A pale silver she-kit sat silently in the corner of the clearing, her silhouette almost unseen against the shadows of the darkening day. She was still, her golden eyes wide and unblinking, as she stared ahead. She looked at the sky, instantly mesmerized by the beauty. The sky was alive with color tonight; a pale blue that darkened as it got higher, splashed with reds, yellows, and oranges. It was so beautiful, it was difficult to believe it was leaf-bare.
"Hi, Silverkit."
The voice jerked her out of her thoughts. She blinked at the cat who had spoken. The cat who had called her by, not her name, but her sisters. She glanced at his familiar golden pelt and amber eyes and recognized him as Sunkit. Cats mistook her and her sister all the time; as they bore an incredible resemblance, in speech, in their actions, in their personality, but most of all; their looks.
They had matching silver pelts with darker stripes. Not a single stripe was out of place. Her sister's stripes were in the exact same positions on her pelt as her own stripes were. The shade of the color was the exact same. They had the memorable smoky black stripe that ran from their nose to their tail tip; something barely any cats bore. Then there were their eyes; they were the exact same color, a pale golden color with darker flecks in them.
She twitched her ear as she locked gazes with her denmate. "I'm Goldenkit." She replied calmly, curling her tail over her paws and staring into his eyes. He frowned for a moment, and then a blush snaked onto his cheeks as he had gotten them mixed up. Again.
"I'm sorry!" He stammered, his tail flicking from side to side nervously as he waited her reply. He was afraid of her and her sister, as they had a reputation for being mean. And cold, and cruel.
"Relax." Was her short reply. "It's alright." She stared into his wide amber eyes, seeing how vulnerable he was
"Hey, Goldenkit." A pale she-cat purred, padding up to her sister, golden eyes shining. She sat down close to her sister, so their pelts brushed. Immediately the identical littermates twined tails and pressed against each other, as if they wanted to squish themselves together and become one. They were too alike, however, and although they loved their strong sibling bond, both sisters wished to be unique.
"Silverkit." She responded, nodding at her sister. They were so close together that she could feel her sister's heat flood into her, every muscle that twitched in her body, every breath she took. They were so close she could almost feel her sister's heartbeat as if it were her own. They liked being this close because then one sister would know what the other was to do without them having to announce it publicly. They liked to be discreet and independent, doing things by themselves.
"Why are you sitting so close?" Sunkit inquired.
It was a stupid question. Every cat in the clan knew how close the littermates were, and even their parents had difficulty telling them apart. Goldenkit sniffed in disapproval.
"Because we're scared to lose each other." Goldenkit drawled, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Sunkit shifted his paws with a nervous glance at the sisters.
"We like to do things by ourselves." Goldenkit meowed, hinting that the annoying tom should leave. She wrapped her tail tightly around her paws, staring coolly at the kit. The naive thing didn't even realize that meant that he should leave. "Without others around."
He still didn't seem to get it.
Heaving an exasperated sigh, Silverkit rolled her eyes at Goldenkit. She then flitted her gaze from her sister and fixated it on the foolish golden kit sitting before them, still staring at them. "Well?" She meowed icily. "Scram."
He seemed to trip over his paws trying to dash away. He let out a squeak as he stumbled over himself and sprawled across the ground, before picking himself up and shooting one last nervous glance at the sisters and dashing back into the nursery.
"You think we scared him?" Goldenkit meowed, feeling slightly guilty for scaring the younger kit. Her golden eyes were wide as they focused on the entrance of the nursery, ready to see if Sunkit came back out to play or if he had decided to just stay in there.
Silverkit said nothing, but as Goldenkit stared at her older sister, she saw that a cold smirk was spread across her face. "We scared him all right." The older sister, Silverkit, purred, her voice sounding delighted in a cruel way. She touched her tail to her sisters, before drawing away and padding into the clearing.
Goldenkit was almost envious as even the apprentices stumbled over themselves to greet her. Of course they didn't know if it was her or Silverkit, but there was something about her sister… It was as if she had this one extra spark in her, something in her charming attitude, her charisma, that got her just a tiny bit more attention and admiration.
Silverkit was a bit prettier than her sister. Her golden eyes were a bit brighter, and her silver pelt seemed to be shinier than hers. Her lashes a bit longer, her body a bit more slender, her fur a bit neater. But the most distinctive difference between them was that the littermates decided that one of them should change their fur; and naturally Silverkit won, meaning Goldenkit had always kept a tuft of fur sticking up behind her right ear. But not many cats noticed that, as it was still hardly visible.
"Hey." A white furred tom approached her, his amber eyes glowing.
She twitched her ear in acknowledgment.
Amberpaw. He was one of the most liked cats in the clan; he was kind but also brave and determined. He was shaping up to be one of the best fighters they had, and he wasn't bad with hunting either. He was a senior apprentice, and Goldenkit figured that by the time she was a half-moon or even less into apprenticeship, the white furred tom would be a warrior. Or even earlier.
He flicked his tail. "Goldenkit?" He guessed, his face breaking out in a smile as he knew he was right.
"How could you tell?" She smiled, almost shyly, at him.
He flicked his tail behind him. "Silverkit's over there." His voice was light, teasing. Unlike most cats, he wasn't afraid of them. Well, not Goldenkit at least. The pale silver she-kit was known to be the nicer of the sisters, the more considerate and understanding of the two.
"Oh." Goldenkit meowed shortly. She was quiet for a moment; she thought he had noticed due to a difference he found between her and her sister. However nice it was to have someone that you were extremely close to, they were also so alike, that both of them wanted desperately to be different.
"So." Amberpaw meowed.
The golden-eyed kit blinked at him.
"You're apprentice ceremony is soon, aren't you excited?" He smiled lightly.
"I guess." Goldenkit shrugged loosely. Unlike most cats, her and her sister weren't all too excited about becoming apprentices. The highlight of their days was playing with other cats. Not playing like moss-ball, but teasing them, tricking them. Goldenkit sometimes felt guilty, but she knew her sister didn't know of the emotion guilt.
Amberpaw stared at her for a few more moments, before scooting a bit closer.
Goldenkit blinked reproachfully at the apprentice. "Can I help you?" She meowed coldly. She didn't like to be toyed with; and she had a feeling this was probably a bet between the apprentices to see which one could first get a sister to like them back. As in, more than friends. They did this multiple times, and if not for Silverkit, the golden-eyed kit knew that she would have fallen for it.
"I can't just sit here?" Amberpaw blinked, faking innocence.
Thankfully, Silverkit padded over at the exact moment. "Sure you can." She grinned. "But that doesn't mean Goldenkit has to sit there. Come, sister." She waved her tail, beckoning Goldenkit over.
The kit heard a hiss of annoyance from the white tom behind her, but she leapt to her paws and bounded over to her sister, grateful to have a reason to escape the amber-eyed tom's ridiculous attempts of trying to trick her.
"So, what are we doing?" Goldenkit asked.
"You'll see." Was her sister's reply.
~•~•~•~•~•~
Silverkit stared straight ahead. She would never tell her sister this; but she was mad that Amberpaw decided to go for her in the contest instead of Silverkit herself. Sure she was harder to get, but… The pale she-kit smirked slightly. Wasn't she the better option? It would be a better reward. She didn't really have anything planned for today, but she didn't want Amberpaw flirting with her sister any longer. She had to show her, and everyone else, that she was the better sister.
She was always jealous of her sister's kindness. Silverkit knew that she had the extra spark that made her a bit more special than her sister, that she was a bit more charismatic and charming, a bit better looking, but that didn't mean she was liked more than her sister. Sure, if you meet them both, you would first feel compelled to talk to Silverkit. But once you learn both their personalities, most cats would like Goldenkit more; as she was nicer. And Silverkit hated her sister for that.
"We're not doing anything, are we." Goldenkit muttered, her ears flicking. Her sister wasn't stupid.
Silverkit said nothing, scanning her gaze around camp. She smiled slightly as she saw the exit, and she padded forward slightly to the exit of the ThunderClan camp. She wrapped her tail around her sister, drawing her close, and began to lead her towards the outside world. The world outside of the camp.
"Are you serious?" Goldenkit hissed, without even looking at her Silverkit knew her sister was lashing her tail. "It's a day before our apprentice ceremony! This could delay it."
Silverkit's eyes flashed. "Who cares? You don't care about becoming an apprentice any more than I do." She scoffed, her voice dripping with scorn. She pressed forward, her eyes narrowed in determination.
"If we become apprentices, we can leave the camp, without sneaking out, and getting in trouble!" Goldenkit continued her side of the argument, and Silverkit could feel her sister's muscles tightening.
"If we sneak out and return with something good, sure we'll get in trouble but we'll also impress Thornstar." Silverkit countered, her ears twitching. She stared at her sister's face, watching her expression twist slightly and then a little bit of excitement appeared.
Both sisters were ambitious, and although Goldenkit didn't fully realize it yet, Silverkit knew her sister wanted to beat her just as much as she wanted to be better than Goldenkit.
"Let's go."
The identical twins padded forward, their paw-steps light as they neared the exit of camp. They were quiet as they could be, but silence wasn't the same as invisibility; and of course they were noticed.
"Where are you going?" A dark tabby tom questioned from behind them, his voice coated with amusement. Silverkit smirked; thank the stars it was Bumbleflight. He was a good father to his kits, and a decent fighter, but not the brightest tom.
Goldenkit glanced at her sister for a heartbeat before staring lightly back at the tom. "Out." She responded lightly, her face expressionless.
"Oh, no, you're not." Bumbleflight grinned at them, wrapping his tail around the kits and scooting them back towards the clearing. Silverkit knew he had kits of his own; and that he loved them, so he was naturally protective of the other kits in the nursery because they were friends of his own.
"Alright." Silverkit shrugged. "I guess we'll go play."
The brown tabby nodded lightly, tail twitching with approval.
"What are you doing?" Goldenkit blinked at her sister, golden eyes wide with disapproval. "You've never backed down like this before."
"Relax," She rolled her eyes. "that idiot's going to visit his kits in a few moments. He has nothing to do, and seeing us is just a reminder that he has kits of his own to play with and visit. After he goes, we can just sneak out."
Goldenkit seemed to ponder about it for a while before nodding. "I guess." She agreed.
Silverkit kept her golden gaze fixed on the brown tabby, and sure enough he picked a large squirrel from the fresh-kill pile and padded towards the nursery, his eyes already glowing with affection. Silverkit didn't have to tell her sister, because the flex of her sibling's muscle showed her that she was ready to go. They decided not to go through the exit of the camp, but they went through the dirt-place tunnel.
"This is gross." Goldenkit stated, her nose crinkled in disgust.
Silverkit agreed with her sister, so she held her breath and dashed through as fast as she could, feeling her sister running by her side.
They burst through the exit of the dirt-place tunnel, gasping as they once more felt the moonlight on their pelts. It was already moon-high, but it didn't matter; this was their last chance to explore as a kit, and not as an apprentice, as tomorrow was their apprentice ceremony.
A gust of cold wind brushed past her, ruffling her silver pelt and fluttering her pale lashes. Her pale eyes glowed in the shadows of nighttime, and she glanced up. The sky was a dark blue, tinted with purple and black, being lit up as it neared the moon. The moon was a milky white, but there were shadows covering over it, and it hung amongst a series of twinkling stars, all glowing with the celestial sheen they possessed. Silverpelt.
"It's prettier out here than in camp." Goldenkit breathed. Her sister twitched her ear in acknowledgement, but focused on the forest lying ahead of her.
The trees loomed over them, their almost bare branches crooked and twisted, their shadows reflecting on the ground looking like claws ready to get them. Silverkit shivered, claws pricking eerily at her spine. She heard the chirping of crickets, and the sudden call of a bird before a rustle of branches up front as it flew away. She watched it; easily recognizing it as a blackbird. It's black feathers melted into the darkness of the night sky, and she tracked it by it's eyes; two pinpoints of light.
She breathed in the scent, wanting to take in everything. It tasted fresh and like pines, but she could also detect a small scent of blood wafting through the air; but not cat blood, the simple blood of prey. She detected a metallic taste as well, knowing that leaf-bare was just on the horizon. The scent of other cats were strong, as well as prey and even a few herbs and flowers.
A large tree loomed above her, and she was immediately drawn to it. It's branches were gnarled and crooked, looking like claws reaching out to rip at her flesh. There were claw marks on one edge of it, marring the otherwise smooth bark that clung onto the trunk. The leaves connected to branches, branches connecting to the trunk. It was all a system; a tree wouldn't be a tree without branches, nor would it be a tree without a trunk. They relied on each other.
Sort of like her and Goldenkit.
She stepped forward, completely mesmerized by the tree, compelling her paws to pull her forward. It was almost as if she was drawn to it; and couldn't fight the force that was bringing her to it.
She felt her sister's pelt bristle slightly as she padded quietly next to her sister, and they both neared the tree.
"Look at that tree." Silverkit meowed quietly.
Goldenkit flicked her tail at Silverkit's ear. "I see it."
"It's the first tree I actually noticed in this whole forest." Silverkit meowed quietly. "And once I saw the trunk and branches, the first thing I thought of was you and me. We rely on each other, just as the trunk and branches rely on each other to become a tree."
Goldenkit's eyes glowed. "Then this can be our tree."
The silver she-cat bounded forward before her sister could ask why, and she scratched the wood with her right paw, the claws digging into the bark. Silverkit knew what her sister was doing, and scratched over the same exact spot, their claw marks overlapping and together. Like they were.
Silverkit watched the tree.
She watched as a leaf snapped off from the twig it clung onto, and delicately spiraled downward. The breeze pushed it around, causing it to dance and twist violently in the air as it fluttered downwards. She followed the movement with her eyes, and her heart leapt into her throat as she saw a pair of dark amber eyes beneath them. She followed the gaze, and realized it was staring straight at her.
"Goldenkit." She hissed, her heart pounding. "What is that?"
"I don't know, but lets go." Her sister sounded slightly scared, and Silverkit detected a tremor in her meow. The two sisters turned tail to run, but there was a blur and something appeared in front of them.
They screamed at the same time, recoiling backwards.
"What are you two doing out here." There was a cold voice, dark with hostility. Silverkit's eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she peered at the cat. He had a brilliant golden tabby pelt with long, sharp claws and piercing amber eyes. Lionclaw.
"We're…" Goldenkit exchanged glances with her sister. "Uh…"
"Sleepwalking?" Silverkit joked, obviously not dazed by the fact that they had just run into a warrior. "Look, Lionclaw, we're already six moons, well, tomorrow, so we're pretty much apprentices already." She shrugged loosely.
"But you're still kits today." He growled at them, his ears flattened against his head.
"Yeah," Goldenkit meowed quietly. "And we're sorry. Please don't tell."
Sorry?
Silverkit stared at her sister, shocked by what she had just said. Did her sister just apologize? She unsheathed her claws and dug them into her sister's paw, fixing her with an angry glare. They never apologized.
"Fine." Lionclaw snarled. "But I'm only letting you off the hook because I don't want to go through the trouble of telling the clan leader, and all this talking, and whatever else." With an angry flick of his tail he beckoned the kits to him.
"What were you thinking, telling him we were sleepwalking?" Goldenkit hissed to her sister, her eyes flashing. "Is this all just a joke to you? I don't want to be called a kit forever!"
"What were you thinking?" Silverkit flashed back, her eyes narrowed with anger. "Apologizing? As if it was our fault that Lionclaw caught us?"
"It is our fault that Lionclaw caught us!" Goldenkit snapped back to her sister. "No. It isn't actually." She shook her head wildly, her eyes blazing with anger. Silverkit recoiled from her sister; she had never seen her so mad. Usually her sister didn't really talk back to her, and just agreed with most things. "It's your fault!"
Then their beautiful relationship started to break. And the first piece was already almost completely crumbled off.
"My fault?" Silverkit snarled back to her sister. "You were on board with this whole thing! I just wanted to do something fun, and if you hadn't made us go to that stupid tree in the first place, Lionclaw never would have caught us!"
Goldenkit's eyes flew wide. "Stupid tree? You were the one who said that it reminded you of us! How we relied on each other. I'm sorry for just wanting to just do something to commemorate it!"
"I don't care if you wanted to commemorate it!" Silverkit yowled back at her sister. "It's just a stupid tree! You're my sister, we aren't a tree! We aren't one cat, we're two different cats, with different souls, no matter how many times other people get us mixed up, we're not the same cat! And it's time for us to start realizing it."
The silence that hung around them hurt more than claws in her pelt.
Silverkit knew that ever since her and her sister were kits, they liked to pretend they were one cats. They made up their own signs of communications with flicks of the tail, twitches of the ears, blinks of the eyes and muscle movement. They liked to press as close as they could to each other, and even though they had their own separate nests, they were always found in the same one, their bodies entwined. Their tails twined together, one head on the other's stomach, their paws touching, or so on. They were always together. So much they were practically the same cat.
Silverkit prayed that Lionclaw hadn't heard their argument, as he was quite a way ahead of them, and if he had heard it… she didn't know what to think.
"I…" Goldenkit sounded broken as she gazed sadly at her sister.
"I'm…" Silverkit didn't know what to say, appalled at her own outburst.
They padded in silence the rest of the way, and entered camp together. Always together. Lionclaw was ahead, muttering quietly to Dawnflight, and the she-cat nodded quickly and fixed her gaze on them. She looked as if she was going to beckon them forward, but Lionclaw shook his head urgently and muttered something.
Silverkit's heart dropped. He knew about their argument.
Silverkit however skidded to a stop and stepped in front of her sister. "I'm sorry, Goldenkit… I-"
"Don't." Goldenkit meowed, shaking her head and cutting her sister off. "You're right. We aren't the same cat. We were never the same cat."
"What?" Silverkit frowned. "I… I know that. But we're sisters and best friends, we think of everything together and do everything together."
"No. We don't." Goldenkit meowed, her ears flattened against her head and her shoulders sagging. She looked so miserable Silverkit felt as if her heart would shatter into a thousand pieces. "You think of everything, and you force me to follow you."
Silverkit opened her jaws to protest. "I don't force you to follow me!"
"Yes you do." Goldenkit meowed firmly but calmly, although her sister could detect the anger in her voice. "And I'm telling you that I won't follow you again unless I want to. Ever."
And that changed everything.
"Fine." Silverkit meowed coldly. "Then get out of my face."
She detected sadness on her sister's face, and truthfully she was sad too. They were as close as could be; but they both knew they were falling apart.
If her sister didn't follow her… that meant everything changed. That her sister was going to go be popular, without her. To have friends without her, to have a mate before her, to train to be a warrior better than her. Silverkit knew her sister was more likable, which was why she was so vital to her.
Goldenkit padded sadly to the nursery, looking crestfallen, her ears drooping, head hanging and shoulders sagging. She looked like an injured kit.
"I'm sorry, Goldenkit." Silverkit meowed quietly. "But if you're not going to follow me, then we're not going to be friends. And I don't just have acquaintances. If we aren't friends, then we're rivals. Enemies."
Then she spun around and stalked back to the nursery.
And for the first time in their lives, they slept in different nests. Separately.