THE DARK MATTER | Book One: Stained Trails

chapter two

FROM THE MOMENT OATKIT OPENED HIS EYES, he knew he wanted to be a warrior. It was a surging feeling as he grew to learn the ways of his clan and the stories that enhanced it. Every day went on with another memory, whether it was watching new apprentices return with their first prey or cats scramble to the clearing to be assigned to patrols. The way of the warrior was fascinating to him, but it was also expected heavily of him.

Daisyspring, his mom, told Oatkit and Cloudkit the moment they could hear that they were special. It wasn't the typical whisper of an endearing mother to her kit, but a whisper instead laced with dignity and graveness. Cats stared at them with wide eyes and the Starlinked visited them far too often, pestering on if they had seen ghosts in their dreams or when they would be made into apprentices. Supposedly from the moment they were born, Gorsefeather and Crowbite saw a significant greatness in them that promised a full, exuberant future for CoppiceClan even through the tales of hardship ahead. So every day even before their eyes opened and paws scraped the earth, they were watched over and admired like they were gods.

Talonstar and Daisyspring, their parents, took pride in it, but also the talk of it drove a small wedge in between them. Talonstar didn't visit them as much the older they grew, but Oatkit knew it was because his father couldn't wait to see them out hunting and battling instead. He was dedicated to make his father proud and watchful of those days when they arrived.

Still confined to the nursery though, Oatkit and Cloudkit grew bored at times. Sometimes Minnowshine told them stories from back when she was an apprentice and her story-telling never failed to be intriguing, but the she-cat had been absent all morning. Daisyspring was usually too tired to endorse their pleading for a narrative, or she just simply didn't care to tell another story to her kits. Now though, they were crawling over their mother to question their older friend's disappearance.

"Mom, where's Minnowshine?" Cloudkit was first to ask, laid lazily over their mother's haunches. It wasn't unusual for Cloudkit to be stuck to their mother's side - even in a literal sense sometimes. "She's been gone since we woke! She's never usually awake that early."

Daisyspring stifled a laugh at her kits, drawing a more distant Oatkit closer with a brush of her tail. "Well, little ones, she's having her own kits to tell stories to now."

Oatkit lit up at his mother's words, Cloudkit letting out an excited shrill. "She's having her kits!?"

"Finally, those kits were making her stories shorter with all that kicking," Oatkit scoffed.

Daisyspring rolled her eyes, drawing her tongue over Oatkit's head. He raised a paw to swat his mother away, but she persisted on anyway. "Now, don't be so bitter. They're going to be your denmates for the next two moons before you become apprentices. By the time you're out the den, they'll be eyes open and paws ready to leave it themselves."

"If I don't get to become an apprentice early, neither do they!" Oatkit stammered, clearly not catching onto his mother's sarcasm. What could he say, he had a strong point, and he meant it with every word.

"Can we go see them? Please, please!" Cloudkit begged, rolling off of her mother and next to her brother.

Daisyspring shook her head. "Give her time, Cloudkit. She'll let us know when we can meet them." Their mother then stood to her paws, beckoning to them softly. "In the meantime, Mudpaw and Mousepaw are making their first climb out of the camp now. Why don't we go watch?"

Oatkit felt his paws tingle with excitement. When kits first become apprentices, their first landmark of the role is their climb out of camp. The edges of the dip they called home were steep and covered with hard stone and roots. It was a climb a little kit could barely make, but as apprentice with some aid from a mentor, it became an easy climb for those of CoppiceClan. Mudpaw and Mousepaw had just become apprentices yesterday, and with today being their first venture outside of camp, it was sure to create a buzz.