I haven't updated in moons...and people have still been reading this. Touching af!

"Well that's just it." Icicleheart said quietly. "She doesn't seem to be."

"Of course I am!" Fallingrain snapped. "It's still early, you'll see soon enough!"

Icicleheart gave Owlheart a worried look. "Does Frozenclaw know?"

"Well I should hope so, they are his kits after all." Fallingrain sounded more like her usual self.

"I'll go check with him. Owlheart, can you go out and find some mallow for me? Take with you whoever you want."

Owlheart nodded and stepped outside the nursery after her mentor. She was puzzled as to why Fallingrain was so insistent she was expecting kits. She wasn't exactly good with expecting queens, but she knew everything she was required to know. First of all, she was not a young cat anymore which meant that she would probably have consulted the medicine cats before trying to have kits. And if it was accidental, then she would have gone to them with symptoms, and one of them would have told her she was expecting kits.

Owlheart sighed and looked around the camp. Runningstrike had disappeared, and Froststem was no where to be seen. But she spotted Ferretfang chewing on a frog.

"Hey Ferretfang. Err, I have to go collect a herb now, and I need to take a cat with me. Would you like to come with me? When you're finished of course."

The she-cat nodded, her mouth full. She swallowed, "help me finish it?"

The pair ate in silence.

"Alright, let's go. What herb are you looking for?"

"Mallow."

"Oh, I know that one. It's the flower with that really sweet scent, right?"

"That's the one."

Owlheart felt kind of awkward walking side by side with Ferretfang after not having spoken to her for so long.

"So," she said finally, "how are you?"

"I'm good. You?"

"Good."

Ugh this was painful. Owlheart spotted the plant from a fox-length away and walked towards it and began stripping the leaves. Ferretfang stood beside her and kneaded the pine needles beneath her paws. She looked around her, pretending to focus on the twisted branches of the pine.

"Oh look, a squirrel! They're so rare."

Owlheart looked up to see the bright furry creature in the above tree leap down and shoot across the ground.

"I'll be right back," Ferretfang said, eager for an excuse to leave.

"But the pairs rule..."

But Ferretfang had already gone after it.

Owlheart continued to pluck the leaves for a while, nearly completely clearing it of its leaves. Then she waited for Ferretfang to return, but after what felt like an age, it was clear that she wasn't coming back.

Nervously, Owlheart stepped forward and traced the she-cat's scent through the bushes. She followed it for a while, and then suddenly became aware that it had joined with another scent, and not one that she recognized. Not ShadowClan, but rogue. She felt her heart beat faster, and fear consumed her for a moment. Then the familiar calming presence of Bramblefang appeared, and she remembered how to breath.

"Don't follow it, you don't want to. Run back to camp."

Owlheart felt paralyzed but she forced herself to run beside the shadowy cat. Her paw steps matched his leaps through the air, and it soothed her. She burst through the camp entrance, panting. "Deepstar!"

The tom looked up. "Owlheart, what's wrong?" His voice was full of concern.

"It's Ferretfang! We went out together and then we saw a squirrel and she ran after and she didn't come back to me and there's rogue scent and I don't want to track it and I'm worried she's been hurt!" She didn't take a single breath.

Deepstar nodded his understanding. He signaled to Frozenclaw and Twistedfoot who were eating together to follow him. "You'd better come too," he called to Owlheart over his shoulder.

Owlheart followed him nervously, Bramblefang had vanished, causing her anxiety to return.

Nothing could have prepared her for the sight she was about to witness. Her friend was dead, fur stained scarlet. There was not a single wound to the throat but hundreds of claw marks all along her back. Of course, her neck had been snapped to stop her screaming, which meant the other scratches were made for fun, as if the cats had sharpened their claws across her spine. Owlheart didn't move, she was frozen in shock. Deepstar rested his tail along her shoulder.

"Frozenclaw, Twistedfoot, take her body back to camp."

But as the toms lifted her by her front and back leg, blood started gushing out of a slit in her belly. Twistedfoot dropped her front leg, his mouth hanging open. "Who would've done such a thing? Even Tigerstar didn't do this..."

xxxxxxx

Three cats in two moons. Each killed in a gruesome manner, all equally as terrifying. Tendrilsplit, Nickear and Darkheart, all dead. But that wasn't even the worst of Owlheart's problems. Fallingrain seemed to have officially lost it. Icicle heart planned to ask StarClan that night at the Moonpool.