Chapter 1: Choices

A tortoiseshell kit creeps through the pine forest, her icy blue eyes round as the moon, fur on end and whiskers quivering in fear. Mud clung to her white paws, making it so she couldn't even recognize her own scent. Suddenly, she froze, ears at alert and whiskers quivering, and darted up a tree just as a hostile voice growled from behind her. Little was accomplished, though; even though the mud masked her usual scent, it was still obviously different from this places' scent, and fear-scent rolled off of her.

"Who dares trespass on ShadowClan territory?" Many scents of full-grown cats wafted to her nostrils. Of all the questions they could have asked, they chose this one? she thought miserably.

"Umm, I really can't answer that," she replied hesitantly and truthfully, completely aware of how cracked and defenseless her voice sounded against the confident meow of the strangers.

"Prey-Stealer! Show your cowardly face! Why can't you tell us your name?" Another one of the voices taunted. The tortoiseshell slid down the tree and found at least four fully grown cats looming over her, teeth bared and claws unsheathed. She squeaked and cowered closer to the tree, but almost immediately the cats relaxed and let their fur lie flat, though their eyes held hostility. She finally got a better look at these cats and saw that they were well muscled, and there were two toms and a she-cat. The she-cat, with, the kit noticed, a belly with kits, spoke, her voice sympathetic and harmonic.

"So? Why can't you tell us your name?" the pregnant she-cat queried. The kit shied away from the question, trying to ask another question instead.

"What is a 'clan'?" she dared to ask. The pitch-black, large tom hissed.

"Answer Nightwing's question!" He showed the kit his teeth and unsheathed his claws. Nightwing - What a strange name! thought the kit - placed her tail on the tom's back, murmuring, "Shhh, she's only a kit, Thornclaw." Thornclaw - Another weird name! thought the kit in wonder - scowled at the kit, but put his claws away. His voice a deep meow, he said, "Now try again: What is your name?" He spat the last words as if they were twoleg rubbish. Taking a deep breath, the kit answered simply, "It's a long story." The three cats glanced at each other questioningly. "Can you give us a summary?" the smaller tom, with brown fur and white paws and chest, asked. Bracing herself for the tsunami of emotion she would feel when she told the story, the icy-eyed tortoiseshell began.

"My mother was training my brother and I how to take care of ourselves. We could hunt a bit, and were just starting to learn to protect ourselves. She had promised to give us real names when we learned to hunt and fight, and until then, she would call me 'she-kit' and my brother 'he-kit'." The kit's eyes seemed as if a layer of mist had covered them. "I was out, practicing hunting, and I had found a way to hide my scent. When I came home to demonstrate, I heard yowling, screeching, and cries of fury coming from my home." Her little voice had been wavering the entire time, but now she could barely speak. "I dashed home, faster than I ever had before, and when I got there, I saw-" The poor kit had to stop for a moment to collect herself- "I saw a big black and white animal grab my mother and throw her like she was a stick. It went to my brother and killed him in one bite. We never earned our names! It didn't see me because of my scent-hiding trick." She paused. "I wish it had."

The cats were staring at her, wide-eyed. "To witness such a tragedy at such a young age," the she-cat mewed quietly, but the kit could still hear.

Thornclaw looked at the brown cat, who seemed to be less than half his size. "Adderpaw, what should we do with this kit, now?" he asked, and the kit was surprised to find that Thornclaw sounded like how her mother had when instructing them. Adderpaw jumped as if surprised, then stuttered, "Well, uh, since the warrior code says to question any loners, we would chase her out. But it also says to help any kits in need... but she isn't directly in need." He sounded like he was talking to himself. "But she's still a kit... so I'd escort her out of the territory," he finished, getting louder towards the end. Thornclaw nodded in agreement and looked him in the eye. "You will escort her to Fourtrees. On the way, tell her a bit about each territory, and when you get there, let her decide where she'll go," he ordered. Ignoring Adderpaw's wordless protests, he turned to the kit. "Now, she-kit, choose carefully. If you don't want to make a decision, just go to the forest territory, and go along the Thunderpath until you reach the twolegplace. Some twoleg will take you in, and you'll be fed. " He scowled. "Actually, never mind. Don't do that. Just... choose the place that suits you best," he said briskly. As Adderpaw and the kit had begun to leave, Nightwing had shouted after her, "Be careful!"

Adderpaw led her to a great rock, with four giant trees on it. He had told her of all the territories, and the kit had been thinking carefully the entire time, but had not been ready when he had announced, "Here we are." Looking around the place, he pointed with his paw towards a thickly forested area on the right. "That's ThunderClan," he said. Pointing with his tail to the place with more rocks and dirt than trees, he announced, "That's RiverClan." Looking towards a land next to ThunderClan and the marshy place of ShadowClan, he meowed, "SkyClan's over there." He jerked his head to the left. "That's scrawny WindClan," he said, and finally turned around to face the kit, looking proudly over where they had come from. "And this, of course, is the best Clan: ShadowClan. Now, where will you go?" he asked, turning his green gaze to the kit. After a few moments of weighing her options, she looked back up at Adderpaw, nervous but certain of her choice. She took a deep breath.

AN:

Haha! Yes, I have left you at a cliffhanger! Yay! *Sigh* please don't hate me. I just want to give you a choice! Okay. *takes a deep breath* I have already written a bit of this somewhere else on the wide expanses of the internets, and there, she was in RiverClan. But the Clan doesn't exactly matter, except for their different stereotypes. So, I'll just do this.

QUESTION OF THE DAY: You'd probably answer this even if I hadn't asked, but here ya go: What Clan is Kit going to be in? The brave ThunderClan, the swift but thin WindClan, the ShadowClan, who she already know, or RiverClan, where she might be able to prove herself just by swimming? YOUR CHOICE! Yay!