s kits by birth. I wish Leafpool and Crowfeather never existed and did this to us.”
“We all wish lots of things,” Jayfeather adds. “Like, I, for one, wish I was a warrior. Or that I wasn’t named after our birth father. And that Ashfur didn’t know.”
“I wish you were a warrior too,” Hollyleaf says, and kicks at the paw still pressing into her belly. “I wish we could’ve trained together and you had a choice like I did.”
“Well, that’s long over,” Jayfeather says, “Starclan had other plans for me. I'm part of a prophecy that’s gonna save the clans and I don’t even get to decide what I want to do with my life. Thanks for that, Starclan. Really appreciate it. Also love the fact that you gave Lionblaze invincibility. Because that was fun to deal with when were younger and he’d do stupidly dangerous things. Still does. Still not great.”
“Thanks for making me wait forever for my power,” Hollyleaf adds, rolling closer to Jayfeather now that his paw is gone. Lionblaze follows, except he just drapes himself over the two of them. Jayfeather coughs and Hollyleaf tries to speak but gets a mouthful of golden fur.
“Lionblaze,” Jayfeather says, “I’ll claw you.”
“Try,” Lionblaze says back, all friendly challenge. “Said it yourself, I can’t get hurt.”
“I hope you burn alive,” Jayfeather mutters, and drags himself out from under Lionblaze. That leaves Hollyleaf, but the weight of her brother isn’t bad, and the itch to claw at herself isn’t so strong.
“You good under there, Holly?” Lionblaze asks. Hollyleaf flicks an ear and purrs.
“I want to claw my fur out but not as much anymore,” she tells him.
“Oh.” Lionblaze is quiet for a few moments. “Glad I could help, then.”
“Yeah, we’re all mental wrecks over here,” Jayfeather says. “Let’s make this spot our ‘vent about problems caused by others’ spot, whether that be Starclan, Mom, Dad, Leafpool, Crowfeather, whoever!”
“I really wish Starclan would give me my power,” Hollyleaf whispers. She watches a black beetle scurry past her. “You think there’s more kept from us? What if I don’t have a power because I'm really not ‘kin of Firestar’s kin’ or whatever.”
“Holly, Leafpool is Firestar’s daughter,” Jayfeather says, and she can see him through the cream fur of Lionblaze’s belly. “So, yeah, we’re all still part of the prophecy.”
“I know,” she says, “I'm just. worried? Scared? If our own birth has been kept from us this long, what else do we not know? What if I'm just…not even in the prophecy. I was just born an extra. A mistake born of a mistake, but doubly so because only you two needed to be born.”
“Hey,” Lionblaze says, and she can almost hear his frown. “You’re not a mistake. You’re my sister and I love you.”
“Yeah, and I love you too. You and Lionblaze are literally the only cats I trust with my life. Besides, your power is probably just something not as obvious as ours, like being able to influence cats or something.” Jayfeather shoves at Lionblaze until he’s off of Hollyleaf, and goes to curl up near her, wrapping his tail around her own. Lionblaze hovers until Jayfeather is settled, and presses into Hollyleaf’s other side. He starts a slow, steady purr, and licks her ears.
“Influence cats,” Hollyleaf says, and stares at Jayfeather.
“Y’know, they do what you tell them to,” he explains. “Has anyone who wasn’t me or Lionblaze not done something you asked them too?”
“I—probably? I don’t keep track,” Hollyleaf says.
“Exactly. There's lots of things you don’t keep track of. Your power is something like that—not flashy, but background, helping you out even if you don’t know it. Will you ever find out what it is? Yeah, I'll pressure it out of Starclan if that’s what it takes. But don’t worry about it."
“Thanks, guys,” Hollyleaf says, and closes her eyes. They snuck out of camp to have their talk, and now the sun is peeking out, and they should really be getting back before the dawn patrol leaves.
But she’s comfortable, here, surrounded by her brothers.
“No problem,” Lionblaze says, and yawns, resting his head on her back. “Wow, it’s early. I’m going to sleep until someone stumbles on us and we get yelled at.”
Hollyleaf laughs and doesn’t fight the heavy sleep tugging her down. “Yeah,” she mumbles, “g’night.”
“Night, Holly. Night, Jay,” Lionblaze says.
Jayfeather's the last one to speak before they all go to sleep, and his words are broken by yawns. “Keep doin’ that,” he says, “callin’ me jay. Pretend the rest is not. Not in my name.”
Hollyleaf nods, and lets herself drift off, curled up with her brothers like they’re kits again.