Warriors Old Memories
Chapter 10
Badgers… Brightstar's words still rang in Lightwhisker's mind. It just doesn't make sense, where would Badgers come from?
"Lightwhisker!" a voice shouted from the clearing.
"Lightwhisker!" the voice repeated.
Lightwhiskers paws felt stiff and sore from the long walk she had taken last night to clear her head from the talk with Brightstar. Eventually she made it out into the clearing and when she did she saw one of the elders with a kit on their head. She soon realised that Splashkit had pounced on the poor elder.
"Splashkit!" Lightwhisker growled, "What do you think you're doing?"
"I was just pre-"
"Wait don't blame her it was my idea!" Chestkit confessed. "We snuck out of the nursery pretending we were a Roarclan patrol and ambushed the elders den – the Duskclan camp – but I made Splashkit attack first…" Chestkit lowered his head in shame
"So where's Swiftkit?" Lightwhisker fretted.
"In the elders den probably," Splashkit squeaked a slight tone of confidence in her voice.
"There is no reason to be proud of this!" Lightwhisker scolded.
"Get off of my tail!" a voice shouted from the elders den.
"Oh no…" The elder whispered, "That's probably –"Before she could finish a little kit ran out followed by an elder with his tail completely puffed out to three times its size. Compared to him Swiftkit was tiny.
"Lightwhisker, it's time for you to meet Thrushtail," The elder chuckled.
"Swiftkit!" Lightwhisker hissed to the little kit that was crouched so far down to the ground that it almost looked like he was in the ground.
"He tried to squash me!" Swiftkit whined to his mother.
"I did nothing of the sort; you were the one that landed on my tail while I was sleeping!" Thrushtail growled.
"Well then I guess your big butt got in the way then." Swiftkit stood up and faced the elder with his neck fur raised.
"Swiftkit," Lightwhisker repeated "Don't be so rude; this cat has served this clan for so long."
"Yeah his best weapon is his big butt because he can sit on all the enemies." Swiftkit faced his mother.
"You better watch your tone kit…" Thrushtail was fully puffed out now so he looked bigger than Lightwhisker.
"Try me you big –" Swiftkit was cut off by Lightwhiskers paw flying in front of his mouth.
"I'm so sorry about him…" Lightwhisker soothed to Thrushtail, Thrushtail's fur lay flat again and he faced Lightwhisker.
"Keep your kits under control!" Thrushtail growled while stomping back into the elders den. "Sorry about him but he is one of the grumpiest elders," the she-cat elder meowed.
"No I'm sorry about my kits," Lightwhisker replied; a little embarrassed about what her kits had done. She turned to all three of them and told them to go back to the nursery. She knew they wouldn't stay there for long but it would keep them out of trouble.
"So how are you liking it here?" The elder meowed, bringing Lightwhisker back to the present.
"Pardon?" Lightwhisker lay down next to the elder.
"In Roarclan?" The elder prompted.
"Oh it's lovely, it definitely hasn't changed that much…" Lightwhisker replied.
"I'm surprised you don't recognise me," The elder replied.
"I'm sorry, should I?" Lightwhisker felt bad that she didn't know this cat but she really had no idea, unless…
"It's me Honeyclaw," Honeyclaw replied. "I used to look after you when your mother went out."
"That's right!" Lightwhisker suddenly realised, "well how have you been?"
"Not that great to be honest…" Honeyclaw whined. "After you and Moonblaze left, a big battle struck between Duskclan and Roarclan. Many cats were injured or killed including your parents…" Honeyclaw whined.
"What did Dusckclan have against us?" Lightwhisker tried to sound intrigued more than heartbroken, but the pain that she felt right now was nothing she could ignore.
"They thought we were weak because we let two of our warriors become kittypets." Honeyclaw's claws dug into the ground as she tried to control her pain and grief.
"I'm so sorry, I never knew us two caused that much chaos," Lightwhisker felt horrible for leaving the clan especially since it had led to the death of her parents. "So do you know who killed them?" Lightwhisker didn't look directly at Honeyclaw but she knew she had heard.
"Well the thing is your mum wasn't killed directly but your dad died protecting her, your mum was later on found dead due to blood loss." Honeyclaw choked the words as if they were some old prey stuck in her throat.
"I wish I… we could have been there to help but the life of a clan cat just didn't seem right and Moonblaze only came because I was his mate and he couldn't bear to leave me." Lightwhisker didn't want to listen any longer to find out who else had gone so she walked away without saying anything to Honeyclaw.
"Wait."
She heard Honeyclaw but she didn't dare reply. As she padded slowly back to the nursery she realised how bad it really was here. Most cats were severely injured or had deep scars. When Lightwhisker arrived back in the nursery she was surprised to see her bed had feathers and new moss in it and her three kits were sitting next to it with some catmint in their jaws.
"What's this?" Lightwhisker asked her kits.
"We fought we vwould vedo your vest," Chestkit replied with a mouthful of catmint.
Splashkit had spat out her catmint and spoke clearly, hoping her mother wouldn't get angry, "We thought we would redo your nest because 'we' had been so rude earlier."
"Thank you very much but that catmint is meant for sick or injured cats only." Lightwhisker soothed, sitting down in her extremely comfortable nest, "so go take it to Lilypaw… wait how did you?-"
"Bye got to go give this to Lilypaw!" All three kits synchronized as they dashed out of the nursery. Lightwhisker gave a little mroww before shutting her eyes and curling up in her new nest. A sharp prod in Lightwhiskers side woke her but when she looked up she saw two of her kits looking directly at her with big, worried, round eyes.
"What's wrong?" Lightwhisker asked sleepily.
"It's Splashkit, she's gone…" The two kits whispered.
Lightwhisker's eyes shot open fully as she whipped her head from side to side desperately looking for her kit.
"Splashkit…" she whispered, "Where are you?"