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Chapter 2: The Case of Heron and the Consequences of Her Actions
This occurs after Darkfall left Heron to go back to ShadowClan

Heron was tired. It had been a considerable amount of time since Darkfall had left her, but it wasn’t long after the clan cat left her that she discovered that she was pregnant. At first, she was overjoyed at the prospect, knowing that the father of her kits was a strong and upstanding tom but that joy quickly changed into dread.

She was scared. Plain and simple. Heron didn’t know how to be a mother, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do and the idea of bringing the product of her feelings for Darkfall into the world and not being able to provide for them scared her out of her mind.

Despite all of that, Heron was determined to have her children one way or another and she’d figure everything else out afterward. Initially, things were no different from normal - she was able to hunt without too much difficulty and she was able to do things as she always did. It didn’t take long, however, for the symptoms to begin showing up. The grey queen found herself growing more and more lethargic with each passing day. Sometimes everything was fine and she was just sleeping a little extra, and then other times she was vomiting and struggling to keep her food down.

Every single day brought a new and unfamiliar challenge and it eventually got to the point where she was struggling to feed herself and the new life budding within her enough food. When this happened she traveled back to her foster father’s vast territory.

It wasn’t a far distance, but it was a couple of days' walk away. The old tom had never liked the clans nor the twoleg place so when he finally escaped the latter, he had decided to put a good amount of distance between him and them but also be in an area that had abundant prey year-round. Additionally, Crow had lived there with his first mate many many seasons ago prior to her death.

When she did finally get to the territory, it wasn’t very long before she was the one who had been found first. She still recalled the look on Crow’s face when he saw her. She had been half-starved and her belly was incredibly swollen. He must’ve seen the desperate look on her face because he quickly ushered her to a small thicket and signaled for her to sit before leaving.

She didn’t have to wait long before Crow came back with two mice hanging from his jaws, laying them down at her feet. Heron quickly devoured both of them while the tom watched her eat in silence. One of his eyes was cloudy, had been like that the whole time she knew him. Something about getting into a fight with his mate’s father when he was around her age and losing his sight completely. The sight did return in one of the eyes eventually apparently, but by that time, he already lost his mate and was left with two sons who did not get along at all.

When she finished eating, Heron licked her lips and opened her mouth to thank the tom, but saw that he had his good eye trained on her coupled with a dissatisfied expression on his face. Oh no, she was in trouble, she could already tell. Her mind went back to the day she left him ”I’ll be fine! Stop being so grumpy! If anything happens, I’ll come back to you. It’s time for me to go explore the forest!” This was about a moon before she met Darkfall. The grey and white tabby knew she was little more than a young cat wanting to go out and adventure and experience new things for herself, but she was impatient and wanted to see the wonders of the forest that Crow told her in his stories. After arguing for a little bit, Crow finally let her leave as long as she promised not to go near the twoleg place or trust clan cats.

The reason he warned her against the twoleg place, was because he himself had been trapped in a twoleg den (his mate and her family were former kittypets) and he knew that they often did very strange things to cats. And then the reason he warned her against clan cats… well there were many reasons. The most important one was that his father was a former clan cat and had tried to kill him in his youth and the two were constantly fighting and he was eventually kicked out of the territory at a young age.

She could practically feel the disappointment rolling off of the tom in the surrounding air as he stared at her, and felt a sudden urge to shrink away from his amber gaze. He didn’t say anything, but the old tom’s silence was more than enough. She knew well enough that he wouldn’t ask any questions, but would instead wait for her to explain what happened.

”Surprise!” She meowed weakly with a pained smile. Unfortunately, to her dismay, Crow did not look amused in the slightest and his already sour expression only grew worse. ”Okay okay, I’ll tell you what happened just please don’t make that face at me,” Heron begged. If looks could kill, she felt she’d have been dead ten times over.

She knew why he was acting this way, and she couldn’t even really fault him for it. Crow was old. He was 93 moons old at this point and had experienced a lot more life than she had. He had lost his second mate to kitting and was forced to part with his youngest son and daughter after leaving them with his sister’s ex-mate and a queen that had recently lost kits of her own, in addition to his nieces due to extenuating circumstances. Additionally, his sister died during kitting, and later on, his oldest son’s second mate died during kitting, taking her unborn kits with her. He didn’t have a lot of good experiences with it and now here was the cat who he had come to see as a daughter of sorts at one end of his territory, pregnant without a mate in sight.

”Oh and promise you won’t get mad, okay? I’m really sorry, so just don’t get mad,” Heron was pleading with the most innocent face she could muster. She really did not want to be yelled at at the moment. ”I can’t promise tha-” Crow began to answer before he saw Heron’s face contort into a pained look. ”Alright alright, I won’t get mad,” he grumbled.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Heron began to explain. She started from how when she left she established a small territory of her own on the outskirts of the clan territories. She had done relatively well for herself for the first moon and a half but eventually came across a young tom who called himself Darkfall. Upon hearing his name, the frown returned back to Crow’s face as if he knew where the tom was from. Letting out a small whimper when she saw this, Heron continued with her tale. She described how she had gotten the jump on him (literally) and how when overpowered, her life was spared. She went into detail about how the two spent some time looking for his “apprentice”, whatever that was, and how she developed feelings for him. Lastly, she told the cat who she knew as her father about how a while after he left she had come to learn that she was pregnant. When she finished, she could see that Crow looked about ready to explode.

Well… to put it nicely, Crow was livid. He snarled about how irresponsible she was and how she should’ve known better and kicked this Darkfall out of her territory immediately, and how with the training he had given her, she should’ve been able to rip his throat out and have his blood staining the forest floor. In short, he broke his promise. You know, normal protective dad things.

After he calmed down enough to not be snarling at the young queen, he already knew that he messed up. Heron looked like she was about to break down. Her ears were pinned to her head, her eyes were wide and her tail was tucked between her legs. The poor cat was shaking and whimpering so badly, he was worried that she’d pee herself.

”Look, Heron…” He began but she shook her head and shut her eyes. ”You promised Dad! You promised you wouldn’t get mad!” she sobbed, turning her head.

This caused the older cat to flinch. That was the first time she had called him dad since he took her in almost 8 moons ago. In the time they’d known each other, the words “dad” did not once come out of her mouth. Yes, there were times when she’d almost slip up, but she usually corrected herself before the words even came out of her mouth.

He felt terrible. Honest to his ancestors, he felt like his heart was just ripped in two. Despite his age, the tom didn’t have a lot of experience raising young ones, daughters in particular. His first two sons were relatively independent and left at a young age, checking in every once in a while until they got old enough to truly fend for themselves, and his first daughter was stillborn. Then, he didn’t raise his second daughter or third son and when he did finally meet them, Cardinal (his daughter) had been pretty standoff-ish and closed off. She was much like him in that regard.

Heron was completely different in that regard. She was easily excitable and prone to getting herself into trouble, but he loved her all the same. Though not related by blood, she was still his daughter, and he had a duty to guide her and be accepting of her even if he didn’t agree with the choices she made. Thinking back on it, she reminded him a lot of his first mate who didn’t like to listen and was always getting into trouble. It was that trait of hers that led to her getting killed by a fox. That was probably why he was so hard on Heron now, he didn’t want her foolishness to lead her to a similar fate.

Taking a deep breath, the tom wrapped himself around the trembling young queen. ”I’m sorry Heron,” He said after a long moment of silence ”I told you I wouldn’t get mad and here I am snarling at you like you’re an intruder and not my daughter.” Upon hearing that, Heron too flinched. Though Crow had always seen her as such - he never once referred to her as his daughter, and upon hearing confirmation of what she’d always known in her heart, she buried her face into his fur and sobbed.

After she had calmed down, Heron cuffed Crow’s ear playfully. When he looked at her quizzically, she let out a cheery laugh. ”I’m going to stay with you for a while I think. It’s getting hard for me to fend for myself and even though you’re getting old, I know you’ll do a good job,” She purred.

She was right. Crow may be blind in one eye, and getting up in years, but that didn’t change the fact that he was a good fighter. The tom had taught her how to fight, and over the years had fought and killed many cats that had made enemies of him his father included. Additionally, he had fought with foxes and badgers alike and lived to tell the tale which was impressive enough. She knew that if it came down to it, Crow would die to defend her and her unborn kits. To her, there was no safer place in the entire forest than with her father.

”Stay as long as you need, I told you when you left that you’re always welcome back to my territory,” The tom mewed, giving the top of her head a soothing lick. Heron thanked him and the two slowly made their way to the hollow that Crow called his primary den. She would stay here until after she gave birth and remain there for a while.

There was one thing that she couldn’t tell her father, however.

The kit or kits she had - she would not be keeping. She would be giving them to their father to raise in the safety of his clan. In truth, Heron wasn’t ready to be a mother, and she would do what was best for the budding life inside her.