In honor of kawaii nyan kitty, I am continuing Fawnstar. Though my style may be different from hers, I will do my very best, and I want CC and reviews. Before she left she PMed me the plot, so rest assured this is her... typed through me. We will miss her! :'( For everyones benefit I have uploaded the first two chaps.
CHAP TWO
I had recovered from my incident fully about eight sunrises later, when I first opened my eyes and found my voice. Now what I did every day was play with my best friends, Redkit and Echokit, though Echokit was normally in Plumetail's den, listening intently to Plumetail droning on herbs and their uses. But Echokit wasn't playing "leader" with us when Redkit and I were kidnapped.
Honestly, it wasn't even my fault this time. It was Redkit's. We were playing outside just like any normal day. Leader was one of my favorite games. This was because I was always the leader, Redkit was always my deputy, and Echokit was my medicine cat, whenever she showed up. Redkit didn't seem to mind always being deputy, as long as he could attack the non-ShadowClan warriors, which is the point of the game.
My eyes were fixed on Bloodstar that day. She was really nice, and enjoyed playing kit-battles with me and Redkit. So I flicked my skinny brown tail, at my deputy, who flicked his feathery gray tail back. I dragged myself along the ground, careful not to let my white belly touch the ground, so Bloodstar wouldn't notice we were there.
It seemed like forever until we finally reached Bloodstar, who was in deep conversation with Dawnfoot, the deputy of ShadowClan. Redkit and I hid in a bush; it was very cramping, and the bush didn't help me catch what Bloodstar was mumbling. The voice in my mind was working up a battle strategy. Dawnfoot was not one of appreciating games, almost elder aged. And even though she had Tinystrike as her kit, and Tinystrike was bouncy and bright, quite the opposite of her mother, Dawnfoot had never found games any fun. I had no chance playing if Dawnfoot was there besides Bloodstar. If I can lure Dawnfoot away, Bloodstar would be open to attack! But how can I do that?
As if to answer my question, Redkit whispered in my ear, "I have an idea. Wait here." My best friend then walked out of the bush calmly, and instantly dropped into a crouch. He stealthily creeped across the camp, swishing his red-tipped ears left and right, until he reached the fresh-kill pile. Redkit then unsheathed a pawful of claws, and stuck his paw into the middle of the dead animals. I couldn't see what his paw was doing, but his leg seemed to be shifting a lot. Suddenly Redkit's eyes gleamed with triumph. He pulled his claw out, and there was a lizard on his paw, and the dead lizard's eyes were dull and glazed over.
Redkit beamed at me, every shiny fang showing, and as if on cue, the entire fresh-kill pile came tumbling down onto Redkit's right. I almost let out a mrrow of laughter at the sight of shock on Dawnfoot's face, but managed to hold it back. Echokit even poked her head out of Plumetail's den, her beautiful blue eyes were enormously widened. Dawnfoot's face was a mesh of surprise and anger; she left Bloodstar's side and marched over to the collapsed animals, scrutinizing it for any sign of who did the deed, for Redkit had again appeared by my side. We both broke up with amused purring. Looking out of our bush, Bloodstar seemed faintly amused, also, her crimson-colored eyes narrowed.
Bloodstar! I remembered what my deputy and I were supposed to be doing. I lightly tapped Redkit on the shoulder with my tail, and he turned and looked at me, his blue eyes gleaming. I hissed at him softly, and used my tail again to point at Bloodstar. Redkit opened his mouth in understanding, and my loyal friend slinked behind me as I proceeded to sneak behind Bloodstar's back. I lifted my tail, then slapped it against the ground, my signal for attack. The leader of ShadowClan turned around, surprised, but Redkit and I had already pounced on her, me on Bloodstar's left shoulder, and Redkit on Bloodstar's back. We were digging our tiny claws into her fur so we wouldn't tumble off.
Bloodstar turned her head to the right, and caught glimpse of Redkit's gray fur. She turned her head to the left, and glanced at my snowy white paws. Bloodstar looked at me like she was saying, "I should have known." I don't know why she looked like that. We had never attacked her before, only half of the warriors, and all of the apprentices.
Our leader collapsed on her right side, breathing heavily. I wasn't the least bit worried; Bloodstar was definitely one for exaggerating.
My friend and I leaped off of Bloodstar at the same time, and walked around Bloodstar's tiny jet-black body so we could both look at her face. I narrowed my eyes triumphantly. "Now do you see what power ShadowClan cats have, kittypet?" I said, laying a single claw on my leader's neck.
Bloodstar glared at me for a heartbeat, probably a tiny bit angry for me calling her a kittypet, but her eyes softened quickly. "Yes, I do," she panted in horror. "If you just take your claw off of my neck, I can run back to my housefolk and never trespass again!" She turned pleading eyes on Redkit.
Redkit pounced on Bloodstar's back. "This isn't the first time you've trespassed," he growled. "You and your friends have always escaped before now. I think you need a lesson, don't you agree, Fawnstar?" Fawnstar? I just love the sound of that, I thought happily.
I blinked out of my daze of me becoming leader and everybody congratulating me as Redkit nudged me. I joined Redkit on Bloodstar's (who had gone limp) back, and hissed down at Bloodstar, "I agree." Redkit and I unsheathed our claws, totally unprepared as Bloodstar heaved us off, using her powerful hindlegs, and sent us flying, until Redkit and I were sprawled on the pine needled covered ground, breathing as heavily as our leader was previously.
My leader started to stalk towards me and my friend, though it was hard to see her expression; everything looked blurred as then. She whispered to us, "You might want to practice more." At least she wasn't embarrassing me; that would be so much worse.
"Okay, Bloodstar," Redkit and I mewed simultaneously. Bloodstar ambled back into her den, right as Dawnfoot came rushing up to us, meowing furiously, "I know one of you kits knocked over the fresh-kill pile! Which one of you was it? Fess up, or you'll both have to clean the elders and their den for an entire moon!"
"Don't you think that it's kinda rude that you're using the elders as a punishment?" I shot back, trying to make her back off and leave us be. Dawnfoot's eyes seemed like they were about to pop out in anger, her eyes bulging nearly at the ends of her sockets. But I knew she couldn't say anything else as a come-back, without being even more rude. She is really just a grumpy old cat, I thought privately.
Saying nothing, she stalked away to Bloodstar's den. A dark-brown colored kit with black stripes––Cedarkit–– came up to me and Redkit. "She's going to report you. I wonder what kind of punishment you are going to get! I'll watch, and purr." Cedarkit was really creepy, and he seemed to always be jealous of how I had been in my first battle and not even opened my eyes. Cedarkit, Echokit told me, is one who holds grudges and never forgets them.
Bloodstar stepped out of her den and headed towards us. "I heard that you were being rude to Dawnfoot."
"She's the one that was being rude to the elders!" Redkit snapped back.
"Yes, but––" Bloodstar's voice broke off, and it was horrified. "Badgers!" she screeched. "Warriors! Fight them!" I turned around, and there were two badgers, one with lots of battle scars, but both of their beady black eyes were staring maliciously at Redkit and I. Before I could do anything, even run, the badger with battle scars picked me up, and tried to run out of the entrance. Redkit was facing the same fate.
Mousefang rushed out of the nursery. "Fawnkit!" she cried. "I cannot lose my kit again!" She charged toward the badger carrying me, with Dovefall, Redkit's mother, sprinting right by her side towards her son. Mousefang leaped on top of the badger holding me, clawing viciously, snarling loudly, and some warriors fought by her side, until the badger was bloody and their legs were starting to buckle. Dovefall was trying to retrieve Redkit with some apprentices, because the rest of the warriors were out on patrol duty. Dovefall was just as feisty as Mousefang, and the apprentices were trying their best, but it wasn't enough. The badger holding me grunted something at the other badger, and they ran out of the camp as fast as they could.
Right outside of the entrance, the badger holding me stepped on a twig, and the snap echoed loudly through the forest. The badger holding Redkit repeated the battle-scarred badgers actions. Behind me, back in camp, I could hear Mousefang wailing loudly. "Did you hear that? They snapped Fawnkit and Redkit's necks! They're dead. My only kit is dead!" I hadn't heard anything from Dovefall, but I assumed she had lost consciousness.
With that, the badgers started to race through the pine forest, and several times I saw a patrol. I tried to call out to the warriors on the patrols, but they either didn't hear me, or they were too paralyzed to do anything. I saw Seapaw, an apprentice I had made great friends with, and he was the only cat to come racing towards me, calling out, "Fawnkit! Redkit! What is going on?"
"Badgers kidnapped us!" I called back, and Seapaw slowed to a stumble. "What? But badgers kill, they don't kidnap!" But by this time, Seapaw was out of sight. Maybe forever. I tried to be optimistic. "Hey, Redkit!" I called over to my best friend.
"What?" he called back, but he only sounded half-hearted. "Our kin thinks that we're dead, now. I might as well be dead!" Redkit snarled viciously.
"You don't get it, do you, lizard-brain? Seapaw saw us. He'll tell the Clan that we're still alive!" But Redkit only drooped his head. "What's the point, anymore. Whether we're dead or not, we'll never see our kin again!"
This wasn't the Redkit I knew. If Redkit gave up, then there really was not point in believing, because Redkit is the smartest, and optimistic kit I had ever met. Besides me, anyway. No one can pass me.
...
It was nighttime of the third night the badgers were running away from camp. The previous nights, I had just fallen asleep in the battle-scarred jaws of the fearsome creature. I planned to do the same tonight, but for a change, the badgers stopped lumbering around, instead letting us glimpse at a beautiful river with a cave behind it. My badger took a running start, and leaped over the river flawlessly. Redkit's badger tried the same, but it underestimated, fell in the river, and took Redkit with it.
"Redkit!" I shouted. I snarled at the battle-scarred badger, who was staring at his friend, "What are you doing, you useless lump? Save them! Or I'll jump in myself, and probably die trying."
The scarred badger looked at me with utter shock; probably no kit had ever called him a useless lump. "I can't swim," he growled. My mind registered that badgers should not be able to speak cat. "How in StarClan's name can you speak cat?" I asked, completely ignoring the fact that Redkit was going to drown.
"Does that matter right now?" snarled the badger. "We have to save your friend and my sister." He then thrust his paw into the water, like he was trying to catch a fish. (Archclaw, my father, taught me all of the Clan's hunting techniques.) Minutes he tried that, until I thought that Redkit was unable to breathe and was probably dead, and I was never going to see him again. The badger dived into the water, and immediately started struggling. Just great, I thought. Now I'm never going to get home, and I'll be responsible for three lives. The male badger was floundering in the water, striking out with all of his paws, when his claws suddenly hit the shore, the long weapons sinking into the sand. He heaved himself up, but there was no one in his jaws, so the lives were most likely lost.
The scarred badger was dripping wet, but his black eyes shone determinedly. The badger suddenly pushed his head deep into the water, and when he pulled his head up, there was a black and white scruff in his jaws. In the she-badger's jaws, Redkit was slumped unconscious. "If I had known I could just pull them up with my mouth, I wouldn't be soaked right now," chattered the battle-scarred badger. I let out a scornful purr, but immediately broke off. Was Redkit okay? I at least had to check!
I stumbled over to Redkit and the female badger. I pushed my paws on Redkit, but he didn't move at all, and it didn't seem like he was breathing at all. "Hey!" I called over the the scarred badger. "Can you help me? I don't think they're breathing!" I carefully chose my words so it didn't seem like I was bluntly saying that they were dead.
The badger came over, and sniffed the two limp figures. He then prodded them both with a claw, and they twitched. He pushed his paws onto his sister's belly, gushing the water out of her system. Water and hints of bile arose up out of her mouth, but the she-badger still didn't awaken. The battle-scarred badger gently pushed a toe onto Redkit's stomach, and Redkit repeated the same process as the she-badger, until there was a puddle of water and bile on the sand.
"Disgusting," I noted. The male badger glared at me.
"They both were almost dead," the badger noted back, "And when they wake up, they'll probably have a fever, so I'll go fetch some healing herbs."
"How do you know about herbs?" I asked, "And how do you speak cat? How did you know where to kidnap me and Redkit?"
"Many questions, little one. I'll tell you when my sister and your friend wake up. It's a long story."
...
It was another couple of sunrises before Redkit got better. Every day, I had slept next to him, and asked for the herbs that Redkit needed to stay healthy, tried giving him food to eat, putting moss under his body, giving him water to drink, everything I could do to help him. Redkit was unconscious most of the time, and hadn't even known I was there, but if he had, he would've been thankful.
When Redkit had woken up, he still spent most of the day in his nest, only getting up when I was showing him around the area. He bristled when he heard it was the badger that kidnapped me that saved him, but he eventually grew grateful. We spent most of the time talking about who we wanted our mentors to be, or who would be deputy when Dawnfoot retired, if she hadn't retired already. Redkit and I shared tongues around meal-time, and sent prayers to StarClan every night that we would be home soon.
The she-badger was awake, though she had to stay in the secret cave that the badgers lived in, so I never got to see her. Not that I'd want to. She'd kidnapped us, and nearly drowned my best friend, and hopefully greatest deputy. But one night, while I was sending prayers to StarClan with Redkit, we heard her voice behind us unexpectedly. "You ancestors are not here. They're by the lake, watching over the cats there."
Redkit and I whipped around to see her standing there, looking at the sky. "Hey!" I piped up immediately, one, because Redkit looked furious, and two, because... "The other badger said that once you were awake, he could tell us a story about you and him."
"Dang. That memory of yours is too great." It was the male badger, walking in to stand next to his sister.
"You better believe it!" I told him. "Now, what is your name? I never got it."
The she-badger slipped calmly into the conversation. "I'm Dawn, and he's Dusk. We're Midnight's cubs."
"Midnight?" Redkit echoed. "I guess you're not meaning the time of day. The badger? You're the cubs of the famous Midnight?" He looked awestruck. The she-badger, however, looked amused, and shot a glance at her brother, and it seemed like she was saying, You take it from there. The scarred badger glared at her, and narrowed his eyes as if to say, Me? But you only said our names? Fine, I will.
I was amazed that I could tell what they were saying so well; next to me, Redkit had his head cocked to one side and his mouth gaped open in confusion.
"Alright," Dusk sighed. "I'll tell you." Dawn seemed to be in the most control, I could tell.
"Okay, so back when Midnight was alive, there was something in the Clan's called the Great Battle. You should know about it from your elders. Midnight fought the Dark Forest warriors in that battle, but what no cat knew was that Midnight was pregnant during the fight. So shortly after the battle, she gave birth to me and Dawn.
"Right from the beginning, Midnight told us that we had taken after herself, and could read signs from StarClan and announce prophecies. Dawn and I didn't know anything about StarClan, but we trusted our mother, and what she said must have been true. We tried looking for prophecies, but they just didn't seem to show up. I was getting worried. If we didn't have the prophecy power, then Midnight might've abandoned us.
"We proved ourselves. Like everything anywhere, we got into lots of fights. Midnight was taking a walk by the river, and Dawn and I started fighting over something stupid, but I forgot what. She clawed everywhere, and I was bleeding heavily. But then I clawed Dawn in the neck, and she coughed up blood, but was otherwise fine. After a few heartbeats, the wound was gone. We figured out that we were immortal, but we never told Midnight.
"Midnight stayed with us, even taught us how to defend ourselves. We didn't need to learn, but I tried to fight anyway. I wasn't the greatest fighter, but I kept on trying, just in case I needed to hurt some other animal. Midnight even brought some of her badger friends so they could teach us fighting moves too. But her friends found out that Midnight had special powers, and assumed that we had the same powers too. They left almost straight after, scared of what we might do to them if they angered us.
"One night, a horrible battle-scarred badger with only one eye found our secret cave. He told our mother that he had heard about his cubs. This badger was our father! At first, Dawn and I were delighted to see him, because Midnight had never mentioned him before. But the badger continued to talk. He said that he had heard from Midnight's friends that we had special powers, and that he planned to steal us away tonight and use us to fight away any opponent's that he had. With that, he leapt on Midnight, and tore a huge gash in our mother's neck, letting the blood seep out and dribble onto the hard ground. Midnight was dead.
"He tried grabbing Dawn, but I pushed myself in front of her, and told Dawn to run. She looked at me fearfully, but ran as fast as she could away from the cave. Furious, our father stuck a long claw in my side, and attempted to pick me by my scruff and carry me away. I didn't want that, and wriggled out of his grasp, jumping onto his back. I clawed him furiously, until he was basically bald, and dying the same way he killed our mother. I was amazed that I defeated him so easily, but realized that he probably wanted us because he couldn't really fight at all! With a last glance at my parent's bodies, I fled after Dawn.
"Dawn and I ran to Twolegplace, where almost instantly a twoleg kit found us and pointed us out to their parent's. A male twoleg took out this weird shiny thing with a open space in the middle of it, pulled a weird thing, and a large boom erupted around us. This twoleg was going to kill us if we didn't get out of there, so we ran again, farther into Twolegplace, where a bunch of cats were sitting there, chattering like birds, before one of the cats spotted me and leapt on me. He clawed me almost as bad as I clawed my father. That's how I got these scars.
"Fleeing seemed to be the only thing we could do, so we just ran, and ran, and ran. We came across your forest, where the pine trees smelled wonderful, and there was even a place where we could settle down. Dawn smelled cats here, though, and tried to steer me away. I persuaded her to stay here for a night, because we were just exhausted and could barely move.
"During that night, I had the strangest dream. Later, I realized that it was my first prophecy, and that Midnight was right. But the dream itself, it was just awkward.
"I was back at the cave where we lived, except the dead bodies weren't there. Only I was there, and I was by myself. And when I walked outside, the grass was a luscious green, with dew sparkling on the tips. The sand was bright and golden, like it was the sun contained in those tiny grains. The river was a shiny and deep blue, trickling quietly and calmly until I felt in a daze. Then, a bulky white tom-cat with one black paw came to me. He at first came to me, and saw I was a badger. 'What kind of joke is this?' He asked, leaping on me in a flash and putting his teeth way too close to my neck. I panicked, throwing him off in an instant.
"We fought for a while, though this cat was very experienced and ferocious, though I was not bleeding, and I scratched the black-pawed tom; he was not bleeding either. I was going through pain, but no blood, no deaths. A russet-colored she-cat appeared suddenly next to us, stepping in between our claws and stopping us from fighting. She asked me who I was, and I explained that I was Dusk, the son of Midnight.
"The russet-colored cat looked at the black-pawed tom smugly, who meowed to her confidently, 'Just because we're dead, doesn't mean you can be disrespectful to your old leader!' The she-cat shot back, 'You're right. You are an old leader.' The white tom was about to say something else, but I broke in. I was terrified. 'I'm dead?' I asked. 'But I have to stay alive! Dawn needs me!'
"The she-cat just chuckled. 'No, you're not dead. Just... visiting.' The white tom snorted, but started to calm down, and when he had, he whispered, 'Welcome to StarClan,' in my ear, though it sounded like he was yelling to the starry skies, his voice was all echo-y and loud. He broke away from my ear, and meowed a prophecy:
" 'You will see the fawn, radiating with light
Though where she lives may not be bright
Rising quickly from the thunder
Because of one careless blunder
The different times will help her through
But when the tree's wrath comes, there will be nothing they can do
When the things closest to her follow their hearts
She will make a decision, tearing them all apart
The tree will take her by surprise,
And too soon, she'll meet her untimely demise.' "