A/N: I want to thank each and every one of you who send reviews, they brighten my day and make me want to continue this story all the more. I also want to let you all know that I reply to most all of the reviews through the PM feature. Thank you very much, also, don't forget that if you have major questions, the wikia link in the Alliances section of the story can answer most all of the questions you may have, and those that cannot yet be answered will be answered in the future in the story itself or, if it cannot be answered in the story, but is able to be answered at a point in the future, it will be. Thank you!

Oh yes, before anyone asks, everything about this dog is true. She's completely and totally taken from my dog, name, backstory, everything.

CH. 5: An Unexpected Friend

The dog's eyebrow raised, "I said, where's your mom? Surely she didn't leave you out here by yourself?"

Nightkit was sure if her eyes got any bigger that they'd pop right out of the sockets. What was this? Dogs weren't supposed to understand cats… let alone speak cat… or even be nice to cats.

Her face hardened, "No. I won't tell you. You'll kill her just like you killed those foxes."

The dog's face became confused, and she sat down, "Kill? Oh no! I couldn't bear to kill them. They're just unconscious. So that I could help you without them hurting you."

Nightkit's eyebrow raised, hostile, "Yeah right. I heard the screams, I heard the bones snap, and your mouth is full of blood!"

The dog looked at her, and grinned. Nightkit shrunk back into her pelt, attempting to hide Sagekit and herself into the needles covering the forest floor, "Oh, small kitten, That's my blood, not the foxes'. Oh no, I couldn't kill anything!" The dog's face became thoughtful, "Except flies. And cockroaches… really any sort of bug."

Nightkit tilted her head a bit, attempting to figure this out, "But I heard it."

The dog shook its head with a happy bark, "Oh no, kitten!" It laughed, "The mom broke a branch when she fell on it, and the pups are not even bleeding, though they'll have a hard time thinking clearly from head-pains when they wake!"

Nightkit didn't get it. It was still. That meant death, she was sure. Her tail twitched, and she got ready to dart for it. She could find the patrol, and she'd be able to save Sagekit then, right?

At the thought of Sagekit she faltered, she was really still too. But she couldn't be dead… could she?

"She's still bleeding. She's fine." The dog said, wagging her tail.

Nightkit glared at the dog, "Leave. We don't need you. We're ShadowClan! We can take care of our own by ourselves!"

The dog looked at her, her head tilted as though she didn't believe her, "She's lost a paw. She can't survive that without a doctor."

Nightkit flicked her ears, "A doctor? What's that?" She narrowed her eyes, teeth bared.

The dog looked at her, "A person that can mend stuff. She can make it so others aren't sick."

Nightkit's eyebrows raised, "How's that any different than a medicine cat then?" She retorted, "She'll be better off being fixed by her own kind!"

The dog sighed, "You don't have thumbs, cat. My Mommy, she has thumbs. She can make it so that your sister won't die. She'll stitch her up so that she won't bleed out, so that she won't get infection." The dog made it sound like this was obvious.

Nightkit faltered. If it would make it so her friend could survive. She flicked her ears back, "But she can't be a kittypet! And she can't get fixed!" She flicked her tail, "And she's not my sister." She mumbled under her breath.

The dog's head tilted again and then she sat down, "Kit-"

"My name is Nightkit, not Kit." Nightkit growled.

The dog nodded, "Well, Nightkit, I like you, and I like cats in general. I don't want her to die. If I promise to bring her, or take you with me, or whatever, and get her mended, will you let me? She's going to die soon if you don't. She's not got that much blood left in her."

Nightkit's brow creased in worry, "Sagekit's my best friend…" She murmured, breaking as she looked at her. She turned to the dog.

"How do I know I can trust you? How do you even speak our language?"

The dog laughed, "I was raised by cats." She stated. Nightkit looked confused, so she continued, "I was born to a miniature chocolate Labrador, she was fully grown and only forty-five pounds, about half my size. Well anyway, she gave birth to me and my seventeen siblings-"

"SEVENTEEN?" Nightkit looked at her in disbelief.

She nodded, "Yeah, it was a big litter. One of my brothers died, even, but not because of starvation. He had a musculature disease and didn't make it. Anyway. I was the runt, so I pretty much got ignored by my mother as she tried to feed the stronger pups. I was bottle-fed by the human. But having a mother that ignored me, and so Sassy and Tut, the two cats of the house, they took care of me. I didn't know any better. My siblings beat me up, my birth mother ignored me, so there was little more for me to know than to think Sassy was my actual mother. She was kind, and she taught me how to play with yarn and hunt the mouse-toy and everything!" She grinned, "So I learned cat-speak. I didn't learn I was a dog until my mommy came and adopted me. Then I met my big sister Flopsie, she's part chocolate lab and part yorkie, you know, well, she taught me I was a dog, and sometimes she still has to remind me. But I always remember Sassy, and I never lost my speech." She grinned.

Nightkit's mouth gaped open, "Oooh. Well, okay then. Um… question?"

"Yes?"

"Whats a chocolate Labrador, and a yorkie?"

The dog laughed, "Those are dog breeds, silly! The type of dogs we are. My sister is a Chocolate Labrador mixed with a Yorkshire Terrier, and I'm a Chocolate Labrador mixed with a German Shepherd. She takes after her mom, the lab, but I take after my daddy, who was the Shepherd, except my ears. They're floppy because of my mom."

Nightkit was still confused, but she nodded, "And um… why are you here and not there with them?"

She laughed again, "We come to the lake every summer-"

"Whats summer?"

"This season, when its hot and everything's green."

"Oh… okay. Greenleaf… and only one more question?"

"What?"

"Um… what's your name?"

The dog looked shocked, and then grinned, "Oh, sorry for not introducing myself, my name is Lilly." She grinned larger, and then the smile wiped off of her face, "Can I take her or not? She's getting pretty pale…"

Nightkit jerked to her feet and ran back over to Sagekit, "If you can fix her… yeah. Please! But… I can't hold my family off for long… Can she come back by nightfall?"

Lilly nodded, "I'll do my best." She padded over to Sagekit and looked forlornly at the dismembered paw, "However, she's going to have lost that. I'm sorry."

Nightkit sighed and nodded, "I know. I'll meet you… ummm…"

Lilly frowned too, "I'll be where the scent appears, there's a building there. Then you can lead me back to your camp, ok? And I can set her down so you can bring her in?"

Nightkit thought about it and then sighed, "Ok. I guess that'll have to do. But you better take care of her!"

"I will, Nightkit. I promise. She'll come back mended, but she'll need to rest." Nightkit watched as Lilly padded over to Sagekit and looked at her paw, "My saliva should staunch that and keep it from souring until I'm home." She muttered, then gently picked up the unconscious kit and bounded away.

Nightkit sighed and worriedly looked back toward the camp. How was she going to explain this? She'd have to tell Shadowblaze, and she wasn't looking forward to that at all.