Through the Dark

Chapter 11

"Emberleaf? Emberleaf?! Emberleaf!"

The light brown tabby heard someone calling her name. Ugh. Couldn't they shut up? She was tired and wanted to sleep, which was pretty impossible with this annoying thing calling her name every few seconds.

"Emberleaf!"

"What?!" she snapped, groggily opening one eye to catch a glimpse of a ginger fur. Oh. Brightlight.

"What happened?" Emberleaf yawned and got up, feeling sticky with sleep. She was in a den, the sunlight streaming through the loose bracken that it was made up of. A herb scent filled her nostrils, confirming that she was, in fact, in the medicine cat's den.

"You suddenly passed out," Brightlight explained. "I brought you here and Leafpaw to Hazelfur so she could train both her and Graypaw at the same time. Then I came back to check on you. You were mumbling things in your sleep, like... Well anyways, I got worried, so I called your name."

"What was I mumbling?" Emberleaf asked curiously.

Brightlight looked down at her feet. "...you know. Him. Foxclaw."

Emberleaf's gaze darkened, and she shook her head, in attempt to clear her thoughts. She gulped. "Yeah. I...I was dreaming about him."

Brightlight nodded, looking at her friend worriedly. She knew how much Emberleaf had liked him, and when he went off with Silverlight, she knew how depressed Emberleaf became.

"Hey. How about you go take a small walk around the territory to clear your thoughts," Brightlight suggested. Emberleaf opened her mouth to protest, but Brightlight interrupted, "That is an order."

Emberleaf sighed. "But Brightlight. I have more important things to do. And what about Leafpaw?"

"She will be fine with Hazelfur," Brightlight assured her, nudging Emberleaf out of the den. "Go on, now."

Emberleaf sighed. "Okay. Fine."

Reluctantly, she trudged through the thorn tunnel and out of camp. Even the bright noon sun, the soft sand under her paws, the way the wind brushed through her fur with ease, couldn't cheer Emberleaf up. Her thoughts were jumbled with thoughts on how much she missed Foxclaw, how much she wanted to go back to the times before Foxclaw ran away with Silverlight, when she had believed that he liked her back.

Emberleaf leaped onto a rock, lying down on it. Maybe I can just bask here in the sun for a while, she thought, closing her eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted from her piling emotions.

Emberleaf came back to camp from a long hunt alone with Foxclaw. She was carrying two mice and three birds while Foxclaw held three mice. She felt satisfied that she had caught more than Foxclaw. After all, she was always the better hunter, he the better fighter.

That night had been one of Emberleaf's best nights in her life. During the hunt, Foxclaw had flirted and teased her numerously, and they had also brushed against each other countless times, causing her heart to race every time she thought about it.

After they had dropped their catches on the prey pile, Foxclaw turned to face Emberleaf, lightly brushing his tail over her flank to get her attention.

"Good job," Foxclaw congratulated. "You caught way more than me."

Emberleaf smiled, lost in his beautiful green gaze.

"I just got beaten by a she-cat," Foxclaw muttered jokingly, shaking his head.

Emberleaf purred in amusement.

"Well, I'm gonna go now," Foxclaw said, turning his back to her and waving his tail in farewell as he headed toward Silverlight, who was settled down at the foot of Highstones.

Emberleaf let him go, never questioning why he spent so much time with the medicine cat of MoonClan. After all, medicine cats could not mate, so Emberleaf didn't really see Silverlight as a threat.

Well, she should have.

Because the very next morning, they went missing.

They had run away together, madly in love.

And Foxclaw...he left Emberleaf with a broken heart.

Emberleaf jolted awake, breathing hard. She sat up.

"Great StarClan," she mumbled when she saw the night sky above her. Her "small walk" took almost half the day. I should be getting back, she thought. She didn't want anyone getting suspicious. After all, her liking for Foxclaw was a secret only between her and Brightlight.

With shaky legs, she slowly trudged back to camp. There was a light wind, unlike the other few days, blowing straight towards her. Emberleaf suddenly halted, sniffing the air.

That scent...it was familiar.

With a new sense of urgency, she followed the scent.

"IceClan," she mumbled. "What is an IceClan cat doing on MoonClan territory?"

The scent soon led to an abandoned fox den, a place where Emberleaf had been in a few rare times. It wasn't her favorite place to be in, with its fox scent and dark sheltering, but it wasn't as bad at thick-leafed forests.

The scent here was strong, hinting that the IceClan cat was either here or had passed here not long ago.

"Who's there?" Emberleaf called softly, slowly slipping into the den.

It took her a while for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they did, she could make out the silhouette of a muscular tom lying down, head resting on paws. She guessed that he was sleeping, since light snores were coming from him.

His smell touched her scent glands, causing her to freeze when she realized who it was.

No wonder the scent was familiar.

It was Wolffur.

The tom she had met with at Skyrocks the past few nights.

What was he doing in here?!

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A/N: Please vote if you liked it! :) So sorry if it's confusing atm...it will all make sense later. :)

150 votes on the whole story until the next chapter :)