Chapter 7: Life as Kittypets

Disclaimer: I still don't own warriors. I own only this plot. And the subplots. Actually other people besides me have thought of making Jayfeather and Willowshine 'like' each other. So I'm gonna have to claim that only some of the subplots are mine.

Interesting how different fanfiction writers deal with the Leafpool-having-kits thing, isn't it. Some choose to exile her, some make her an elder. I can't bear either of these things happening so I've decided she's training to be a warrior.

I'm sorry I killed Sasha. I liked Sasha. Really, I did. But the Erins liked Yellowfang. And they still killed her. Sigh. I wish she had lived longer.

Mothwing ran her paws through the soft basket in Shnuky's Twoleg nest. When Sasha had died, Shnuky had ushered her crying kits to her nest. The kits had received a warm welcome from the Twolegs who had bottle-fed them milk, given them warm blankets to sleep on and never seemed to leave them alone!

From what Mothwing could tell, the elderly female Twoleg who walked around with a stick for support was in charge of the others, though they pretended that the younger male Twoleg was in charge. As far as Mothwing was concerned, he was okay because he didn't bother the cats, though he seemed unhappy about the idea of even Shnuky being there. Mothwing had a feeling that he only allowed it because the elderly female who was really in charge was in favour of it. She looked after the cats' feeding, brushing and Mothwing's injury and Mothwing trusted her as much as she would allow herself to trust any Twoleg. The younger female who was the mate of the young male was kind, yet at the same time allowed the cats the space they needed. She was okay too. The half-grown female who laughed and giggled a lot acted just like the grown one about the cats and was therefore okay too.

What were not okay were the kits. There were five of them, some a little bigger than the others but all of them very young and all of them grabby and overenthusiastic about handling cats. Mothwing didn't know how Shnuky could put up with them. She had never understood why Twoleg kits took so long to grow up.

Mothwing had seen a couple of RiverClan cats captured by Twolegs to become kittypets. Neither of the two cats had come back. She also knew that Graystripe of ThunderClan had been captured and forced to be a kittypet and had returned just fine. She knew that her friend Leafpool was half-kittypet and that technically, she herself, was too. Her mother, Sasha, had been unashamed of her kittypet past though she had hidden it from cats who might discriminate.

It wasn't the kittypet situation that had Mothwing feeling ashamed. That was merely a result of circumstances beyond her control. No. Rather it was the fact that her own meddling in history had led to her mother's death. Before she and her brothers were grown, too. She had failed in her desire to save her family. She had hoped that she wouldn't have to simply trade one life for another and save both Hawk and Tadpole. But she had traded one life for another. She had killed Sasha. And this hurt Mothwing more than words can tell.

As Mothwing lay in Shnuky's cat basket, she thought about what to do next. She was the adult, even if her brothers didn't know it. She would have to figure out what they were going to do to survive. She might still be able to take them to RiverClan and have all three of them join it. She was pretty sure she could find her way back to their den in the woods. If she couldn't, then Tadpole, who had the best sense of direction among the three siblings, could. At least, Mothwing reflected, she'd saved him. From there, they could find their way across ShadowClan territory and across the river. Mothwing may have left the old forest seasons ago but she could still remember the way it had been laid out. It would be sad to know that it would just be destroyed but Mothwing could cope with that. Mothwing wondered how she'd convince her brothers to go that way without letting them find out how much she knew about the Clans.

Then again, maybe the best thing for Hawk and Tadpole would be to let them remain here in Shnuky's kittypet nest. They could stay with these Twolegs and somehow learn to live with the grabby hands and being picked up by their tails and their paws and dressed in doll clothes by the one little girly girl. They would grow up eventually. And Shnuky was kind, like a second mother. Maybe it would be better if the kits, who didn't know how to fight and hadn't had much training in how to hunt, to not have to trek all the way across a forest full of unknown predators.

But what about her duties as a medicine cat? Mothwing shivered at the thought of it. If she didn't join the Clan as a kit that would mean it would be left without a medicine cat after Mudfur died and before Willowshine grew to apprentice age. It would be different if she really was a kit and didn't know she had that destiny. But she did and there was no escaping it. She couldn't abandon her Clan. She couldn't. It would make her a horrible, evil cat.

Maybe she could leave her brothers here and go by herself. But wouldn't it be safer for her to travel with her littermates than just by herself? And they would not let her go alone. She knew that. They were a family and needed each other even more now that Sasha was gone.

Mothwing buried her face underneath a piece of pink blanket. She had never been reliable in stressful situations and now she felt utterly hopeless. What to do now?

Hawk, in the basket beside her, rolled over and his paw flopped over on top of her ear. Mothwing flicked him off, pulled her face out from under the fold of blanket and realized Tadpole was missing. Where did he go?

Disentangling herself gently from Hawk, she climbed out of the basket and padded through the room, careful not to disturb the two kits that were sleeping in little sleeping bags on the floor. For some reason, these two had beds but they were almost never used. One of them was the little girl who liked to put the cats in something that Shnuky called doll clothes. The other was the little boy who always pulled harder on the tails and ears than the others.

The other two kits slept in their own rooms. One was a tomboy girl who wasn't into doll clothes but was into hitching the cats up to little wooden objects and expecting them to pull them. She didn't seem to understand that she needed a dog for that. The other boy was the smallest and the noisiest of the kits. He was given to pushing little miniature cars around and making little screeching noises. He also liked to dash around the house with a blue pelt tied around his shoulders, waving it every which way. He wet his bed and always smelled of pee no matter how much time the older Twolegs spent trying to clean him.

Mothwing trekked her way down the hall and turned into the room where the food was always served. She smelled the lumpy stuff that the Twolegs ate themselves for breakfast. The four kits would occasionally throw it at each other. Mothwing had eaten a piece of it when it landed on the floor. It had been worse than the dry stuff the Twolegs fed the cats because it was lumpy and stuck in her throat. The half grown female was sitting on the wooden stand with her elbows on the wooden flat thing. She was eating her breakfast out of a bowl and staring at a lighted up screen. She was frowning and had bags under her eyes. Tadpole was sitting on her lap and Mothwing could practically hear sobs coming from him. The Twoleg pressed buttons connected to the screen with one hand and stroked Tadpole with the other.

Tadpole nuzzled at her hand as he cried. Mothwing wondered if she should go talk to her brother or if she should not let him know she'd seen him crying. But then she heard Tadpole call her name, "M-moth?"

Mothwing looked up at him. "Yes, Tadpole?" The Twoleg looked in her direction, then sighed and returned to staring hypnotically at the screen. Mothwing wondered at the craziness of Twolegs.

"We can't stay here," said Tadpole decisively. "There are too many Twoleg kits. As soon as we can look after ourselves, we need to get out of here."

"I think that, too," Mothwing said, relieved. "Do you think you can find your way back to the forest? Not right away, of course," she added quickly. She didn't want to give him too many ideas. "But soon. Real soon."

Tadpole nodded and returned to nuzzling the Twoleg.

"If you're sick of Twolegs, how come you're so friendly with that one?" Mothwing couldn't help asking.

Tadpole frowned. "I don't really know, Moth. I just think she's not very happy right now. She's overworked or she wouldn't be up so late."

Mothwing stared. "Staring into that weird bright thing is work?"

Tadpole shrugged. "Don't ask me how, but it is," he yawned. "I'm going to go back to sleep." He curled up in the Twoleg's lap.

Mothwing padded across the room and leapt up onto the smooth surface beneath the window. She was careful not to fall into the trench that filled up with water when the Twolegs turned the nozzles. She had fallen in on her first day and it hadn't been pleasant. She had nearly drowned before Shnuky pulled her out.

Once she was on the hard surface, Mothwing leapt onto a dirty white thing that was piled by the trench and stared out the clear thing that one could see outside with. It looked like a way to escape but every time Mothwing tried, she hurt her nose. Hawk had actually gotten a nosebleed trying to get out one. Mothwing didn't understand why Shnuky's cat flap had been boarded up when the kits had moved in. She also didn't understand why Shnuky could just sit at the door and expect to be let out but the kits were thwarted every time they tried to escape. Shouldn't all the cats have the same privileges? And who gave the Twolegs the right to be her jailers anyway? That was another problem. How could she escape when the Twolegs were determined to keep her here?

Mothwing stared at the moonlit street. The Thunderpath just made her sad. Sasha had been attacked and killed on a Thunderpath. The troubles had all started when they entered Twolegplace. Depressed she turned her gaze up to Silverpelt. It was a clear night and they shone in the sky, keenly visible to any cat. Maybe I've always been right and you aren't real, thought Mothwing, praying for the first time. But if you are real, then please help me get back to my Clan. Mothwing knew that she wasn't living a dream. If this were a dream she would have woken up by now. She wasn't exactly sure how long it had been. She had lost track of the days what with being stuck in this nest with all these Twoleg kits but she knew it had been too long to be a dream. And whenever she dreamed she was vaguely aware that she was dreaming. This was too real to be a dream.

Suddenly Mothwing was aware of another cat staring at her from a branch of the oak tree. He was a gray tabby with blue eyes. "Jayfeather!" gasped Mothwing.