#gladekit

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When Cressfreckle (41) tells Airclaw (67) and Graysong (38)the news, they are shocked.  And grieving.  Graysong curls tighter around Gladekit (1), determined to protect his son.  The three decide then and there that they will find a way to bring Yuccastar (104) down.  And they also make another decision.  They don’t want to wait any longer for this, as their chance with Yellowcreek was stolen from them.  The three decide to all become mates.  Their relationship may have started because they all fell in love with Yellowcreek, but now they love each other just as much.  And Airclaw’s kits will be as much Graysong’s (and Yellowcreek’s) as Gladekit is Cressfreckle’s and Airclaw’s.  With his mates both in the nursery, Cressfreckle sneaks out at night to sleep with them.  Gladekit wakes up mewling, missing his dead brother and father, and Cressfreckle bumps heads with him reassuringly.  Outside of the grieving family, clan life is trying to find a new normal in its bereaved, war-torn world.  Conepaw (8) is still bossing cats around, annoying Chasingskip (37).  Faiththrift (46) is annoyed with how Graysong’s been acting-it’s like he’s forgotten that he’s also Healer and needs to do his job, not just dote on his kit.  Flightkit (4), despite her previous refusal to have anything to do with Yellowcreek’s kits, offers an olive branch in the form of grooming a hard to reach place for Gladekit.  Fry (32) is shocked by his new Clan’s decision to exile kit.  He argues with Bushmask (135) over whether it was right or not.  He’s not sure he wants his kits to stay in this Clan.  Luckstripe (62), also being new to the Clan, is shocked by the exile as well.  He and Fry have been spending time together and chatting about their thoughts on clan life.  Cressfreckle overhears them talking and wonders if, maybe, they’d believe him if he told them about Yuccastar.  Luckstripe’s kits are star-blessed, and Yuccastar has killed a star-blessed cat in the past.  He would probably want to know.  Frostheart (28), despite knowing better, catches a sick rabbit, leading to herself, Gentle (112), Amethystdapple (52), and Midgepurr (22) getting poisoned.

Fumblekit (dead); Dark-cursed tom-kit with a power level of 11 (very low); Insecure

The poor child died before he could even open his eyes (they would have been pale yellow, the same color as Yellowcreek's). Oh, and he was long-furred.

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Characters

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“I’m boooooored,” Flintkit complained. He was running circles around his sister, though his face showed a blank expression. He was trying to feel energetic, or excited, anything but the worry that pulled at his muscles and made him want to curl up in his nest and not get up. He missed his fathers. 

“Do you think Dovewave or Minnowfur is better yet?” Gladekit asked, batting at pebbles, trying to hit her brother’s moving feet–not that he noticed.

Dovewave was still sick with heat exhaustion, but Minnowfur had caught whitecough. The only able medicine cat was Ferncurl, who had to work with a sprain, and Tuftedpaw, who only had just over one moon experience. 

Too, the leader and deputy were recovering from a broken bone each after a fox had knocked them off of the lower edge of the gorge.

Flintkit slowed. The small rock skimmed just past his toes. “You got better,” he pointed out. But he looked doubtful. 

Gladekit sat down heavily. Movement made her look up.

Emberpaw, an apprentice one moon older than Tuftedpaw, approached with two minnows and a trout dangling from his jaws. “Hey, you two!” he greeted. “Minnowfur wanted me to make sure you’ve eaten. Would you like me to join?”

“Sure,” Gladekit shrugged, disinterested.

Emberpaw dropped one of the minnows in her paws and plopped down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

Gladekit was watching the breeze sweep at the blades of grass. “Does StarClan cure sickness?” she asked.

Emberpaw blinked at her. Then he looked at the sky, where the warriors of StarClan were just starting to appear, though it was still relatively light out. “The stars seem so distant,” he noted. Gladekit and Flintkit followed his gaze. The stars did seem rather small….so far away. He went on. “Yet I feel like our ancestors are right here, watching over us.” He was silent for a long moment, then he blinked at Gladekit. It seemed he had forgotten her question, and was now humming with his own. “Do you ever wonder, Gladekit, about our purpose in this vast Clan?”

Gladekit tilted her head.

Emberpaw smiled awkwardly. “Ah, you’re too young to be thinking about such things.” He rose to his paws, trout barely touched. “I’ll take this to the elders.” Then he padded away, leaving Flintkit and Gladekit to watch him leave in confusion.

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The siblings can't visit there fathers because they're both in the medicine den and Minnowfur doesn't want to risk infecting them.

PROMPTS:

--Gladekit is batting pebbles.

--Flintkit is running around camp.

--Emberpaw has his StarClan speech.

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See the cats

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Gladekit curled up beside her father, her little tail draped over the edge of the nest. She had recovered from her bout of whitecough, however Dovewave had gotten what Minnowfur called ‘heat exhaustion,’ and it was now him who was kept in the medicine den. 

“Do you want to go play?” Dovewave asked her. His ears flickered, he could hear Flintkit playing with Rosenewt and Tuftedpaw, who had become an apprentice only a couple of days ago and was enjoying a break from her new duties.

Gladekit thought for a moment, then shook her head. She remembered how miserable she had felt when she was sick. She didn’t want her father feeling the same way.

“You know, you can just tell me when you want to spend time together,” Minnowfur joked. “I know I’m the medicine cat, but getting sick isn’t the only way we can see each other!”

Dovewave purred in response. “Oh, admit it, you’re happy I can sleep in the den with you again.”

Minnowfur rolled his, but his mouth was curled upward in a smile. 

Gladekit looked to her other father. “Can you tell me a story?”

Dovewave licked her cheek. “Which one, my dear?”

Gladekit thought for a moment. “Tuftedki–er–paw said that Sweetdapple knows a good loner story. Can you tell it?”

Dovewave shared a look with Minnowfur. Dovewave visibly swallowed.

Why?

Dovewave shuffled, not speaking for several long heartbeats. “Once, many moons ago, there was a loner named Peak. She was a beautiful golden she-cat with fur as delicate as fresh ferns and spots as white as first snow. One day, Peak bore into the world two little kits–one son, and one daughter.”

“Like me and Flintkit!” Gladekit cut in.

For some reason, Dovewave’s eyes widened at her interruption. “Er...Yes, good catch!”

“Are you sure you want to tell this story?” Minnowfur asked. He was finishing up sorting the herb piles and came to rest on Dovewave’s other side.

“She wants to hear it,” Dovewave answered. “She’ll hear it from us, or from someone like Sweetdapple.”

Minnowfur grimaced, but said nothing else.

Dovewave continued. “Peak may have been young, but she was an excellent mother. When she hunted for her kits, she brought back enough fish to feed an entire Clan twice. She had no warrior training, but she didn’t need any, because she only had to look at a fox with her best ‘don’t you dare touch my kits!’ face, and the beasts will be running away with their tails between their legs!’”

Gladekit giggled.

“But...” Dovewave’s voice fell, growing deeply serious. Gladekit leaned in, eyes wide. “...Not even someone as great as Peak could battle the worst enemy of all: nature itself. A horrible storm hit Peak’s home, sweeping her and her kits away to unknown lands. None of them could see, there was so much rain that their skin ached from it, the clouds were so dark that they couldn’t tell sky from water, and Peak was swallowing so much water, her lungs burned more and more, she was growing more and more tired.”

“What happened?” Gladekit asked. She couldn’t help but notice that Dovewave was acting a lot more solemn in his telling of this story than he normally did when he spoke of dramatic tales, but she was too distracted by the story itself to pay that detail any mind.

“Peak could hardly move,” Dovewave told her. “Her legs were so stiff that they felt as heavy as logs, and the water was sweeping her faster and faster through unknown lands. Peak was dangerously close to death, but she had only one thing on her mind: protecting her kits. Peak used every bit of the strength that was left and pushed through the waves like they were puddles, and grabbed her kits. She held them as high as she could, keeping them safe from the water while it battered at her. She focused. She had to get them to safety. She narrowed her eyes. Nothing. Only more water, until at last she spotted shore! Peak had to work against the current. Her legs didn’t want to move, and it took every bit of her will to get her limbs to kick out just once, let alone twice. But she did it. She kicked, and kicked, and kicked, until finally she made it onto the shore. She collapsed, too tired to do anything else. In the distance, she saw two toms, and heard them asking if she was alright. She knew that they were safe, that her kits would be safe with them, and so Peak let out her final breath, happy in her final moments, because she knew her darling kits would be safe.”

Gladekit stared at her fathers for a moment. “Then what?”

Dovewave blinked at her. “That’s the end.”

“But is she really dead?”

“She is,” Minnowfur confirmed.

“What do you think?” Dovewave asked. Was he holding his breath?

Gladekit frowned. “It’s stupid!” she decided. “If I were Peak, I wouldn’t have let silly water kill me!”

Dovewave gaped at his daughter. Why? It was just a story!

Minnowfur looked upset as well. “You’re a RiverClan cat, you need to learn that water can be your greatest ally and most dangerous enemy,” he said sternly. “Don’t disrespect anyone like that again, fake or not, understand?”

Why was he so mad? “But I–”

“Go see if Flintkit wants to play.”

Gladekit glared at him. “Fine!” Rising from the nest, she stormed out of the den, fur bristling along her spine.

When she had disappeared, Dovewave shook his head. “You shouldn’t have been so hard on her. She doesn’t know.”

“When should we tell her?” Minnowfur asked. 

“Tell her what? She knows she and Flintkit weren’t born in the Clan. They both do. Rosenewt’s not their real mother, and you and I can’t exactly have kits.”

Minnowfur sighed. “They’re bound to have questions one day about how we found them.”

“And we’ll tell them then.”

Minnowfur rested his chin on Dovewave’s shoulders. “I just worry that someone else will beat us to it, someone more harsh.”

“You’re too in your own head,” Dovewave told him gently. “The worst they can be told is that we’re not their first parents, and they already know that.”

“And then what? That their fathers found their mother dead on the shore, and left her there without a burial?”

“We did bury her,” Dovewave reminded him. Though Snailstar saw no point, Dovewave and Minnowfur snuck out that night to give the mother proper respects. After all, she had given them two beautiful kits. And she had to die for them to have them.

Minnowfur was silent for a bit. “Do you think she will remember this? When we tell them what really happened?”

“Why do you ask?”

“What if she’s angry that we didn’t tell her the truth–”

“We did. We told her about a heroic she-cat who died protecting her kits, and that’s exactly what happened. We can worry about telling them who those kits were another day. Until then, would you mind getting me some feverfew?”

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--Dovewave and Minnowfur deeply respect the dead mother who they found with the kits that they took in, and have come to calling her 'Peak,' to at least give her a name--something possibly decided on when they sat vigil for her.

--Of course, Dove and Minnow came across 'Peak' after she had died, and have no way of knowing her exact story. But they like to imagine that she was a wonderful mother--she did, after all, die for her kits.

PROMPTS:

--Gladekit recovered from yellowcough!

--Dovewave has heat exhaustion.