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The dim orange light of the setting sun bled through the bramble exterior of the medicine den, illuminating Leafpool’s tabby-and-white coat. The light fell on the white patch of her belly, stretched taut, yet sagging all the same, this late into the pregnancy. Had no cat truly noticed? Perhaps that’s a good thing, she’s the only cat with medical knowledge, as her Clanmates were surely mouse-brained to not notice her milk-scent and swelling belly (even with her careful, careful, grooming - it never goes away!). Or was she just self-absorbed? Maybe she was the small, lithe she-cat she was before all this - before that annoyingly sleek little black tom. Had she learned from all their secret transgressions, deluding herself and her Clanmates at once?
The she-cat moved her paws with a quiet, rushed precision as she gathered the necessary herbs for her own personal herbal bundle. Her heartbeat quickened, thrumming in her chest, as her paws shook, but she was a medicine cat. She had practice in stillness under pressure. If Cinderpelt was here, guiding her paw...
Moss first.
She shredded a thick clump between her teeth, pressing it into soft clump and encasing it in a dry leaf and cobwebs - she needed it damp, not dripping. Together, it would soak up the inevitable blood loss, the mucous and other fluids. Plus, bedding.
Chamomile, she’ll take this last.
A small bundle, just enough to dull the pain. She wouldn’t take too much—she needed to stay semi-awake, less she incidentally fall asleep during the process.
Mugwort. The most important herb of the night.
She plucked the dried leaves from their hidden crevice, the bitter and acrid in her nostrils. Enough to induce, not enough to kill. She twitched her muzzle: this would surely be enough to induce a feverish dream with StarClan, but where she’s going, the starry cats above won’t be able to reach her.
The sound of pawsteps outside her den made her nearly jump out of her pelt. Fox-dung, she mewed as she forced an exhalation of breath.
"Leafpool?” The ThunderClan leader’s voice was warm and concerned. If it was another night, she’d be comforted by her father’s check-ups.
She stiffened, closed her eyes, forcing herself to relax, but she averted her gaze still. She did not want to be seen. "Yes, Firestar." A statement, not a question. A simple acknowledgement.
The ThunderClan leader ducked inside, his green eyes flickering over her leaf-stores, then her bundle. "Is everything alright?"
"Just preparing,"* she murmured, tucking the mugwort deeper into the moss and leaves. "I need to go to the Moonpool tonight. StarClan… they’ve been unclear lately. I need answers."
A half-truth. StarClan had been silent and where she’s going they will continue to be silent. StarClan will be muffled by the impenetrable earth of the tunnels below. No cat shall bear witness.
Firestar’s ears pricked. "Should someone go with you?"
"Absolutely not." A sharp, unintentional growl, followed by a scoff, uttered too quick to correct. Her fur bristled as she regained composure. "Medicine cat business. Will be back by dawn."
He studied her for a heartbeat too long, but if he suspected anything he didn’t press the issue."Be safe,” he stepped forward to flick her ear with his tongue, like when she was a kit, complaining about frivolity like Squirrelkit being a nuisance, hogging Sandstorm’s nipple, bunny-kicking her sister away. Or, when Squirrelpaw shirked her apprentice duties and left Leafpaw to clean up the mess. Leafpool shook her head at the memory, bristling at her father’s touch. Still, he meowed gently. “And, Leafpool? You’re still my kit."
With that, he retreated into the shadowy brambles and Leafpool let out another sigh. Stick to the plan. Everything will be all right so long as she sticks to the plan. Plans never failed her, that was the job of her idiotic hormonal impulses. The familiar black tom surfaced in her vision and she wondered what his Clan was up to now: feasting on rabbits?
Focus. She scolded herself. No idle wandering!
She would leave when ThunderClan slept. By morning, this would be all over, swept under the ground beneath her paws.
The isolation of the tunnels, the claustrophobia, never felt so comforting as it did in this moment. The maternal embrace of womb, she purred at the thought. A darkly comforting irony for what she was about to do to herself. It was a ritual of her own making: the little pale brown medicine cat set out the moss on the cold, damp earth. She placed the leaf bundle of chamomile at her muzzle: she would mull on it slowly throughout the night. Last but certainly not least, the mugwort. It was quite bitter on Leafpool’s tongue, crumpled leaves between her teeth. She salivated for water, hoping for water-soaked moss - the one treatment she would have do without. She chewed just enough to do what was necessary: the leafy pulp would have to stay in her mouth till morning.
The first contraction was a badger's bite, seizing the muscle of her womb and refusing to let go. Then, the heat bloomed under her pelt. It was not the warmth of the sun, but the false, sickly fiery fever-heat of infection. The dark smothered her.
The tunnels were closing in, suffocating her. Her vision blurred. All she could do now was focus on the bitter pulp and bare her fangs as pain shot through her flank. Limbs heavy, her thoughts slow, thick, like the sweet pine sap of the trees that canopied her Clan.
It would all be over soon.
Darkness, damp earth, the distant echo of water bouncing off the earthen womb. The earthen tomb.
Leafpool stepped outside her body, watching herself deliver death.
Her belly was a knot of fire. She staggered her breath, shallow, then gasping.
A ginger-and-white tom watched her from the shadows, his green eyes alight with otherworldly gloom in the caverns.
Leafpool watched herself growl in agony, writhing. How dare a tom invade her space?
She tried to snarl at him, but her mouth was full of earth and leaves. She watched the ginger tom pressed his head against her own.
Muscle cramps twisted through her like tiger's claws. The pain was sharp, piercing, like a hawk's beak. She wanted to curl into herself, succumb to the pangs. Yet she bit down on her tongue with a yelp and a cry. Blood slicked her pelt, soaking into the moss. It's all going to plan...
The ginger-and-white tom lapped at her pelt.
This time she relented.
A great flood spilled from her flank. It was a hot, slick gush of fluid and blood spilled onto the moss, the metallic tang of it filling her nostrils, overwhelming the scent of mugwort and earth
They came too soon. So soon, and all by her own paws. She willed this. StarClan can't see her here, but what if the cats of the Place of No Stars drag her down below?
Her breath hitched. She flicked her tongue at the tiny, lifeless shapes in the dark. No wails. No flickering breaths. Silence. StarClan, are they already there? She looked to the black above. It's not like they could hear her here, but some cat heard her, right? They did not suffer.
She wailed. The tunnels swallowed the grieving mother.
"Falling leaves." It was the only meow that tom mewed. She wondered if she imagined it. Yet the flickering, fading, ginger-and-white tom flattened against the soft earthy ground. Prone, he lay beside her, tail intertwining with her own. There was no fight left in her to shirk him off.
They looked at the stillborn kits. First, the tiny ginger tabby tom (a little lion with a huge step). Then, the she-kit, black as night. Her pelt tasted of poison: holly. The smallest kit of them all was, the sleek grey tabby, like the blue-grey of the jay's feather. Leafpool closed his eyelids with the gentle flick of her tongue.
One by one, the ginger-and-white tom gathered them in his jaws, carrying them into the dark. He glanced back only once to muffle a soft mew, mouth full of dead kits.
"I will shepherd them, Pool of Leaves."
One ancient cat bore witness.