Moonflower grows up.
Disclaimer: I don't own warriors but I do own Dapplestar, Raindrops, Specklepelt, Mousetail, Hollyclaw, Badgerpatch, Ratpelt, Yellowfur, Cinderpaw, Flowerkit, Graystorm, Peacheye, Hustlefoot, Fernstripe and Snowstorm. I don't even own Mudsplash because he is Mumblefoot before an injury didn't heal properly and he retired and changed his name. But I do own the name, which is neat, I think.
I'll name every cat in ThunderClan every four instalments in the story. I won't bother with other Clans because that gets too complicated. I'll just mention individual cats when it comes up.
ThunderClan
Leader: Dapplestar-Tortoiseshell she-cat with white star on her forehead
Deputy: Raindrops-blue-gray speckled tom
Medicine cat: Specklepelt-brown tabby tom
Warriors: Mousetail-gray tom with brown underbelly
Apprentice, Stonepaw
Sweetbriar-tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat
Hollyclaw-black she-cat with pale yellow eyes
Apprentice, Stormpaw
Badgerpatch-black-and-white tom
Apprentice, Adderpaw
Ratpelt-dark gray-and-brown tom
Yellowfur-pale orange she-cat
Mudsplash-brown tom
Apprentice, Robinpaw
Weedwhisker-pale orange tom
Pinestripe-red brown tom with green eyes
Poppydawn-long-haired dark red she-cat with a bushy tail
Apprentice, Cinderpaw
Tawnyspots-light gray tabby tom
Fuzzypelt-black tom with fur that sticks out at all angles
Apprentices: Stonepaw-gray tom
Adderpaw-mottled brown tabby tom
Stormpaw-blue-gray tom
Robinpaw-small, energetic brown she-cat with ginger patch on her chest
Cinderpaw-gray-and-black she-cat
Queens: Larksong-tortoiseshell she-cat with pale green eyes (mother of Mousetail's kits, Swiftkit and Flowerkit)
Graystorm-dark gray she-cat with amber eyes (mother of Ratpelt's kits, Moonkit and Goosekit)
Peacheye-light brown tabby she-cat with unusual eyes, in disgrace for mating with a WindClan cat
Elders: Hustlefoot-dark brown tabby tom
Fernstripe-pale gray tabby she-cat with a white triangle on her chest and white bands on her legs and tail
Snowstorm-once white, now grayish, she-cat, the oldest cat in ThunderClan by far, more than twelve years old
Moonkit was in the nursery, trying to sleep when Goosekit nudged her, hard, trying to wake her up. "Mother's gone!" He hissed.
Moonkit's impatience with her brother disappeared immediately. She got unsteadily to her feet and followed him out of the nursery, which was now deserted except for Moonkit and her brother. The kits had only been born a few sunrises ago and were still getting oriented as to how the camp worked. Moonkit glanced through the branch wall of the nursery. The clearing loomed in her face: full of cats, all of them larger than her and many of them milling about from one den to the other.
Moonkit stepped back, overwhelmed, but she forced herself to be brave. She poked her nose through the side of the den and tried to locate her mother by smell. Beside her, Goosekit did the same thing. She couldn't smell Graystorm but she did smell another familiar cat. Here was someone who slept in the nursery.
This cat was a brown tabby, a common enough colour, but she had eyes that Moonkit would recognize anywhere. They were pale orangish-red, almost pink. None of the other cats had eyes like this and Moonkit, young as she was, knew this already.
This cat was talking to a blue-gray tom and he seemed to be the dominant one in the conversation. As he stalked away and the she-cat held her head down, Moonkit and Goosekit wandered out of the nursery and crept towards her.
"That's Peacheye," said a voice from behind the two kits. "She annoyed Raindrops by accusing him of favouring the other queens when he organized the apprentices' hunting." Moonkit spun around to see a tom twice her size. He was a similar blue-gray colour to the tom they had seen talking to the nursery cat but, unlike Raindrops, he didn't have speckles on his pelt, which was all gray.
"Who are you?" Goosekit asked, giving the cat a look.
"Stormpaw," said the tom importantly. "The deputy's son. That's my brother." He pointed at a tree stump in another corner of the clearing. "Adderpaw."
Moonkit looked. She could see a brown mottled tom chatting with a wiry brown she-cat. Suddenly, she saw the she-cat pounce playfully on the tom, who wriggled away and dashed towards them with the she-cat in pursuit.
"Why would he favour the other queens?" asked Goosekit.
"Don't you know?" asked Adderpaw, coming to a stop next to the kits. "Her mate was a WindClan warrior!" There was disgust in his meow.
The she-cat apprentice skidded to a stop behind him and whacked his flank. "Adderpaw, don't tell them stuff like that! The kits don't need to hear about it!"
"We're old enough!" protested Moonkit, though she had no idea why she needed to be old enough. What's WindClan? Are there other Clans like ThunderClan?
Adderpaw butted the older she-cat in the flank. "C'mon, Robinpaw, let's go see how Cinderpaw and Stonepaw are doing in the training hollow."
"Oh no, you don't," a louder voice grumbled. A wiry pure black she-cat with yellow eyes padded up to the apprentices and the kits. "You're needed in the elders' den. Unless you want Snowstorm to get up and get new moss herself."
"But Cinderpaw looked after them this morning!" protested Adderpaw.
"No," the she-cat bore down on him. "Cinderpaw did their ticks. You can replace the moss in their dens. Hurry and start doing something useful. We need every cat to be hard at work this leaf-bare. You and Robinpaw can't just sit around all day."
"Oh well, c'mon Adderpaw," meowed Robinpaw. "We get the not-as-stinky job. And I like talking to Fernstripe and Hustlefoot."
"You should respect all of your elders," lectured the black she-cat. "Not just the ones who are easy to get along with. Now go do your chores before the sun goes down. You're wasting daylight." Robinpaw and Adderpaw scampered off. Stormpaw looked uneasily after them as though wondering if he should follow them.
"You go wait at the edge of the camp, Stormpaw," the black cat said. "I'll give you a hunting lesson in a minute so we can bring back some fresh kill for the elders." Stormpaw looked as if he would have liked to have waited for her but he clearly didn't dare disobey. Then the black she-cat turned her attention to the kits. "Gather around," she said to them. "I need to talk to you two."
"Are we in trouble?" asked Moonkit. Goosekit nudged her. "It's about Peacheye. This cat heard us talking about Peacheye. What is WindClan?" He addressed the black warrior.
The she-cat sighed. "WindClan is one of the other three Clans."
"There are four Clans?" Moonkit asked in wonder.
"Don't the queens teach the kits anything these days," the black cat sighed.
"Are you an elder?" asked Goosekit. "You sound like one."
"No, I'm a senior warrior," the black cat answered. "My name is Hollyclaw. Now, don't interrupt. There are four Clans and the first law in the warrior code is loyalty to your own. Every so often there will be a cat that breaks that part of the code and mates with a cat from another Clan. But you must remember that such a thing only brings shame to yourself and makes your kits' lives difficult."
"How come?" asked Moonkit.
"You'll understand...Adderpaw, Stormpaw, back to your duties! Honestly!" Hollyclaw hurried off to reprimand Stormpaw and Adderpaw who were making faces at the kits from behind a rock.
"I was hoping we seemed like smart kits," meowed Goosekit, his eyes hurt.
"Don't you mind them," said another voice. Moonkit and Goosekit turned toward a she-cat they recognized as one of their older denmates. Swiftkit was two and a half moons older than they were but acted as if she were seasons ahead. Her ginger-black-and-white sister, Flowerkit, followed her, thick fluffy tail sticking straight up as usual. "They haven't been apprentices for as long as they act like."
Flowerkit sat straight in front of the other kits and said in a simpering voice, "May I go on the dawn patrol, Father? How do you like this fighting move, Father? Can I bow at your feet, Father?"
Swiftkit shook her head in admonishment but giggled nonetheless. Goosekit chuckled just for appearances sake. Moonkit asked, "Which one?" Already she had seen Flowerkit do exaggerated impressions of her own mother, Larksong, Moonkit's mother Graystorm and Peacheye who didn't have kits yet. She'd thought the impression of Larksong ordering the kits indoors way to early was funny and the imitation of Peacheye bowing her head as Larksong berated her for letting Swiftkit wander off into the medicine den was cruel but accurate but had gotten mad when she imitated Graystorm's tired walk after Goosekit had accidentally bitten her leg too hard. Flowerkit had apologized an hour after Moonkit pointedly turned her back on her denmate and stared into the brambles of the den with her nose pointed upward.
"Both of them," snickered Swiftkit. "Especially Adderpaw though. I don't know how he ever gets around camp with that big, thick head of his."
"Stormpaw puts him up to it," argued Flowerkit. "Adderpaw's the better one."
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"I'm gonna tell Adderpaw you like him!"
"Wouldn't you? No, you wouldn't."
"I would so!"
"Can you do a Hollyclaw impression?" asked Moonkit deliberately stepping in between the sisters. "I want to see it."
Flowerkit looked around the clearing warily. "Is she watching? I don't want her to be watching."
"She went hunting with Stormpaw," Goosekit assured his denmate. Clearly he wanted to see Flowerkit's Hollyclaw impression too.
"Well, if you're sure," Flowerkit continued to look around nervously, her tail swishing back and forth like a tree branch in the wind.
Moonkit and Goosekit nodded eagerly.
Flowerkit screwed up her face and said, "Honestly! These kits! No sense! I leave out fresh kill by the nursery and they assume it's put there for them!"
Moonkit and Goosekit doubled over with laughter and even Swiftkit allowed herself a snicker. "Show them the elders, Flowerkit," she commanded.
Flowerkit stumbled as if she had a crippled leg. "Bring me something to eat," she gasped. "Please! I'm gonna run away from the Clan if you don't!"
"Hustlefoot," Swiftkit told the two younger kits. Moonkit and Goosekit nodded. They had not met the elders yet. This was educational.
"Of course, dears. I'm gonna clean you until you gasp for mercy!" Flowerkit reached out her tongue to lick Goosekit's ear and he wriggled away in disgust.
"Fernstripe," acknowledged Swiftkit. "She actually does that."
Flowerkit nodded, pleased. "Don't let her get too close. I hate that gushing look on her face."
"Now do Herself, the oldest cat in all the clans," said Swiftkit.
"More than twelve years old," said Flowerkit in a raspy voice as she settled herself on her haunches and wrapped her tail tightly around her body. "And I have yet to see single apprentice who actually managed to climb to the top of the Owl Tree, so you can stop pretending. Especially since many who tried were much stronger and braver than you runts!"
The other kits shrieked with laughter so hard that they didn't notice the gray shape looming over them.
Swiftkit and Flowerkit saw her at the same time. "Snowstorm!" They screamed and ran over to the fresh kill pile to hide behind it. Ratpelt and Yellowfur, sharing fresh kill next to the pile, hissed at them and backed away.
The elderly grayish cat settled herself on the ground in front of the kits. Moonkit was sure she could hear her bones cracking as she settled herself into the exact same position Flowerkit had been in when she'd imitated Snowstorm. Goosekit stifled a giggle.
"I don't see anything funny about me right now," the old she-cat rasped. "Whatever that little pest was saying. Flowerkit's the most insolent kit I have ever known. It's a wonder Dapplestar doesn't put her on permanent tick duty. I would just purr."
"Are you really more than twelve years old?" asked Goosekit. "That's pretty cool."
"Glad to hear that someone thinks so," rasped Snowstorm. "Flowerkit and Swiftkit just mock it."
"Have you seen our mother?" Moonkit asked, remembering suddenly why she and her brother had left the nursery.
"Sure, dear," Snowstorm replied. "She's over there, sharing prey with Dapplestar."
This is how I imagine Goosefeather as a kit, before StarClan...decided he would be the medicine cat to utter all the crazy-sounding prophecies. Before he became almost the Cassandra of the clans. It will happen. You can count on it.
And out in the wild, a twelve-year-old cat would be a rare thing indeed. Most feral cats have a lifespan of only half that. Or so according to Wikipedia.