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“I know it will never fix things, but I am sorry.”
“I don’t even know what ‘fixed’ means!”
“I—”
“No! Why is it always about you? My mother is dead because of you. You don’t get to — you don’t get to make this about your making amends.”
Breezepelt stares at her for a long time.
“Well?” Heathertail snaps. “Are you going to just stand there?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
She growls, but her tail swings against the ground. “I don’t know what I want to hear,” she admits. “But don’t apologize. It doesn’t — just don’t.”
Crowfeather doesn’t look at him. Breezepelt doesn’t want anything to do with his father, but it still hurts.
“I blamed him for my choices,” he says.
Heathertail flicks her ears. “You made them.” Her eyes are pale and hard to read. He could spin a tale of how they are bright as the moon, but she wouldn’t like that.
“I don’t know if I would have, if it weren’t for him.”
Heathertail says nothing. She doesn’t like the game he plays where she’s supposed to validate what he feels, she says. She’s not doing that anymore.
A younger, angrier Breezepelt would’ve lashed out when she said it.
This Breezepelt is learning to understand.
“I’ve decided forgiveness is not the right word,” Heathertail says. “If I frame it as forgiveness, I’ll never reach it.”
Breezepelt is tense in every muscle in his body. He can’t interrupt her, but he needs her to get to the point.
“It’s not something you can forget. But…I can love you again. For a second time. Not the same love, but still a love.”
Breezepelt says nothing, because the one truth in his life, as old as he can remember, is that he loves Heathertail. She always leaves him speechless.
“You’re lucky she still wants you,” Weaselfur says, as Breezepelt stands in the elders’ den, hoping they’ll approve of his intentions.
“I know.” He’s the luckiest cat alive, and he’ll tell anyone who will listen. (Not that there are many of them, these days.)
“We still feel it is an appropriate match. You have our blessing.”
He hates that he needs it — and he knows Heathertail hates that too — but he’s determined to court her right.
He’s made enough mistakes. She won’t be one of them.
“Thank you.”
This should be a win, a victory. Breezepelt can pursue his queen. They love each other and the Clan will bless their union.
It tastes like dusty defeat.
“I don’t care what the elders think!”
That’s the Heather he’s known all his life. It’s funny, to hear on a day when he has been begging for the elders, sure, but — this is who he loves. Sharp and fighting tradition with her own claws, because she knows exactly what she wants, and she refuses to compromise.
“I love you,” he says, and it stratles her. “Heathertail, the world could be burning down around us, and that I love you would still be the most important thing I could say.”
“Someone’s feeling sentimental.” But her eyes light up. Despite everything, she still wanted to hear that from him.
Despite everything, she still loves him.
When Crowfeather snaps at him again, Breezpelt breaks.
“It’s not like you were so perfect,” he seethes. “You ran away with Leafpool and destroyed your family.”
“You tried to destroy the Clans! What are you doing, bringing up my mistakes? In what way is that comparable?”
“Because — because…because I learned it from you!”
“You did? You learned this from me? Explain to me how, exactly, I taught you this!”
“You — I had to break the rules! Because…because you did it, so that’s how I learned it was okay.”
“Can you hear yourself? I can’t believe you’re incapable of taking the most basic responsibility for your actions.”
“I’m not saying you tried to destroy the Clans. I’m just…” Breezepelt lashes his tail. “You made me so angry! I had no outlet!”
“D’you know how many cats don’t get on with their parents, but turn out alright and don’t try to destroy their families?”
Something distant tugs at Breezepelt. Why is he doing this, again?
“Fine,” he mutters, even though it’s physically painful to back down.
“And you! — what?”
“Fine. You’re — I shouldn’t be blaming you for this.” Despite it all, he can’t manage to say Crowfeather was right. “You’re not responsible for this.”
“Do you want kittens?” Heathertail asks.
“Do you?”
She flicks her tail. “You first.”
“The Clan will never treat my kits fairly.” Breezepelt spent his whole life being judged. He doesn’t want that for his children.
“They won’t exactly treat mine fairly easier. It’ll cancel out in the end, I think.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Okay, well, pretend I’m right. Do you want kittens?”
“With you? Yeah. But you’re not right, Heather, or at least you can’t know that.”
“You can’t…” Heathertail sighs. “What do you want me to say, Breeze?”
“I want — if you want to, I want a family with you. But I want better for them, better than what we got.”
“We had to go and live remarkable lives. What a terror.”
“It’s still not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.” Heathertail licks his jaw. “There’s nothing we can do about it. We made our decisions, and one of the consequences of that is the Clan judging us for it.”
“Well — that’s what messed us up so much in the first place. I’m allowed to be pissed about it.”
“I’m not saying you can’t. I just don’t think it’s very productive.”
“Screw productive!”
Heathertail breathes out, and is silent for a long moment. “Do you know what I thought, when everything was out in the open? After the battle, but before they found Whitetail’s body? I thought, ‘The elders are going to give me a real choice for once. Like — I actually had the choice to say no and have it mean something. I was going to get to choose you. I was excited about it. And then they found Whitetail.”
“I didn’t…”
“Shut up.” Heathertail’s eyes flash, and the fur along her spine stands up. “Just — keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you.”
(He’s not sure he does, but he understands her point.)
“I was celebrating that you killed my mother. Do you know how messed up that is?”
“I—”
“That wasn’t a real question! Just—”
Heathertail breathes out, releasing all the tension in her body.
The nursery smells of milk — always — but now it smells of Heathertail, and the scent fills Breezepelt with an overwhelming sense of comfort.
“Come meet your daughters,” Heathertail says. Her tail is over them, but he can see their tiny paws already paddling her side for milk.
“They’re healthy?”
She nods. “Come on, Breezepelt. They won’t bite you.” She giggles. “They don’t even have teeth yet.”
Nervous, Breezepelt leans down. They’re purring, and they barely look like cats, but he feels so much love it’s overwhelming.
He can’t let anything hurt them.
“Is there a song for forgiveness?”
Kestrelflight turns to stare at him. “Why do you…”
But they look towards the nursery together. Heathertail is watching, the kits’ heads poking out from under her chest.
“You can’t just sing the words,” Kestrelflight warns. “You have to mean them.”
“I understand.”
Kestrelflight, briefly, touches his nose to Breezepelt’s shoulder. “She does forgive you, you know. I know it’s not what you’re looking ofr, but…that much you already have.” Breezepelt looks away from Heathertail and their kits. “The hymn is, ‘The Shade of the Forest,’ but you’ll have to ask the elders to teach it to you.”
“We don’t sing it often.”
“It’s near the end.” Kestrelflight sighs. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”