The next time I was conscious, I was in a twoleg nest. Something felt strange, different, lighter. It hit me. Where are my kits?
"Phoenixpaw! Your awake!" I looked around frantically. Lightning was there also, and I didn't feel as scared.
"What happened?" I asked him.
He looked puzzled. "You don't remember anything?"
I shook my head.
He dropped his gaze, shaking his for a second before saying anything else. "I-I-I can't even explain. It was horrible! I think it had something to do with the kits, and then these twolegs came and, and, and they took you away! I followed them, and I saw more twolegs. They took something pointy and shoved it into your shoulder, and then they cut you open!" His voice rose to a wail. "I thought they were going to kill you!"
"They cut me open? What do you mean? They're claws aren't sharp enough, and I don't feel any blood on my fur." I hadn't even bothered to look yet.
"They had a shiny thing! It was sharper than any claw, and they did something but I couldn't bear to watch my mate be dissected!"
"What about our kits?" I asked, my voice quivering.
"They took them in the other room. I think they were feeding them." He answered, at that same second, I heard a twoleg kit shout from somewhere inside, and the thumping of it's massive paws as it raced across the soft ground. A full-grown twoleg appeared, three bundles of fur in it's large, pink paw. It placed them by me, and I breathed in the sweet scent of them.
Instantly, the biggest kit, a study, bright orange tom, let out a loud meow aimed straight at the twoleg. It then scrambled to me and began to feed. I didn't look away until the last one, a fluffy white she-kit, began to feed.
"Aren't they beautiful?" Lightning asked, his gaze fixed on the kits. "What should we name them?"
"Do you want to give them clan names?" I had to ask.
"If we're going back, of course!"
I touched the large tom first. "What about..." I thought for a few seconds. "Cometkit?"
"Perfect. Let's name the other tom Solarkit." He suggested, pointing to the other orange kit.
"What about the little she-kit?" I asked.
He looked thoughtful for a second. "Lilykit. How does that sound?"
"Cometkit, Solarkit, and Lilykit. I think those are beautiful names."
He let out a long purr. "Just like you."
I looked at him playfully. "I'm a beautiful name?"
He looked confused for a second. "Er-I mean..."
I rubbed my chin against his leg. "I know what you meant," I whispered.
He looked meaningfully into my eyes. "I love you Phoenixpaw."
"I love you too," I murmured, yawning with sleepiness.
Without another word, he bent his head and groomed me, licking with long, rhythmic strokes. I yawned loudly, then, unable to curl up because of the kittens, stretched out and fell asleep.
For about two weeks nothing happened. Cometkit showed promise of great strength, and Solarkit was already developing intelligence. But it was Lilykit that I took most interest in learning about. Her curly, white fur was most certainly different from the orange coats of her brothers and myself, and her father's golden fur. She showed exceptional agility, her lithe, well-built frame suited for speed. Thus, she was also most troublesome of the bunch, and the others took my constant watching of her as me making sure she didn't get in trouble.
Truthfully, I was trying to figure out if she had any part of a prophecy, or maybe even my prophecy, which I hadn't even thought of in such a long time. She led the other two, mostly Cometkit, into the worst of trouble. Once, she got them to eat a beetle, telling them it was a rabbit. They'd never seen a real rabbit, so they believed her. I planned to take them out the next day, in fact, it was time we got on the road back home. But the twolegs made sure we didn't leave, they fed us and gave us water, but of course, nothing was better than a freshly-caught vole and a drink from the river, which I had begun to miss.
But at least I had my kits. Lightning acted a lot like a kit himself sometimes, and he always kept them busy, not just volunteering daily but hourly. He definitely was committed to being a father. Fiercely, I licked Lilykit's head.
"Mom!" she squeaked. "Stop it! It's... embarrassing."
"Ah, and who's teasing you about it? Cometkit! Are you?" I turned my efforts to him.
"No, no! It was Solarkit!"
"I was not!"
"Was too!"
"Was not!"
"Was too!"
"Guys!" I called. "Calm down! I don't care who was teasing who! You're all getting cleaned no matter what!"
"Aw man."
"Killjoy."
"Fun-hater."
"And where did you learn those terms?" I asked.
"Dad."
"You."
"Cometkit."
"You know what? It doesn't matter, just clean yourselves, you're messy."
"What!?" Lilykit cried dramatically, spinning around to look at her ruffled coat. "I'm as clean as a whistle! What are you talking about?"
"Lilykit." I warned.
"Okay, fine," she began licking her flank, keeping one blue eye, sparkling with mischief, on me.
Lightning padded in, looking happily at his mate and kits before turning to eat from the bowl. And of course, everyone else saw him. "Daddy!" they cried, led by none other than Lilykit, and jumped onto his back.
"Tell us a story!" Solarkit demanded.
"Yeah! Tell us about the time you were attacked by that rat horde!" That was Cometkit.
"No, he's told us that one zillions of times!"
"Yeah. Tell us about Tigger." Lilykit pleaded.
I pricked my ears. I hadn't heard the one about Tigger before. "Well," he began, falling back onto his haunches. "He told me about music."
"Music?" Lilykit asked.
Leaving them to talk, I lazily licked my flank fur flat before falling into a lazy nap.
"Psst, psst, Phoenixpaw," someone whispered in my ear.
"What, Lightning?" I asked without lifting my head.
"Let's get out of here, they left the door open, we could get out!"
"Okay, okay, just a second, let me wake up first." I rose to my paws and yawned loudly before sitting down to clean myself. Lightning was right, the door was ajar, just open enough for us to squeeze through. I grabbed Lilykit by her scruff, and she fidgeted a bit in my grip.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"Outside," I answered with a mouthful of kitten fur.
"You mean where Dad had all his adventures?" her voice rose with excitement.
"Yes, but you need to be quiet or we'll be caught."
"By who?"
"No one honey, go back to sleep."
I saw Lightning appear with Cometkit and Solarkit, herding them in front of him and nudging them whenever they stumbled. "Good, you got them, let's go."
As quiet as possible, we left the wretched twolegplace, and almost as soon as we escaped we heard the twolegs screaming behind us, trying to find us. We set out once more for Thunderclan, and we came face-to-face with another cat.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?"