"Open your eyes, little one."
"Yeah! Hurry up!"
"Shush, Windkit."
"I've opened mine for three days now."
"Windkit. Let Frostkit take her own time."
What's the hurry? Frostkit wondered. She certainly agreed with the feminine voice, probably that of her mother. That Windkit, probably her brother, was horribly impatient. Still, should she open her eyes just to spite him? She already knew she wasn't going to like him. Obvious, wasn't it? Letting out an inaudible sigh, Frostkit blinked open her eyes. At first sight, she only saw a small gray kit and a silver she-cat.
"See! She just needed a little rushing!" Windkit growled. The silver she-cat cuffed his ear.
"Hello, Frostkit. I'm Hopeheart, he's Windkit, and that's your other brother, Cloudkit." the silver she-cat purred gently.
Frostkit looked over to the other part of the nest and saw a small white kit almost identical to herself curled up on that nest.
"Her eyes are blue like mine!" Windkit meowed triumphantly.
"Shush, you. They're only blue for a day, before they change into her real eye color," Hopeheart meowed with a long-suffering sigh.
Windkit growled in annoyance. "But Cloudkit's turned amber! I want someone to have my eyes! And yours are green!"
"My mother's were blue. And your father's are amber. So that means little Frostkit here might have my green eyes."
"Or they might be your father's color!" Windkit protested.
Hopeheart purred in amusement. "My father's are amber, too. True, she might be amber. Don't you know my father by now?"
Frostkit listened intently to their conversation, figuring out all the cats in the Clan. Hopeheart's mother, Lunarfur, was dead and gone a long time ago, barely after Hopeheart's birth, and her father, Grassfeather, was a grumpy, big tortoiseshell tom. Frostkit's father was a black tom called Shadowflight, who was on a hunting patrol at that moment and wasn't there to witness when his only daughter opened her eyes. She got a little huffy at that. Hopeheart spent every moment with them, so why couldn't Shadowflight? But she didn't think complaining was the way to go about it, since her mother was constantly cuffing her brother's ear and it looked like it might really hurt. For some reason, Hopeheart thought cuffing three-day-old kits was alright.
There were other boring and unimportant members of the Clan, too, but the most important were their denmates. Silverlight and her three kits, Ashkit, Stormkit, and Brightkit. Their litter was the opposite genders, one tom and two she-cats. Frostkit would've loved to have had a sister, but after a moon or so, Stormkit became like a sister to her, and Frostkit was seldom seen without her.
"BADGER! HELP! BADGER!" there was a shrill scream from inside camp. It wasn't a voice Frostkit recognized, probably some unimportant cat from the Clan, but the word 'badger' was terrifying. Frostkit considered jumping to hide, but she was an adventurous kit. She knew Windkit would never agree, he was too annoyed at her about everything, but maybe Cloudkit would?
Frostkit hurried over to her brother excitedly. "Cloudkit, do you want to jump on that badger and get a real badger ride?"
"Count me in!" Stormkit hissed from the side. The three kits grinned at each other and charged outside. Silverlight was standing at the entrance but she didn't have a chance to catch the three wily kits.
"What - no! Stormkit! You're four moons but those two are barely one moon old! And what are you doing out of the den? There's a BADGER IN CAMP!" Silverlight roared, the horrifying deputy part of her emerging and submerging the gentle mother that she could be. Frostkit had been taught to hate Silverlight, since she'd apparently been Hopeheart's awful mentor, but she honestly didn't find Silverlight that bad. She was going to be leader someday, so Frostkit couldn't let hating Silverlight earn her a horrid place in the Clan.
Frostkit leapt onto the badger's neck, raking tiny claws across it. "BADGER RIDE! HURRY UP!" Stormkit yowled from the back. She and Cloudkit had just finished clambering on, and they all rode the badger around camp. The badger was distracted by the little creatures on its back that it hardly seemed to be paying attention to the fighting going on. The three kits jumped off the badger just as it let out a howl and charged out of camp where it had come from.
Frostkit, Cloudkit and Stormkit hurried back into the nursery and awaited punishment, but when they entered the nursery, it was like a ghost town. No kits, no queens. They hurried back outside to the High Rock, and saw Sunshine, the temporary deputy, standing up there.
"Summerstar is dead," the yellow she-cat meowed, her voice heavy with grief. "But... I was deputy when he fell. And Silverlight is still nursing. Which one of us is leader now?"
"You... you were only temporary, weren't you? So Silverlight should be leader," one of the cats gathered below, Amberfrost, meowed, her voice soft but clear.
Sunshine flinched. She obviously did want to be leader.
"Let's bring them both to Highstones. StarClan can tell us who is our next leader," Honeyleaf, the old medicine cat, let out a suggestion, but it really sounded more like a command. Both Sunshine and Silverlight nodded in agreement.
"But... I still have kits to care for. I can't just abandon them if I'm chosen to lead," Silverlight meowed hopelessly.
"You chose to have kits, you stupid cat," Honeyleaf snarled. "Now deal with the consequences. You two, come on and quit dilly dallying. The rest of the Clan, what are you doing? Organize a burial, bury Summerstar, sit vigil, repair the camp, I don't know, do something and quit moping around!" Honeyleaf glared at everyone before charging out of camp with Sunshine and Silverlight trailing behind her.
Every cat in the Clan was busy with preparing the ground for burial and repairing the camp, and no cat seemed to remember the three naughty kits who had been riding the badger around for fun. No one noticed Frostkit, Cloudkit and Stormkit as they snuck back into the nursery. Only Silverlight had seen them go, and she was at Highstones, maybe getting her nine lives. So, they were actually safe, after doing something incredibly dangerous. But fun. And worth it.
It was nearly bedtime when they were approached by Windkit. "Stop bringing Cloudkit into your games. He doesn't deserve to be scolded along with you when Silverlight gets back. He's my acolyte, not yours."
"Acolyte? Ha! He's not my acolyte, he's my brother!" Frostkit spat. Seriously? Windkit saw Cloudkit as his acolyte? No way! Cloudkit wouldn't serve Windkit, or be constantly in his shadow, he was his own cat! How dare Windkit say Cloudkit was his acolyte?
"As am I. Your older brother who opened his eyes first. Listen to me, you weird purple-eyed cat!" Windkit growled.
Frostkit growled back. The real reason she hated Windkit was because when her eyes finally changed color, they didn't change to green. They changed to startling violet, nowhere in the family traits. He had constantly teased her for it while Stormkit had found them pretty. That was why she hated him. The constant unnecessary teasing that he provided. He did it all to gain more attention and put Frostkit in his shadow. Frostkit hated Windkit, loathed him. How dare he say her nice, innocent brother was his acolyte!
"Okay, not acolyte," Windkit corrected with a sigh. "He's my apprentice."
"That's just worse," Stormkit groaned with an eyeroll. "Yes, you are a warrior, yes, he is not a kit, he is an apprentice, and no, you're not littermates? Dude, what!"
Windkit sighed. "He. Is. My. Brother. And you are no sister of ours."
"I am your sister!" Frostkit fired back.
"By blood, maybe. But if I'm asked... I only have a brother."
Frostkit stared at Windkit in dismay, and then turned her back on him. "Well, if you say so, I won't care. I only have a brother, too."
Windkit's evil smile widened. "Oh, but Cloudkit only has a brother. You're excluded from both sides. Why don't you just accept it? You're not part of our family."
Frostkit looked at him, hurt, but found herself with no words to say. If they didn't want her to be their sister, then who was her family after all? She had few friends as it was. Frostkit turned away, her eyes darkening, only to find that awful medicine cat looking at her. What was his name again? Oh, Hawkfeather. He was always staring at either Frostkit or Cloudkit, muttering feverishly to himself, for no reason at all. He was way too young to be a psychopath already, but it seemed like he already was. Even his crabby mentor wasn't so crazy. Maybe he'd received a stupid prophecy about her and Cloudkit.
Hawkfeather realized she was staring straight back at him, confidently meeting his eyes, and he nervously turned away, his cheeks turning pink with embarrassment. Frostkit let out a huff of annoyance and bounded away to go find Stormkit. Stormkit was hanging out with her littermates as usual, and Frostkit couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. If only she had littermates to hang out with, too, ones that didn't act like she didn't exist. Surprisingly, it barely took Stormkit a few moments to peel away from her littermates and come over to Frostkit.
"Were you arguing?" Frostkit asked suspiciously. Usually, it took Stormkit a lengthy explanation and a lot of excuses before Ashkit and Brightkit let her go off with Frostkit.
"Um. Not really. But I don't really like them. Never did. Was there something you wanted?" she asked, her voice trembling, but she still faced Frostkit with her kind eyes.
"My littermates are pretending I don't exist. They keep saying they only have a brother," Frostkit meowed sadly.
Stormkit looked sympathetically at Frostkit. "Don't worry. Even if you don't have blood siblings, I'll be your sister, alright? I've heard of this stuff before. We swear brotherhood."
"You mean, sisterhood."
"Yeah, sisterhood, sorry, it's brotherhood where I heard it from. We'll become sworn sisters. But you have to give me an item, and I have to give you an item. You have anything in mind?"
"I don't own anything, how about I we share prey today?" Frostkit asked. Everything she said was true. Usually, warrior cats didn't own anything, because everything they had was from or for the Clan. Like the prey they carried back to be eaten. The only thing personal was probably moss but that was constantly changed day in, day out.
"Well, that should work too," Stormkit meowed hopefully.
That day, they took a mouse back together, ignoring their siblings' confused and suspicious eyes on them, and quickly demolished it together. After that, they named themselves sworn sisters, and Frostkit knew she couldn't have been happier. Now she had a new sibling, a sister in Stormkit, and she'd never be alone again. She could tell from their facial expressions that her littermates didn't care what she was doing, but she noticed that Ashkit and Brightkit were staring darkly at the mouse bones that Stormkit was burying and they were muttering between themselves, green with envy. Why would they be envious? They were actually littermates with Stormkit, not just sworn siblings. Wasn't Frostkit's one worse? If anything happened, Stormkit still had actual siblings to turn to, but Frostkit never would, not again, not if Windkit kept ruining everything for her.
Surprisingly, Frostkit found that Hopeheart had gone on patrol. That was unusual, because usually queens stayed for the whole kithood before going on patrols and being a warrior again. Did that mean Hopeheart was sick and tired of caring for her pesky kits? She'd taken Shadowflight with her too... so perhaps they were abandoning... but they'd come back, surely. Even Stormkit was sure that they would come back, and if Stormkit - if her sworn sister believed it, so did Frostkit. Neither of her littermates were even speaking to her, and Frostkit wondered if she should mention that even if they weren't siblings anymore, Clanmates did speak to each other, if only occasionally. But Windkit was treating her like rotten prey, the kind that one avoided on their way across camp. The kind that no cat even bothered to bury until instructed by the Clan leader. That was her now. The rotten prey.
Would anything in her life, other than Stormkit, ever be right?
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