Darkstorm's Code✔️

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Darkstorm froze, and Arrowheart looked at the ground.

"I messed that up, didn't I? I was too quick." He took Darkstorm's silence as a hesitation to reply. "I'm a mouse-brain." Darkstorm shook her head rapidly, her eyes meeting his.

"You're no mouse-brain."

"Then why don't you answer?" he challenged. Darkstorm blinked.

"Because I've always wanted to be... mates." Arrowheart's eyes widened and his tail waved. Darkstorm looked at him. "Ever since that gathering."

"So you..."

"I agree. I say yes." They stood there in an awkward silence, until Darkstorm blinked and grabbed a pine with her teeth.

"I'll help." They continued weaving the pines, until the nursery and elder's den was finished. Darkstorm glanced at him. 

"I've loved you since the day I met you," she blurted. Don't mess this up! "I-"

"Me too," he murmured. "That moonhigh, everything changed. Our destinies were written." He looked up at the darkening sky. "Everything has changed." Darkstorm touched noses with him.

"Yes," she agreed. "But that doesn't mean we'll give up. It means we're stronger than before, just for surviving." She glanced at the warrior's den and began to bend the branches again. They were oddly bendable, which was good for them. Arrowheart did the same for the apprentice's den.

"The fresh-kill. We'll put it under that root, but we have to put pines to guard it." She gestured with her tail. "Can you get some more? One of us has to keep an eye on Orangetail's kits. If they take after their mother, they're only trouble," she snorted. Arrowheart's tail stroked her flank as he left.

I need time to think. Think about everything, she thought to herself, pushing some broken branches to enforce the outside of the mother-tree. She paused. I should get thorns after, so that it's even spikier than pine needles. She sighed. Stop stalling, Darkstorm. You're happy that Arrowheart asked you that, you've been waiting, because you haven't been brave enough to. She snorted. I'm brave enough to face my father and kill him, but not enough to ask a simple question. Not so simple. Yes, simple.

I found the new ShadowClan camp, with Arrowheart, but still. I found it. Now I just have to make ShadowClan as amazing as it used to be. I will do it. I know I can, and I know I will.

Now, those thorns.

"We're back!" Yowltail mewed a while later. Darkstorm nodded distractedly.

"Can you put the moss in the nursery, elder's den and warrior's den? That's all the dens we have for now. I'll sleep in the warrior's den until I get my nine lives." Comfreytail nodded.

"Sure!" 

"Darkstorm! I have de pines," Arrowheart called, sounding a bit muffled by the pine needles in his mouth. "Dey spiky." Darkstorm laughed.

"You're covered in them! You look like a... A pine-cat!" Growing more serious, she flicked her tail. "Snarlfang, you have the herbs, right?" The medicine cat came in and nodded, followed by Orangetail.

"I enforced the medicine den. Did the kits behave?" Darkstorm dipped her head.

"Yeah, they're asleep. Speaking of sleeping, we should. I know we're hungry, but it's late, and we can hunt in the morning." She yawned, noticing how tired she was, and how tired her clan looked. "Come on." Orangetail headed for the nursery, and Snarlfang the medicine den, so the rest of the cats curled up on the moss, drifting off to sleep.