Hi guys! This is the first edited chapter, as of Feb. 2015. Hope you enjoy – more is coming soon!
The voice was very loud, very irritating, and seemingly endless. "All right. I want a hunting patrol sent out… how about you lead it, Thornclaw? You can choose your cats."
Brambleclaw, the ThunderClan deputy, was sending out patrols again. But somehow, while doing so, he managed to wake up Cloudtail - the heaviest sleeper in the clan, for StarClan's sake! According to Brightheart, anyway. Besides, he had been on a patrol last night. Sometimes Cloudtail wondered – and he wasn't alone in these thoughts – if Brambleclaw was trying to drive the clan to exhaustion.
As Thornclaw poked his head into the warrior's den, to search for the unlucky few to accompany him, Cloudtail drew his tail in and flattened his ears. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep, Thornclaw wouldn't notice him. But the small movement only drew the warrior's attention, and he called out, "Cloudtail! You're on my hunting patrol!"
Cloudtail raised his head and glared at him through tired eyes, hoping his gaze would set the tom on fire. Thornclaw, choosing to be oblivious, also summoned Squirrelflight and Spiderleg for the patrol.
When his death-glare failed miserably, Cloudtail sighed. "Fine. I'm coming."
"Hurry up," Thornclaw meowed. "Or else Brambleclaw will have my tail."
On that note, he padded out of the den, with Squirrelflight and Spiderleg following dutifully. Cloudtail sighed once more, much to the irritation of his mate. Also just waking, she flicked her tail at him. "Better go, before they leave without you." The words were stern but good-natured, and Brightheart had a constant gleam of gentle humor in her remaining eye that prevented Cloudtail from spitting back a retort.
His three fellow patrollers were waiting at the camp entrance. When they noticed him approaching, Thornclaw waved his tail in greeting and Squirrelflight yelled, "Come on, you lazy furball!" Then, muttering to herself, she added, "Some cats are just so slow."
Cloudtail had long since learned to ignore the biting remarks of Firestar's sarcastic daughter. She sent little insults the way of her clanmates on a daily basis, and most cats just opted to ignore her until she forgot what she was angry about in the first place. In that way, Squirrelflight was like a fire: hot and blazing, but she quickly burned out into harmless ashes. And her bright ginger pelt only amplified the effect.
Although, Cloudtail did feel like pointing out that, if she didn't have a patrol, Squirrelflight had been known to sleep until nearly sunhigh on a regular basis. But before he could decide on whether or not to voice his thoughts, Thornclaw interrupted, likely saving the white tom from a painful clawing. "Thank you, Squirrelflight. Now let's go, before all the prey dies of old age!" He beckoned the group to follow him out of the camp.
Cloudtail's irritation at Squirrelflight and her hypocrisy were quickly forgotten, to be replaced with pride as he caught two, three, then four pieces of prey. Thornclaw had decided to hunt near the twoleg-place border, where a recent patrol had found and mentioned a nest of starlings, rare in the chillier days of Leaf-fall.
The sun was beginning to set – night came annoyingly early this time of the year – and the patrol was gathering their prey and preparing to head back, satisfied with the day's haul, when a strange sound penetrated the air. Cloudtail spun around, trying to locate the noise, but Spiderleg was faster. Peering behind a nearby clump of thorny bushes, he cried, "Look over here! I found three kits!" His calls caused the entire patrol to dart over and observe the kits.
"I wonder where their mother is," Squirrelflight commented, looking to the others for ideas.
"And I wonder who their mother is," Cloudtail agreed, their previous quarrel now long forgotten.
"I wasn't at the last gathering, but you all were. Was there news of rogues or loners in the area? Or kittypets?" Spiderleg looked as lost as the rest of them.
"No," Thornclaw answered for them all. "But maybe –"
"Wait! Stop! You don't understand!" Cloudtail, Squirrelflight, Spiderleg, and Thornclaw all turned as one to the new arrival. It was a dainty, rather pretty cream-colored she-cat who didn't carry the scent of any clan. She shrunk back a bit at the sudden gazes, but added with considerably less force than before, "Don't hurt them!"
Squirrelflight, ever sharp, was the first to understand. "These are your kits," she meowed. "And you think we were going to hurt them."
"Or take them, or kill them," she she-cat said meekly. "I don't know the ways of you forest cats, only that you're all vicious killers who eat the bones of house-cats."
"Eat bones?" Spiderleg snorted. "Honestly," he muttered.
"It's what the house-cats tell us! Although, I don't think any of them have actually seen a forest cat before."
"Wait," Thornclaw interrupted her, as the she-cat opened her mouth to say more. "So you're not a kittypet?"
"If that's what you call house-cats, then no. I don't live with nofurs. I live in a barn, near the horses, hunting mice." She lifted her head, as though a barn were the most prestigious place to live. All her former fright had evaporated. Ha, Cloudtail thought. She should try living in a forest. Then let's see what she thinks of her barn. She doesn't know what she's missing!
"Or," she corrected herself sadly. "I lived in a barn."
"Nofurs?" Spiderleg asked, still trying to figure out the unfamiliar word.
"It's what some cats call twolegs," Cloudtail told him in a whisper.
"What are you doing here, in ThunderClan territory, then?" Squirrelflight's fur was spiked with suspicion.
"Well," the cream she-cat began, as though preparing to recite a long tale. "In the barn, the nofurs take away your kits as soon as they're old enough. It happened to Floss when she had her litter, and I didn't want the same to happen to my kits. So I left. I found myself over there, across the river." She flicked her tail towards the river on the WindClan border, some ways away.
"But the cats there chased me the moment they found us. I'm not sure what they would've done had we been caught, but that's why I believed you to be vicious, fierce forest cats. But anyway, the moment I got across the river, they stopped and just glared at us. I thought this place was uninhabited, and I left the kits here to go and hunt, when you found them."
Cloudtail found himself believing her story, and feeling pity for the poor she-cat.
However, not all of the other cats shared his view. "Of course they stopped chasing you!" Spiderleg exclaimed. "You're in ThunderClan's territory now, and those scrawny WindClan cats were too cowardly to face us! And what in StarClan's name makes you think that we aren't the vicious forest cats of legend? Why, we ought to chase you and your kittypet kits out right now, before you contaminate the clan with your softness! And –"
Cloudtail sighed loudly and obviously. "Spiderleg?"
"Huh?" the tom stopped his spiel, and seemed confused, with a What-Was-I-Talking-About-In-The-First-Place sort of look on his face.
"Kindly be quiet."
The black, spindly-legged tom was clearly affronted. "But she's trespassing! We can't very well let her come back to camp with us!"
"And why ever not?" For the first time, Squirrelflight gave her opinion on the matter, seeming oddly levelheaded for being… well, Squirrelflight. "It is against the warrior code to refuse to help kits, you know."
The cream-colored she-cat was sitting still, watching the others argue out her fate. "Please don't hurt us!" She repeated the phrase from before, and seemed to have rediscovered the fear she had felt at the beginning. Cloudtail felt a flicker of annoyance at her helplessness, and apparently so did Squirrelflight.
"Be quiet! You're not helping! And don't you use that I'm-So-Innocent-And-Scared act with us! Really! We're not going to kill you or anything!"
There was the Squirrelflight they all knew. Though Cloudtail did feel a bit sorry for the she-cat. She was in a strange place, with strange cats trying to decide what to do with her. Not to mention that she had kits to protect, as well. It obviously wasn't all an act, although Cloudtail suspected that that wide-eyed innocence had helped her escape from trouble in the past. "What's your name?" Cloudtail decided to stop referring to her as 'the she-cat' in his thoughts.
"I'm Daisy," the she-cat meowed, now with only the tiniest waver to her voice, where, before, it had been trembling as much as she had.
Thornclaw meowed decisively, "We'll take her to Firestar. He can decide. And before you argue –" he stopped Spiderleg's protest with a flick of his tail. "I'm the senior warrior here. We take her to Firestar, and that's final."
The black warrior only nodded, not bothering to protest. Cloudtail felt a sort of satisfaction; the younger tom's hostility had always bothered him much more than Squirrelflight's spur-of-the-moment insults.
"…Thank you, I think," Daisy said hesitantly, glancing back and forth between the cats.
"Thank us when Firestar decides what to do with you, and not before," Squirrelflight told her gruffly, but there was a hint of softness in her voice, as though she felt bad for her earlier remark. This often happened with the fiery warrior. "Cloudtail," she meowed after a moment. "You help Daisy back. The rest of us will carry a kit each."
Obediently, Cloudtail offered a flank for Daisy to lean on. She seemed weak and worn-out, something the clan cats hadn't noticed initially. Each of the others grabbed the scruff of a kit, and the unusual party finally started its way back to the camp.
Cloudtail, who was a relatively talkative character when he had nothing else to occupy him, attempted to engage Daisy in some form of conversation. But the she-cat stumbled along next to him and made her way in silence, conserving the bit of energy she had left. Once Cloudtail realized this, he also quieted, although he had as many things to say as leaves on a tree.
After what seemed like a lifetime to Cloudtail, the patrol plus Daisy and her three kits reached the camp. Taking charge of the situation, Thornclaw directed Cloudtail and Spiderleg to take Daisy to the nursery, while Squirrelflight informed Firestar of the newcomers. The three cats carried out their jobs with ease; Spiderleg, for all his protests against Daisy's coming, worked quickly to fetch her a mouse from the pile, as Cloudtail made a makeshift nest out of spare scraps of moss in the nursery. Daisy was soon lying on her side, surrounded by snoozing kits, and nearly dozing off herself.
Noticing a flash of orange, Cloudtail looked up to see Squirrelflight emerge from Firestar's den and slip into the crowd of cats who had seen Daisy's arrival and wanted explanations. Moments later, the ginger leader himself bounded out of the den and onto the highledge, where he addressed the clan with the standard call. "Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the highledge for a clan meeting!"
The few cats who hadn't already been gathered slipped out from inside dens in expectation. Cloudtail, along with Squirrelflight, Thornclaw, and Spiderleg, lifted his head importantly. After all, he had been on the patrol that found an intruder! (No matter how nonthreatening said intruder may have been.)
Firestar began his announcement immediately. "It seems that our hunting patrol found something other than food this time!"
Thornclaw flicked his tail in embarrassment, and Cloudtail knew why. They had completely forgotten about their fresh-kill in the excitement of finding Daisy, and would have to go and fetch it later. Firestar, a flash of amusement gleaming in his eyes, continued, "They found a young queen and her three kits running away from home, and brought them back here."
Surprised glances and murmurs were exchanged within the crowd. No kittypet, loner, or rogue had bothered them for quite some time. Where had she come from?
"She comes from the Horse-place, near the WindClan border," meowed Firestar, sensing the question building within the crowd. But she has no place to go. She cannot go back, for if she does, her kits will be stolen by the twolegs! But the question is: do we offer her our home? Do we teach her the ways of the clan and provide her with food and shelter, in hopes that one day she will become a valued member of ThunderClan?"
"Of course! We need new apprentices, and if we leave her helpless in the wild, we are really no better than ShadowClan!" This was the first opinion, shouted by Brackenfur, a golden-brown tom.
"But she's a useless kittypet! Kittypets will never learn the ways of the wild! I say we drive them out now, before they can learn our secrets!" Now Mousefur, a crabby elder, spoke. Her thoughts seemed shared by many in the clan, but Cloudtail hoped that Firestar wouldn't agree. Cloudtail had made his choice. Who were they to turn away a queen and three healthy kits? And they would be useful; there was only one other queen in the nursery, and the clan desperately needed kits and apprentices.
To Cloudtail's relief, Squirrelflight was one voice that agreed with him. "Suspicious, Mousefur?" she asked. If she had said the same to anyone else, it would have been taunting, but elders, no matter how bitter or unwelcoming, were a well-respected part of the clan. Squirrelflight was only questioning the elder and offering a contradicting opinion. "If she truly is a 'useless kittypet,' as you say, then would she be inclined to share the inner workings of our camp to a hostile clan? Or perhaps a band of other kittypets? No, if she turns out to be useless, then we have nothing to worry about. And if she isn't, she and her kits will be a welcome addition to our clan!"
Cloudtail felt that it was time to add his view on the matter. "And, Mousefur, I'm part kittypet too! You can't agree that all kittypets are soft and useless! Is Firestar useless? Or did you forget that our esteemed leader was once a kittypet too?"
The brown elder ducked her head in submission, and croaked, "I meant no disrespect to our leader, or warriors. I was only voicing my opinion, and I stand by it."
Firestar dipped his head in acknowledgement of the almost-apology, and meowed, "Of course, Mousefur. You are entitled to your opinion, as are we all. However –" Now he projected his voice so that even the cats farthest from the highledge could hear clearly. "I have reached a decision. Daisy may stay in the clan, if she will accept warrior training for herself and her kits. She may leave at any time if she so wishes. Thank you, and that will be all." Firestar turned to return to his den.
"Oh," the leader turned back around to address the clan one more time. "Cloudtail?"
"Yes?" The white warrior couldn't imagine why he was being addressed.
"Someone will need to begin instructing Daisy in the ways of the clan, if she is to stay. That will be your responsibility."
Cloudtail stood dumbly for a moment. "Thank you, Cloudtail." Firestar disappeared from sight.
Why me? I don't have time to teach a kittype – horseplace cat! Why did Firestar choose me?
Dismayed, Cloudtail decided to find Brightheart and see what she had to say.
Edit: This is on temporary hiatus (as you can see, future chapters have been deleted). Soon, though, I'll edit all of these chapters and continue this, don't worry! I just can't stand my writing style of a year ago.
AN: Hey guys! If you've read this, then thanks! And I know there are some non-cannon things in here, like how the clan cats had already met Daisy on the journey. It works better here if they hadn't. And of course, the dialogue and stuff isn't exactly the same as in the books, but this is a fanfiction, for StarClan's sake! Review if you'd like! Thanks!
-Embersky