p style="text-align: left;"emI have been doomed to a life of misery from the very start, Talon. Some think I am too mighty to even think of my past beyond the worst sin done to me, but that simply isn't true. All of this bitter hatred was built slowly, carefully... Talon! Where do you think you're going? You will /emsit emand remain when your leaders orders you to do so! Insubordination... You will be punished later. But for now, stay where you are and listen./em/p
p style="text-align: center;" /p
p style="text-align: center;"emBlizzard/ememkit/em/p
p style="text-align: left;""Shut your trap, Blizzardkit," Nettlekit sneered. "You can be the ShadowClan warrior when you start acting like one."/p
p style="text-align: left;""Uh- yeah, which will probably be emnever/em," Fogkit chimed in, giggling along with his brother./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit felt frustration welling in his chest. Nettlekit never let him do anything he wanted! Blizzardkit peered over at Echokit, hoping that his sister would offer some resistance. Echokit was nicer than his brothers, but in situations like these, she almost always sided with them. Still... he would always hope someone would come to his aid. Someone. He let out a sigh as Echokit avoided his gaze./p
p style="text-align: left;"Perhaps Nettlekit was right. Blizzardkit was constantly looking for help... that wasn't much like a warrior. He felt his shoulders sag in self disappointment./p
p style="text-align: left;""Fine... I'm the mouse..." Blizzardkit mewed softly./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit had hardly finished his sentence before paws were upon him. The breath was knocked out of him as he collided with the ground. When his vision stopped being so blurry, he could see Nettlekit's face, laughing loudly at him./p
p style="text-align: left;""This must be the dumbest mouse I've ever seen; it didn't even try to run," Nettlekit cheered at his audience, Fogkit and Echokit. Blizzardkit strained his neck to catch a glimpse of the two... and it hurt him to see them both laughing. It hurt him more than falling on the ground did. A small whine started to rise in his throat./p
p style="text-align: left;"And suddenly, a giant paw had thrown Nettlekit off of him. His eyes widened as he followed the giant paw back to the body of his father: Alderstar. He was the leader of the Clan, and one of the most feared leaders of all the forest, or so Blizzardkit was told... and Blizzardkit was scared of him, too. And his terrifying father was staring down at him./p
p style="text-align: left;""Were you just going to let him sit on you?" Alderstar asked quietly, his eyes cold and unfeeling; they were so different from his mother's warm, caring eyes. His father hardly spoke with him to begin with, so he was unsure how to respond./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit scrambled to his feet. He quickly tried to clean the dirt of of his fluffy white pelt. He attempted to hold his father's gaze, but he continuously found his eyes wandering somewhere else, and his paws were shaking. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his siblings all gathered together, appearing to be as frightened as he felt./p
p style="text-align: left;""I-I-" Blizzardkit choked on his words./p
p style="text-align: left;"Alderstar rolled his eyes. "Being able to speak for oneself is possibly the most important skill one can acquire. More important than... brute force," the large black and white cat directed his last statement towards Nettlekit, who practically shrunk./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit blinked. Was Alderstar defending him? The affection and admiration he felt towards Alderstar must have been beaming off of the little white kit in waves. But even if it was, it showed no sign of affecting Alderstar./p
p style="text-align: left;"The great leader sniffed. "You have almost a single moon left until your apprenticeship. I expect better from the four of your in the very near future."/p
p style="text-align: left;"The four kits bowed their heads submissively./p
p style="text-align: left;""Th-thank you," Blizzardkit managed to utter./p
p style="text-align: left;"But Alderstar was already padding away./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit felt claws sink into his tail. His fluffy pelt fluffed up even more, and he spun to face the source of pain. It, of course, was Nettlekit. He was no longer laughing, and the other two kits had fled to the nursery. The kit's eyes were blazing dangerously./p
p style="text-align: left;""Make me look bad in front of Alderstar again, and I'll rip your stupid, pretty pelt off," the kit snarled./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit's eyes widened. He hastily ran from his brother, who was only a little less scary to him than Alderstar. He found himself in the medicine cat den. He would have gone to the nursery and asked his mother for some comfort, but perhaps the time for comfort was over. He emwas/em going to be an apprentice soon... he couldn't.../p
p style="text-align: left;""Can I help you?" Badgersnout, his medicine cat, interrupted his thoughts. He noticed the medicine cat looked concerned. /p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit found that his breathing had been off for the past few minutes, and he was shaking all over. "No.. I'm okay," he squeaked./p
p style="text-align: left;"Badgersnout looked unconvinced. Blizzardkit had also always been slightly scared of the old medicine cat. Nettlekit told him that Badgersnout would order StarClan to give whiney kits nightmares./p
p style="text-align: left;""How about.. I give you one poppy seed? Just for fun," Badgersnout carefully offered, obviously trying to give the kit a smile, but failing. The result was an awkward twitch of the face./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit tried to be strong. He tried to tell the cat that he would never have a need for any treatment, even when he was bleeding profusely, because he was emso/em strong. Instead, he stumbled to the old tom, buried his face in his matted fur, and let out muffled cries./p
p style="text-align: left;"He could feel Badgersnout paw rubbing against his spine. The old cat was saying something about empressure/em and embullies/em, but Blizzardkit was far too lost in his mind and sorrow to understand what he was saying./p
p style="text-align: left;" /p
p style="text-align: left;" /p
p style="text-align: center;" /p
p style="text-align: center;"emBlizzard/ememkit/em/p
p style="text-align: left;""Shut your trap, Blizzardkit," Nettlekit sneered. "You can be the ShadowClan warrior when you start acting like one."/p
p style="text-align: left;""Uh- yeah, which will probably be emnever/em," Fogkit chimed in, giggling along with his brother./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit felt frustration welling in his chest. Nettlekit never let him do anything he wanted! Blizzardkit peered over at Echokit, hoping that his sister would offer some resistance. Echokit was nicer than his brothers, but in situations like these, she almost always sided with them. Still... he would always hope someone would come to his aid. Someone. He let out a sigh as Echokit avoided his gaze./p
p style="text-align: left;"Perhaps Nettlekit was right. Blizzardkit was constantly looking for help... that wasn't much like a warrior. He felt his shoulders sag in self disappointment./p
p style="text-align: left;""Fine... I'm the mouse..." Blizzardkit mewed softly./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit had hardly finished his sentence before paws were upon him. The breath was knocked out of him as he collided with the ground. When his vision stopped being so blurry, he could see Nettlekit's face, laughing loudly at him./p
p style="text-align: left;""This must be the dumbest mouse I've ever seen; it didn't even try to run," Nettlekit cheered at his audience, Fogkit and Echokit. Blizzardkit strained his neck to catch a glimpse of the two... and it hurt him to see them both laughing. It hurt him more than falling on the ground did. A small whine started to rise in his throat./p
p style="text-align: left;"And suddenly, a giant paw had thrown Nettlekit off of him. His eyes widened as he followed the giant paw back to the body of his father: Alderstar. He was the leader of the Clan, and one of the most feared leaders of all the forest, or so Blizzardkit was told... and Blizzardkit was scared of him, too. And his terrifying father was staring down at him./p
p style="text-align: left;""Were you just going to let him sit on you?" Alderstar asked quietly, his eyes cold and unfeeling; they were so different from his mother's warm, caring eyes. His father hardly spoke with him to begin with, so he was unsure how to respond./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit scrambled to his feet. He quickly tried to clean the dirt of of his fluffy white pelt. He attempted to hold his father's gaze, but he continuously found his eyes wandering somewhere else, and his paws were shaking. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his siblings all gathered together, appearing to be as frightened as he felt./p
p style="text-align: left;""I-I-" Blizzardkit choked on his words./p
p style="text-align: left;"Alderstar rolled his eyes. "Being able to speak for oneself is possibly the most important skill one can acquire. More important than... brute force," the large black and white cat directed his last statement towards Nettlekit, who practically shrunk./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit blinked. Was Alderstar defending him? The affection and admiration he felt towards Alderstar must have been beaming off of the little white kit in waves. But even if it was, it showed no sign of affecting Alderstar./p
p style="text-align: left;"The great leader sniffed. "You have almost a single moon left until your apprenticeship. I expect better from the four of your in the very near future."/p
p style="text-align: left;"The four kits bowed their heads submissively./p
p style="text-align: left;""Th-thank you," Blizzardkit managed to utter./p
p style="text-align: left;"But Alderstar was already padding away./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit felt claws sink into his tail. His fluffy pelt fluffed up even more, and he spun to face the source of pain. It, of course, was Nettlekit. He was no longer laughing, and the other two kits had fled to the nursery. The kit's eyes were blazing dangerously./p
p style="text-align: left;""Make me look bad in front of Alderstar again, and I'll rip your stupid, pretty pelt off," the kit snarled./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit's eyes widened. He hastily ran from his brother, who was only a little less scary to him than Alderstar. He found himself in the medicine cat den. He would have gone to the nursery and asked his mother for some comfort, but perhaps the time for comfort was over. He emwas/em going to be an apprentice soon... he couldn't.../p
p style="text-align: left;""Can I help you?" Badgersnout, his medicine cat, interrupted his thoughts. He noticed the medicine cat looked concerned. /p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit found that his breathing had been off for the past few minutes, and he was shaking all over. "No.. I'm okay," he squeaked./p
p style="text-align: left;"Badgersnout looked unconvinced. Blizzardkit had also always been slightly scared of the old medicine cat. Nettlekit told him that Badgersnout would order StarClan to give whiney kits nightmares./p
p style="text-align: left;""How about.. I give you one poppy seed? Just for fun," Badgersnout carefully offered, obviously trying to give the kit a smile, but failing. The result was an awkward twitch of the face./p
p style="text-align: left;"Blizzardkit tried to be strong. He tried to tell the cat that he would never have a need for any treatment, even when he was bleeding profusely, because he was emso/em strong. Instead, he stumbled to the old tom, buried his face in his matted fur, and let out muffled cries./p
p style="text-align: left;"He could feel Badgersnout paw rubbing against his spine. The old cat was saying something about empressure/em and embullies/em, but Blizzardkit was far too lost in his mind and sorrow to understand what he was saying./p
p style="text-align: left;" /p
p style="text-align: left;" /p