Welcome again and thank you for deciding to drop by this humble story! Let's do review replies here, I guess.
~ review replies ~
Silver Shadows in the Night - That's one of the best story of the clans, my favourite, too. One-eye and Dappletail makes a damn great duo! XD And don't worry about the hyphen, I'm confused for a while, too. Maybe those early settlers names were better afterall.
That's all!
It was a calm, normal, cool leaf-fall morning at the Thunderclan camp. Things are peaceful and tranquil, with the exception of the nursery.
Littlemoss sighed, throwing an apologetic glance at Flowerheart, who was trying her best to enlighten the grey little kits who were too curious. Too curious.
"Who's your mate?"
"Redstripe."
"How many kits would you think you have?"
"Uh..two?"
"How long is it until you will kit?"
"Podfall said roughly half a moon."
"What would you name them?"
"...Let me see their pelts first."
"Where's your mate?"
"He's on the Dawn patrol."
"Are you dedicated to Starclan?"
"I probably am."
"What's your thought on your kits?"
"Uh.."
Deciding it was enough, she called her kits back. "Kits! To me!" Littlemoss ordered. Much to the disappointment of the kits, who padded to Littlemoss glumily. Flowerheart merely smiled politely before padding to make her own nest.
Littlemoss looked down at them, frowning. "You three were barely a moon, calm down. Don't be too enthusiastic, Flowerheart is going to kit eventually. Don't ask her much, queens need to rest for kits in their tummies to grow well." She scolded. Rainkit felt pretty abashed for being so pesky, but he and his littermates were dying to find clues whether Flowerheart's kits are going to be reincarnated cats or not. Since when she had moved to the nursery this morning, all the three of them were really, really curious. On the other hand, Whitekit and Runningkit seemed rather chill at the scolding, no signs of discomfort, anything really.
"Right, Littlemoss." Runningkit muttered absentmindledly. Poking a claw at the moss underneath her.
"We won't bother them much." Whitekit muttered, her eyes elsewhere, outside of the nursery.
The grey and white queen sighed, seemingly given in to the stubborn she-kits. "I guess you three aren't very tired. Let's just get you outside." With an excited squeak from Whitekit and a happy jumping from Runningkit, the two kits dashed outside cheerfully, followed by the normal, should-be-sane him.
When they were outside, he narrowed his eyes at them. "Why are you guys so mean to Littlemoss? Give that young queen a break!" He said, flabbergast. But both she-kits just shrugged.
"Why don't we go and see Briarstar?" Runningkit changed the subject, to his exasperation. Whitekit immediately perked up, the aspect of doing something new is interesting, like greeting the leader. She cackled. "It's in motion, then!"
He was about to scream 'don't ignore me!', but then smirked, a cute little revenge plan in his mind, and yowled at the top of his lungs. "Whitekit and Runningkit ran into the bramble wall this morning!" A lie, of course. And promptly ran. No matter how kit-like it seems, he's actually enjoying it. At least he was a kit again, he will do things he wanted to now, and that doesn't involve being the nice, sane Rainwhisker, but being the cool, evil Rainkit - maybe not evil, but certainly cool.
While he was too absorbed in his own thought and unconsciously halted, cackling evilly, Whitekit and Runningkit bowled straight into him for revenge, which caused them to tumbled away accompanying with various shrieks, tangled in the mess of limbs, and with some clumsy jumping, falling, slipping, running, rolling, they somehow ended up in front of Briarstar. Who was watching them with amusement.
He immediately jumped and squeaked embarrassedly, his supposedly evil demeanor forgotten. "S-sorry Briarstar!" She quirked her mouth a little bit. "I-ugh-we didn't see you there, we were, well, I-" He spluttered. Whitekit snickered at his behaviour. "Sorry, Briarstar." She chirped good heartedly. "Yep, anyway Briarstar, hello!" Runningkit greeted Briarstar proudly, her muzzle high with pride. Briarstar smiled and padded down to the camp clearing, her brown tabby pelt shone lightly under the sunlight. One by one, they followed her. "As much as I want to talk to you three, sadly, I have things to do." She said softly. Rainkit really took a liking to her way of speaking since meeting her, it was so gentle and sweet yet so firm. "Why don't you go and play with Volestrike, my deputy instead?" She offered kindly, the while calling for Volestrike.
Rainkit heard a gruff murmur, follow by a broad-shouldered black tom who seems very scary for some reason. He barely could felt Whitekit cowered behind him and Runningkit scooted closer to him. Briarstar noticed this and smiled kindly, nudging them to the deputy. After a moment of reluctant, Rainkit grudgingly padded to the deputy, with Whitekit trailing behind him and Runningkit creeping along. Volestrike watched them with a funny look on his face.
"Uh, hello, Volestrike." He greeted slowly. To his surprise, Volestrike dipped his head to him. "Hello, little Rainkit." Volestrike looked behind him. "And Whitekit and Runningkit." And repeated the gesture. Briarstar smiled, and whispered to them. "See? He's quite gruff, but inside that gruffiness, he's a real sweetheart." She then returned to her normal voice level. "Sorry for disturbing you there, Volestrike. I have a favor to ask." Volestrike cocked his head. "I don't mind." The brown tabby leader smiled in relief. "Well, Volestrike, please look after these kits. If you have to do anything, just take them to the nursery. Thank you again." "It's nothing, Briarstar."
"I'm going now then, please be nice to Volestrike, okay?" She said gently and padded away without another word. Rainkit noticed Runningkit narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but said nothing, instead she decided to pay attention to the deputy. "Teach me how to hunt!" She demanded, mimicking a hunter's crouch. Volestrike grunted out a chuckle - he guessed it's a chuckle - and poked Runningkit's hindquarters. "You won't jump over anything with that wobbly hindquarters of yours." He padded around her, observing her with astonishment. "You were barely a moon, yet you got a very accurate hunter's crouch." He commented.
Rainkit paled, dread on his face, being caught is the last thing he planned to do soon, he tried to composed himself. Breathe in, Rainkit, good, Breathe out, good. Being busy with his state of mind, he didn't notice Whitekit joining the mini hunting lesson.
"What about me? Did I do it right?" Whitekit asked excitedly. Volestrike shook his head. "You tail is dancing," Whitekit lower her shaking tail down. "And I won't be surprise if you got the stance perfect, so do Rainkit." What? Rainkit jumped out of his muse when he heard his name being called. Volestrike hummed quietly to himself in thought. "How about I play mossball with you guys?" He offered. Whitekit squeaked enthusiastically. "Yes yes!" She then turned to him. "Let's go and get a mossball from Podfall." He nodded slowly as she nudged him to the medicine cat den.
While they're halfway across the clearing, Whitekit subtly stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around to faced him. "Did you hear what Volestrike said?" She half whispered half hissed urgently, to his surprise. He shook his head. "No, why?"
Whitekit checked for any possible eavesdropper in their vicinity, before shoving her face right up his ear. "He said - now listen to me closely," If he didn't knew better, he would've thought she was threatening him. "He said that he won't be surprise if we - me and you - got the hunter crouch right. Isn't that oddly fishy?" Now that's peculiar.
He casted a glance at the unsuspecting deputy, who was still holding a quick hunting course with Runningkit, seemingly innocent enough, but maybe, there's more than meet the eye. He wondered why would the deputy said things like that, but after the gears in his head started turning, he could kind of guessed why. Or rather, he was too optimistic. "Maybe he noticed that Runningkit mostly plays mossball, while we chased around warriors?"
Whitekit made a face. "That doesn't settle anything." He cocked his head in inquiry, which she mocked a exasperated sigh in return. "Besides, we'll get the stance wrong no matter what, we're kits. And if that's the case, he should've phrased the sentence into something similar to 'Whitekit and Rainkit will get the crouch almost perfect' like that!" What she said is right, but if he were the deputy himself, he would've said the same thing absentmindedly.
"Maybe you were overthinking things too much. He won't know it, we didn't said or done anything suspicious, so it's unlikely." He assured calmly, despite the fact that he found himself doubting it. Whitekit still looked unconvinced. It'd take more effort to convince her to calm down, he supposed. "And look, it's peaceful times for the clans. Just, relax and enjoy this second chance." He then patted her shoulder in an effort to calm her down, and continue to padded to the medicine cat den, increasing his pace when he glimpse the pale grey pelt of Podfall. He turned to Whitekit, calling when the she-kit remained stationary. "Whitekit, are you coming?" Whitekit snapped out of her muse and nodded hastly as she ran to caught up with him.
Podfall was sorting through various herbs, easily knew by the scents of dried leaves waving through the air. He bounded up to the medicine cat cheerily, pawing his back. "Hi, Podfall!" Wherein Podfall responed by a startled shriek and jumped around in alarm, resulting in mixing up the well-sorted piles of herbs. When they grey medicine cat calmed down, he sighed irritably at the sea of dried leaves at his paws.
Apparently given up at his hard work, he turned to them, a bitter expression on his face. "Now what do you want? Haven't you see what have you done to these herbs!? Is it that hard to say hi like normal cats would?! Hurry and state your business." Podfall muttered thought gritted teeth, that somehow seemed strangely hilarious for him. Then, Podfall blinked, once, twice, before he regained his bearing. "Oh sorry! I've been too absorbed in my own thoughts, it seems." Being cheery again, Podfall flicked his tail, inviting them inside his den.
Rainkit and Whitekit bounded past the den entrance and settled next to the scattered pile of herbs. The grey medicine cat smiled in thought. "I suppose you want a mossball to play, don't you?" A collective nods. "Very well, wait here for a little while okay?" With that said, Podfall disappeared into the deeper parts of his den. Rainkit and Whitekit just looked at each other for a brief moment, before returning to gazing into where Podfall disappears in silence.
But shortly, that was broke by a new voice they doesn't recognize; a new clanmate. "Podfall, do you mind checking - Podfall?" The new cat peered into the den, only to met the two kits' gazes. The new cat smiled and padded up to them. "Hello, I'm Seedsplash. I guess you two were Littlemoss's kits." Seedsplash greeted kindly, her eyes glimmering. "Nice to meet you, welcome to Thunderclan!" Feeling shy, he smiled back politely, so do Whitekit, but with much more enthusiasm. "Hi! I'm Whitekit, this is Rainkit." She gestured to him. "And there's Runningkit." She gestured far to the clearing. Seedsplash's gaze swept across the clearing, until it landed on one deputy and one little grey and white bundle of fur. Her eyes sparked with humour but she said nothing.
By that time, Podfall returned from the depths of his lair he called his den at last, with a moss ball rolling by his side. "There you go. I expect you to return this same amount of moss when you become apprentices. Remember that." He teased as he handed the moss ball to a very pleased Whitekit. "Now, go and play - I didn't see you there Seedsplash! Ahh, I'm sorry." Podfall apologized sheepishly when he finally saw the white and brown she-cat at the entrance. "No no it's perfectly fine! I just came here either way, so it's really nothing to worry about." She assured good heartedly, then, recognition dawned on her. "Oh, do you mind coming to check Tansyfur? The dawn patrol came back and I think she stumbled into a bramble bush or something." Podfall nodded and looked at Rainkit and Whitekit. "You two go and play moss ball then, I have some matters to attend." With that said, he trotted away as Seedsplash breezed to the warriors den.
"I guess we should bring that moss ball back to Volestrike and Runningkit." Whitekit muttered, battling the moss ball towards the direction the deputy was. Rainkit gently pushed the moss ball helpfully. "Now now, everything will be okay. Don't fret much." He reminded lightly and bounded forward, the moss ball rolling in front of him. Whitekit still held her uncertain gleam in her eyes as she padded to him, but - if not slightly happier - brightened up, increasing her pace to caught up with him.
Hopefully, there will be days as peaceful as today and far more lighthearted days more to come. He really hoped so. Because mentally, everyone is breaking.
Extra
"There you go. Some thorns in your pads and some splinters in your wound, but nonetheless, you're pretty much fine." Podfall meowed to the cat with said wounds relievedly, to the cat's contentment. Seedsplash smiled, the stress leaving her almost immediately at the words. "See? It's nothing but thorns and splinters! And here you made me thought you were on fire or something, Tansyfur." The cat, Tansyfur grunted, but said nothing.
Seedsplash whirled back to Podfall, gratitude in her eyes. "Thank you again, for checking on this lump of melodramatic fur." He smiled back nervously, not really knowing what to respond, other than, "It's no problem."
Accepting that the reply was good enough, Seedsplash gazed back at her fellow warrior clanmate. "Now, let's go and get some freshkill. I bet you're hungry too." With that, she nudged Tansyfur to her feet, and immediately dragged the tortoiseshell cat with her out to the clearing, paying no heed to the yowls her companion emitted.
I've been thinking about it, I wonder, with the amount of reviews being so measly, should I privately reply to reviews? Or should I keep it this way? Oh, by the way, hello Rainstone18! Welcome and thank you for joining the crew! And I should've done this long ago, but hello Nova2AceGirl, Silver Shadows in the Night, and Tallpine22(Heh), along with anyone reading so far! Anyway, thank you so much for reading this little story so far! Every review, favourite and follow is greatly appreciate!