Hey all! ^^ Sorry this is a day late, I meant to finish it yesterday but got some mad writer's block and couldn't figure out what to write for the last 700-800 words. -hits head repeatedly against wall- Motivation and time I had, but in inspiration I was sadly lacking.
Spring break started yesterday for me, so this entire week I have off school! I'd guess I'll have an update ready by Friday, though if not I'll get it done by Sunday, as I'm busy all Saturday.
I went back and edited this chapter after I wrote it (unlike the previous 5 chapters) and couldn't believe the amount of mistakes I caught. Sorry you've been forced to read that ^^; I'll do my best to edit all future chapters before I post them.
Night: That's me on almost every subject. XD Thank you!
QLKwriter: You can nap on trains? Lucky! ^^; I've always had trouble sleeping in moving vehicles. Thank you!
Cosmicjade: Really? Okay good -wipes sweat- I'm glad. Sometimes I get annoyed when reading a fanfic and it focuses on just the magical and mystical parts, which tends to overpower the rest of the story, even if it's a good story. And the part about grass was a bit of a jab from me at cities... they should really have more grass!
Leopardstar: Thomas the Tank Engine? I didn't like him either when I was little, but that might have just been because my older brother always wanted to watch him. XD
Willow: My uncle has a bunch of model trains. Last I saw, he had them on the support beams of his house as well as the upstairs table. XD Thanks!
Shadow: Thank you! It's set in the city right next to the original Clan territories, if that counts as a particular city. The trains by my house shut off between midnight and about 4 AM, fortunately, so I don't have to wake up to them at 2. ^^
SoWW: Thank you! There's a train that runs behind my house about 2x every hour, but it's in the middle of private land as far as I know so I haven't gone to feel it swoosh past me yet. XD That does sound fun though!
The journey back to the alleyway was relatively uneventful. We made it back to the Enclave just as the last of the sunlight was fading to see an irritated Thalia waiting by Shaq's den, tail flipping back and forth in annoyance. Asteria nodded to her as she transferred us over to our caretaker and we set off in silence back home.
As we settled back in amongst the dingy cans and dusty stone, I bit my tongue, gazing up at Thalia, wondering if I should break the silence. Deciding I probably shouldn't, I clamped my mouth shut and forbid myself the right to speak. About three heartbeats later, my questions tumbled out of my mouth anyway, unable to be held back any longer.
"Who was that tom who dropped us off? Why have we been eating out of these cans all our lives when there are rabbits in the field across the bridge? Can we go back to the Enclave soon? Why have we never gone before? Why haven't you—?"
Thalia cast me a dangerous look and I realized I was still in trouble for being late. I shut up quickly, hunching into myself and lowering my gaze respectfully to the ground. Funny how I couldn't keep my own tongue in check, but one flash of Thalia's reproving stare tied it neatly into a knot.
I jumped as Thalia sighed loudly, her cheeks slowly flattening as she blew out a forceful breath. Huhhhh… "I figured this was coming," she muttered grudgingly. "Come on, let's get in the nest. You're getting a bedtime story tonight."
The feeling immediately left my legs and I stared in utter astonishment at my patchy-furred caretaker. "W…"
"What?" Rowankit was apparently as incredulous as me. I glanced sideways and he met my gaze, reflecting my baffled stare.
Thalia glanced over her shoulder at our dumbstruck expressions and snorted under her breath. "Hurry up, you look like a pair of pigeons." She circled down into the nest, kneading the dirty mess of rags to attempt to give them some volume. It failed, and as I scurried after her and dove onto the rags, I could feel every stone beneath the thin material. I rested my chin on her paw, and though I felt her twitch, she remained still, letting me wrap my paws around her foreleg.
"Oof!" I reached around to swat at Rowankit, who had flopped across my back, his elbows digging into my belly. "Off!"
Rowankit grumbled but adjusted his position, slithering over me to lie on his back with his head on Thalia's belly. I made a couple halfhearted swipes at his hind legs and tail, still draped over my back, but let them stay in the end.
Thalia hesitated a heartbeat, then swiftly leaned down and gave each of us a dry lick on the tops of our heads. I stared up at her in amazement; this was the most affection she'd shown us in at least a moon. What was going on? Maybe she's trying to get us to stay here instead of trying to find our way back to the Enclave.
"Now, storytime." Thalia shifted slightly, relaxing more into the moss. I lifted my head for a moment while she settled before snuggling into her scratchy paw again. "Which story do you want?"
"Tell us about our parents," I insisted.
"But we've already heard that one," Rowankit protested, leaning forward a little. "Remember?"
"We know the basics," I countered. "Not the details."
"But I want to hear about the Enclave. How'd you know to go to Shaq when Ravenkit was hurt?" Rowankit turned to stare up at Thalia. "They didn't seem as dangerous as you said."
Thalia looked from Rowankit to me and back again. I put on the most stubborn expression I could come up with, glaring determinedly up at her. Our past. Our past. Our past.
"How about I tell you about both?" Thalia suggested. "Neither of you seem willing to settle for the other's story."
I audibly gasped. I couldn't help myself; Thalia giving one story was rare enough, but two? Two was unheard of. She must really want us to stay, I thought. I wonder why? What's wrong with the Enclave? Now I suddenly wanted to hear Rowankit's story, though of course I wouldn't give up the double stories, and hearing about our parents would be nice. I snuggled into her paw and shut my eyes, the better to hear the first story.
"Since Ivykit—I mean, since Ravenkit asked first, I'll tell the story of your past before the Enclave." Thalia paused a moment, taking a breath, and then began.
"I don't know where you were born, but I do remember when. It was a rainy night near the beginning of Greenleaf. I was scouting the edge of the forest, right where it turns into the marsh, in the hopes of finding a bit of forest prey. It's rare, as we can only get it if it crosses the Clan borders, but delicious. There were a couple others in the area, but none I knew well. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a soft voice. 'Is there a nursing queen around here?' it asked. 'There are a couple kits who need a foster mother.'
"Now, me being an older she-cat, I was well past my kit-rearing years, but I thought I'd check it out anyway. It was unusual; I'd never heard of something like this before. Clan kits generally stay in the Clans, see, and never enter the Twolegplace. So I crept toward where I'd heard the voice and crouched in the shadows of a fence to listen.
"I saw a silver-gray tabby tom talking to a pale brown tabby with enormous gold eyes. Shaq," she meowed, glancing at Rowankit, who tilted his head in interest and flicked his tail across my hind legs. "At the paws of the gray tabby were two little kits, one white and black and the other a dark ginger tabby.
"Shaq asked the tom his name, I believe, but he ignored the question and kept staring at Shaq. Finally Shaq sighed and mentioned he knew a she-cat, but she'd just be able to provide milk for the kits, nothing else. She was mentally deranged, I believe, and had recently lost her own kits. Shaq was caring for her but didn't think she'd live much longer. Shaq asked the tom if he was the kits' father, but the tom shook his head and said simply that their mother had asked him to leave the kits in the Twolegplace, that she couldn't keep them for reasons of her own."
"Reasons of her own?" I pressed, stretching my head forward to stare curiously into Thalia's eyes. "What do you mean?"
Thalia flicked her ears, adjusting herself again. "I don't know, the tom didn't say anything else about your mother. I suppose she couldn't keep you because she wanted to become leader or something, I've heard of that happening before. Or perhaps she was too young to care for you properly. Maybe your father was from another Clan and would demand that you be switched to his Clan, and your mother wanted to avoid a battle, or maybe you were just unexpected and she didn't want to care for you.
"These are all just speculations, mind," Thalia reminded us. "I have no clue what it could be. Though I suppose you'll find out when you join the Clans again."
I glanced swiftly in Rowankit's direction. At the mention of joining the Clans, he looked like he'd suddenly become as awkward and hesitant as me; what would happen when we turned six moons old and refused to join the Clans? Would Thalia be able to force us to go back?
Thalia didn't notice our discomfort, shifting smoothly back into the story. "Shaq crouched and beckoned you two forward, but you were too young to walk so the tom had to pick you up individually and place you closer to Shaq. He sniffed you a moment, probably checking your health, then looked around the clearing at the cats hidden in various shadows behind him. 'Is there a cat willing to care for these kits after they've been weaned?' he asked loudly.
"I glanced around the clearing and saw many had begun to shrink away. No one wanted to be stuck with two extra mouths to feed, and if they left you to die they wouldn't run the risk of fighting you for territory in the future.
"I was about to turn away too, but then I remembered my own kits—I had four with Toby when I was younger, before Toby went to the vet, but they all died within the first moon. I remembered how heartbroken I'd been and realized no mother would voluntarily give up her kits. Whoever your mother was, she was probably grieving at that very moment for her lost kits, wondering if they'd survive the night. I knew I couldn't let you die. I figured that, as I was an older she-cat, I could raise you, send you back to the Clans, and die a peaceful death.
"So I stepped forward and nodded to the two of you. 'I'll care for them,' I meowed. Shaq dipped his head to me gratefully and replied, 'Thank you.' We each picked up a kit and headed back toward his den. I left the two of you with the she-cat to nurse, but returned several times a week to check on you. After about a moon, as you probably remember, I brought you back here."
I listened expectantly, waiting for the rest of the story, but as Thalia let the silence stretch onward I lifted my head and blinked curiously up at her. "Is that all?" I asked disappointedly. I'd been hoping for more information.
Thalia nodded. "Yep. That's all I know, and I assume all Shaq knows."
"Can we go check to make sure?" I began getting to my paws, but was blocked by a combination of Thalia's paw, muzzle, and tail.
"No," she half hissed. "You stay here. It's… it's late, it's not safe to be wandering around the Twolegplace at night."
"City," Rowankit yawned.
I relaxed onto her paw once more. "Can we go back to ask him in the morning, then? It'll be lighter then."
"No. No, I'd prefer if you stayed here tomorrow."
"Then how about the day after tomorrow?"
Thalia sighed, her tail twitching in frustration. "Ravenkit… no. Just… no. I don't want you going back to the Enclave again, okay?" She turned away, muttering, "I knew I shouldn't have taken you to Shaq."
"But why?" I stomped a paw on the ground in frustration. "Why can't I go? It's fun to meet other cats there!"
"Because they're loners, that's why!" Thalia growled.
"We're loners," Rowankit piped up.
"No. We're not. You're Clan kits and I'm basically a kittypet."
"But you don't live with T… with Humans," I said in confusion. "Why are you a kittypet?"
"I… If I didn't have to look after you two, I'd probably be living with Toby and his Twolegs. As soon as you're ready, you can go back to the Clans and I'll join him."
I exchanged another glance with Rowankit, and this time Thalia caught it. "What?" she asked in irritation.
"Erm…" I blinked at Rowankit. You tell her.
Why me? He tilted his head to one side.
I got in trouble for asking the questions earlier. You haven't gotten in trouble yet, your record is pretty clean.
Rowankit stuck out his lower jaw at me. Fine. Whatever. He turned to Thalia. "Um… we, uh…" He fell silent.
"What?"
He threw me a dirty glare. Thanks a lot. "We… we don't—I mean, we're not sure if we really want to… um, go back to…" His voice trailed off into mumbles but Thalia got the gist.
"What do you mean, you don't want to go back to the Clans?" Her voice was dangerously low and her eyes flashed.
I would've backed off by then, but it seemed Rowankit wasn't that intimidated yet. Kudos to you, I thought in awe as he bravely sucked in a breath and burst out, "We wanna stay here. In the city. With you and Shaq and Asteria and Royce and Wasco and everyone."
"Yeah, and Bug," I grinned. But as Thalia's scorching glare rounded on me my heart stuttered and I shrank away from her, hiding behind her paw. She moved it away from me and I crouched in place, trying to compress myself into as small a figure as possible.
"What in the sky powers makes you want to stay here? Here, of all places?" Neither Rowankit nor I replied, and after several tense moments of silence Thalia huffed out a breath, turning to stare down the alleyway. "I guess it's time for my second story," she murmured. "Time to show you what type of a place this really is."
Thalia cleared her throat, coughing a little. I watched her nervously for a heartbeat but relaxed when she subsided and began to speak again. "Do you remember how I mentioned Toby and I had four kits together?" We nodded. "Well, the way they… the way they died, it didn't seem natural.
"One morning one of them developed a bit of a fever. I'd heard of a couple cats who knew a thing or two about herbs, but I wasn't sure where to find them. Toby and I split up to search. I stumbled across the Enclave and began asking around for help. There was one who stepped forward, a young black and white munchie."
"Munchie?" I interrupted.
Thalia blinked. "Munchkin," she explained.
I remembered the munchkin I'd met earlier and grimaced. She'd definitely freaked me out. How could she still be called a cat when she barely looked like one, what with her shorter legs? Then I realized she'd also had black and white fur. Was she the same munchkin Thalia had met moons earlier?
"Anyway, this munchie was barely more than a kit at the time, so I obviously didn't want to take her help. She probably didn't know one end of a pigeon from another, much less be able to differentiate between herbs. She'd probably poison my kits, if not because of her ineptitude then because she didn't want more cats with normal legs running around."
Thalia leaned forward, her eyes intense, looking from me to Rowankit and back again. "You two treasure your long legs," she insisted. "They'll get you ahead in this world, and not only because you can run faster and jump higher. It's because many here favor normal cats above munchies." She snorted to herself, relaxing back into the nest again. "But I mean, who wouldn't? Munchies are just… odd."
I nodded fervently. "Yeah. Rowankit and I met one today and she freaked me out!"
"One more reason for you to stay away from the Enclave," Thalia sighed. "But I believe we're getting off-topic again. Back to the story.
"I passed over the munchie and kept looking, but I couldn't find anyone else. Nowadays I believe Shaq must have been out looking for more herbs or something that day, unfortunately, as I couldn't find him. But," she shrugged, "That's life I guess.
"Anyway, I looked and looked all day, but by the time the sun was beginning to set I knew I should get back to my kits. They were probably hungry and confused if nothing else. But when I got back, I knew something was off. The alleyway was completely silent. I rushed over to my nest to find all four kits dead."
My eyes went wide. I glanced over at Rowankit as I felt his tail freeze on my back and saw him staring, transfixed, up at Thalia, his ears tilted halfway backward in horror.
"I couldn't understand it," Thalia murmured, looking down at her paws with unfocused eyes. "My three healthy kits shouldn't also be dead. Maybe they'd have fevers if the sickness had spread, but… not, not dead."
She paused, taking a deep breath in and out. "I… I still don't know what happened to them. My best guess is that munchie. I bet she was so sour about my refusal of her help that she followed my scent to the kits and poisoned them."
"Did you smell her scent around your nest?"
Thalia shook her head. "By the time I remembered to scent around, Toby had taken me back to his housefolk and I was stuck there for a while. When I got back out all the scents had faded."
She took another breath, this one marginally less shaky than the last. "It's a dark place here. The Enclave loners might seem friendly enough now, but they're as dark-hearted and twisted as rogues." She blinked, focusing in on us again. "That's why you'd be safer in the Clans, protected by warriors and StarClan. Out here, it's just you against the world, and often the world wins. Trust me," she added, "I know."
I didn't know how to respond and, judging from a glance in Rowankit's direction, neither did he. We waited in silence for Thalia to speak.
After several long moments she did. Letting out yet another breath of air, she adjusted her position, stretching out a forepaw and resting her chin on the ground. "It's late, kits. It's… it's time to sleep."
"But—" I tried.
"No. It's time for bed."
"But I want to… stay up later?" I asked, my voice trailing away near the end of the sentence. Thalia didn't deign to respond.
I rolled onto my side, eyes still wide open, looking over at Rowankit. For a moment I wished Thalia would go sleep at Toby's like she sometimes did so we could stay up and talk over her stories. Unfortunately, Thalia seemed insistent upon staying tonight, so with a sigh I turned onto my back to look up at the stars. I could see a few tonight—better than normal.
As the edge of the moon appeared around the side of a nearby skyscraper, I heard Rowankit's snuffling snores begin, mingling with Thalia's raspy breaths. I sighed; perhaps it was time to try and sleep. Rolling over, I curled up around Rowankit, my muzzle between his forepaws. I whispered Thalia's stories to myself as sleep slowly overcame me and I sunk into blackness.
Before I was even finished with my Misty series, I'd started writing Take Flight, though on paper rather than on the computer. I got through about the first eight chapters, I believe, and so have been copying them out of a notebook so far, editing and adding parts as I go. However, I realized after writing chapter 5 that I went too fast in writing the chapters, skipping past most of Ravenkit's and Rowankit's kithood. I decided I wanted to spend more time with them as kits, so added in several extra chapters, this being the first of them. I was wondering if you noticed any difference between this chapter and last chapter, whether you liked one or the other better?
I noticed that last chapter didn't get as many reviews as normal. Reviews keep me motivated and therefore help with on-time (or relatively on-time) updates, so if you could leave a quick note that'd be much appreciated! ^^ If you don't know what to say, tell me what you thought of the chapter or if you noticed any mistakes. You can answer the QOTD or predict what you think will happen later. You could even just say hello! I'd love to interact with readers more!
AOTD: I have a strange obsession with trains. It started after I watched a documentary about futuristic trains (including Mag-Lev trains and gravity trains) that used clean energy and would hopefully someday replace airplanes. I believe the documentary is called Next World: Future Trains, but it's on YouTube as Future Transportation Technology Will Blow Your Mind. There's also a train that runs behind my house, close enough to be heard whilst awake but far enough that I can sleep through the noise. It's been there for as long as I can remember and is a comfort thing for me. ^^;
QOTD: How do you think Thalia's and Toby's kits died?