Erin Hunter - Sunset

“Wait!” Firestar called, climbing down the tumbled rocks to join Sandstorm in the clearing. “I’ll come with you.”

Sandstorm looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I suppose it’s no good telling you to go back to your den and rest?”

“No good at all,” Firestar agreed, giving her shoulder an affectionate flick with his tail. “Every cat is injured, and my scratches aren’t as bad as most.”

“That should be for Leafpool to say,” Sandstorm mewed, turning to their daughter.

Leafpool sniffed the scratches on Firestar’s flanks and shoulders. She knew she had to forget he was her father and Clan leader, and treat him like any other injured cat. He wouldn’t thank her for trying to keep him safe by insisting that he stayed in the hollow. Fortunately, though his body was laced with scratches, none of them was very deep. She had treated them with marigold right after the battle, and they were beginning to heal.

“You should be okay,” she meowed at last. “I’ll fetch you some more marigold before you go, and if the scratches start bleeding again, come straight back.”

Firestar gave a grunt of acknowledgment. StarClan only knew whether he would actually do as he was told.

Leafpool went back to her den to fetch the marigold. As she emerged with the leaves in her jaws, she saw Firestar had followed her, meeting her a couple of fox-lengths from her den.

“You’ve noticed how Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw have been since the battle?” he asked as she chewed up the leaves and began patting them on his wounds. “They seem to be getting over their fight.”

Leafpool went on working for a moment; she didn’t particularly want to discuss her sister, but Firestar was obviously waiting for a response. “Yes,” she mewed after a busy pause.

“I think the badger attack made them realize what’s important.”

“Ashfur must be disappointed.”

“I suppose he is.” Leafpool wondered whether to tell her father about her dream of Tigerstar with his sons in the dark forest. Wasn’t that what a medicine cat was for? To warn her Clan leader of possible trouble?

“I used to find it hard to have a cat in the Clan who looks exactly like Tigerstar,” Firestar went on. Leafpool knew he meant Brambleclaw. “But when Tawnypelt left to join ShadowClan, I realized that she and Brambleclaw belonged by birth to ThunderClan. Whoever their father was, that doesn’t change. Besides, StarClan wouldn’t have sent Brambleclaw on the quest to the sun-drown-place if they didn’t trust him.”

Leafpool murmured agreement, moving around Firestar to trickle the healing juices onto the scratches on his other side.

“I need to trust Squirrelflight’s judgment. She’s not a kit anymore,” Firestar continued. “She values Brambleclaw for the warrior he is now. Judging him for being Tigerstar’s son would be like judging me for being a kittypet.”

“You haven’t been a kittypet for many seasons!” Leafpool protested. She still found it hard to imagine her father, of all cats, eating the hard kittypet food and letting Twolegs handle him.

“And Brambleclaw hasn’t seen his father for many seasons,” Firestar countered.

That’s where you’re wrong! Leafpool wanted to say, but before she could speak, her father went on more gently, “I’m glad you came back, Leafpool. I think you made the right decision, and I hope you think so too. Cinderpelt had great faith in you.”

“I know,” Leafpool meowed humbly. “I owe it to her to be the best medicine cat I can be.”

When she had finished dabbing on the marigold, Firestar thanked her and padded away to join Sandstorm, who was waiting near the thorn barrier with the rest of the hunting patrol.

Frustrated, Leafpool watched him go. She couldn’t tell him about the dream or voice her fears about Brambleclaw now.

It might sound as if she were jealous of her sister’s happy relationship, because she had been forced to give up Crowfeather.

Sighing, she turned back to her den and the cats who were waiting for her.

It was almost sunhigh by the time Leafpool had finished treating the injured cats. Most of them had gone back to their dens to rest. Apart from Birchpaw, only Cloudtail remained, holding out his paw while Leafpool put a poultice of horsetail on the wound.

“You have to stay off it as much as you can,” she scolded him. “No wonder the bleeding won’t stop. Going hunting yesterday was mousebrained.”

Cloudtail mutinously twitched his tail. “The Clan needs to be fed.”

“The Clan is being fed. Now, do you want to stay here where I can keep an eye on you, or will you rest in the warriors’ den?”

“I’ll rest in the warriors’ den,” Cloudtail promised with a sigh. “And thanks, Leafpool. You’re doing a fantastic job.”

“It would be easier if some cats had the sense of a newborn kit,” Leafpool retorted. “And if I see you—”

She broke off as Squirrelflight brushed past the screen of brambles in front of the den, a vole in her jaws.

“Here—fresh-kill,” she meowed, after dropping it at Leafpool’s paws.

She turned to leave again, but not before Leafpool had seen the misery in her eyes. She hardly needed to see it; she could feel her sister’s churning emotions like the crackles in the air before a thunderstorm.

“Wait, Squirrelflight. What’s the matter?” she asked.

For a moment she thought Squirrelflight would stalk off without replying. Then her sister turned back, cast a rapid glance at Cloudtail, and mewed in a low voice, “It’s Ashfur. I passed him just now, and when I said hi he stared through me as if I wasn’t there. Rainwhisker was with him,” she went on as Leafpool laid her tail comfortingly on her shoulder. “The whole Clan must be talking about me!”

“You can hardly blame Ashfur,” Leafpool told her. “He really cares for you.”

“I never meant to hurt him!” Squirrelflight’s voice, though quiet, was anguished, and her green eyes were filled with guilt. “He’s a great cat, and I thought it would work out, being with him. But Brambleclaw… Oh, Leafpool, do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

Leafpool moved closer to her so that their pelts brushed.

“Last night I went down to the lake,” she meowed carefully.

“StarClan sent me a dream: two sets of starry paw prints on the water, wound so closely I couldn’t tell which was which.

And then I saw you and Brambleclaw, walking together at the end of the trail, the paw prints spilling out behind you. You were side by side, keeping pace with each other, step for step, until you vanished into the sky.”

Squirrelflight’s eyes stretched wide. “Really? StarClan showed you that? Then it must mean that Brambleclaw and I are meant to be together!”

“That’s right, I think so.” Leafpool tried not to sound fearful.

“Oh, wonderful! Thank you so much, Leafpool.”

Squirrelflight’s tail went straight up and she flexed her claws as if she couldn’t keep still. “I’m going to tell Brambleclaw.

Then he’ll know that we don’t have to worry about Ashfur.

Nothing can stop us being together, nothing!”

She dashed off, passing Brightheart and Whitepaw as she raced past the bramble screen.

“Thanks for the fresh-kill!” Leafpool called after her.

“I just saw Daisy,” Brightheart meowed, setting down her bunch of marigold. “She says she’s got bellyache.”

“She’ll need watermint for that,” Leafpool replied, slipping inside the cleft to fetch it.

When she returned, Cloudtail had risen to his paws, carefully holding the injured one clear of the ground. “I’ll take the watermint to Daisy if you like,” he offered.

Leafpool was about to remind him that she had told him to rest, but before she could open her mouth Brightheart snapped, “I don’t see you being so keen to help the cats who actually did some fighting.” She turned her back on Cloudtail. “Come on, Whitepaw. Let’s go and look for juniper.”