From A Storm Comes Blood -- MOON 4
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.
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!’”
“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?”
“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?”
--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.
--Gladekit recovered from yellowcough!
--Dovewave has heat exhaustion.
--Dove tells Gladekit a story about a loner, but Gladekit doesn't react kindly to the loner's poor luck.
