A/N: Hello guys! You'd probably see me updating more often since it's…. drumroll SCHOOL BREAK! *throws confetti* Erm. Enough awkwardness.
CrystalshadowxStormleaf: Thank you! :3 Thanks for keeping up with the consecutive reviewing! ;D *hands cookie and plushie of your choice*
miss tangerineleaf: Thanks! And yeah, I'll write another one-shot about Swanfeather somewhere. :3 Thank you for reviewing, and the encouragements! *passes a plushie of your choice and a cookie*
Boredom
Drip. Drip. Drip. The pitter patter of raindrops could be heard, which annoyed Amberkit to no end. Groaning, she padded wearily to where her mother was sitting.
Flameheart was staring at the cloudy, gray sky. She turned when she spotted a soaked Amberkit come in, her green-yellow eyes blank. "Mom," she groaned. "Can I sleep."
Flameheart sighed. "Sure, darling," she meowed. "But you're soaked! Let's get you all dry first."
"That's the problem!" Amberkit whined. "I hate the rain! What good does it bring to us! It just soaks our new, dried, groomed fur and …and….it just thinks it can ruin everything!"
"Hush, dear," Flameheart murmured. "It isn't all bad. Sometimes we just have to relax once in a while and enjoy this rain. It could somehow also refresh you."
Amberkit shook her head. "I also wanted to go outside, but…now it's raining." Curling up to a ball beside her mother, she tried to sleep.
Flameheart gazed at her daughter lovingly and continued to stare at the sky.
"The rain is lovely isn't it?" Flameheart 's ears pricked as her mate, Tigerfur, padded into the nursery.
"How's Amberkit?" He asked, a bit worryingly.
"She's fine," Flameheart murmured. "She just couldn't get over the death of her brother."
"I know it's hard," Tigerfur murmured. "Because I felt like that too."
Flameheart's ears flattened as she remembered Tigerfur's brother. "Brackenclaw…"
"He was a good warrior," Tigerfur defended. "Just…misunderstood by every cat."
"I know…." Flameheart sighed and padded outside. "I'm going for a walk. You wanna come?"
Tigerfur nodded. "Sure." He stared at Amberkit. "Will she be okay?" he pressed.
"Of course she will be," purred Flameheart. "We're just going for a walk, that is all."
Tigerfur hurriedly padded next to Flameheart's side. He pressed against her flank affectionately until they were out of sight. Amberkit wondered why they were going out in such weather, but….oh well. Her parents are themselves.
. . .
Amberkit sighed again as another raindrop landed on her nose. She wriggled it off, frustrated that the nursery den was leaking again. She didn't want her parents to leave, but she decided not to protest since they needed to spend some time off. Padding just beside the nursery entrance, she stared gloomily at the camp. It was cold and quiet, just as she saw feeling.
She did remember the death of Adderkit, which was moons ago. It still left a pang in her heart that gnawed at her constantly. He was killed by a fox by roaming outside the Clan territory. Amberkit felt guilty that she didn't save him, always having nightmares about him. Other than that, she always had pure boredom inside of her. It seemed that she didn't know what to do with life anymore.
She decided to get some sleep until her parents came back. There was no point in daydreaming, after all. She curled into a tight ball, her eyelids drooping. She finally gave into sleep's call and curled her bushy tail around her nose.
. . .
"Amberkit…Amberkit!"
"What now?" Amberkit groaned, blinking open her eyes. Flameheart was staring at her with another tom, a brown tom she didn't recognize.
"Who's that?" asked Amberkit.
"This—" Flameheart flicked her tail to the tom's direction, "-is Pinepaw. He will watch over you while we go to the Gathering."
"What?" Amberkit immediately got on her paws, her fur unintentionally bristling. "But…you always watched over me, Flameheart!" She wasn't used to another cat watching over her. Especially…a tom. She even wondered why her mother agreed to go to the Gathering. Flameheart mentioned that the Gathering was just a bunch of useless reports, and as a mother she would do anything to protect her one and only kit.
"What's going on?" Amberkit's father appeared unexpectedly.
"Amberkit's just questioning why I'm going to the Gathering now," Flameheart replied, not even sparing a glance at Tigerfur.
Tigerfur purred. "Something important is going to happen, and Flameheart wants to see all the commotion for once," he explained. "Ready to go?" He turned to Flameheart.
"yes," she mewed, confidence radiating from her pelt.
Amberkit sighed. "Bye," she managed to squeak. Pinepaw looked at her in amusement, and she felt her pelt growing hot with embarrassment. I'm almost an apprentice! I'm five moons old! She thought indignantly.
Her parents shot her a loving glance before their tail-tips disappeared from the thick undergrowth that surrounded the nursery entrance.
Pinepaw glanced at her. Amberkit blinked. "What do you wanna do now?" he asked.
"Sleep." Amberkit didn't want to play; she just wanted to be alone. She thought she heard Pinepaw sigh as she "pretend slept".
"I know you're not sleeping," he mewed.
Amberkit blinked again. How did he know?
"I do know that you're very…erm…uncomfortable with me, Amberkit, but at least give me a try," he continued.
Amberkit groaned and turned to glare at him. "I could take care of myself. I don't need a babysitter." She spat that last word out as if it were some filthy piece of fox-dung. "Besides, I'm almost six moons old. I'm about to be apprenticed."
"But you're not an apprentice yet," Pinepaw pointed out, an edge to his tone.
"I know, but I'm almost an apprentice." There was a hint of snarl in Amberkit's tone. She didn't like this tom one bit.
Pinepaw sighed. "Alright. There's no point in talking to you. I'll just sit here, doing nothing." He padded over to the opposite side and sat, his ears pricked.
Amberkit sighed. She really did want to do something fun, but there was something about Pinepaw that made her feel so….suspicious. She wanted to run with Flameheart, not this so-called Pinepaw. Glancing at him for a few heartbeats, Amberkit couldn't take anymore the boredom that was pounding noisily in her ears.
"Fine," she muttered.
Pinepaw's ears perked. "What?" He sounded genuinely surprised.
Amberkit glanced at him. "I'm coming." His eyes gleamed with victory as he led her way outside. At this point, the moon was shining brightly, turning the tips of Amberkit's fur into silver.
"I'm not sure what you want to play," he murmured after a few seconds of an awkward silence.
"Anything that doesn't have to do with something so stupid that it will kill my brother," I muttered, tail lashing.
Pinepaw turned around."Hey." His voice turned out to sound much, much softer than usual. "Is that why you never go out to play with the other kits?"
Amberkit's ears perked up. "How did you know that?" She wondered if he secretly was a stalker, but shook away that thought.
"I've been watching you more than you think," Pinepaw answered. It sounded like there was no emotion at all. "And that's why I'm trying to cheer you up," he finished, standing on a protruding gray rock and posing like a hero.
Amberkit suddenly let out a mrrow of amusement. "I guess so." She bunched her muscles and started to leap. Pinepaw was caught off guard and they tussled for a moment before Amberkit pinned him down, laughing victoriously. For a moment she pretended this was her brother she was play-fighting, since she always wanted to play-fight with him. Another pang shook her, and Amberkit placed her paws back on the ground shakily.
Seeing the widening of her eyes, Pinepaw stiffened and got back on all four paws. "Is something wrong, Amberkit?"
Amberkit shook her head and sighed. "Nothing's wrong," she murmured, though Pinepaw didn't look too convinced. This was an opportunity for Amberkit to pounce on him again, nipping his tail and clawing his back fur with her tiny, but growing unsheathed claws.
"Ow!" Pinepaw pretended to sound defeated. "I'm being beaten by a kit! Ow! Ow!" By this point, Amberkit was going a little too far with her biting and clawing, imagining that this was Nettlekit's murderer, and before she knew it, an elder peered from her den made from a few golden leaves and brambles.
"Who's making all this racket?" Her skinny frame showed with clumps of matted gray fur stuck to it. Her green eyes were annoyed, Amberkit could tell. As the gray cat tried to squint, she gasped in horror at Pinepaw. "Great StarClan, Amberkit! Do you want him to head off to StarClan or something?" She hurriedly rushed to where Pinepaw lay, with a few scratches on his pelt.
"I'm fine," he assured. Amberkit suddenly saw what he did and rusued over to him.
"I'm so sorry!" she apologized quickly before rushing to the medicine den.
"Darkleaf! He needs you!" Amberkit called. The named medicine cat raised her head from all of the herbs she was mixing.
"Who?" she asked, the tip of her tail twitching.
Amberkit sighed. "Pinepaw," she replied uncomfortably, her paws shuffling on the sandy floor.
The medicine cat quickly grabbed all the herbs she needed and immediately rushed out to the den. Pinepaw has scratches on them. One nasty wound was on his right shoulder. Amberkit winced at the thought of her doing all that.
She padded shyly to where Pinepaw lay. "Sorry," she whispered. Pinepaw nodded in understanding.
"Who did this?" Darkleaf demanded, eyeing the cats suspiciously.
Amberkit, still looking down, padded slowly to the medicine cat. "I did." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but Darkleaf's ears were very sensitive, and her ears pricked.
"Why?" There was more of curiosity in her tone than rage.
Amberkit opened her mouth to speak before Pinepaw interrupted her. "Why ask all these questions? She was just playing with me," the dark brown apprentice defended.
Amberkit shot a grateful glance at him. "Yeah," she meowed weakly.
Darkleaf glared at both of them, then sighed. "I guess you're right," she answered before smearing ointment on where the wounds lay.
Cats gathered out of their dens to see all the commotion. Darkleaf raised her voice so all the cats could hear. "Everybody, go back to your dens. This doesn't involve any of you. Amberkit just got a little too far in play-fighting Pinepaw, that is all." She shot a stren look at Amberkit, who looked away in shame as many eyes of cats surrounded her.
"Go back to your dens now," she ordered, and they reluctantly padded back too their dens.
Darkleaf sighed. "I guess this whole thing is over," she murmured before padding wearily to the medicine den.
It soon left only Pinepaw and Amberkit. "…Pinepaw?"
"Yes?"
"Thanks for covering for me."
Pinepaw smiled. "No problem."
Amberkit sighed, still remembering her brother. "What do we do now?"
"Are you cheered up yet?" Pinepaw asked her.
Amberkit murmured, "Yes." And, yet again, Pinepaw was taken by surprise as she pinned him down. "Will you surrender?" she asked.
"No way," Pinepaw purred as they tussled.
And Amberkit had never felt this happy in days.
A/N: SO TIRED DUDE. So tired.
Anyways, review, as always, people. And by the way, this is not PineXAmber. They're just friends, mmkay? Okay. PLEASE REVIEW~!