Chapter Text
When Tigerstorm headed back to camp about two minutes later, she felt like her heart was bleeding. She sat down nowhere specific and stared at nothing. She tried to imagine her sister finding a mate and settling down, and it worked to make her feel better for a while.
She quickly decided that she didn’t want to think about it anymore and looked around to find Beavertail. She found him shuffling around in the fresh-kill pile until he found her favorite food, then posting himself at the entrance to the camp to wait for her to come back. It immediately brought a purr to her throat. When her mate finally realized that she was already back, he sat next to her and pressed their pelts together. Tigerstorm looked down at her paws again, and shrugged, as though she was pretending that it was no big deal.
“She left the Clan,” she dropped. “But she’ll visit. Probably. She said she might. Or would. I don’t know. She was really mad, but I think we’re friends again.”
She swallowed back her sadness and looked at her meal.
“Anyway, kitten names?” she let out.
“What for?” Beavertail protested.
“I think this isn’t just fat. I’m expecting,” she explained, and Beavertail stared at her like his brain had stopped working.
“What?” he managed to pronounce after about twenty seconds of staring.
Then his gaze started to shift, and it went from loving to emotional as she repeated her sentence:
“We’re going to have kittens,” she purred, and she licked his ear.
“No, we’re not,” he let out in a wheeze.
“But we are,” Tigerstorm insisted.
Beavertail started to make his I’ve-been-hit-by-a-monster face.
“What?” he said again, then he shook his head. “We should go see Ravenwhisker.”
But instead of moving, he stared into the abyss. Tigerstorm considered it, then started to pad away.
“I could go see him myself,” she tried, but he wiggled in protest.
“No! I should go, too. It’s only fair, if I’m to be their fa -- am I the father?”
“Yes!” Tigerstorm protested.
“No, I mean -- I can’t -- I can’t even think about it. I think I’m dying,” he added.
“I think you’re dying, too.”
Beavertail rolled on his back.
“Leave me here to die,” he joked.
“Stop dying!” Tigerstorm wailed, and she tried to push him to a standing position.
Beavertail purred and stood up to give a lick to her annoyed face.
“Aww. You’re so angry. It’s kinda cute. You know the only bad part about this? We can’t scream “TEAM TICKTERS” if we have kittens to take care of.”
Tigerstorm briefly burrowed into his fur, then kept pushing him to the medicine cat’s den. Beavertail let out a choked purr and followed her nervously.
"Are we really going to have kittens? But we're not ready!" he fretted.
"I think it's too late for that," Tigerstorm commented. "Besides, how ready do we really need to be?"
"What if a kit's sick?"
"We can go see the medicine cat."
"What if one of them's odd?"
"Medicine cat."
"Blind?"
"Medicine cat."
"Well, what if it's something medicine can't fix? What if they're missing an eye? Or don't have all their limbs?"
Tigerstorm shrugged.
"That doesn't sound so bad."
"Why aren't you panicking?" Beavertail wailed.
"Hey, hey, it's alright. As long as we love them and try to understand how they feel, we'll do great. I mean, kits can talk. We can always ask them. Or ask your mother. Or anyone else who's had kits. Or, again --"
"The medicine cat," Beavertail sighed.
He sat back down.
"Am I cheering you up properly?" Tigerstorm purred sheepishly.
Beavertail looked up with her with a laugh.
"Kind of?"
Tigerstorm started pacing in place.
"I want to meet the kits!" she whined. "Come on, let's go!"
"Why don't we wait a bit? We haven't even eaten yet," Beavertail purred. "Come on. I'm really hungry.
"I'm a little hungry," Tigerstorm conceded, and she sat down. "Wow, I almost forgot that Bluefeather left the Clan."
Beavertail licked her ear gently.
"I wonder how we'll tell everyone," she murmured, and as she said it, her mood dropped considerably.
"Come on. Eat, you'll feel better," Beavertail soothed, and she took a small bite.
"I just -- she hadn't even told me about it before it happened. I assume she thought about it, but she didn't tell me. I don't know what to do. You know, talking about it isn't helping me feel better. Eating is. A little bit. Why do sad things happen like that? It's annoying. Twilightpaw, then Amberspots was sick, and now this."
She put her cheek on Beavertail's paws, and accidentally fell asleep. Beavertail sat there with his eyes in the clouds until he started to purr.
"We're having kittens," he let out in a sing-song voice. "Kittens, kittens…"
He vibrated so hard in his excitement that Tigerstorm fell asleep, and he licked her nose happily.
“We’re having KITTENS!” he screeched, and he kept grooming her muzzle. “You’ll see, I’ll be the best father ever. We’ll be so happy! Did you already think about names? I’m so excited! Kittens! Should we name one Tickkit?”
Tigerstorm purred at that. Maybe things would be alright after all.
***
Once upon a time, Coldyarrow had approached one of her friends by the warrior’s den.
“Hey, Amberspots,” she had greeted tentatively.
“Hi, Coldyarrow,” Amberspots answered morosely.
“What’s wrong?” Coldyarrow worried, and she eyed the ground next to her.
Amberspots nodded for her to sit down, and so she happily did.
“Well, the cat I like just had --”
She stopped herself before she could betray herself by giving the much too specific information that the cat just had kittens.
“Just took a mate. So, well, that’s that.”
“Oh,” Coldyarrow let out. “I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t help but feel cheerful. She was sitting next to Amberspots, after all.
“Yeah, well, it never could have worked anyway,” Amberspots sighed. “They only ever liked one cat, and it wasn’t me.”
Coldyarrow nodded at the cautious use of “they”, hoping that maybe it meant what she was hoping that it meant.
“Can I know who it is?” she asked tentatively.
“Maybe I’ll tell you later. I’m not in a talking mood. More of a cheer-me-up-please mood.”
Amberspots rested her head on her paws and shot her a glance.
“What kind of cats do you like?” Coldyarrow tried.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I’m kind of pessimistic about it. I know, I’ve been rejected once, it happens, but still. I have no idea who else to… pursue, I guess.”
Coldyarrow nodded.
“I like cats with spots.”
Amberspots purred.
“It sounds like an infection when you say it like that.”
Coldyarrow purred a little too loudly. She was interrupted by her apprentice Grasspaw, who collided into her like a very angry branch.
“Woops! Sorry!” he squeaked, before running off back to his friends.
They were playing with a ball of moss together.
“Wait!” Coldyarrow laughed. “Come on. All this energy should be used for your training. Maybe Amberspots can come and help you practice, too. Maybe you’ll even survive.”
“Really?” Grasspaw squeaked, unfazed by his teasing. "Okay!"
He darted away excitedly. Amberspots let out a purr.
"He's so adorable!" she commented. "Meanwhile, Twilightpaw never does what I tell her to do."
"Ha-ha!" came Twilightpaw's victorious mew.
"What is it?" Amberspots asked.
"I mean, it's true," Twilightpaw explained.
"Stop being proud of it!"
Twilightpaw considered it.
"Nah."
"Yesterday, she took all the kittens on a walk around camp," Amberspots went on. "They were adorable. They looked so proud. Little proud fluffballs."
"Are you happy with me or not?" Twilightpaw protested.
"Both! You kept telling them all your revolutionary ideas and teaching them stupid things."
"No, I wasn't," Twilightpaw pouted.
"When are we going to go train?" Grasspaw whined.
"Look! It's the kittens!" Amberspots suddenly shrieked as tiny little faces appeared cautiously behind the taller heads of grass.
"Hello!" Coldyarrow purred.
"Am kit," one of them mumbled.
Amberspots and Coldyarrow looked at each other, then kept purring.
"Aren't you a little young to be wandering around camp -- Twilightpaw?" Amberspots squinted.
"He likes to walk!" Twilightpaw defended herself.
"No!" Bouncykit huffed.
"That's a molly," Grasspaw corrected.
Amberspots decided that this kitten was hers now. And also the other one, Sleepykit, who was sleeping now, because she was very tired. She had walked a long way, after all.
"Well, how am I supposed to know? I didn't look!" Twilightpaw rebutted poutingly.
Coldstar picked up the sleeping kit and looked around for her mother. Brownbelly was lazily sunbathing next to the nursery walls.
"Hey, Brownbelly, are these kittens yours?"
"They are! Mine and Leafsong's!" Brownbelly purred, overjoyed.
Coldyarrow hesitated, then put the kit back on the ground. Sleepykit rolled away and yawned.
"I hope nothing happens to them," she whispered to Amberspots.
"I'm sure they'll be fine. We haven't had any sicknesses in a while."
But Coldyarrow winced at the mention of sickness. Amberspots noticed.
"Just look at how happy they are!" she said to distract her. "Here, have one."
She plopped Bouncykit on her paws. Bouncykit wobbled around and made little noises. It made Coldyarrow purr again.
"You know, they start whining everytime Leafsong leaves," Brownbelly appeared to say. "I think it's very sweet. Very sad, too, of course. I'm just glad they love him."
"Say, do you know who's taken a mate lately?" Coldyarrow asked playfully. "I'm investigating something."
"Well, there's me and Leafsong, but we've been together for a few moons already."
"You don't like to walk?" Amberspots cooed to Bouncykit.
"Nuh," Bouncykit mewed.
"But you just walked all the way here!" Amberspots laughed.
"Eeeeh," Bouncykit answered, and she waddled all the way back to her mother (another incredibly long trek) to nuzzle in her belly.
"Are you hungry?" Brownbelly purred tenderly.
"Yeh," the kit mumbled.
Brownbelly looked at her friends.
"She's been talking for a few days now. Isn't she adorable?" she cooed, before picking up her baby and going back to the nursery with it.
Amberspots looked down at Sleepykit, but she was still sleeping. She decided to groom her fuzzy little pelt, but bumped heads with Coldyarrow, who had had the same idea. They purred, and as they crossed eyes, Coldyarrow became very shy.
"You would be a good mother. You can't give up your search for a mate just yet, it would be too much of a shame," she sputtered.
Amberspots nodded. She seemed pleased by the compliment. As she bent her head to lick the kit's minuscule head, and inwardly cooed about how she had forgotten that kits were so small and cute, Coldyarrow sat there and looked at her.
"I mean, unless your mystery cat was a molly. Then it wouldn't change much," she let out tentatively.
For some reason, Amberspots' silence drove her to empty her heart of everything she wanted to say. And it worked, because her beautiful ginger friend looked up at her with these lovely amber eyes of hers.
"Yeah. It was a molly, actually. Uh."
She looked around for any eavesdroppers, then noticed that Grasspaw's face was right there next to her. She frowned, and Coldyarrow couldn't help but burst into purrs.
"Wait, we were supposed to go train them for battle," Coldyarrow remembered nervously.
"No, keep going," Grasspaw answered mischievously.
"No, thank you," Amberspots purred, amused, before turning back to Coldyarrow, who was looking down at her paws uneasily. "It's alright. It's not like we're under orders to do it today."
"Right. It just feels silly that we said we would do something and haven't done it for ages."
"I don't think Twilightpaw cares," Amberspots answered, and they looked around for her.
She had scampered away to the medicine den to go talk to Bluepaw.
"This is also interesting," Grasspaw supplied.
"Why don't you go help the elders with their ticks instead? I think that's what Twilightpaw is doing, too," Amberspots laughed.
"Noooo! It smells so baaaad!" Grasspaw whined desperately. "And we were going to trainnnnn."
He looked up at his mentor pleadingly. Coldyarrow purred and licked his head.
"Do it quickly, and we'll go right afterwards. Get Twilightpaw on it as well," she decided, and Grasspaw grumbled as he walked away.
He turned around to give her one last pitiful look.
"Stop that!" she called, and so he kept walking. "Do you remember if you liked training as much as they do when you were an apprentice?"
"I think so! But I hated how I wasn't allowed to actually fight anyone for real. We kept practicing the movements alone instead of practicing them in a fake fight. That was boring," Amberspots recollected.
"You made up for that," Coldyarrow purred, and Amberspots nodded happily.
"It's not as much about posture as training teaches you. It's mostly about not giving up. Who cares how you fight? As long as you win the fight, you did good."
"Do you even like training?" Coldyarrow asked.
"Not really. I mean, not all of it. Battles aren't very joyful occasions, of course, and, well, getting cut hurts, but at least, I get to -- how do you say -- vent out all my frustrations on something. I can still hit cats in training, but lately, I've been told to calm down," Amberspots added with a chuckle. "I say, if they won't get any battles for me to fight in, they have to let me hit someone else. It's only fair."
"Who's they? Yellowstar?"
"Yellowstar?" Lightslap raised his head to say from where he was taking in the sun on the Highrock.
"Yellowstar?" Featherleaf repeated happily.
"Oh no, is it my assessment?" Ravenwhisker fretted, waking up with a start in the middle of his herbs.
"You've already passed it," his old mentor reminded him from where he was sharing a rabbit with his mate in front of the elders' den.
"So many moons ago. Sooooo many," Amberspots added with a purr. "You're so ooooold."
"What? Me? What's everyone yammering on about?" Yellowstar protested, amused.
"What? Yellowstar? What? What's going on? Is somebody having kits?" Graystar came out of his den to yell.
"What? No!" Amberspots protested.
She was getting very confused.
"Brownbelly had kits," Briarspark commented.
"I'm Yellowstar's kit," Moonpaw said, and she went back to pushing Lightslap away from the Highrock. "Get off, Lightslap! You're not deputy anymore."
Ravenwhisker made a face, because Graystar was pretty, before going back to the nap he had started that had been rudely interrupted. Bluepaw shook her head from where she was messing around and putting herbs on her mentor's face.
"Why is everyone being silly?" she grumbled.
Twilightpaw shrugged.
Near the nursery, Coldyarrow and Amberspots were still watchinv over the kit. Tigerpaw had joined then. She was still very small and fuzzy, as though her kitten fur hadn't fallen off yet.
"So who's Yellowstar again?" she chirped.
"She's our old leader."
"Why do we have two leaders?"
"Because Yellowstar decided to retire before her time."
"Then who's Graystar?"
"He's our new leader."
"Who's Beechstep? Is it true that she's from RiverClan?"
"Yes, it's true."
"Then does she still smell like mud and water?"
"They don't really smell like that," Amberspots purred. "It's just something cats say to insult them, just like they say ShadowClan cats smell like rotten food and thunderpaths. WindClan cats do smell like wind, though. It's quite a nice smell."
Coldyarrow asked herself if she ought to run around in the moor more often to smell like wind, too.
"Amberspots? When can we train?"
Amberspots purred again.
"I don't know, honey."
"What's a honey?"
"It's something very sweet and orange-colored, like you. Bees make it in their homes. It's good for the throat, and very sticky."
"Pee is orange."
"Pee should not be orange," Amberspots warned. "You need to drink more water if it's orange."
Coldyarrow looked at her friend tenderly.
"Amberspots? Why aren't you my mentor?" Tigerpaw whined.
"Because I already have an apprentice."
"But can you tell her she's not your apprentice and then be my mentor?" Tigerpaw pleaded.
"No, honey. That would be very rude to her."
"But can my mentor change apprentices with you? I don't want my mentor," Tigerpaw pouted.
"Who's your mentor? Briarspark, right?" Amberspots asked, and she nodded. "Briarspark was my mentor, too. She trained me to be a very good warrior."
"But I don't want herrrrr. I want youuuuu."
"I think you'll be her last apprentice. That means you'll be very important to her."
Tigerpaw pouted for a second, then lightened up.
"Okay! Can I stay here?"
"Of course," Amberspots purred, and so Tigerpaw settled down and snuggled close.
Their pelts were both orange, even if one was lined with dark stripes and the other was full of brown and red splotches like leaves. Amberspots thought sometimes that she could have been her daughter. Then she looked back at Sleepykit, who wasn't done with her nap yet, and purred. Sleepykit was white, almost the same color as Coldyarrow, who was cream-colored. It struck her that her friend had a beautiful pelt. It also struck her that these kits looked like they could be theirs.
She didn't care much about the thought right now, and went back to feeling morose about Brownbelly's newest litter. She had given birth to so many kits already -- Tinykit, Whitekit, Crowkit, Mousekit -- and these kits had had kittens of their own already -- Grasskit, Fernkit, Bluekit, Tigerkit. Now these kits were becoming warriors and medicine cats. It was ridiculous.
She felt old for a second. They had done so much with their lives already, and time moved so fast, but she still felt like she hadn't had any time to figure out where she stood on anything. Everyone was mating and having kits, and she was just… a warrior. And there was her mother…
"Hey, Amberspots?" Coldyarrow suddenly asked, and she snapped out of her depressing thoughts.
"Uh? Yeah?"
"Are you alright?"
Amberspots shrugged.
"Isn't it weird how some of us will live through two leaderships in their lifetime?" she let out distantly. "I just feel like it's weird that, say, Tigerpaw knows Yellowstar while Graystar is the leader. It's so weird."
She shook her head again.
"I'm sorry. I might need a distraction."
Her friend stood up.
"Come on, then. Let's take a walk. Maybe?" Coldyarrow hesitated. "The kit's still there. Uhhhh."
She sat back down. Tigerpaw was still sleeping, too.
"Maybe you could distract yourself by playing with it," she chuckled sheepishly.
Amberspots gave it an absent-minded lick.
"Is Yellowstar still sick? And I heard Graystar didn't have his nine lives, and that's why you and Ravenwhisker are so careful with him. I don't like how all of these generations can cohabit. Exist at the same time. It's weird. Yellowstar is old. Tigerpaw is so small. She's barely an apprentice. This is all very odd."
"Hey, Ravenwhisker?" she heard Coldyarrow call.
"Honestly, it's freaking me out," she went on.
"What? What's going on?" Tigerpaw chirped sleepily, and she stretched her paws. "Right. Amberspots? When can we train?"
Amberspots looked down at her and purred.
"Not now."
"She's all distant and cloudy-feeling," Coldyarrow was fretting somewhere close by.
"It happens sometimes," Ravenwhisker soothed. "Ever since Mother…"
He shrugged.
"Amberspots?"
"Stop fretting! And I hear you talking about me," Amberspots rasped.
"Sorry!" Coldyarrow chirped sheepishly.
"Not sorry!" Ravenwhisker added.
"You know, now that I'm an apprentice, I can be better friends with Beaverpaw. Then maybe we can be mates. I mean, I hope he likes me, because he's very perfect."
"He looks like Leafsong," Amberspots criticized, trying to ignore her friends' worried muttering. "And you're too small for that."
"No, he doesn't! He's way prettier, and his paws are bigger. Also, he's smaller. And nice to snuggle with. Probably."
Tigerpaw looked down shyly.
"You're --" Amberspots tried, but her mind drew a blank.
She shook her head again. Maybe they ought to have gone to train instead. She looked around and saw that Sleepykit was wiggling around.
"Look at this kit," she said instead. "I like kits."
"Me too!" Tigerpaw squeaked. "I wonder if Beaverpaw likes kits. Does he want to have any? I mean, not with me, or right now, but like, in the future. Amberspots, do I look pretty? I'm going to go talk to him."
"Isn't he out hunting?" Amberspots protested.
Tigerpaw deflated, then her eyes sparked back up.
"Maybe I can ask my mentor if we can go hunt, too. Bye, Amberspots! Oh, and it smells really nice all of a sudden. Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Oh, they're back! Nevermind, then. Do you want me to bring you some food?"
"Sure. Then we can keep talking about Beaverpaw."
"Okay!" Tigerpaw exclaimed, and she ran away.
It made Amberspots purr.
"Can a cat change mentors?" she wondered aloud. "Maybe Crowface would be better for her. She's her aunt, but I'm sure that won't stop her from getting her to clean up the elders."
She purred at her own joke.
"I mean, not that it's such a big task -- will you two sit down?"
Coldyarrow didn't, because she didn't know where to sit.
"Where?" she let out.
"Uh. Here," Amberspots replied, and she pointed to the ground next to her with her tail.
"Okay!"
Coldyarrow sat down, happy but nervous. Amberspots swatted at her brother's paws. He wiggled away. He was busy staring at Graystar.
"Look at the kit!" Amberspots told Coldyarrow instead.
"The kit!" Coldyarrow echoed, and it made her purr, too.
Sleepykit was making various sleepy noises. The two mollies looked at her.
"It's ours now," Amberspots purred mischievously. "We'll rename her… Amberspot's kit… kit."
She earned a giggle. It struck Amberspots again that she was beautiful. She looked like a beech, white with hints of gold and little black stripes in the form of whiskers on her face.
Well, when she got poetic, she knew she was screwed. She used to compare Brownbelly's pelt to sun-warmed ground. She was definitely screwed, especially since she couldn't stop noticing all the little golden hairs in Coldyarrow's face and comparing them to honey.
Mouse-dung, she thought. Here we go again.