Poison Ivy
Chapter 1
"Betcha can't catch me!" Ivykit squealed, batting her sister's head and jumping out of reach.
"Betcha I can!" Dovekit streaked after her, gray-and-white pelt a blur as she chased her sister around the camp. Within seconds, Ivykit was cornered between two rocks.
"Gotch- HEY!" Ivykit had jumped onto the slippery boulder, flailing wildly and accidentally scraping her sister's cheek. "Ow!"
"Sorry..." Ivykit mewed sheepishly. "My foot slipped." She scrabbled onto the next log, more carefully this time. Dovekit followed, using her pads rather than her claws to keep a firm hold on the rock.
"Surrender!" Dovekit yowled, reaching up with one paw to bat her sister's back leg.
"Never!" Ivykit hissed back, jumping onto the next rock. She teetered dangerously for a minute, but soon regained her balance. She then jumped two more logs, finally landing on a rather pointy one. There were no more above.
"Wow... it's so cool up here!" Ivykit whispered, looking over the empty camp with wide, lime-green eyes. The wind ruffled her dark tabby fur, giving her the appearance of a gigantic fuzzball, perched precariously on the edge of the rock. All thoughts of the game forgotton, Dovekit leapt upwards next to Ivykit, impatiently using her back legs to push herself up.
"Lemme see!" Dovekit squeaked, taking in the view with wide blue eyes. "Amazing... It's so prett-"
She was interrupted by a yowl from far below. "HEY! What are you doing up there? Get down, before someone gets hurt!" Dovekit yowled in surprise as the harsh voice of the medicine cat rang through her ears, and she leapt backwards.
The last thing she saw before she fell was her sister's horrified face, frozen with fear and shock.
Dovekit's eyes fluttered open. "...What happened?" She mewed weakly, struggling to get up. "I feel like my limbs are on fire..." She heard an astonished gasp, and craned her head to see a huge golden tabby staring down at her, a bewildered look in his amber eyes. She recognized him as Lionblaze, one of her kin. She looked around, but the only other cat she saw was Lionblaze's brother- and the medicine cat- Jayfeather.
"Where's Ivykit?"
"She's in the Nursery. We had to kick her out." Lionblaze snorted, ruffling his golden fur.
"K-kick her out?" Ivykit was bewildered and hurt by Lionblaze's contemptuous attitude when he mentioned her sister. After all, they had shared their lives together.
Jayfeather was looking at her intently, with those sightless blue eyes. He seemed excited- eager, even.
"What do you remember from when you fell?" He asked, picking up several leaves filled with chewed herbs.
"B-before I fell?"
"Yes, before you fell!" Jayfeather growled impatiently, pushing the foul-smelling poutices onto Dovekit's leg a bit harder than he meant to. She gave a tiny squeak- the herbs stung. "Did you feel anything?"
"Well... I remember being scared." She meowed, thoroughly confused. Surely it didn't matter how she felt before the fall. What about how she felt now?
"Dovekit, you fell over twenty-five feet into pointy rocks, and somehow managed to live, with only a small scratch. How did that happen?"
Dovekit was silent for a moment as she collected her thoughts.
"I remember feeling panicked. Like I was going to die. I squeezed my eyes shut as I saw that I was heading towards a huge, pointy rock. I thought I would fall on it, but no pain came."
"You were found three feet from where that rock was." Jayfeather meowed, looking at her intensely. "Somehow you managed to move. Lionblaze, who was sunning himself, saw the whole thing. Dovekit, just as you had given yourself up for lost, you moved."
"You mean, I was safely out of the way? Something happened that stopped me from hitting that rock?"
"...Yes. And we know just what that is."
Ivykit gave a squeal as her beloved sister was led out of the medicine cat den one sunrise later. "DOVEKIT! I've missed you so much!" Ivykit yowled, covering her sister with thousands of licks. Jayfeather had only permitted her to visit Dovekit for a few minutes, saying that Ivykit's beloved sister needed rest.
Ivykit was suspicious, however. She'd see Jayfeather talking to Dovekit through a hole in the den wall, and not about medicine. More about stars. Ivykit was thoroughly confused, but now she was just glad to have her sister back.
"Come on! Let's go have some fun!" Ivykit shot off, missing the apologetic glance and minor tail twitch that Dovekit sent towards Jayfeather as she plodded after her sister, more slowly and with a very dignified air.
"Look, Ivykit..." Dovekit meowed, looking mildly annoyed. Ivykit ignored her.
"I was so sure it was here! C'mon, help me find it." Ivykit meowed, shoving her nose down in between two cracks. "I could've sworn there was a hole here... it was just big enough for the two of us!"
Ivykit heard Dovekit sigh, and inwardly yowled with frustration. Ever since the falling incident, Dovekit had been dissapearing in the middle of the night to talk with Lionblaze and Jayfeather, and had somehow grown more scornful of her once-close sister. It had been more than three moons since then, and Ivykit was aware of her sister seperating herself even more. "I saw it!"
"I'm sure you did." Dovekit said patiently. Ivykit felt a little flare of anger, then whirled towards her sister. "Excuse me? I'll have you know that I did see it! And I'll thank you not to act like you're the boss of me! You're not Whitewing! Stop acting like I'm a careless newborn that needs to be helped all the time. I'm sick of it!" Dovekit's face was shocked and hurt, but Ivykit was too steamed to stop.
"You've been acting like some prissy goody-two-shoes ever since you came out of that den! When's the last time we had any fun? Whenever I go up to you to ask to play, you just brush me off! It's always the same. I wasn't born yesterday. Stop pushing me around!" Ivykit spat the words, with as much venom in them as possible. She began fuming, waiting for a reply that would explain her sister's behavior.
"Ivykit, I wish I could tell you. Truly, I do." Dovekit sounded choked, as if she were holding back tears. "Then why don't you?" Ivykit growled.
"...because I can't. Please, Ivykit, don't be mad."
Ivykit just shot her a disgusted look. "Yeah, right. Go ahead and play princess with Jayfeather and Lionblaze. It's obvious that you don't even care about me anymore. Have fun." With that, she shot into the forest, leaving a stricken and shaking Dovekit in her wake.