An Honest Mistake [Wrenspring/Ravenclaw]

"Oh foxdung." Beechface muttered to herself, "I can't... This can't..." And yet, that was exactly what her body was telling her. The medicine cat rolled unsteadily back to her feet, turning towards her herb store as if they would distract her from the feeling she had finally recognized.

She'd attributed her increased appetite to how sick she'd been the past few days. Had attributed how sick she'd been to stress after... With everything going on. But it... had been a while, long enough that whatever stomach bug she'd gotten should have long since disappeared. And well, it was impossible to ignore that she'd gained weight. Oh, it was well-hidden by her muscular form and long fur, but Beechface had noticed. The sharp kicks she'd just felt though... That couldn't be hidden or ignored. How many queens had she helped, and she'd failed to recognize any of this until now?

"Wrenspring, I'm a mousebrained idiot." She muttered, not looking up from her store of herbs at the sound of familiar pawsteps at the den entrance. The chervil and raspberry leaves were indeed going to be put to good use in the future, it seemed. Skyclan had enough kits on the way, that was for sure.

Something that a medicine cat definitely shouldn't have been adding to. Especially not when the clan had been taken over by rogues. Especially not when the tension in camp was thick enough that even claws could not cut through it. Especially not when she didn't have an apprentice or mentor to rely on... Especially not when such things were very much forbidden, regardless of what Dawnhawk had said. Beechface still believed in Starclan, after all. She might not have cared for their lackadaisical way of helping the living or their cryptic messages, and she definitely thought that some of their rules were beyond stupid, but she believed.

The medicine cat looked up finally after a few moments, realizing that it wasn't just Wrenspring standing in her den.

"Oh um... Hi, Ravenclaw." Beechface managed to keep her voice from sounding too much like a squeak, though her throat felt tight. Of all the cats to walk in on her when she was in the midst of dealing with what she (and Wrenspring) had just gotten herself into...

Ravenclaw was not exactly sure what she had walked into. She liked to come into the medicine cat's den when she could fake it without arousing suspicion. Being around Beechface was a pleasure, since the two of them both loathed the Asylum cats just as much as the other. Besides, she had finally made headway in getting closer to her siblings, and she didn't want that to stagnate and fall by the wayside. However, what she imagined would be a fun talk about bashing intruder heads in was clearly going to be superseded by... whatever in the world was going on here.

"Is... everything alright?" She stepped into the den, looking between Beechface and Wrenspring. Her heart did that weird flutter thing when she saw her former mentor, like a bird's wings flapping as it took off into the sky. She had to push that back down, though. It wouldn't do good for her to bother with her crush when there was something else to address first. "Did something happen to Wrenspring?" She was suddenly looking at Wrenspring with great concern. She personally came into the den to talk trash, but maybe Wrenspring didn't. What if something was wrong with him?

((OOC: Posting to move this along))

"Oh, don't look so concerned, it's only kits." Now her voice sounded positively strangled as she spoke, wide eyes darting to Wrenspring, then her sister, and back again.

"Stars... What am I going to do? Now is the best time to bring kits into this world, clearly. Nevermind that it's forbidden, or anything." Beechface's gaze shifted to her sister then, the panic plain on her face. That it was forbidden wasn't so much what scared Beechface. Starclan's rules were outdated and quite frankly, stupid. She'd never wanted to be a medicine cat, so why should she have had to forsake taking a mate or having kits? No, that wasn't what scared Beechface. They could punish her for this and she'd take whatever they did with a smile.

What scared her was bringing the kits into the camp with Asylum still breathing down their necks. That they'd have to grow up with that... And she knew she couldn't raise them, either. Her duties as medicine cat kept Beechface busy all day, and she had no apprentice to rely on... And now Ravenclaw knew. Ravenclaw, who Beechface had... no clue what her reaction to this would be. Finding out that her sister was, in simplest terms, a mousebrained codebreaker.

"You can't tell anyone." She managed after a moment, "Please."

"Okay...?" Ravenclaw stepped closer, as if closing the circle of who could hear this secret that Beechface was hiding. It was just the two sisters and Wrenspring there, and they were all pretty trustworthy cats, as far as Ravenclaw was concerned. It was clear that whatever secret Beechface was hiding, it was forbidden. That was obvious with the whole 'forbidden' thing she was talking about. Her eyes immediately dipped down to Beechface's stomach, curiously, wondering... "Are you with kits?" she wondered, her eyes widened. No, surely that couldn't be. Beechface was the medicine cat, and medicine cats were forbidden to take a mate and have kits. She couldn't imagine her sister would do something so risky, and yet something had to be wrong for her to be panicking like this. Again she looked towards Wrenspring, suddenly wondering why Beechface would confide this information to him. He was trustworthy, she knew that for a fact, yet he wouldn't be related to this... right? "What's going on, Beechface?"

Oh, stars... Ravenclaw... Was going to make her say it, wasn't she?

...She was. If the ground were to open up in front of Beechface, she would've let it swallow her. Beechface wasn't sure that it would've calmed her nerves, but at least neither of the two cats she trusted most would be witness to her fumbling idiocy.

"I'm-" she grimaced, feeling just a touch lightheaded at what she was saying, "-pregnant."

Something akin to slate had taken up residency in the tom's throat. To speak felt as blasphemous as the sins he'd committed, as if it would further fracture the code that had been broken. Wrenspring had sought to be a model warrior and condemned the way he'd bore witness to those who stepped away from their sworn vows. He was no better than any of them and now Beechface had been dragged into his mistakes too. She'd trusted him, loved him even. Standing there, the scarred warrior was still as stone with a stoic expression permanently plastered across his grizzled maw. Nothing felt right no matter how long he tasted it on his tongue. The medicine cat deserved more than his confused and twisted soul. Just when he was about to attempt breathing a word of comfort, the figure of another cat became apparent near the mouth of the den.


His former apprentice, Ravenclaw. The sight of her brought familiarity, comfort at the memory of some sense of normalcy. All Wrenspring had to offer was a weak smile. Confusion and shock was quickly apparent over the younger cat's maw. Gritting his teeth, Wrenspring's tail began to flicker and his teeth clenched together until he thought they would break. Addressing her remark moments earlier, "If you're a mousebrain what am I?" There was a flicker of humor across his maw, a sly touch of an attempt at sympathy and something more than the crushing weight of their predicament. Wrenspring stood, closing the small distance between himself and the pair of sisters. Always he'd struggled to be a light presence in the midst of dimly lit hope. Above all else the tom was constant and enduring. They would get through this.


"It's not your burden to bear, Ravenclaw, but... it would mean a lot if you kept this between us. These kits don't deserve to suffer judgement due to the mistakes of their parents... of my mistakes." He swallowed at the last sentiment, verbally condemning himself to fatherhood. It was a truth he needed to take up and digest because no matter how much he longed to turn away and forget, this was on his paws and he needed to stand by Beechface through it. Regardless, these little ones would know the tom that had sired him, he couldn't and wouldn't shy away from this. At least here, in this cave, the watchful eye of the stars couldn't glare down on him with their judgement. At least for now.

To Ravenclaw, it felt like she had just been hit by two warriors divebombing her simultaneously. First she was hit with the fact that her sister, a medicine cat, was pregnant, which was a flagrant violation of the warrior code. "You're pregnant?!" she whisper-shouted, struggling to keep her voice down as she stared at her sister in shock. "How could you break the code like that?! It's, it's..." She didn't even know what to say, which was fine, since Wrenspring finally spoke and took any chance of speaking right out of her maw. He... was the father. Wrenspring was the father of Beechface's kits. Her entire body went slack, like she had accidentally touched her nose to the Moonstone. Wrenspring and Beechface... For a moment, her eyes were vacant, as if she had left her body somehow. She didn't want to believe it. She couldn't believe it, and yet there it was, right in front of her face. The two culprits admitting it to her, and the truth couldn't be taken back now.

"Why..." she whispered, so low that the other two cats could barely make the word out. "I won't tell anyone," she muttered, her entire being engulfed in a sudden wave of sadness. To Beechface and Wrenspring, they might think that she was appalled by their flaunting of the code, and she was, but... The fact that the tom that she had desired ever since she was an apprentice was mating with her sister had taken the fight right out of her. She felt lower than the dirtplace in that moment.

"Also a mousebrain?" Beechface let out a small snort at Wrenspring's attempt at humor. It was enough to break through her panic a little bit, something she appreciated. Wrenspring had always been good at that.

"That part of the code is dumb, anyways." She muttered dryly. "The timing was excellent, don't you agree?" There was an edge of wicked sarcasm to her voice, indicating that Beechface very much did not think the timing was excellent.

"I don't have an apprentice. It's not like I can just... Take time away from my duties and raise them, though I would if I could... And I'm sure Dawnhawk would just love that, how quickly do you think he'd have an Asylum replacement for medicine cat?" Her panicked expression turned almost pleading as she took in her best friend and sister. She hadn't even wanted to be a medicine cat, and here she was, clinging to it. Even a codebreaker was better than some unknown rogue who didn't care about the clan, right? "I could ask mom-- Stars... Mom would kill me. And she's stressed enough raising just her own kits." Stressed was an understatement, with those solid silver pelts Mountainkit and Featherkit possessed.

What was she going to do?

As the words of the she-cat drifted through the air, the tom decided that familiarity could only go so far. Conversation did little to tame the unrelenting turning inside of his chest. Everything that he had avowed himself to and pledge to earn the name of the warrior code. Beechface made some wry comment about the code. With everything in him, Wrenspring willed himself to step away from the belief system that had carried him for so long, to step into some of the freedom that the medicine cat offered in her own calloused train of through. But nothing came to him. Instead, the warrior found himself further crestfallen at the reaction of his former apprentice.

He had let her down too.

Claws picked at the earth and threated to tear it up the longer they stood there. For so many moons of his life, the gray and white tom had found it easy to slip through the many trials that had befallen him in life. But this was something that he couldn't step away from and forget - this was himself and the life of little kittens that would be born. Wolfstar deserved to know; he deserved to be punished. Perhaps even a tiny shred of honesty could relieve the crushing weight of transgressions that could never be repaired. Wrenspring's scars bore of the many things he had wrestled with both physically and internally. Such things scabbed over and yet never fully repaired. Shrugging of something that was not his personal burden was far easier to do.

After a moment he sighed, looking at Beechface. A soft smile crossed his maw as his shoulders relaxed. As much as he grounded her, the she-cat brought peace to him as well. They would get through this together some how; he was sure of it. Glancing between the pair of clanmates, Wrenspring finally piped up again, "Surely as a medicine cat you must know there is never a proper time for kits. I'm sure I could think of several situation worse than the middle of leafbare under the oppression of enemy cats... I might just need a moment or two." His whiskers twitched slightly at his own joke before growing a tad more serious. He owed it to the both of them to keep himself together, at least for this moment, "I'll raise them, of course, that's no worry at all." He failed to consider the likelihood of their clan wondering the whereabouts of a queen.

"I'll do it." The words left Ravenclaw's mouth before she had a chance to think through what she said. Then the explanation for her decision began spilling out without much thought on her part. It was as if her brain had already decided on this course of action, and it knew what the proper reasons were for taking it. "The clan won't accept their medicine cat having kits, but they'll accept me as their mother. Wrenspring can pretend to be my mate, and no one will question it." Pretend. Hearing herself say that felt like the sharpest thorns were being stabbed into her chest over and over again. The more she spoke, the deeper they dug in, occasionally making her struggle to get her words out. "I'll do my best to hide my lack of pregnancy from the rest of the clan, and there must be herbs in here to help me produce milk. The clan can't know about this, though, much less Wolfstar. Those rogues can't know of any weakness on our part." She was clawing at the ground, making a mess beneath her paws as she put herself forward as an accomplice to their codebreaking. Eagleheart forgive her.

"What, like giving birth in the middle of a hostile takeover?" She asked, tone holding no shortage of snark as she referenced Flowerthorn's very unfortunate timing. That was one of the few times she could think of that would be worse.

"I can't just lie to Wolfstar." She sputtered indignantly. Of course, their leader had made some exceptionally feather-brained decisions lately, but he was still their grandfather... "He'd see through that ruse immediately, I'm sure."

"Borage helps queens produce milk, while Parsley stops milk production." The response came automatically to Ravenclaw's question, before Beechface's head whipped up to stare at her sister with wide eyes at realizing what she'd been saying.

"I can't ask this of you, Ravenclaw, I-" It wasn't right, this wasn't even Ravenclaw's business. She was a bystander in all of this and Beechface didn't want to drag her sister into this if she could help it. And yet there were very few options, beggars couldn't be choosers... But Ravenclaw was trustworthy. Above all she was loyal to the clan, and she'd defend anyone from the Asylum if it came down to it. Honeycomb would be in the nursery soon, but Beechface wasn't so sure that the half-kittypet was trustworthy. Smokefeather would be furious if she knew, and so would Primroselight. What other option was there, than Ravenclaw?

"Are you sure?" Shame made the words stick awkwardly in her throat as Beechface asked, eyes locked on Ravenclaw as if she was the one who could save her from falling from a high branch.

No, of course she wasn't sure. How could she be sure of agreeing to something that would rend her heart useless? She was protecting a clanmate, though. She was protecting her sister as well as the tom who had her heart without any knowledge of the truth. Even if she was enraged and upset beyond what her own emotional knowledge could process, she would do what she agreed to do.

"Yes, I'm sure. Just show me what I need to take." She looked over at Wrenspring, feeling so many emotions swirling around her that if she didn't either tamp down on them or get out of there, she was going to explode. What had she gotten herself into...