Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors. Erin Hunter does.
Stormkit POV:
Stormkit squeaked uncomfortably, shifting and wriggling in the darkness. She could feel something large, something really heavy on top of her, crushing her ribs and making it hard to breathe. Loud sounds of snoring came from all around her, and she could sense her mother beside her.
Stormkit snorted in annoyance as she felt yet another heavy object pile itself above her. Groaning, she squirmed her way out from under the massive, furry things and curled up in a small ball nearby. Huffing sleepily, she succumbed to the darkness.
"Featherpool! You're wanted by Amberstar!" an unfamiliar deep voice woke Stormkit from her slumber. She mewled pitifully and covered her small head with her paws, wanting to go back to sleep.
"Okay, I'm coming." Stormkit felt Featherpool get up. A warm breeze swirled into the den, ruffling Stormkit's fur. She shivered, missing the constant warmth of her mother, and buried herself deeper into her nest.
"Hey, you is there something wrong with you? How come she's not up yet?" a high, squeaky voice exclaimed, right next to her left ear. Then, something sharp and prickly poked her, causing Stormkit to squeal in pain.
"Skykit, leave poor Stormkit alone! Mother said to watch her, not to bother her!" another voice said which sounded like the first, but it was more feminine.
"Alright fine, Nightkit. Be that way, but I think she deserves it. She's so lazy, that she's been sleeping the whole time, while we work our tails off for the clan!"
Nightkit cleared her throat and shot back sarcastically, "Oh, and what exactly did we do for the clan huh? All we did the past two days is explore the camp and make a mess of everything!"
They continued bickering, but Stormkit wished they would go away. Nightkit was on her right, and Skykit was on her left. Their stream of chatter came from both sides, making it nearly impossible for Stormkit to fall back asleep. There's no point in sleeping. Stormkit thought angrily. I might as well get up. "Can you guys be quiet?" Stormkit mumbled while still in a ball, her voice hoarse from sleep. The talking stopped immediately, and they both fell silent. Stormkit could just feel them staring in disbelief. Suddenly, the talking started again, but this time in whispers so low that Stormkit had to stretch her ears to hear them.
"Did you just hear that?"
"Y-y-yes."
"Who was that? Do you think it was her?"
Suddenly fed up, Stormkit leapt to her paws. "I have a name, Skykit!" she snapped, opening her eyes. She then yelped in shock. The nursery was so huge! The brambles loomed above her, and the nursery entrance was taller than her. A lot taller.
Stormkit was so busy observing her surroundings, she failed to notice her siblings gaping at her until she trained her attention back on the other two kits. "What?" she frowned, thinking that there was something wrong with her.
"Y-y-you're awake! And you've opened your eyes!" Nightkit gasped, and Skykit finally snapped his jaws shut.
"Ok…Am I not supposed to be awake?" Stormkit mewled, confused. Nightkit just shook her head and started for the nursery entrance. "Where are you going?"
"We need to go tell mother! Are you coming, or not?" Skykit snapped, back to his old brusque self.
"Of course!" Stormkit squeaked. She darted out of the den on slightly wobbly legs and nearly crashed into Nightkit's hindquarters. Oof!
"Watch it, you almost bowled me over!" Nightkit yelped, forgetting that Stormkit only came up to her chin. "I was waiting for you guys to catch up!"
"Sorry", Stormkit muttered. Nightkit just gave her a friendly flick with her tail and raced toward a huge rock at the other end of the clearing.
"Race you!"
Stormkit heard Skykit push off the dirt, his short legs pumping. Nightkit had a headstart, but that Stormkit didn't care. She used her hind legs to propel herself off of the grass that covered the clearing. Bounding forward as fast as her legs would allow, Stormkit pushed herself to her limit. Wind ruffled her fur, messing up her fluffy, soft kit fur, and her long, plumy tail streamed behind her. She panted at the exertion, not used to this kind of exercise. However, before she knew it, she was at the large rock. It looked even larger up close. Where are Nightkit and Skykit? Stormkit frowned.
Just as she was about to start looking for her brother and sister, a panting Nightkit appeared. "Wow, you're fast, Windy!"
"Windy? What's Windy? And where is Skykit?" Stormkit had never been so confused in her life. Then again, my life that I remember has only lasted for a morning.
"Windy, as in Windclan." Stormkit must have looked even more confused because Nightkit sighed in frustration. "There are five clans: Thunderclan, Windclan, Shadowclan,Skyclan, and Riverclan. We're Thunderclan."
Stormkit opened her mouth to question her, but Nightkit cut her off, "The reason I called you Windy was because you ran like a Windclanner."
"How does a Windclanner run?" Stormkit was starting to think Nightkit was a little crazy.
"A Windclan cat…runs…really…fast!" It seemed like Skykit had finally reached their end of the clearing.
"Running has never been his thing", Nightkit purred with a huff of amusement.
"He'll need to work on that." A deep, familiar mew interrupted Skykit's retort. The three kits spun around, eyes wide with surprise. A gigantic, muscular white tom stared at them. His blue and green eyes sparkled, as if he was silently laughing at them. Stormkit suddenly felt overwhelmed and blurted out, "Who are you?"
"He's your father." The three kits jumped once again. A light gray, petite she-cat sat, gazing at them with her deep blue eyes.
"Featherpool, we were looking for you!" Skykit burst out, tail lashing in embarassement.
"And who is this?" A supposedly "gentle" nudge from the tom sent Stormkit tumbling forward into her siblings. Stormkit turned around to answer him, but before she could utter a single word, Featherpool let out a teasing laugh.
"Don't tell me, Duskmoon, you've already forgot your youngest daughter!" she exclaimed. Duskmoon twitched an ear, trying to appear unflustered and yet failing to do so. "She's Stormkit, you big oaf!" Featherpool gave Duskmoon a playful shove. Stormkit, Nightkit, and Skykit watched the scene play out like baby owlets. Their parents kept up the naughty banter until they finally remembered the kits were still there.
"Well, it's time to go back to the nursery, kits!" Featherpool said awkwardly and licked each of us on the head.
"I don't want to!" Nightkit complained.
"And we wanted to show Stormkit around camp!" Skykit joined in. "Oh, also, we wanted to show you Stormkit's eyes!" So now they're using me as an excuse. Stormkit stayed silent and rolled her eyes.
"Wow." Duskmoon breathed out in awe. "I've never seen that before."
"You've never seen what before?" Stormkit was yet again confused. Was the world always so confusing?
"I know right, I've never seen anything like it!" Featherpool agreed. "But I like it. It looks amazing with her pelt."
Stormkit lashed her tail in irritation. If no one would answer her, she would find out by herself. "Where can I find a pool of water?" she whispered to Skykit.
"In the medicine den across the-" Stormkit didn't let him finish. She was already relishing the feeling of moist dirt spraying up behind her and the wind running through her fur. Flattening her ears, she pounded her paws into the dirt and panted, tail whipping around and balancing her. Sadly, the short, maddened dash across the camp clearing ended much to quickly as she skidded to a stop in front of a quite average looking hole.
The sweet scent of herbs drifted through the gap. However, there was something else. The herb smell was growing stronger, and that was weird because Stormkit wasn't moving forward at all. She narrowed her eyes, peering into the hole when-
"Gotcha!" Stormkit jumped. A thin, long-legged black she-cat sprang out of the hole; the strong scent coming from her fur. There was a fiery spark in her eyes that gave her a lively look, and when she straightened up, Stormkit barely made it up to ¾ of her leg. "I'm Shadowwing, the Thunderclan medicine cat! You must be Stormkit."
"How do you know my name?" Stormkit shifted from paw to paw, liking this friendly she-cat.
"Oh silly, I was at your kitting!" Shadowwing laughed, as if she thought Stormkit's questions were cute.
"Oh", Stormkit nodded, trying to appear understanding. "Do you mind if I take a look at your den?" Shadowwing agreed, adding a warning to not eat or touch anything inside. Stormkit took a deep breath and was about to enter when Nightkit and Skykit came bounding up.
"Windy! Wait up! We want to come to!" Skykit panted.
"Not you too!" Stormkit grumbled, thinking that Nightkit had managed to persuade Skykit to call her that ridiculous nickname.
"Let's go!" Nightkit said impatiently, after throwing a mischievous wink at Stormkit. Stormkit looked back for Shadowwing, wanting to ask permission for her siblings, but the black she-cat was nowhere to be found. Shaking her head, she padded into the den.
After taking a few steps into the medicine cat den, she started to hear a faint dripping sound over Nightkit and Skykit's loud pawsteps. To Stormkit's surprise, her paws made hardly any sound at all on the pebbly cave floor. She kept walking, until Stormkit roughly bumped into Nightkit's rump. "Whoa! Where were you, Stormkit? We thought you got lost or something!" Stormkit rolled her eyes. There was only one path in this cave, so how did they expect her to get lost?
"Why'd you stop anyways?" Stormkit looked around. They were probably at the very back of the den, but even then, a small stream of sunlight came from a hole in the roof.
"We're at the puddle, duh. Didn't you want to see your eyes?"
"Oh, right." Stormkit could've sworn she saw Nightkit roll her eyes. Stormkit moved forward so she could peer into the water. I don't see what the fuss is about. They look sky blue to me. Stormkit started to turn around when something caught her eye. She almost thought her eyes had changed colors when she moved her head.
"You see what we mean?" Skykit squeaked. Stormkit nodded slowly, still quite shocked.
"I think your eyes change color because of the different ways the sun reflect on them." Nightkit speculated.
"I guess that would make-", Stormkit was cut off when the three kits heard Featherpool call out for them.
"We're coming out!" Nightkit hollered the loudest she could, which wasn't very loud at all.
They raced out of the cave with Stormkit out front as usual, and dashed toward the nursery. Stormkit hesitated in front of the nursery entrance, and that was all it took for Nightkit and Skykit to crash into her and send all three of them crashing into the den. They landed in a giant heap, with Stormkit on the bottom. Oof. She looked up at the sound of laughter and saw that Featherpool was picking them up and putting them on their feet.
"Did you have fun?" Featherpool chuckled, eyes glinting in the dim light of the nursery.
"I guess." Stormkit mumbled. She was starting to notice the sharp pangs of hunger in her belly and the dull ache in her legs. Featherpool led the trio to their nest and lay down. Nightkit and Skykit dove into the moss without hesitation, but Stormkit wasn't sure she wanted to sleep or nurse yet.
"Stormkit?" Featherpool mewed, beckoning her over with her tail.
"I don't want to go to sleep yet! I want to explore more!" Stormkit squeaked in protest, fighting back a huge yawn.
"It doesn't matter. You need to keep up your strength so you can explore tomorrow." Featherpool said softly. Stormkit sighed in defeat and slowly climbed into the nest, collapsing in the mossy softness.
"Can I explore tomorrow?" Stormkit could hardly hear herself speak, the words were to slurred with tiredness.
As she drifted off to sleep, she distantly heard Featherpool say, "Of course. Anytime you want, Stormkit. Now have some nice dreams."
AN: Sorry, I'm horrible at endings, lawl. So, what do you think? This was just kinda a filler chapter, as I have yet to actually plan out the main plot. xD Yeah, I know, I am the worst planner in the world. :P Well, you know the drill, Read and Review please?