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On the night Squirrelflight has her kits, Firestar and Sandstorm curl up in his den, unable to sleep.
Every night for a moon, they have whispered prayers begging for the safety of their missing daughters. Every night for a moon, their prayers have gone unanswered.
Exhaustion has made hollows out of Sandstorm’s eyes; her breathing steadies out first, her eyes fluttering, and then staying shut. With her tail curled around his back and her paw on his shoulder, he can feel her heart beating against his, and tries to match her breathing.
"Bluestar," he whispers, because who else can he ask? ThunderClan prays to its ancestors, and Firestar has no kin. "Please take care of them."
There’s no searching left to do: prayer is their only hope. Sandstorm has begun to whisper to Spottedleaf in her sleep, her heart pounding erratically. (The stars did not protect Spottedleaf. Firestar wonders if Leafpool is loved, or simply chosen.)
He wakes, and Sandstorm is gone.
On the night Squirrelflight brings her kits to ThunderClan, Firestar watches Leafpool say a blessing over them, and Sandstorm sleeps through the night for the first time in a moon.
Firestar wakes before the sky has lightened. In the grey light, he approaches the nursery, where Squirrelflight has her kittens pulled to her side, barely visible beneath her tail. She doesn’t notice Firestar, watching them with a look of soft affection. He remembers when Squirrelflight was that small, getting tangled under Sandstorm's legs, begging Firestar to let her leave camp despite having just outgrown her namesake.
Someone walks into him, and Firestar startles.
"Sorry," Brambleclaw says softly, afraid to disturb the kits. "I just wanted to…"
"Check on them?"
Brambleclaw looks sheepish, reminding Firestar of the apprentice he trained. “Yeah.”
Purring softly, Firestar shifts, letting Brambleclaw peer in beside him.
"I didn't even know she was with kits," Brambleclaw murmurs. "I didn't notice."
"Well, you know Squirrelflight. She'd never let it slow her down." Sandstorm was the same. It took Firestar and Greystripe both to keep her in the nursery.
"Brambleclaw?" Squirrelflight says. "What're you doing out there?"
"Um. I just—"
"Get in, furball. Don't you want to meet your kits?"
Firestar stifles a laugh, and nudges Brambleclaw. "Go on," he encourages. "She'll only get more demanding."
"I heard that!"
"I'm helping you. Don't complain." He gives Brambleclaw a final shove, and the tom slinks into the nursery. Firestar looks back, where Sandstorm is waiting. She laughs, brushing up against him.
"You're not going to spoil these three, are you? We don't need a Clan of Squirrelflights."
Firestar chuckles, but it’s colored with sorrow. They lost one of their kittens to the stars, and they would give the world to have her back.
"I'm a grandfather, now," he says. (I was a father who lost a child, and a stranger wears her face.) "I'm allowed to spoil them."
On the night Firestar exiles his granddaughter, Firestar returns to camp to find his den empty.
"Sandstorm is with Squirrelflight," Brambleclaw says. He is angry — if it is with Firestar, it is deserved. "And I told Jaypaw and Lionpaw they could sleep with us tonight."
He is speaking to Leafpool, but not looking at her. Her head hangs, and she turns to her den without meeting their eyes. She has not spoken since the exiling.
Firestar goes to his own nest. It is empty without Sandstorm, but how can he blame her? He would be with Squirrelflight if he were just her father, and not her leader,
But he is her leader. Squirrelflight might not have seen him strike her daughter, but she knows. Firestar clawed his own granddaughter, deep enough blood was still dripping from her muzzle as she left, and he has nothing to say for himself.
The platitude he is supposed to offer is that, though the Code may be harsh, it offers protection and strength, but he finds it is even less comforting when he is hearing it from himself.
He wakes up with their blood on his tongue sometimes.
Firestar watches Cinderpelt and Leafpaw touch noses. Dust coats the inside of his mouth. Spottedleaf should be training her, he thinks. Her kin should still be here.
In a kinder world, she would be. In a kinder world—
Things would be too different to contemplate.
How do you say, "I have nightmares about what I did to my family?"
Firestar knows exactly how much Sandstorm misses Leafpool. (Leaf, he thinks, and he tries to unthink it. They don't speak her name; what does it matter?) He misses her the same.
How do you say, "I have heard stories of leaders abandoning their Clans, and it no longer sounds so impossible?"
What good comes out of chasing out an apprentice? Who is it protecting? Squirrelflight trudges through camp most days, the light drained from her eyes. Brambleclaw abandons her a breath after Leafpool. Firestar wants to help; he is the cause of her troubles. He wonders if there is an out to this. He considers running.
But that would only leave them with another cat to grieve.
How do you say, "I'm sorry?"
"How could you?" Greypaw gasps. "She's an exile!"
Firepaw shifts, unsure of what he's done. "She's — an elder," he mutters. "I wanted to help her."
"Look at her nose," Greypaw says. "That means she's deadly."
Tigerclaw bares his teeth. "Trust the kittypet to feed an exile."
"I didn't know!" Firepaw repeats. "I—"
The old she-cat starts laughing. "You didn't know? I knew ThunderClan was dense, but this is something else."
Is this a dream or a nightmare or is he alive and real and does he really have to carry this hurt as well?
(At least he could grieve for Spottedleaf.)
It is the honorable and right thing to do.
It protects ThunderClan. It ensures their safety. It preserves their connection to StarClan.
Firestar is a good and noble leader. He knows that much. He does not turn his back on ThunderClan's allies, he keeps his word, he does not pick petty fights over territory. He is fair, the apprentices and kits aren't afraid to speak to him, his warriors respect him.
His daughter is gone because of him.
His daughter's daughter is gone because of him.
Sometimes, he sits on the far border and stares out at the edge of the world, wondering where they are. He's not sure if he hopes they ran far, away from any Clan cat who would kill them, or stayed close, so he might be lucky enough to see them again.
He wonders if they found each other.
Firestar turns back. He catches a squirrel as he returns, and he turns towards the seer's den, before remembering. He puts it on the freshkill pile.
"Firestar!" Thornclaw says. "You should come to one of our training sessions soon. They're doing well."
He squares his shoulders, pushing down the boiling mix of grief-anger-injustice. "Maybe tomorrow. I'd like that."
Firestar is a good leader.
He does what is required of him.
Greystripe is sharing tongues with Blossompaw, and Firestar sees Lionblaze and Squirrelflight carry prey to Jayfeather.
Firestar is also a father.
"She is an exile," Bluestar agrees. "We ought to kill her. That said—"
She has to pause for the uproar in the Clan to die down.
"That said, I don't trust a whisker of what Brokenstar does. Until I am confident I know the truth, she will be kept under the strictest of supervision."
"Bluestar," Frostfur says, "you can't expect us to live with her."
"I can." Bluestar's tail tip flicks, and she looks across the crowd. "She will be guarded, and…Firepaw will be tasked with caring for her." She squares her shoulders, dismissing the Clan to simmering whispers. When she leaps off the High Rock, there’s a swirling sea of care and criticism in her eyes. "While you're caring for her, I expect you to stay in camp unless you need to hunt for her."
"But I'm already behind in my training!"
Bluestar's whiskers twitch, her mask cracking slightly, revealing almost maternal affection. "Yes, you are. And that's why I want you to stay in camp. It seems parts of your education — things Clan cats learn from kithood — have been neglected."
Spottedleaf, Firestar decides, would tell him that this was fate. That this was already written. That seers belong to the stars from the moment they first draw breath.
Woe on him for not learning. You cannot escape what the stars have decided.
(It’s begun to mix together. He finds Leafpool dead outside the nursery. He claws Cinderpaw. Spottedleaf walks away from him and Sandstorm sobs into Greystripe’s shoulder, unable to look at Firstar.)
Woe on him for not learning. You cannot change once you’re marked in blood.
"She's going to be my apprentice," Yellowstorm says, and Fireheart releases Cinderpaw. They touch noses. (Did the stars deem this necessary? Did Cinderpaw have to suffer for them to want her?)
Cinderpaw, like Fireheart, is one of the few cats who can meet Yellowstorm's eyes. Greystripe says it's fear — any trust Yellowstorm has earned is hidden by the shadow of her marks.
Fireheart finds Cinderpaw before she leaves for the Moonstone.
"You don't have to do this," he tells her, and she quirks her head.
"Of course I don't. That's not really the point." She touches noses with Fireheart. "You were a good mentor." (She reminds him of Spottedleaf. They are, after all, the same age, and they carry the same too-much to bear.)
Fireheart watches her leave alongside Frostfur.
"She was a good daughter," Frostfur says. She retreats to the nursery as soon as Cinderpaw leaves.
Fireheart waits until the moon has cleared the horizon, when he knows there is no coming back. Greystripe waits for him, licking his temple in an attempt at comfort.
"She's not going anywhere," he says, like he can read Fireheart's thoughts. "She'll still be right here."
But she won't. Frostfur knows it, Yellowstorm knows it, Fireheart knows it.
"Clan life is harsh," Bluestar says, and Rusty joins ThunderClan.
"But it is worth it," she says, and he tears Longtail's ear and he becomes part of ThunderClan.
"The Code we live by is strict," she says, and Firepaw saves Frostfur's kits.
"But it is necessary," she says, and he becomes Fireheart, Spottedleaf’s blood still covering him.
"It protects us," she says, and Bluestar exiles Tigerstar in front of him, so he knows how it is done.
"It strengthens us," she says, and she dies next to the kits she never got to know.
"It makes us who we are," she says, and Fireheart becomes Firestar.
"It is harsh," he echoes, and he wonders if that is who he wants to be.
It is his job.
It is his duty.
It is the right thing to do.
(It feels wrong.)
On the night Firestar exiles his daughter, he doesn't stay to watch. He watched every slow step Hollypaw took until she faded into the horizon, and prayed her blood did not lead anything to her.
Leafpool takes one step over the border, and then another, and then sprints, and Firestar turns as Jayfeather completes the ceremony. There are no extra words this time, no hushed statement from seer to newly-made exile.
If he stayed to watch, nothing would keep him from following her.
Firestar walks back to camp. There is a puddle on the ground; he does not look at his reflection. He knows his name will be repeated for generations. He is the leader who defeated BloodClan, and even though he's never asked for it, kits still are told stories, more fantastic with every generation.
They will not know him as Firestar, exiler of two seers. They will not know him as Firestar, exiler of his own kin, twice over. They will not know the truth.
Sandstorm is in their den.
"She was our daughter," she says, bitter and angry and hurt. "How could you?"
She brushes past him before he can speak. In the morning, she’ll apologize as he falls to the ground before her, because Firestar had no choice, not when Jayfeather dragged out the truth in the middle of camp. Tonight, Firestar curls up in his nest alone.
"Firestar?"
He lifts his head, and Greystripe slips into the den, circling before laying at his side.
"What are you doing here?" Firestar asks.
"I figured you could use a friend." Greystripe looks back at Firestar. "I saw…"
Firestar rests his head on Greystripe's side. "I deserved it," he says.
"You didn't. You didn't…it wasn’t your fault." He purrs.
"How can she ever forgive me?" Firestar chokes out.
Greystripe's purring stops. "Sandstorm will understand. She'll see how much you miss her. She'll remember it's not you. And..." Greystripe lifts his head, leaning forward to touch noses with Firestar. "I don't think she blames you either. She knew what she risked."
"She's my daughter."
"She is," Greystripe agrees. He pauses. "You love them, even when they are away from you, and it doesn't get easier, and she doesn't stop being your kit." He licks Firestar's cheek. (Leafpool has not been his kit since she was small enough to be carried. Leafpool has never been his kit. Leafpool belongs to the stars, and he has been grieving her as long as she’s been alive.)
"That's not very comforting."
Greystripe says nothing for a while. "I don't think there's anything comforting to say," he admits. "The hole in your heart never goes away. You just learn to live next to it."
On the night Firestar’s daughters are born, he sleeps outside the nursery. Sandstorm teases him for it, reminding him there’s a whole Clan guarding them, but he can’t help it.
They are perfect.
She names them, of course. Sandstorm calls out to him once she’s rested, telling him she’s going to name them and he should be here. Firestar is too awestruck to speak.
“They’re just kits,” Sandstorm murmurs, but she curls her body around them, purring contentedly. Firestar’s chest rumbles, and he licks Sandstorm’s cheek, protecting the other side of the kits.
Squirrelkit lifts her head at the movement, and Leafkit wriggles deeper against Sandstorm. Firestar watches every rise and fall of their chest with wide eyes.
“They’re perfect.”
“Of course they are.” Sandstorm licks Leafkit’s back. “That was never in doubt.” Her blinks slow, out of exhaustion, and Firestar purrs, letting her tuck her head against him. Her breathing slows, and she yawns, before nuzzling against him, her tail covering the kits. “You better be here when I wake up,” she says, her voice already languid with sleep.
“I will,” he promises. How could he ever leave them?
Forgive me, he thinks, as he lifts his claws to his daughter.
You don't need our forgiveness, the stars whisper back. You are doing the right thing.