The warm smell of milk clouded everything else. The kit was faintly aware of other warm, breathing bodies around him.

"Oh, they're so cute!" he heard a soft voice.

"I wonder when they'll open their eyes," mewed another voice, which sounded more masculine than the other one.

"We should name them!" the soft voice said.

"How about... that one's Talon, that one's Fang, and-"

"Those aren't good names! They're awful and fierce!" the soft voice scolded the masculine voice.

"Then what would you suggest?"

"That one could be Aster, that one Snow, that one Ash-"

"Wait. What kind of name is Ash?" the masculine voice asked.

"It's because his fur is grey! A-" the voice stopped abruptly and gasped. "Tiger! Look! That one's opened her eyes!"

The other voice, known as Tiger, mewed excitedly, "Her eyes are the color of ferns..."

"We could call her Fern!"

"Yes... Aster, Ash, Snow, and Fern," Tiger mewed decidedly. "Mittens, I love you..."

_ . - . _

A loud noise caused Ash to stir. He grumbled, "Who dared to wake me up?"

He heard a soft purr in his ear, "Me."

The sound of Silver's voice startled him to full awareness and he opened his eyes. "Ah!" she was so close to his face. She purred, amused.

"We have a lot of work to do. Redstrike told me to wake you up."

He stretched and yawned, "But it's so early!"

"No it's not," she purred. "It's past sunhigh."

"What's sunhigh?" he asked. That wasn't in his vocabulary.

"It's when the sun is at its highest point in the sky," she explained. "Skunkfur told us that. You would've heard it, too, if you weren't such a sleepyhead!" she purred playfully.

"Hey!" he chased her out of the makeshift den.

"Silver! Ash!" Skunkfur's voice caused the kits to stop simultaneously and look around for the voice's owner.

"We're in the big clearing!" yowled Sun. The two kits scampered through the brush, and found all the other cats gathered together around Skunkfur.

"What's going on?" asked Ash curiously.

"We're having our kit ceremony!" mewed Fern excitedly.

Ash and Silver stood to the rest of the cats. They were in sort of a semicircle, and Skunkfur was on a medium sized rock, so he could be about a fox length above the others.

"Fern, Sun, Ash, and Silver, come forward," Skunkfur mewed formally.

The kits stepped forward, so they were a couple of mouse lengths in front of Maroon and Redstrike. They were all jumping with excitement. Ash briefly wondered why he didn't tell Maroon to, but the thought was drowned in exhilaration.

"Are you four kits positive that you want to join PondClan?" he asked.

"Yes," they chanted.

"Then, do you promise to stay in PondClan, follow the warrior code, and stay loyal to PondClan for the rest of you lives?"

"We do."

"Then, by the power of StarClan, Sun, you will now be known as Sunkit. Fern, you will be known as Fernkit. Silver, you will now be Silverkit. And Ash... you will now be known as Aspenkit."

"Sunkit! Fernkit! Silverkit! Aspenkit!" chanted Skunkfur, Maroon, and Redstrike. Skunkfur caught Aspenkit's eye and winked. He remembered that he didn't like the name Ash!

"Maroon, step forward," Skunk mewed when the chatter between the kits had died down. Maroon hesitantly stepped forward.

"Maroon, because of the dreams you have, and your knowledge of herbs, I'll ask you this: do you want to be PondClan's new medicine cat?"

Maroon looked at him, astonished. Apparently she hadn't expected that.

"Y-yes..." she mewed uncertainly. "Yes." The second time, she was more confident in the decision.

"Okay, then by the power of StarClan, you are the new medicine cat, Maroonpaw!" he declared.

"Maroonpaw! Maroonpaw! Maroonpaw!" everyone chanted.

"That will be the end of the clan meeting," mewed Skunkfur as he jumped off the rock. "Okay, we need to decide how this is going to be..." he murmured indecisively.

"This is going to be our camp!" Skunkfur declared. Everyone cheered.

"First, let's explore it. We need to find a place for the leader's den, the nursery, the apprentices' den, the warriors' den, the medicine cat's den, the elders' den, the dirtplace, the place to train apprentices and the burial place."

Everyone split up. Going to different parts of the clearing. Aspenkit glanced around where he was, instead of immediately moving, like the other cats.

Past the patch of thorns, Aspenkit could see some weird looking trees, with brown orbs at the top. Beyond that, he could see a massive body of water that took his breath away.

Aspenstar also saw a den, which was made from the inside of a huge rock. He scampered toward it and paused, smelling it. The living thing that had made the den had been gone so long, he couldn't even faintly smell whatever made it.

He went inside the den, and found loads of herbs. The different smells clouded his sense, so he backed out of the den. He was surprised that he hadn't smelled the herbs from the outside of the den.

Next to the rock den was a half-built den, made from brambles. It didn't have a distinct smell either.

He turned around, and saw another den across the clearing, at the edge of it. He ran toward it, and smelled it. It too didn't smell like anything in particular. It wasn't in the best shape. It was caved in, and a lot smaller than the other two. It was made of a couple of fern bushes, and a small tree from the thick brush had fallen on top of it.

"Hey Ash-Aspenkit! Look at this!" he turned toward Fern's excited voice and saw a small creek, connected to the pond! He hadn't noticed it the first time!

He scampered toward his litter-mate and looked at the running water, which ended in a small pool that only was deep enough to put your paws in.

He then looked toward the weirdly shaped rock, and saw a little crevice in the rock. Curious, he went over to the rock, and went up it, finding it easy to do so.

There was a small place between him and the crevice, so, he decided to jump.

He leaped from where he was on the rock into the crevice, and landed on his belly. "Oomph!" he struggled to get up, and glanced at his surroundings.

He was in a small cave, which, surprisingly wasn't damp, as would be expected, being so close to a waterfall.

It was a cozy little cave, and the walls and floor were smooth. It smelled like water.

Aspenkit turned around, and stuck his head out of the crevice in the rock. He had been able to jump into the crevice, but now it seemed like the jump became to far for his short kit legs.

"I'm stuck!" Aspenkit yowled.

"What?" he heard the Skunkfur say. He appeared from behind the rock, and looked up at him. His eyes shown with concern.

"How did you get up there?" he asked loudly, so he could be heard over the rumbling of the waterfall.

"I jumped!" Aspenkit yowled.

"Can't you jump back?"

"No!"

Skunkfur leaped into the water, and yowled, "Jump into the pond!"

"But I can't swim!"

"I'll grab hold of you and swim you back to land!"

Aspenkit glanced uncertainly at the water, and gulped. He prepared himself for the jump, and threw himself forward.

He landed in the pond with a splash, and Skunkfur grabbed him by the scruff, pulling him to shore. At the edge of the pond, Redstrike, Sunkit, Silverkit, Fernkit were looking at them with concern showing in their eyes. Maroonpaw, however, had anger in her eyes.

Skunkfur dragged Aspenkit on the shore, and put him on the ground. He took a big gasp of breath and coughed.

Silverkit rushed up to him and mewed, "Are you okay, Aspenkit? Are you hurt?" her eyes shown with concern.

Aspenkit sat up, and grumbled, "Yeah, I'm fine." He shook himself, splattering everyone with water. "Oops..."

Maroonpaw appeared from behind Silverkit. "Why did you do that? That was really risky! You could've gotten hurt really badly! What if there was a snake in that cave, or what if you didn't make the jump from the rock? You need to think before you do such dangerous things! Y-" she was interrupted by Skunkfur.

"That was pretty risky, Aspenkit. You probably shouldn't have done that, but, at least you didn't get hurt! What was it like in there?" he asked curiously.

"It was a small cave with nothing in it."

"I think we've found the leader's den!" he mewed.

Maroonpaw looked surprised and bewildered at Skunkfur's reaction to Aspenkit's careless action.

"Y-you're not even going t-to punish him?" she asked confusedly.

"Why? He learned his lesson."

"Uh..." she looked defeated.

"Okay, everybody! What did you find?" Skunkfur announced.

"I found a good place for the dirtplace," mewed Redstrike. She flicked her ears toward the pool at the end, "There's a small place behind a bush that we could use."

"Good!"

"I think we should use the smaller clearing we have been staying in for the place to train the apprentices!" Silverkit exclaimed."

"Hey, that's a good idea!" Sun mewed. Silver's eyes shone.

Aspenkit spoke up. "I found some dens!"

"Really?" Fern asked.

"Yeah! One had a bunch of stinky herbs in it." Maroonpaw perked up at that statement. "Follow me!" he padded toward the den with herbs.

Maroonpaw ran in front of Aspenkit, and went into the herb-filled den. "This is perfect!" she exclaimed from inside.

"This is actually going to work out!" Skunkfur said.

Sorry if that was a really bad ending, but it was getting too boring to write! Shout-outs go to:

lavi0123 for: reviewing