Outcast

“Thank you,” Daisy mewed, reaching out one paw to drag the blackbird closer. “That feels like a good plump one.”

“Can we have some?” Foxkit sat up from where he was wrestling with his sister. “I’m starving!”

“Certainly not,” their mother, Ferncloud, replied. “You’re old enough to fetch your own fresh-kill.”

“Can we?” Icekit’s head popped up out of the bracken. “I could eat a whole rabbit.”

“All right,” Ferncloud meowed. “Fetch some for Millie, too!” she called after them as the two kits shot out through the opening in the brambles.

Millie blinked sleepily from where she lay in a mossy nest.

Her belly looked huge; Hollypaw guessed that it wouldn’t be long before her kits were born.

“Thank you,” Millie purred to Ferncloud.

Ferncloud sighed. “It’s time those two were apprenticed. They need mentors to keep an eye on them.”

Hollypaw silently agreed as she left the nursery and padded across to the fresh-kill pile to fetch prey for the elders. Foxkit and Icekit were already there, play fighting over a chaffinch.

“What about some prey for Millie?” Hollypaw reminded them.

“Oh, sorry.” Foxkit scrambled up, grabbed a couple of mice by their tails, and scampered off across the clearing with the prey swinging from his jaws.

Icekit let out a little purr of triumph and settled down to eat the chaffinch.

Hollypaw began nosing through the fresh-kill pile to find something for the elders. The scents of the nursery still clung to her fur. She felt as if the whole camp was full of kits and mothers expecting kits.

Will the Clan expect me to have kits? she wondered. She knew that kits were the future of the Clan, but when she thought about becoming a mother herself, she felt as if she were carrying the weight of the whole forest on her shoulders.

She was beginning to drag a rabbit out of the pile when Honeypaw came bounding up to her. “Who’s that for?”

Honeypaw asked.

“The elders.”

“I just took them a squirrel,” Honeypaw told her. “If they’re okay in the nursery, then we’re done.”

Hollypaw let the rabbit drop back onto the pile. “There’s not much fresh-kill left,” she meowed. “I’m going to ask Brackenfur if we can go hunting.”

Though there had been a heavy shower at dawn, the clouds had cleared away and the sun was shining. Every leaf and blade of grass sparkled. A stiff breeze carried prey-scent from the forest; Hollypaw’s paws itched with longing to get out of the camp.

“There’s a hunting patrol just coming back,” Honeypaw pointed out, flicking her tail toward the camp entrance.

Graystripe emerged, carrying a squirrel and two mice in his jaws, followed by Brightheart with a couple of voles and Berrynose with a rabbit.

“Oh, look!” Honeypaw’s eyes stretched wide. “Berrynose has caught a huge rabbit. He’s amazing!”

“Berrynose?” Hollypaw couldn’t stop her voice from squeaking in surprise. Ever since he had become a warrior five days earlier, the cream-colored tom had been the bossiest cat in the Clan.

Honeypaw blinked in embarrassment and scuffled at the sandy floor of the clearing with her forepaws. “I really like him,” she confessed. “But I don’t suppose he’ll look at me, not now that he’s a warrior.”

Hollypaw privately thought Berrynose’s nose was so high in the air he wouldn’t be able to look at any cat. And if he knew that Honeypaw liked him, he would become even more unbearable.

“You’re good enough for—” she began, only to break off as Honeypaw dashed away to meet Berrynose in the middle of the clearing.

Hollypaw sighed. They were only apprentices; surely it was too early to think about taking a mate? She wanted to prove herself as a warrior first, to show courage in defending her Clan and skill in hunting to feed her Clanmates. She wanted to take responsibility for how her Clan was run, to make ThunderClan great for season after season…

Hollypaw stood rigid, paws frozen to the ground. Yes! she thought. I’d much rather be Clan leader than a nursing queen.

For a heartbeat the strength of her ambition frightened her. Then she calmed down. There was nothing wrong with wanting to be Clan leader, if it meant she would serve her Clan with every muscle in her body and every hair on her pelt. Turning away from the fresh-kill pile, fed up with the sight of Honeypaw hanging adoringly around Berrynose, she saw her mother, Squirrelflight, emerging from the warriors’ den.

Hollypaw bounded over to her. “Squirrelflight, can I ask you something?”

Her mother’s ears twitched. “Sure.”

“You had kits,” Hollypaw meowed, “but you manage to be a warrior as well. How do you do it?”

Squirrelflight narrowed her eyes, and for a moment Hollypaw thought she saw something flash in their green depths, some emotion she couldn’t understand. But her mother’s voice was even as she asked, “Why do you want to know that?”

“I was just wondering…” Hollypaw felt awkward. “I just feel like every cat expects she-cats to have kits, and I’m not sure I want that. I want to be a warrior.”