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Here is a secret. When you are pretty, it is the first thing you learn about yourself. Kestrelkit is smart and clever and practically destined to be Barkface’s apprentice. Anyone could see it. Harekit is strong and fast enough and smart enough and just fine. Heatherkit is pretty.
Here is another secret, when you are beautiful, no one wants you to know. Beauty is dangerous. Beauty is power. Beauty is terror. It is more convenient if you are merely pretty.
“Would you like to sing with me?”
Heatherpaw considers him. “Which hymn?”
Breezepaw stills, as if he didn’t think he’d get this far. Which is funny, because the elders decided they should be mates when they were still kittens, which means Heatherpaw was always going to say yes.
But that doesn’t mean she has to make it easy on him.
“I’ll — whatever you’d like to sing.”
He’s stumbling over his words.
Because of her.
“No, you have to pick.” Heatherpaw touches her nose to him. “Let me know so I can decide, alright?”
Here is a secret. Heatherpaw is just as smart and strong as her brothers.
Here is another. She knows she is beautiful.
“Heatherpaw,” Lionpaw says, “has anyone ever told you how pretty you are?”
Heatherpaw wants to say, “If you think I’m so pretty, how would you be the first to tell me?” But — if she does that, their game is up. Cats like Lionpaw can’t tolerate that sort of thing.
So she purrs. “Thank you. You’re not so hard on the eyes yourself.”
And then he’s stuck in her web. Maybe it’s cruel to play with him like this, but it is also fun to see how fast he’ll fall over himself for her. How little it takes to make him wiggle his ears and look lost for words.
And if he’s going to insult her, she’ll toy with him.
He’s brought this on himself.
“And how’s my little jackrabbit doing?” Onestar asks, sweeping his tail over her back.
Heatherpaw’s ears twist in embarassment.
“She’s doing well,” Crowfeather says. “You should see — she’s got skills as a flusher, Ashfoot says…”
Onestar snorts. “She was practically born to run, Crowfeather. She takes after me. Don’t waste her time with counting bucks and does when she could be hunting.”
Heatherpaw tries to keep her whiskers up, because Onestar is praising her, and if it doesn’t feel like praise, it’s just because she was excited about the work they had done in flushing, that’s all.
“I just thought you’d want to know.” Crowfeather gives her a short lick. “You’d be proud, if you watched.”
Lionpaw is going to kill her. She knows it in the place she knows her name. In the place she knows her brothers.
“You betrayed me,” he snarls, and Heatherpaw could snap. She’s not sure if its rage or joy or terror, but it is explosive, because he believes she could betray him. He believes she is dangerous, and maybe it will kill her, but he is afraid of her, and she likes it.
She didn’t betray him. Heatherpaw is honest, but no one really expects her to be. Beauty lies. It shape-shifts. It becomes whatever it wants.
So Heatherpaw becomes a liar.
“I did,” she purrs, even though her body burns. “What are you going to do about it?”
He attacks her again.
She is going to die.
The world stops moving.
Whitetail and Kestrelpaw and Harepaw and Onestar and all of WindClan and she can’t die, not when she finally feels alive.
Heatherpaw dodges.
He’s not going to stop, a voice in the back of her head warns. What are you going to do about it?
Dodge again. And again. He’s frustrated.
“I trusted you,” he whispers.
“Rookie mistakes.” Heatherpaw surges, her claws flashing, tearing at her fur. This ends with one of them dying, and it won’t be Heatherpaw.
They’re not fighting anymore. Lionpaw is still angry, but he’s not lunging at her. He’s distracted, by the fluff of her fur and the way her expression is scared and pleading and beautiful.
(Beauty is terror.)
“You were going to kill me,” Heatherpaw says. She can feel the blood drying in her fur, the way she could never land a scratch on him, even as he tried to rip her apart, the already-aching bruises from being thrown to the ground.
(Beauty is terror.)
She won’t go down without a fight, but she can’t win a fight, so she changes the rules, and Lionpaw doesn’t have a chance to unsheathe his claws or cry out for help.
(Beauty is terror.)
(Heatherpaw is ready.)
Beauty is uncontrollable. Beauty isn’t owned by anyone but you.
The battle is over and she’s not sure who the blood belongs to.
Brambleclaw lifts Lionpaw’s body off the ground. Heatherpaw is supposed to say it was an accident and she didn’t mean to and she’s sorry.
“What’s wrong with her?” someone asks.
“She’s in shock.” Crowfeather brushes against her. They’ve never been close. She’s only his apprentice to make a point. “Heatherpaw, we’re going back to camp. Are you ready to leave?”
…
“We can’t stay here forever.”
Heatherpaw gasps for air. Why is nothing working?”
“Is she hurt?”
…
“I’m ready.”
Crowfeather nods. Heatherpaw feels clean — did someone wash the blood off of her? “Let’s head back, then.”
Barkface smears marigold into her wounds.
“That stings!” she cries, and then stops, because she feels something.
”That means it’s working,” he says, his voice always gruff. “You lost a lot of blood, I bet.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re shivering, and you didn’t even realize.” He gives her head a short lick that’s probably meant to be comforting. “Once I’m done, I’ll find someone to share the nest with you.”
Heatherpaw thinks of her options. Kestrelpaw sleeps here anyway. “Breezepaw?” He’s not her kin; he won’t look at her like that.
Barkface purrs, amused. “I’m sure he’ll agree.”
And right, Breezepaw is her predetermined mate. They don’t say that but they want her to share a nest with him, they want her to want him, and she does, that’s the worst part.
“Heatherpaw?” Breezepaw asks. “Are you okay?”
She can’t answer him, so he curls around her, purring.
(It’s over, so why can’t she sleep?)
She dreams of a strange place. The ground is sticky and the air is hot, and her fur feels dirty just from being here. It feels more real than any other dream she’s had, and the cat in front of her has a depth to her eyes that a normal dream-cat doesn’t.
“I’ve been watching you,” she says. “The others thought I was crazy, you know. They didn’t think you’d amount to anything special.” Her tortoiseshell pelt is ragged, and the patches Heatherpaw assumes were once white have been stained an ugly brown. “But I knew you were more than that, and you finally proved it.”
“You’re here because of Lionpaw.”
“I’m here because of you.” She jabs her tail for emphasis. “Just you.”
“But it’s because I killed him.”
“Yes.” The she-cat looks Heatherpaw over, not like she’s seeing Heatherpaw for the first time, but like she’s verifying Heatherpaw matches her expectations. “You nearly didn’t.”
“He was going to kill me.”
“It’s alright, pet. You don’t need to explain yourself.” Her amber eyes, though hardened, still offer some gentleness. “You have a lot of potential, you know. I don’t know what Crowfeather is thinking, focusing on hunting.”
“Onestar thinks it’s what I’m best at.”
“Hmph.” The she-cat stands, beckoning for Heatherpaw to follow. “You were sloppy in your fight. It nearly cost you your life, and it didn’t have to. I’m going to show you how to do it better.”
Heatherpaw starts to follow, and then stops. “Why?”
The she-cat purrs. “You were starting to worry me, Heatherpaw. I know StarClan trains you all to be good little unquestioning followers, but I couldn’t stand another demure little duckling passively following me around. I’m going to show you how to do it better, because I think you want to get better.”
“That doesn’t explain what’s in it for you.”
“What’s in it for me is that I get a smart apprentice to turn into a strong ally.” Her face is hard. “You know who I am, right? I know it’s not a WindClan story.”
Heatherpaw shakes her head.
“Mapleshade,” she says. “You’ll know the rest sooner or later. Now. You’re smart enough to know what you’re getting into, aren’t you?”
A dark place, without starlight. A dead cat. A deal.
Heatherpaw thinks of the way Lionpaw’s blood mingled with her own.
“He almost killed me.”
“One part luck and one part skill that you survived.”
“Show me how to make it all skill.”
WindClan gives her space at first, and then they give her strange looks.
She knows why — instead of being upset, contrite, or scared, she’s picked herself up from a murder in a matter of days. Her wounds haven’t even healed, and she’s ready to go back to training.
(Mapleshade thinks that’s smart. Mapleshade says battles don’t stop because you got a scratch. Mapleshade says there are cats who want to meet Heatherpaw, as soon as she’s ready.)
(Heatherpaw wants to be ready.)
“You went through a lot,” Crowfeather says. “There’s no shame in taking it easy for a while. We could work on flushing techniques, or even just relax. That’s allowed, you know.”
“I don’t need to take it easy.”
“Well, you need to rest at least as long as Barkface says.” He gives her a lick between the shoulders. “Spend some time with your kin.”
Heatherpaw nods, even though Crowfeather is trying to correct an imbalance that doesn’t exist. He thinks she’s repressing how she feels, but she’s not.
She’s just finally alive.
“How’d you do it?” Tigerstar asks.
“I wanted to.”
Here, where the air is damp and rank, and her pelt is covered in mud, she feels unrecognizable. She feels like the cat who killed Lionpaw. Here, it is true.
“Yes, but how? Outside of here, no cat could get a scratch on him.”
Heatherpaw smirks. “Maybe they weren’t trying hard enough.”
“Cheek like that won’t fly here.”
“Funny. That’s what Crowfeather said.”
Here, Heatherpaw is the kind of cat to banter with Tigerstar.
“Did you know what you were doing?” Tigerstar asks. “Were you trying to kill him, or was it a convenient accident?”
Heatherpaw doesn’t know, but she knows what Tigerstar wants to hear. “He thought I was an easy mark because I’m pretty,” she says. “I wanted to prove otherwise.”
“So you killed him?”
“If he hadn’t underestimated me, he wouldn’t have died.”
There are hoots and hollars of praise.
“She’s one of ours!” someone shouts. “Ruthless!”
Heatherpaw wishes that didn’t feel so good.
Here, it is.
There’s a discussion over whether or not she should attend the Gathering, but Onestar decides she should, so she does. Heatherpaw doesn’t think he’s really thought about why: he just wants to bring her. Ashfoot brings her to most Gatherings anyway. The risk of ThunderClan reacting badly is the only reason she’s hesitating.
To be fair to that position, as soon as they begin to mingle, Heatherpaw finds herself cornered by a black she-cat with scathing green eyes.
Hollypaw glares at her. “You killed my brother.”
“He would’ve killed me.” Heatherpaw arches her back. “Self-defense, and all.”
She is leaking. She is a cat who will mock Hollypaw’s grief; she is a cat who feels sickened by it.
She is melting.
“You still killed him.” Hollypaw’s eyes are almost yellow in this light. They remind Heatherpaw of Lionpaw. “And they didn’t even punish you.”
Here is a secret. She doesn’t regret it.
Here is another. She liked it.
She tastes his blood.
The fear of death, Heatherpaw finds, lights a certain fire under your paws. Now that she knows what it feels like, she’ll put in any work required to avoid it. It’s not like she was lazy before, but she can’t see Heatherpaw-from-before training day and night like this.
“You know, Mapleshade said you had potential, and I didn’t believe her. But you’re one of our best recruits.”
The spine-raising sensation of speaking to cats the elders use to scare kits has never quite gone away, but she has gotten used to it. If Hawkfrost (bleeding heart, cared too much about a Clan that hated him) wants to praise her, she’ll nod and take it.
“I try.”
“I can see.” Hawkfrost licks his paw. “You’ve got a knack for strategy as well. That could be useful.”
He dismisses her with a flick of his tail, and Heatherpaw goes back to working so hard sweat stiffens her pelt. No one cares what she looks like. Her actions are all that matter, and her actions are starting to stack up.
They look at her differently. No longer is she Heatherpaw, beloved, beautiful daughter of Onestar. She is Heatherpaw, vicious, are-we-sure-she’s-a-runner apprentice nearing a warrior.
It grates, and she hates that she does. This is what she wanted, isn’t it? To be seen?
But she’s not seen. She’s just taken on a new role.
“I could fight a dog,” Heatherpaw says. “Either I’d win, and that’s all they’d talk about, or I’d lose, and they’d stop calling me pretty.”
“You could die.”
“That’s your criticism?”
Breezepaw looks askance. “I mean, you’re not serious, are you?”
“I don’t know.” She could. She’s fast enough to get mauled and survive.
“Is this because of Lionpaw?”
Noyesmaybe why is nothing ever about her?
“This is because I’m tired,” she says. She is empty inside. She is running on what doesn’t exist anymore.
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“Since when do you care?”
“About you? Since always.” Breezepaw licks her shoulder. “Let’s go back to camp, Heatherpaw.”
Before, she was Heatherpaw, Onestar’s daughter.
Now, she is Heatherpaw, mad in more ways than one.
“Have you ever had fish?”
Heatherpaw shakes her head, wrinkling her nose.
“Figured. Just wanted to make sure.” Crowfeather sits at the stream. “Sit with me — mind your shadow. Don’t cast it over the water.”
The stream babbles as it passes.
“Someone told me that because we spend all our time running, we never see what’s really going on.” He isn’t looking at her. That makes it easier. “You have to sit, stop, really look at things to make sense of them.” Crowfeather’s paw shoots into the water, but he comes up with nothing. “So tell me, Heatherpaw. What are you trying to outrun?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
His paw darts in again, and he procures a silvery fish. “Give it a bite. Tell me what you think.”
Reluctantly, she does. “Exactly like it smells,” she says.
“Acquired taste, I suppose.”
“You’re being really weird.”
“So are you.” He touches noses with her. “I know you’re struggling, Heather. I want to help you.”
“I don’t need help.”
She needs to be free.
Sighing, Crowfeather licks her forehead. “Well, it’s up to you. Just know I’m here if you want to talk.”
If she were a better cat, she’d be having bloody nightmares waking up after his death. But she’s not a better cat; she’s just Heather, with all that has always contained.
“Where’d you learn that?” Crowfeather asks. “I know I haven’t taught it to you yet.”
Heatherpaw fumbles for an explanation. There aren’t any older apprentices for her to have watched, and although Harepaw used to be ahead of her in battle training, she’s surpassed him.
“I didn’t know it was a move,” she says. “I was just trying something new.”
Crowfeather’s suspicion vanishes. “You’ve got good instincts. Make sure you keep your tail out of the way, though. You don’t want someone to grab it.”
Heatherpaw nods. Mapleshade’s already been ragging on her for the same.
“It’s not the same,” Harepaw says. “He doesn’t love us like he loves you.”
Heatherpaw feels her claws unsheathe. “You don’t understand,” she says. “You don’t…” Onestar is proud of her. He loves all of them. Onestar says — when he doesn’t see her listening — that he’d never consider her for deputy.
“Give the girl a chance to grow,” Ashfoot says.
“I will, I will. But be honest, Ash. Do you think she could?”
And then Heatherpaw always walks away, because she can’t take it, can’t take hearing about it. She’s better than Harepaw in every way that can’t be measured, but it doesn’t matter.
“Neither do you,” Harepaw says. “Now go on. Weren’t you supposed to be teaching me something?”
She feels flush. “Hare, I—”
“Save it, Heatherpaw. You’re so conceited, you can’t see what’s right in front of you.”
“Then — then neither can you.” Harepaw growls, but Heatherpaw keeps going. “Everyone treats me different,” she says. “Ever since Lionpaw. And before you say something dumb, yes, I’m counting Onestar. He doesn’t look at me like he used to.”
“Welcome to my life,” Harepaw says. “I’m afraid there’s no welcome party to being like everyone else.”
“Yeah, ‘cause everyone treats you like you’re a ruthless killer.”
“Gee, Heatherpaw. I wonder why they treat you like that! Maybe it’s because you didn’t even apologize!”
“She’s surprisingly vicious.”
“I don’t think it’s all that surprising.” Brokenstar’s words are humor-covered-in hunger. “The pretty ones always have the most to prove.”
Here is a secret. Heatherpaw tells herself she is there for necessity. She doesn’t know how to leave, and she’s still learning how to make others see her as dangerous, still learning how to seem like a threat. She’s here, and making the best of it, but that’s all it is.
Here is another. She wouldn’t choose to leave if she knew how.
Blood tastes like rot and sod when she sleeps.
(She’s losing her appetite.)
“Are you doing alright?” Whitetail asks.
Heatherpaw nods. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I just worry sometimes. You’ve been…distant.”
I killed someone, Heatherpaw thinks. Of course I’m different. “It’s been a weird moon,” she says. “I’ve just been thinking a lot.”
Whitewing licks Heatherpaw’s shoulder. “As long as you now you can always talk to me.”
Not about this. “Yeah, I do. This is just…in my head.”
She finds it hard to eat, lately.
“I’m worried about you,” Crowfeather says. “You’re not the type to starve yourself.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then what is going on?”
“There’s nothing going on,” she says. “Leave me alone.”
“No.”
“You’re not my mentor anymore. You can’t—”
“I absolutely can. Tell me what’s going on.” Crowfeather jabs her with his paw.
“It’s nothing.”
“Do better,” they growl, and Heatherpaw commits to tearing herself apart for them. The Clans would ask the same of her anyway.
When Heathertail sits vigil, it is on a frozen night when even the wind is too cold to sing.
She wonders if everyone can hear how loud her heart is beating.
“Heathertail?” Breezepelt says, shocked. “You—”
“Are above you,” she warns. Or things won’t feel the same. “Watch yourself.”
Breezepelt dips his head, but his pelt is bristling. He doesn’t understand. She’s Heathertail, as deadly as she is beautiful, but in his eyes, she’ll only be the first.
(That mistake killed Lionpaw.)
Breezepaw was bitter. Breezepelt is angry. Heathertail is supposed to soothe him and tell him it is all in the past and he is his own cat and not his father’s mistake.
She doesn’t.
“It isn’t a place for cats like you.”
Heathertail stiffens, glaring at Breezepelt. “Cats like me?” she hisses. “What exactly are cats like me?”
“Just…” Breezepelt swallows. “I just don’t think you’re one of us.”
Heatherpaw could scream. She is so tired of no one seeing her. “Considering I’ve killed someone, maybe you should rethink your criteria.”
“That was an accident.”
“Wasn’t it?” Heathertail snears. “You’re not part of any us, Breezepelt. You’ve just had a few dreams. I am us.”
“But you’re not — you’re not like the others.” His tail lashes, like accepting who she is in its entirety is hurting him. “You’re good.”
“I’m like them,” Heathertail says. “I am so hungry — I want so bad it’s ugly.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“I am.” Heathertail lifts her chin. “And I ruin it by agreeing. I’m too arrogant to be beautiful, too proud to be pretty. I only get to be those things when it fits into someone else’s game. Or—” She extends her claws, looking over them. “I get to use them whenever I want.”
“I just — don’t think you belong there!” His eyes practically glow, because she’s never been more than soft-pretty-sweet Heather to him, the cat he dreams of, and he’d rather redefine her than meet who she truly is. “You’re not…you’re not vicious, or cruel, or—”
“I’m not some weak-willed queen you need to defend, Breezepelt!”
“I didn’t say that.”
Heathertail has gotten very good at keeping her features still, even as rage boils and pops and claws for acknowledgement. “Then enlighten me, Breezepelt, as to why I don’t belong but you do. What makes us so incredibly different? Does killing a cat not matter when I do it?”
“Stop putting words in my mouth!” Breezepelt’s fur ripples down his back. “Heathertail, these cats are mean and bitter and angry and—”
“And I’m not?” Heathertail bares her teeth, and there’s enough bite to her words Breezepelt actually takes a step back. “I promise, Breezepelt. I nursed from the same queen as the rest.”
He looks angry, as if the truth that she is not some idealized mate is too much for him to handle. “Heather, please. I’m trying to help. We can find you a way out.”
“Then you take it if you want to leave so bad! I want to be there, Breezepelt. Why can’t you fit that through your skull?”
“Because — because I know you! I know you’re not like that.”
“You don’t want me to be like that. But you can’t change my nature, any more than I can change yours.”
“You’ve changed,” Breezepelt says. “You could change again.”
“I changed. You don’t get to control that.”
“The others don’t understand,” Mapleshade hums. “They don’t know what it’s like.”
“And you do?”
“I know I had toms drooling over me. You put it together.”
“I thought I was finally seen as more than that,” Heathertail says. “But…”
“You know better than this by now,” Mapleshade says. “It’s to your advantage if they don’t see you.”
Heathertail nods, taking a breath to stabalize herself. She gets to take advantage of this. If they think she is placating Breezepelt, they are missing the truth, and it’s their fault. If Breezepelt thinks she doesn’t belong here, it won’t be long before he realizes just how wrong he is.
“There she is,” Mapleshade says. “Now, let’s review your defense. It’s been slipping.”
The air is eating away at her lungs.
It’s easy to forget, until she suddenly has to contend with Breezepelt’s eyes, with her brother’s eyes. The air here burns.
They still cough if they breathe too deep, but Heathertail’s innoculated from exposure.
“Pick up the pace,” she growls, because she’s not above punishment. “You don’t get through this without getting used to it.”
“Heathertail!” Hawkfrost calls. “Let them be. I want to talk about a drill with you.”
She tries to give them an apologetic glance, but they don’t acknowledge her.
“What are we doing?”
“Two teams, leading an assault. I want you to captain one.”
“Gladly.”
Outside their dreams, they’re equals, and they stick together. It’s not so strange — Harespring is her brother, and they grew up with Breezepelt and Antpelt — but she does feel the disconnect to her other Clanmates more sharply with every passing day.
Kestrelflight doesn’t recognize her.
Heathertail isn’t even sure if he’s aware of this, or if his eyes just glide over her because she doesn’t stand like the Heathertail he knew. When they do talk, it’s in the polite conversation you make with a warrior you don’t particularly like but have to get along with, and if he realizes he’s using that tone on his kin, he doesn’t let on.
“Do you need help collecting herbs?” she asks. The question surprises her — it’s not something she usually does — but Kestrelflight just shakes his head.
“I’m fine. I’ll ask Ashfoot to organize it if I need help.”
“Right. Well — I’ll see you later, Kestrel.”
(It’s like this with everyone, like they see the ghost of who she used to be, but she feels it most with him.)
(Can you make an accident intentional? Can she change her mind and say she wanted to?)
(Heathertail crushes the memory of fear into victory into being feared into freedom.)
(Heathertail stands on the highest hill she can find, where the land stretches out below her in every direction and the wind whips through her pelt, and she screams until she loses her voice.)
It’s not about being the strongest or the fastest or even the smartest.
It’s about want.
She dreams of herself, once. Of a Heatherkit who does not know what is to come.
Heatherkit is small and fragile.
She needs to be protected.
Heathertail wants to protect her.
She wants to protect herself. She wants to never be hurt again. She watns to be safe.
“I love you,” Heathertail says. “I’ll make you safe. I promise. No one is going to hurt us ever again.”
Heatherkit doesn’t say anything.
Has she forgotten what it feels like to be protected? To feel safe?
The kitten yawns.
Here is a secret. She has made them fear her.
Here is another. She is still afraid.
A battle is coming for the Clans, and Heathertail doesn’t know where she stands.
She has no real quarrel with them.
But.
(There’s always a but.)
Here is a secret. Heatherpaw was scared.
Here is another. Heathertail is still scared.
Harespring and Breezepelt know what side they’re fighting for.
Heathertail doesn’t. She feels like she is ducking and weaving through the flurry, trying to find something she knows is right.
(She knows the Dark Forest is wrong. But she doesn’t care.)
She needs something she cares about.
It comes to this:
Whitetail, standing outside the nursery, her pelt stained in blood and dirt and her tail puffed out, growling. When she sees Heathertail, hope illuminates her, and Heathertail nods, practically sliding over the ground to stand with her.
“I love you,” Whitetail says. “In case I don’t get to say it again.”
(She doesn’t.)
“I’m not going to ask why,” Onestar says.
Heathertail remembers why: his name is Lionpaw and he would’ve been a warrior by now. But that hasn’t felt like why in a long time.
She’s just been angry.
“I would’ve made you my deputy.”
“I don’t care.”
Onestar flinches.
“All my life, I have only cared about who other wanted me to be. I don’t care about being deputy; I wouldn’t say yes if you asked.”
Onestar is furious. He doesn’t realize the Heathertail who was his perfect daughter is long dead. “It is an honor,” he hisses, winding up for a rant, and it feels good, because he has never paid attention to her before.
His eyes are always on her shadow.
“It’s an honor I don’t want. Give it to Harespring if you’re so concerned about legacy.”
“That’s not…” Onestar looks away. It’s true. It’s what they’ve always been to him. The completion of his perfect family dynasty. Now they’ve all disappointed him.
“I’m tired,” Heathertail says. “And my mother — your mate — is dead, so…I’m going back to my kin.”
That doesn’t include you.
Harespring sits with her. “If you ever want to talk about things…”
“It’s not like we didn’t know.”
“But it’s different, now that it’s over.”
So it is. Harespring is Onestar’s favored, for one.
Growing frustrated with her silence, Harespring stands. “We’re all trying to help you, Heathertail. The least you could do is take it.”
“I didn’t ask you for help!”
“Well, you need it.” Harepsring bares his teeth. “You go around like being angry all the time is some great, noble t hing, but guess what? It isn’t! You’re just lashing out at everyone who loves you.”
She’s becoming Breezepelt.
That feels freeing, somehow.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Nightcloud says.
Heathertail flicks her ears. Everyone wants to talk to her.
“No,” Nightcloud growls. “Heathertail, you will listen to me.”
“Why? What makes you different?”
“Because.” Nightcloud bites the skin on Heathertail’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Heathertail. I’m not fighting with this.”
“Then don’t.”
Nightcloud bites her again, this time with enough force to make Heathertail yelp. She scrambles to her feet, licking down the ruffled fur.
“What was that for?”
“You’re being annoying. Now. Are you coming with me, or not?”
She doesn’t want to be, but she knows Nightcloud won’t let this go, so she follows.
“I’ve always liked you, Heathertail. I thought you were a good match for Breezepelt.”
Heathertail mumbles out a thanks. It means very little, now. The elders seem to think a match between two traitors is the best the two of them can get, but it’s not like anyone expects her to have kits and carry on any dynasty.
(In a funny way, that means it all worked.)
“I was happy the two of you got along. It wasn’t like that for me.” Nightcloud’s voice goes distant. “We were getting ready to confirm our courtship when he ran. I tried to… When Crowfeather first got back, I tried to be a good, understanding mate. I knew he didn’t love me. I don’t blame him.”
“You’ve told me this before.”
“Well, you haven’t learned. You can’t make him love you, Heathertail. If he doesn’t, it’s not about anything you do. Making him angry won’t help.”
Oh.
She’s talking about Onestar.
“He loves me,” Heathertail protests. “I’m his kit.”
Nightcloud is silent.
The truth is painful.
“I didn’t join because of him.” She’s never said any of this awake. “I joined because of Lionpaw.”
“The apprentice who died.”
“Who I killed.”
“Seems counterproductive to train with the Dark Forest.”
“Everyone finally treated me like — like I was someone. It didn’t matter who it was; they were finally paying attention to me.”
“So you became the cat they saw in you.”
Heathertail nods.
Nightcloud pulls Heathertail against her. “I’m sorry,” she says. “We failed you.” She purrs, her tail thin but still soothing. “You never should have felt like that.”
Heathertail begins to understand why Breezepelt blames Crowfeather.
(It would be so easy to adopt the world as Nightcloud presents it.)
No one trusts them. Heathertail doesn’t exactly blame her Clanmates — were their roles reversed, she wouldn’t be very trusting either.
But still, it hurts.
Breezepelt doesn’t care, or at least, he acts like he doesn’t care, and Harespring is deputy, thrust into public acceptance and private judgment. (Antpelt is, of course, long dead. Ivypool managed to be a traitor twice over.)
Heathertail wants not to care, but she doesn’t.
She’s spent her life clawing for approval, she realizes. She sunk to her shoulders in the muddy depths of the Dark Forest, all because they were willing to say a few nice things about her. The revelation is a small one, in how it changes nothing, because she’s always known it.
She’s just never wanted to say it.
“You never did apologize for Lionpaw,” Harespring says one night. She hasn’t brought up what’s bothering her, so this is mostly unprompted. “It wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”
“He’s from ThunderClan. Besides, I shouldn’t have to—”
“Everyone here would see it.” Harespring licks her head. “It’s just a thought, take it or leave it.”
He stands, relocating to sleep near to Willowclaw. Heathertail didn’t even know they were close, and it leaves her alone.
“I wanted to make amends,” Heathertail explains. “I know I’m years late, but…”
Jayfeather sniffs, as if trying to appraise her motivations.
“It’s just a rabbit. Enough to feed two or three.”
“I can smell,” he growls.
Silence looms, its maw yawning.
“Why now? It’s been… Heathertail, how is now the time you’ve decided to show an ounce of remorse?”
His words burn, but they are not undeserved.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Hollyleaf died in the Great Battle.”
“I know! I’m sorry for your loss.”
“In a way, I think you killed both of them.”
Guilt stabs. “I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I am!” Heathertail forces herself to take a deep breath and calm down. “I am sorry, Jayfeather. I can’t imagine what losing a littermate is like.”
She knows what losing a mother is like.
Here is a secret. She wants to go back, she wants to do it all over again, she wants another chance.
Here is another. She’s still not sorry.
“Kestrelflight thinks that we’re going to sing through the whole hymn soon,” Heathertail says. “Beginning to end.”
Breezepelt arches his brow.
“I’d like to sing part of it with you,” she says. “You never got back to me on what you wanted to sing, and I’m tired of waiting.”