Frecklewish's Grief: A Mapleshade's Vengeance AU

Chapter 1: The Storm

The sky overhead was an angry, roiling grey as Frecklewish pushed her way through the gorse tunnel. She'd been lucky to find the vole when she had; the scent of rain laced through the air while thunder rumbled in the distance. It was a gloomy, cold day and the idea of spending the night in the damp warrior's den was enough to make her wrinkle her nose.

Maybe she would share a meal with Mapleshade and her kits; they were of the age that the Queen should begin weaning... though, she'd been odd of late. She fretted over her kits, keeping them in the nursery and away from their clanmates. Frecklewish and Oakstar had been allowed to spend the most time with them, but it was almost as if Mapleshade was worried what the other cats in their clan would do if she let her kits step so much as a paw outside of the safety and seculsion of the nursery.

"First time mothers always worry," Deerdapple had told her, a purr of a chuckle under her words. "And Mapleshade has always been one to keep to herself."

Frecklewish's thoughts all but evaporated once she crossed the threshold into camp proper. Her clan was gathered beneath Highrock, a ring closed around a cat she couldn't quite see behind the others. She dropped the vole where she stood, all but forgetting the fresh kill as her ears pricked forward to strain to hear what was being said.

"Frecklewish!" One of the cats turned, a light brown and white tom-- Seedpelt. "It's Mapleshade, she--"

The golden she-cat surged forward, pushing her way through her clanmates as her father growled from his perch atop Highrock. Already panic had begun to well up in her gut, twisting like claws in her belly. Oh StarClan, what if something had happened to Mapleshade, to the kits?

"Who is the father of your kits, Mapleshade?" Frecklewish finally managed to force her way to the front, her chest heaving with fear until she saw Mapleshade unharmed and standing alone before Highrock and her father.

"We know its Birchface!" Frecklewish stumbled clear of her clanmates to stand beside the tortoise shell and white Queen. She pressed her shoulder to Mapleshade, bewildered by her father and the rest of the clan. What was this madness? What had happened? "Why? Why ask this now?"

It was only then that she saw the shadow of Ravenwing lurking beneath Oakstar, crouched and glaring. His blue eyes were trained on Mapleshade, narrowed with his teeth all but bared at her.

Oakstar's tail flicked over his paws as he sat above them, imperious and shrouded in shadow. There was something in his voice, low and quiet, threat woven across the words that were both so loud and so soft in the pounding of Frecklewish's ears. "Mapleshade will tell us, herself." He hissed, "She let us all believe that Birchface-- my son! Your brother! That Birchface was their father. That she would tell such a lie..."

Oakstar let his words drop off, Mapleshade stiffening as Frecklewish slowly turned to stare at the queen beside her. She pulled away from her, the bile rising up in her throat as Birchface flashed across Frecklewish's mind-- as memories of the kits very birth pushed it aside, of playing with them in the nursery, the camp-- each joyous moment suddenly cracking like leaf-bare ice under the revelation that they were not her brother's kin.

Under the sudden and abrupt knowledge that her brother truly had been lost to her, the moment he fell from the rocks and into the seething river below.

"Any clan would be honored to raise these kits into their warriors!" Mapleshade answered, sitting back and raising herself up proudly to meet Oakstar's glare.

Ravenwing hissed, his ears flattened as he shook his head. "Would they, knowing they are half-clan? Half RiverClan?" He snarled, his tail lashing back and forth behind him while his eyes blazed with fury. "Admit it, Mapleshade! Appledusk is the father to your kits."