Little Stars (short story)
“I don’t know about this,” Mottlekit said quietly, stopping a few steps behind Graykit.
The kit who was somehow both older and younger than her had gotten an idea, one of her many. The idea was to collect a bunch of feathers and attach them to a sleeping warrior with tree sap. The little kit shook with excitement, her laughter already bubbling up as if she could see the confusion on the warrior’s face now.
Mottlekit, on the other hand, saw the inevitable anger. Seeing Graykit’s exasperation with her, she wished not for the first time to have her friend’s confidence, to do fun things without worrying about getting in trouble.
“I’ll target Firebird,” Graykit promised. “You know how nice she is!”
“That just makes me feel worse!” Mottlekit whined. “But we can’t target someone mean ‘cause then they’ll be really mean!”
For a moment, a dark shadow hovered beneath Graykit’s eyelids. Then, more casually, as if she were trying to convince herself that it was no big deal, she said, “no one gets mad at two dead kits.”
Mottlekit didn’t stiffen, well used to the fact by now, and finally, finally past the trauma of having her fragile body held beneath the water. Her mind went to her mother, how devastated she had been, and then becoming a murderer, a kit-murderer.
Mottlekit and Oatkit hadn’t been sure how to react to Goldenkit. His mother killed them and their mother killed him. Some of the Starclan cats, kind and devastated at the whole situation, had gently explained everything to them as much as they could, but even in their young and confused states, they could tell that the warriors weren’t too sure how to explain it at all, that they hardly believed what had happened. Mottlekit was even sure they wanted to keep them separate to avoid conflict.
It had been Mottlekit who decided to confront Goldenkit. His mother was a murderer for no reason. At least Poppyhill did it for revenge! She needed to defend her mother’s honour, to take out her anger and grief over her own life at the only one around that she could connect to the deaths. When she had approached, his back was to her, and his golden pelt reminded her so much of the leg that had held her beneath the shallow water, claws digging into her little skin as she wriggled, panicking, fighting for air.
But when he turned around, tears welled in his eyes. Snot fell from his nostrils. Mottlekit recognized the look. He was scared.
How horrible her death had been, how much she and her brother needed each other’s comfort. Poor Goldenkit had no one, his sister lived on. Mottlekit wondered how it had felt, to be flung over the gorge by a Clanmate you were told by everyone to trust, plummeting to the ground in a camp you played in, a camp you thought you were safe in with a warrior you thought you were safe with.
Mottlekit had offered to show him around, pretending to know everything. Oatkit became fast friends with him, too. Finding out that they both loved the same games was enough to stall Oatkit’s resentment.
It was harder with Ferndoe’s trio, and that was no surprise. They may have been killed by their own mother, which was horrifying all on its own, but she was manipulated into doing it by Poppyhill. Mottlekit couldn’t defend that, and didn’t plan on trying to, but with the three’s insults, Oatkit and Mottlekit fought back.
It was never really bad, in retrospect, kit squabbles and kit-hitting, nothing dangerous and nothing the bigger cats couldn’t put a stop to when it got bad. Goldenkit had been caught between them, his friends or his same-aged nieces and nephew.
It hadn’t been a dramatic final fight or confession that ended the fights. It had simply slipped away over time, and maybe boredom. But eventually the caring over who did what stopped. And after a few more moons, they went from indifference to friends when Specklekit had stopped to listen to an elder’s stories, and as the climax grew, more and more kits were attracted to the tale. When it had finished, they were buzzing with energy and wanted to play it out. It was as though they had never been enemies at all.
In a way, they never had been. They were simply playing out the parts of their kin’s quarrel. It seemed that in that moment, hopping over each other, playfully smacking each other with sheathed claws instead of unsheathed, they all realized that, too.
Mottlekit also realized, too, that she and Graykit had the same sense of humour. They became fast friends, and Graykit would bring Mottlekit more out of her shell, bringing her further away to do fun tasks that while Mottlekit feared at first, was always glad to have done them when it was over. Mottlekit, in turn, taught Graykit how to settle down and have fun without necessarily doing anything at all.
“I don’t want to do it,” Mottle told her now. As outgoing as Graykit was, she had no doubt she would respect Mottlekit’s boundaries. “And you shouldn’t either, not without your partner in crime to shoulder the blame.”
That was their nickname for each other, as well as Mottleheart and Graystar, names they had hoped to one day have. ‘Everyone knows you would have been a great leader!’ Mottlekit had said. Graystar had grinned before replying, ‘and you my deputy.’
Graykit scuffed the earth in frustration. “Eeeh. But we’ve already done every other exciting thing there is to do!”
“We can put a spider–”
“Did that.”
“Uh, we can trick Thornkit into–”
“He won’t fall for it a fourth time.”
Mottlekit looked around, racking her brain and the landscape for an idea. Graykit took her on so many fun adventures. It was Mottlekit’s turn to figure out a fun task to do. But what would be exciting enough? Thrilling enough to be worthy of all of Graykit’s adventures?
Her eyes stopped at a blinding light in the distance, so far it was almost unnoticeable unless you squint really hard and already knew it was there. The idea escaped her mouth before she could stop it. “What if we go into the Dark Forest?”
