Forever.Now: Heehee.
Rainfeather: No, she did not! Haha. But she doesn't want to see any cat die like that!
Okay, guys! Last chapter!
Radiant
One moon old, Stormkit and Starlingkit tussled, spitting and hissing like full-grown warriors, on the floor of the nursery. Daisy smiled at them, purring maternally. Starlingkit looked just like her, except with russet-brown eyes, deeper and more colorful than Spiderleg's. Stormkit was jet black like his father with his mother's bright green eyes.
To my intense pleasure, the brother and sister had started calling me "Aunt". Starlingkit did so now, squeaking hastily, "Aunt! Aunt Whitewing, help!"
I smiled and purred. "True warriors must think for themselves, young one."
The little cream-colored she-kit made a derisive noise and batted at her brother's ears.
"Think on your paws, Starlingkit!" I meowed. "Go for his belly!"
Immediately she shifted her assault from his ears to his tender underbelly with her hind paws. In the exact moment that she drove her paw into his stomach, I felt a hard pain in my own belly, which I ignored until it came again with twice as much force, making my knees buckle.
"Daisy!" I gasped, but the queen already knew what was happening. She grabbed her kits up in her jaws and leaped from the nursery. She was probably going to leave them with Spiderleg and get Leafpool in the process.
My stomach contracted again, and this time I let loose with a soft cry of pain. I had watched Daisy giving birth, but to me it hadn't seemed very painful. But then, she was used to kitting.
And again! I grunted, sliding down to the floor.
"Whitewing, I'm here." Leafpool burst onto the scene, skidding to a stop and dropping several leaves at my mouth. "Eat that quickly. It's borage--it'll help with the kitting, and with your flow of milk."
Obediently I devoured the bitter-tasting leaves, trying to focus on something other than the hard pains that hit my stomach every couple of minutes.
Leafpool felt my belly with a gentle probing paw. "They're definitely ready to come."
"I know that!" I gasped.
I heard her soft amused purr. "Just push with all your might when I tell you to, all right, Whitewing?"
Daisy came in and stood at my head, along with Brightheart. "It'll be fine, love," Brightheart purred, and Daisy stroked my forehead gently.
The time began to blur. It felt like hours of painful pangs in my stomach before Leafpool finally meowed, "Whitewing..." Her words slurred, and I flicked my ear an attempt to hear her, wondering if she'd taken one too many poppyseeds. Then she said more clearly, "Whitewing! Push!" and I realized it was me, delirious with the pain, that had heard her voice strangely.
I gave a mighty push, obediently doing what she told me to do. I let out an awful cry that I felt more than heard, and felt a sudden, if brief, sense of relief. I didn't have time to ask Leafpool what had happened before she was crying out again: "Lick, you two! Push, Whitewing! There's another!"
Minutes. Pain. Contractions. Cries. Soothing murmurs that didn't soothe.
"Just one more, Whitewing."
The third. And the last? Really? Was it finally going to be over? In eagerness I pushed, and then finally the contractions and the pains came to an end. I lay gasping for breath on the soft floor of the nursery, hearing soft mewling cries and motherly purrs from Daisy, Brightheart, and Leafpool.
I blinked open my eyes, having not realized they were closed.
"Leafpool...my kits..."
"Three healthy beautiful kits!" she declared. She lifted them up and put them before me, and I let out a purr before I'd even looked at them, because I already knew they were beautiful.
There was a tom and two she-kits. The sole tom was the largest of the group and looked exactly like his father and aunt Ferncloud; he was pale gray with darker flecks on his hindquarters. The first she-kit, the smaller one, was pure white with a few pale gray splotches, and the other was...
I froze.
The other she-kit was a pale golden-brown tabby.
"Whitewing!"
I quickly recovered from my momentary paralysis as Ashfur dashed toward me, covering my face with licks. "Oh, I'm so glad you're all right, my love," he whispered in my ear. Then he gasped. "Are these beautiful kits really ours?"
I purred in response.
He leaned down to rasp his tongue over the pale tabby, to my surprise, but I said nothing. "Have you thought of names?" he asked.
I nodded shyly and finally found my voice. "I thought...I thought Rainkit for the one that looks like you. The only tom. And Frostkit for the one that looks kind of like me."
He nodded. "Definitely. Those are beautiful and fitting names."
"But I can't...I can't think of one for the last," I finished lamely.
"Goldenkit," he replied. "She, like the others, will be the golden sun in our lives."
I smiled and purred again. "She'll pale in comparison to how bright you are in mine," I whispered, and he licked my cheek.
Rainkit, Frostkit, and Goldenkit snuggled into my belly, and Ashfur curled around my spine lovingly. I looked up at my mother and the she-cat who had been like a mother to me these past three moons, Brightheart and Daisy. Leafpool smiled at me brightly, and cats began to crowd in to see the new additions to the Clans, Stormkit and Starlingkit at the head of the audience.
A million memories flashed through my mind, happy, sad, horrible--Birchfall's attacks and then his death, Ferncloud's murder, the first time Ashfur and I were together. But no matter how strong of an emotion they had made me feel, it paled in comparison to this moment.
I don't think even the sun itself could have shone more radiantly than me.
FIN
