My first memory after birth was looking at this, what I thought as beautiful, speckled kit of varying degrees of brown everywhere, with a dark-brown face, green eyes, white paws and white diamond on her chest. It seemed my heart had stopped in my chest as I looked at her, this kit who was helping in the hardest profession in the clan – the medicine cats.
I did not know it then, but kits were not generally allowed to help with anything, we were just to spend our time, mostly in the nursery, until we were apprenticed.
My heart started again when my mother licked me and nudged me towards her teat where I found my brother and sister nursing contentedly. My mother then fell asleep while we suckled noisily. We were not in the medicine cats’ den long before we were carried off to the nursery by our mother and Maplestripe. The little she kit followed, seemingly excited by our birth.
I was not aware of much the first few days, just eating and sleeping, though the she kit and her brother visited often. Her brother was an exceptionally pretty kit with cream fur, light orange face, ears and tail, however, he was a bit stand offish to start.
My brother and sister, Greykit and Mistkit (we were all varying shades of grey, and black thus the unimaginative names given to us) seemed to win him over more. Mistkit, a light grey cat with a dark grey face, ears, white socks with dark grey highlight fading back to the light grey coat and blue eyes, was the closest to Cloudkit. He treated her like annoying younger sister. Which she was, annoying that is, not his sister.
I enjoyed playing with the young kit called Freckledkit. I would chase and bite her tail, pretending it was a snake to catch and kill. She would just flick her tail away, sometime in annoyance, but mostly in amusement. She was my hero, a kit who could claim to have medical cat knowledge!
We were together in the nursery for perhaps 14 moonrises before Cloudkit and her were made apprentices. I was bursting with pride that Freckledkit and Cloudkit were now becoming Freckledpaw and Cloudpaw. I was told by my mother later that it was unusual for a kit to be accepted as a medical apprentice and I was seeing history in the making; you see, my mother had snuck us out of the nursery, so that we could see the apprenticeship ceremony.
We stood watching the ceremony from behind a bush, and as soon as it was over my mother ushered us back to the nursery, not waiting to see or congratulate the two new paws. I was glad I got to watch the ceremony, it made me only prouder, of the now Freckledpaw’s, accomplishments.
Our nursery became a lot quieter, my brother and sister also pining for their elder hero who was different to mine – Cloudpaw.
I did not see Freckledpaw again for another week as she had gone to the Medical cat reunion at their sacred space.
