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The Riverclan congregation was escorted like a herd of nervous horses by Windclan raiders. At their head was a man with water stained finery. What misfortune for the greatest silk in all the land to be worn by someone who refused to sit by when there were sails to be lowered.
"Bluestar." He said, green hazel eyes too far away from her throne to see, but she remembered how they looked in the sunlight. "We honor you as the new Queen of Thunderclan."
Oakheart kneeled and whatever was left of Bluefur within her disappeared.
"And I," she said, the words like a ship leaving the shore it was born on. "Honor you as the deputy of Riverclan."
"As Starclan Wills." Oakheart's congregation said nothing but shifted. Starclan was not usually what the prayed to. Or at least they didn't revere that aspect.
"As Starclan Wills." It was a Thunderclan term for peace. For goodbye.
–
She first saw him on the shore of Sunning Rocks.
Oakheart was not quite a young man, but neither was Bluefur. Both their siblings were married with children on the way. Both had never shown interest in any courtship before.
The Prince of Riverclan was shirtless, his dark skin beautiful in the sunlight. He was pulling up a writhing net of fish by the shore, stance wide as he heaved. Oakheart didn’t need to be out here. That’s what had first caught her attention. Riverclan royal families were hung up like the gleaming rocks and gems they found. They were inside folk, weavers and great craftsmen. Warriors too- but Riverclan was not a warring kingdom.
They were peace-loving people, the folk of the river. They did not honor battle like Thunderclan or Shadowclan.
“What might you be doing here, Bluefur of Thunderclan?” Oakheart called once the fish were on shore and he paused for a rest. “Have you come to see me?” White, white teeth, probably smelling of rosemary.
“You know better, fool.” Bluefur said, hand on the pommel of her sword. Her shirt was loose linen, and her pants cotton. The rope around her waist was suddenly too tight. Her clan came first, but she did not want to see red on those shining white teeth. “This is Thunderclan territory, and you should leave before my clan-mates come.”
“Ah, but I see two problems with that.” Oakheart tilted his head to the side, the sunlight haloing his face. It wasn’t strong jawed, like what most men aspired to in Thunderclan. But the softness gave him a sweet, boyish look. Dimples on one side, laughter lines, long twists of hair with river stone and gold earrings.
(This is when Bluefur first saw his eyes, and later she thinks that everything went downhill from there.)
Bluefur lifted her chin. “And what might those be?”
“One is that the last battle ended in a draw. This territory is disputed, but I know it is definitely not solely Thunderclan’s.” Oakheart stepped forward to Bluefur, who swallowed hard. “The second being that you have a sword, and I do not. You can chase me out whenever you want.”
“Maybe you are just stupid, and I am taking pity on you.” Bluefur said, but made no move to take out said sword.
“I’ve heard of you, Bluefur of Thunderclan.” Oakheart said quietly. He was so close now that if Bluefur reached out, she could touch his chest. “You are not the pitying sort, so why am I still here?”
She searched his gaze and found that she had no reason, nothing came to her tongue.
Oakheart took off one of his earrings slowly, as if not to startle her. He pressed it into the hand not on her sword and whispered close to her ear, “If you ever feel inclined to return it, I am stationed alone at Fourtrees every new moon.” A sly smile. “Unless you’d like to come to my brother’s court.”
A knight, even a respectable one, alone at an enemy court in public courtship. The scandal would be enough to put Featherwhisker’s gossip mongering out of commission for weeks. Deputy-ship after? No chance in the world.
“Scoundrel!” Bluefur said as she tucked the earring in a pouch on her belt and walked away. “Get out of here before you embarrass yourself further.”
“May the moonlight reflect on you!” Oakheart called, the amusement clear in his voice.
“As Starclan wills it!” Bluefur shouted back, her hands cupped around her mouth.
“You have to be in a very specific place for the moonlight to be clear, Starclan’s will or not!” Oakheart was laughing now, waving goodbye to her.
“Eat dung, blasphemer!” Bluefur replied, loud enough for the birds nearby to startle.
She left the Sunning Rocks with a smile on her face. Maybe a bit of stupidity was good for her.
–
Bluefur patrolled the river, Sunning Rocks, the great bridge between the lands, alone. In the gatherings, they would catch each other’s eyes across the crowd. Her face was prone to blush so easily, and the laughter lines on his face came alive every time.
–
Bluefur carried her sister's body for miles. The early spring air crisp and sweet smelling, but the ground was wet from the new rain. Her steps sank into the mud with every step, and by the time she reached a road, her feet were numb and unfeeling.
Travelers found her there, kneeling with her sister's corpse on the dirt. The folk wrapped her in a blood red shawl, scattered herbs across the body. Bluefur, unfeeling and undying, sat in the wagon like one of their sacks of flour.
There was a little boy with raven black hair and pale skin. She could not tear her eyes away, the body beneath the thin sheet with the same black, straight hair as him. Another boy, with his black curls and doe-dark eyes, would be waiting at the castle.
His mother pressed the boy close to her and adjusted the shroud across Snowfang's body. Bluefur closed her eyes and fell into a sleep haunted by the sweet scent of jasmine and dead woman's piss.
–
Maybe it was White, her nephew, grasping his grandmother's bow at the funeral, The beautiful wooden weapon meant to be passed down far later than it was. Maybe it was Sunstar holding out the pommel of her own sword as she sat greasy and sweat slicked on her bed. Maybe it was Thistleclaw slapping her and then screaming into his hands, clawing at his thick hair like grief was eating him alive.
Bluefur wandered to Fourtrees one new moon night and finally felt alive at the warmth in Oakheart's smile.
“You came!” Different jewelry crowned his hair and ears, there were shiny stone bands around his arms. Riverclan vanity, even at a lone guard post. She wondered if he picked each piece out every morning and resisted a smile coming to her lips.
“I did.” Bluefur said simply. “It’s been a hard couple months.”
“Whatever you want to do, we can do.” Oakheart took her hands with his calloused ones. There was no sharp hunger, or leering expectation. He was just happy she was there. It had been a long time since she sparked that joy without anything attached, and before he could say another word she was kissing his soft face and holding on to the braided hair coiling down his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around her and spun her around, kissed her back with a chuckle deep in his throat.
–
Oakheart held her face in his hands, and she held his neck.
"Are you sure?"
Bluefur nodded.
Oakheart kissed her throat, her hands with dirt underneath the fingernails, and anywhere else he could reach. He was the river and she was submerging herself, until every part of her body had been touched by his mouth. When she went up for air, he kissed slowly her on her lips, his large hands holding her waist.
There was a joke amongst the other kingdoms that everyone in Riverclan smelled like fish, a jive covering the jealousy of wealth and a consistent supply of food. But Oakheart’s breath was of fresh fruit and dogwood bark. When she pressed her face into the hollow of his throat, she found the scent of iris and freshly rain blessed wood.
–
“What?” She asked, breathless and still laughing.
“You’re beautiful all the time.” Oakheart said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “But you are radiant when you’re happy.”
“I was happy before.” Bluefur said, but a dangerous lump in her throat formed as his gaze softened.
“I don’t know if I’m the right judge of that,” Oakheart’s hand moved from adjusting her hair to cradling her face. “But I’m glad you’re having a good time now.”
-
Months later, Bluefur was on her knees, throwing up in the dirt. Such is the price Starclan laid on her for forgetting her duty for a single night.
Bluefur snuck into the healer’s den that evening and took a book from the section in the corner. Ruda, fennel, parsley, pennyroyal, oregano. So inconspicuous, pretty herbs with pretty flower and pretty scents. Such an ugly combination if ingested with intent.
Bluefur went to the kitchens, sweetly asked for some herbs for her sister’s grave. She cradled them in her arms on the way to her chambers, but just as she turned into the warrior’s wing, somebody stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“I know what you’re going to do.” Thrushpelt said. Bluefur’s heart sank. “Please don’t.”
"How could you understand?" Bluefur whispered. "I don't have a family to whisk a child away, or grandparents to watch over them when I'm in battle. I won't be able to leave this castle. It will be the end of me."
"My sister once came with child at the wrong time with the wrong man." Oh, Bluefur knew exactly who lovely young Dappletail was with: Moonflower was lowered in a coffin at the same time. "And she took the same herbs you did."
"It seemed to have worked," Bluefur retorted. "Dappletail has never had a child to my knowledge."
"And she never will." Thrushpelt said. "Neither will she ever wake up without pain in her pelvis. She nearly bled out that night, we were too scared to get Goosefeather."
Bluefur's hands tightened on the herbs. Some of the dried leaves fluttered onto the stone floor. "I'm sorry, but I have to take my chances."
"Marry me!" Thrushpelt blurted out. "I mean-I, look." He got on one knee and held his palms up to her. "I'll claim them as my own."
Bluefur shook her head. "You have an honorable lineage. Don't ruin it with me."
"Letting you suffer would be far worse." Thrushpelt shuffled forward on his knees, took her hand in his own tan and scarred ones. "I'm not saying we'd be husband and wife, but father and mother. Go out and save the clan as much as you want, I'll keep your children safe as you do it."
Bluefur opened her mouth, closed it again. Treacherous tears worked their way to her eyes, until she was standing like a fool, weeping in the hallway.
"Is everything all right?" Rosetail said as she passed by the spectacle.
"I'm getting married." Bluefur pressed the palm of her hands into her eyes so hard she saw stars.
Rosetail looked to her brother's sheepish grin and grasped Bluefur's shoulders in geniune joy. "I will not pretend to replace your sister, but I hope to grow close to you nonetheless. Anything you need, just ask."
Bluefur nodded. Then, in acquiescence, pressed her face into the woman's shoulder. Rosetail was soft and sweet smelling, her Riverclan silk dress both reassuring and cruel. Thrushpelt met her eyes over Rosetail's shoulder as his smile faded into wretched sympathy.
-
Sunstar and Goosefeather marry them, the latter boring into her soul like a woodpeckers hammering. Sunstar's wrapped their hands in emerald green ribbon, binding them together in life and death.
Thrushpelt slipped onto her finger a wooden ring of rowan and Bluefur's eyes filled with tears again because she could've loved him if she was something more than a forest fire, if she didn't destroy everything she touched.
All she had was a thank you. A ring of ash wood, a recognition of sacrifice wrapped around his finger.
-
They move into a suite style space. He took one room, she took the other. Bluefur caught a glimpse of his back when he changed. She never knew a person could have so many freckles.
-
Three children, each with light brown skin except for one. She had vitiligo patches adorning her dark skin, one right across the bridge of her nose.
"They're beautiful." Thrushpelt said, his own tan beauty fitting right in with her children. He held Partridge and Shrike in his arms, kissed their foreheads and smoothed their baby curls in wonder. For the first time in months, Bluefur had done something right. These children would have the most loving father in Thunderclan, even if their mother was a disaster.
Flower was quieter than the others, she did not cry out for milk or in confusion of the world. Bluefur and Thrushpelt traded, Thrushpelt handling Flower like the injured lambs he saw every spring and summer. "Hello my love." He whispered and coaxed her to grab his finger. She did, and for the first time, her beautiful blue eyes locked on to him.
"Is this okay?" Thrushpelt said to Bluefur as the baby giggled in his arms. Featherwhisker had finally left the room. "I…if you don't want me to be involved, I completely understand." He said, even as his voice wavered in the last word.
“You're their father,” Bluefur said, ignoring the slight pang in her chest. Why didn’t men like her father, easy to hate and easier to ignore, fancy her? Perhaps it would’ve been easier. “Of course it’s alright.”
-
The next months were crowded and awkward, little moments of joy weaving their way into her life.
Thrushpelt's entire family crowded their rooms, bouncing the babies, cooking, chattering, sweeping underfoot. Bluefur had never had so many people ask how she was feeling, if she wanted something to eat, if she needed a lie down. By the end of the rest period, she understood Snowfang's desperation to get out onto the field more than ever.
One morning, she slammed the door behind her and sighed, sliding back against the muffled noises of her own home.
“Getting some air?” A familiar soft tenor greeted her. Bluefur checked for any witnesses, and wrapped her arms around Sunstar. He responded in kind immediately, his velvet cloak shielding her from the world. When she was an apprentice, she would hide from the rain under his red deputy cape. Now, she was too tall for the shadows to envelop her in their comfort, but his light kiss upon her brow was fair recompense.
“It’s a madhouse.” Bluefur sighed. “I don’t know what I expected.”
“Thrushpelt’s family has lost much over the years.” Sunstar said. “They mean only best.”
"Trust me, I know. It's just…overwhelming sometimes." Bluestar hummed. "Every day, Snowfang and I's childhood seems that much quieter.”
Sunstar didn't have anything to say to that, just a gentle squeeze on the shoulder.
A word to Thrushpelt later and Sunstar held her children in his broad arms. There was something about the sight, the man who was more her father than anyone else, holding her babies like they were precious. He smiled down at them and let them play with his finger. His golden hair was shot through with silver, and his crow's feet eyes never stopped crinkling at the edges. The ragged scar peeking out from the back of his neck was not healing well, unusual for the wound of a king.
"I can't wait to be back on the field, but I'll miss this." Bluefur said, tapping Shrike's button nose.
"You have no need to worry, it will not be for a while yet. You have my word." Sunstar murmured as he rocked Flower to sleep.
Bluefur froze. "What?"
Sunstar was quiet for a moment. Bluefur realized he was blinking back tears.
"I failed you." He said. "In every way. I watched your mother die, I sent Snowfang to check on the border-”
“She wanted to go,” Bluefur said, even though it cracked her open. “You know how stir-crazy she was getting at the castle.”
“Snowfang should’ve never been out there in the first place. Or I should’ve sent more knights with you two.” He pressed his hand to his eyes. “I just didn’t think-” Sunstar closed his eyes and breathed wetly, his shoulders rising and falling heavily. He returned his attention to Flower with steel in his voice. “No more. Your children will not grow up without a mother.”
“I can’t be deputy without being in danger.” Bluefur said. She tried to make it sound like a grim reminder rather than what it was: a plead.
“I cannot in good conscience make a deputy out of a parent with newborn children.” Sunstar kissed the white patch on Flower’s forehead, the very one that was her namesake. “Not during a war. I’m sorry, my dear squire, but that is not the kind of king I want to be.”
Sunstar placed Flower in her crib, patted Bluefur’s shoulder as he left. Bluefur rocked under that strength, like a boat after a high wave.
--
The winter grew cruel and the elders began to whisper of the time of Doestar, when a famine so terrible came that the kingdom almost destroyed itself. Bluefur slept in the suite style room, the door to Thrushpelt’s side now forever opened. This was her fault, she thought in the dead of the blizzard nights. The same powers that plagued Goosefeather with visions were reaching out their hands to the rest of the clan. Her children were innocent- but she wasn’t.
Thistleclaw's shadow spread across her life, their families now even more intertwined. He looked at her children with frightening stillness, and she felt the urge to push him away from them, to hold the point of a sword to his scarred throat. There was a gleam in his eyes when he looked from Thrushpelt to them. It didn’t matter to the kingdom, as long as the children had a father. But it mattered to him.
—
Bluefur told the clan that the moonstone’s blessing would be strongest soon, the solstice weakening the walls between worlds. Thrushpelt was busy with the castle livestock, and the ceremony was well understood to be between the children’s closest guardians. Still, they doubt why she went then. The summer solstice was many months away, yes, but far safer. Large groups of pilgrims would be going, and raiders on the Windclan plains would be loath to attack such well defended groups.
But none-the-matter. If Bluefur felt Starclan’s call to bless her children, then the clan could do nothing but watch with anxious hearts and prayers of return.
She did not lie when she said she’d go with a caravan of travelers, just not the right destination. The woman who’d found her and Snowfang opened the door, but her face shuttered closed when she saw Bluefur.
“I’m sorry, I do not mean to offend-” Bluefur said.
The woman shook her head and stepped to the side. Inside the caravan, the boy with raven black hair sat, bandages wrapped around his skin. One black rimmed eye shone red and yellow from burst blood vessels, the same with the bruises ringed around his neck.
“Who did this?” Bluefur demanded. She was still a knight of the kingdom, even in these circumstances.
The woman merely shook her head, eyeing the three babies with Bluefur. She closed the door of the caravan. Bluefur was left alone, the pit in her stomach deeper than ever.
-
In the end-
Well, in the end she was desperate.
(Which, as they said on the first day of squire training, means she was stupid. )
The blizzard raged.
Flower.
The blizzard raged.
Flower, with the white patch right above her nose.
The blizzard raged.
Bluefur didn’t have time to dig a grave. So she left her there, little face ashen blue and so very fucking cold. The willow tree curved over the lump on the ground like a mobile, the snowflakes stars on the wooden cradle.
When she finally, finally, made it to Oakheart, she fell on her knees. Bluefur did not feel the bruising there on the hard stone, nor the stunned horror of the father of her children as he took only two in his arms. He pressed his cheek to Shrike’s soft hair, and wrapped Partridge under his coat. He looked at the mother of his children and for a single second rage warmed the breath from his mouth. All this for what? The letter explained nothing. His child was dead.
Then again, Oakheart reflected on Bluefur, her dead eyes and shaking hands, what punishment would be worse than this. His moss-soft heart, the same heart that gave his mother too much grace, reached out to her.
“Bluefur-”
But she was already gone.
-
On Bluestar’s bed was a purple hyacinth flower, a gift from the Riverclan congregation. She crawled under her covers, the coolness kissing her bare skin, and held the petals in her hand. She crushed them between her palms, and raised them to her nose, breathing in the scent of sorrow alone in her room.