That Which Cannot Be Hidden [closed]

Tavora waddled into ShadowClan's camp with a terrible cloud of misery surrounding her and her raccoon pelt. Her awkward walk was indicative of the many burrs, thorns, and twigs that were now hanging from the hide she wore and the snow that was beginning to melt all over it. Yes, she had taken a very embarrassing spill while on a patrol. She had missed the patch of ice and treaded right over it, dumping her and her pelt into a thorn bush. Her real pelt had been spared the worst of it, and luckily so. A thorn in the wiry stormcloud she called her fur would never resurface. It would stay lodged in her side for a quarter moon until it stabbed her in her sleep, when she could wake up and yank it out herself. However, in her attempt to free herself from the bush without removing her raccoon skin, she had stamped right on a thorn.

Pushing past the entrance to the medicine den, her nose was assaulted by the putrid scent of herbs, all bitter and sour and flowery. Especially in Leafbare, these plants were dry, some wilted, and therefore more fragrant than they would be normally. It was nose-wrinkling, to say the very least. Hobbling on her right side, Tavora bent down to match her chamomile-yellow eyes to Rookfire's. "If you'd please get me some cobwebs. I can do the rest myself, thank you," she muttered. Though her words were polite by face value, her tone was testy and scrutinizing. She didn't want his flack, nor any other's. She already felt she looked stupid enough. "And some poppy..."

Her voice trailed off. As far as she knew, she wasn't supposed to have poppy seeds. Stars, were there other herbs she couldn't take, either? That might've been good to know. If Iniko was here, he could have told her. They could have done this together. "Nevermind, just the cobwebs."

Rookfire had been in ShadowClan's medicine den, grooming himself like he normally did in his spare time. When Tavora basically barged into the medicine den, the tom was caught off-guard. Her pelt was unbelievably dirty, and the black tuxedo couldn't help but notice. "So I guess that's why you guys really need pelt wards as much as you say you did," he said harshly. The black tuxedo implied to the incident that got Murkystrike captured, in which Tavora said that Ichtaca's role should still be a Pelt Ward. Really, the young medicine cat felt that it was still wrong, even if he knew to not speak it out loud.

Really, the only reason why he would even dare help her is that it was his job to do so. With the Asylum Nightstriker's comments on what she needed to help herself, the black tuxedo gave her a stern nod. "No problem," he said, keeping the tense air between the two cats. While the medicine cat turned to the piles of cobwebs right next to him, he heard Tavora mention something about poppy seeds before saying that she just wanted cobwebs. Why did she almost say poppy seeds just to not choose to take them? After all, foxglove seeds are the seeds that are dangerous, not poppy seeds.

While Iniko taught Rookfire well, with the black tuxedo learning most of the stuff in only a couple moons, the black tuxedo forgot some of Iniko's more obscure teachings, especially if they didn't have to do with helping with injuries. One of these teachings was how poppy seeds were bad for pregnant she-cats, which eventually led to the obvious conclusion at hand.

Thankfully, he was going to find out very soon.

Tavora lifted the hood from her face with a clean swipe of her claw, careful not to loose any burrs onto her fur as she plucked them off the raccoon's grisly head. Every once in a while, they caught on a tuft between her pads, and she shook it with exuberance before allowing it to fall into the moss and grass drying in the medicine den. Rookfire's words caught her off guard. Still upset, was he? She sighed, letting her beady eyes flutter shut. "Not that it makes any difference, but I had no choice," she said with almost apologetic firmness. "I didn't realize the penalty. I was given orders... I followed them. Murkystrike was my clanmate, once, you know."

Ugh, the darned pelt. It would take Tavora days to fish out every last seedling left, and this was nothing to bother a Pelt Ward about. She had dug her grave; it was hers to lie in. As she began to slide it off, angling her claws as to pick at more burrs, she hardly lifted her eyes to glance at Rookfire. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a liar. You know that. You might think I'm cruel, brash, violent, coarse... I might agree with you. But if you called me dishonest, you'd be mistaken. And I am telling you that Eris's word is law. Especially in war."

The nightstriker stepped out of her skin, only for a moment, thinking nothing of it as her swollen belly splayed out at her sides. She wobbled, much less concealable without a baggy article to drape herself in, to a seat. Incensed, Tavora began yanking out burrs by the mouthful, tufts of raccoon fur coming up with it.

Rookfire scoffed as Tavora began to defend herself. He would have just let it slide if she didn't try to do that. "You seem to follow orders rather than doing the right thing," he said, not facing her way. The black tuxedo knew that they had different ideas of what 'the right thing' was, but the medicine cat was not afraid of telling her what he thought about her actions. Before grabbing the cobwebs, Tavora tried defending herself once more. After she spoke, the black tuxedo jerked his head back and issued a retort. "You know that I never said that-"

And then he noticed it.

Tavora's belly was bulging from her body. He couldn't see it when the she-cat entered, but now it was as clear as day. She hid it pretty well. The she-cat was visibly pregnant, most certainly Iniko's kits if the medicine cat had to guess, and she had unintentionally shown it to him. "Are you pregnant?" he asked harshly. He already knew, but he wanted to see if Tavora knew and if she would try to hide her pregnancy from him.

Now that the medicine cat thought about it, that comment on the poppy seeds made sense from retrospect. Iniko had taught him that poppy seeds were bad for pregnant she-cats to take, and he probably talked about it with Tavora as well. Because of this revelation, the black tuxedo knew that after this meeting he was going to immediately tell Flintstar about her pregnancy. He wasn't one to do that to a friend, but Tavora was the furthest thing from a friend of his, so he didn't feel bad about doing that. Also, it could give ShadowClan an advantage if they were planning to strike back at the Asylum.

The words caught on her ribcage like a pair of fangs, driving an icy stake into her and freezing her inside out. In an instant she dropped her head and allowed the raccoon pelt to fall from her mouth, unceremoniously plopping on the floor as the last point of sound before several agonizing moments of silence passed between Rookfire and Tavora. She hardly moved, more a tree than a cat, except for the twitching of her stomach, as if she were trying to suck it back in and hide it within the excess fur all over her body. He could not unsee what he saw. Tavora was positively bulging at all four corners of her torso. They both knew quite well how far along she was, and how miraculous it was that she hid it all this time. Though, being a guard was not exactly a taxing task. It was easy enough to go unnoticed, never hunting or enforcing the law beyond petty threats.

The perfect plan, falling to pieces due to one small slip... and her own ego. The story of her life.

Her head moved like a turtle, and when it once again came into contact with Rookfire's aghast expression, her eyes were just a little bit shiny. "No," she hissed coyly. "I've been mooching off the fresh-kill pile all Leafbare. Of course I'm pregnant."

She got up with a little less grace than when she sat down, sliding her head underneath the hood of her pelt and shaking it back onto her flanks once more, cloaked in dark mange. Grumbling, she said, "And I have been for some time. Before you go running off to let the whole camp know, which I can't really stop you from doing, you should know that they won't be born here. I intended to share these plans with just one other cat, but I guess ShadowClan should know where I'm going. I want to be alone when they are born. I don't need a gaggle of queens hovering over my shoulder. I don't need the Asylum barging in to meet their brood. I don't need any of you doting on me with herbs when I'm birthing. It's humiliating. So I'm going to go somewhere where no cat, clan or Asylum, will bother me or try and raise my kits for me. When they can walk on their own, I'll return here so that they can grow and start their training. They will, hopefully, take after their father."

Tavora shuffled her paws. She could leave off in a huff, without another word to betray how much she truly cared about this awful situation, and continue on her path of nonchalance and ruthlessness, allowing her devilish fire to further consume everything in her path. But, feeling the stirring in her stomach, though she felt less regard for the beings inside, she thought it supremely unfair that they should take on her misgivings and ailments when they were born. So the nightstriker stayed. Tavora allowed Rookfire to stew in the barrage of emotions spilling from every prickle of her wired pelt that hummed below her rugged surface. "If we are all very lucky," she choked out, "Then they will be nothing like me. I will send them off into the world as perfect clones of Iniko, and their only inheritance from their mother will be milk. But I don't believe in luck. And even if I did, mine is terrible. So StarClan help you all, because I won't be getting any. I was condemned long before my womb had any proof of it."

Rookfire watched as Tavora spoke, revealing a lot about what would happen with her kits. To be honest, he didn't enjoy how she opposed ShadowClan in every matter. Even though he was basically raised by Iniko, he still hoped for some degree of ShadowClan autonomy. It seemed like Asylum had other plans, though, expressed by Tavora's words at every turn, which helped Rookfire slowly distance himself from Asylum. But in this specific circumstance, he was willing to push away his grudge to give Tavora space to give birth. It seemed like she would let her kits choose where they wanted to go anyways.

The black tuxedo nodded, accepting Tavora's terms. "Aight," he said nonchalantly. "I ain't gonna bother you 'bout it then." Then, a long silence came across the den. Rookfire didn't know what Tavora had to gain by staying at his den. She had nothing to gain for staying here with him. And besides, he didn't think that she liked him very much, especially with how much they disagreed on almost everything. The only thing he did agree with Tavora on was that it would be better if her kits were more like their father than their mother.

When Tavora eventually broke the silence, Rookfire listened once again. The Nightstriker seemed to give bits and pieces of her backstory, the kind of cat that she was before she became... monstrous, you could say. It made Rookfire feel a little guilty for berating her like he did earlier. But at the same time, she went against her mate's dying wish to yell at how they couldn't try bringing a cat from the dead instead of saving a cat who was still alive. It was obvious that although Tavora was a much different cat than the medicine cat thought she was, and probably even had a tragic backstory, but she was at the point of no return. Rookfire could see it, ShadowClan could see it, even Tavora herself could see it.

And there was nothing that anyone could do about it, except wonder what could have been.