LostHope's Path

Chapter 1

A small torrent of sunshine breaks onto the leaf-strewn floor of the nursery, and little dappled pools of the pure sunlight falls warm on the paws of the tumbling kits. A small kitten falls out of the swath of kit with a squeal. She stretches on the ground, and begins to mew in protest as several other cats tackle her down again.

She leaps forward, only to scamper a few paces back in sanctuary.

"Clan meeeeting!" The kit sings, waving a small tail into the air. "Let all cats who can catch their own prey gather near this... pebble-thing for a meeting!"
.
She spins on her paws. It's so warm in the thorn-tasseled nursery, so warm if not for the trapped body heat and sweet sun. She wonders if the others felt the same way about the heat. It's 
.
But never fear! A brave leader such as herself would scarcely wince at this heat! She sticks a twitching bunny-like nose into the air defiantly, and calls "I, Honeystar, call upon my ancestors to give you a new warrior. Thunderpaw!"

'Thunderpaw' skids across the dust, sticking out a small pink tongue at the other, self-proclaimed ruler.

"My Clan, HoneyClan, values your obnoxiousness and stupidity." She teases, snapping tiny white teeth as he tries to wrestle her. "And I name you...Thunderbutt!"

"Thunderbutt! Thunderbutt!" squealed the kits in unison and Thunderkit snarled and belly-flopped on top of Honeykit, when Fawnkit leaped forward. "Intruder, intruder!" cried Honeykit.

"WindClan coward! Prey-stealers!" squeaked the light brown kit, tail waving in the air as she pounced on her littermate. "Look as they limp away in shame!" she giggled.

"Shut up Fawnkit." The kit hissed as a thorn, sticking out of the leaf carpet of the nursery, scraped her delicate paw pad. "I've just trod on a thorn!" she yowled to stop the other tackling kits.

Teasing rang in her ears as her mother Frozendrop scooped her up, the kit wailing as a minuscule drop of blood welled from the tiny puncture.

"Ow!" The dark ginger kit squealed, licking her paw-pad. "That's yucky." She squeezed her eyes shut at the sight of the blood. "How can medicine cats stare at that all day?"

"Honeystar's lost a life!" squealed her den-mate Dustkit, his nursery-fluffy paws smothering and battering her ears.

"Attack her, while she's still weak!"

Honeykit mewled indignantly as her den- and litter-mates collapsed in a heap on her, battering them with her hind-legs.

"You wish!" She shrieked back, slithering out, shoving her sister off her. "Take that, you stupid ThunderClan! Have they really chosen another kittypet to lead them? Mousebrains!" One day when I'm really Honeystar I'll teach those warrior-code breakers. The little kit sat up and whispered to herself, "One day I'm going to be the best warrior in ALL the Clans!"

***

Honeykit sneezed as a breath of frosty air tickled her whiskers. She shivered. Why was it so cold??

"I should have a warrior fix that awful draft!" Frozendrop murmured, running her tongue through her wriggling kits' fur. She sighed as Honeykit and Fawnkit began to protest who would be the best warrior. Me, obviously! Honeykit grinned, flexing her tiny claws.

"I'm going to get some fresh-kill.Don't. Move." The white queen added as the two kits began to bunch their haunches to leap through the brambles on another adventure. "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT." She snapped again, flouncing out of the nursery, her giant tail billowing behind, like clouds trailing across the sky.

"C'mon," sang Fawnkit, pouncing on top of sleeping Thrushkit, Thunderkit and Dustkit. "Want to go outside?"

"Yeah!"

Honeykit bounded through the frosted ferns, the other kits at her tail, and gasped.

"What is it?"

The air was brittle with frost and so crisp and clear, Honeykit lifted a paw to try and break the beautiful fantasy air, which was shimmering with tiny... things, like soft, tiny feathers. They dusted her pelt but vanished quickly, leaving only a memory of the little pinprick of the cold.

"Snow," breathed Thrushkit, the word foreign and mystical to the newly-born kits. "Splashstream told me about it." He explained to the puzzled kits.

"It's awesome!" Thunderkit squealed, his huge paws sliding clumsily across the ice covering the leaf-strewn earth.

The kits suppressed little mrrows of amusement as he slipped and fell face-first on the icy ground.

"And COLD!" he hissed.

Dustkit swooped up a paw-full of the powdery "snow" stuff and smashed it against against Fawnkit's back. "Hey!'

Fawnkit giggled, teeth chattering in the cold, her breaths frosty white puffs in the silver, swirling air.

She lifted a paw to ambush him back with some snow-stuff, which exploded against his tabby pelt and dusted him in powdery white.

"Rude!" he squealed.

"Revenge." she growled playfully, and the tiny kits began waging war with the snow-stuff. Thunderkit tumbled on top of Honeykit, and she let out a surprised purr over the warmth of his pelt against hers. She could lay there forever...

The beautiful flakes swirled and warped in the sky, like little flurries of white cloud broken off, but through the smoky, freezing breeze Honeykit noticed something peculiar.

"Look! The lake's completely frozen over!" She yelped, scampering off toward the shimmer of ice coating the lake like a rough gray pelt, tripping out on its freezing surface.

"Look who's cold now." teased Thunderkit, looking huge and puffy with his gray tabby pelt blanketed in sticky snow.

"Shuddup Thunderbutt."

"Bet you two can't climb that tree up and down without falling an' breaking your necks!" dared Thrushkit, grinning at Fawnkit and Honeykit.

"Betcha we could!" Honeykit squealed, and grabbed her littermate by the scruff to a huge oak hundreds of feet high, its branches stretching over the ice, striping lines of muted gray across the snowy ice. Fawnkit struggled out of Honeykit's jaws, ran and pounced on the first branch, scaling the first 10 feet with ease.

"C'mon!" she yelled, taunting her littermate with her deep amber gaze. "Slowpoke!"

"Yeah, yeah" muttered sliding Honeykit, but her complaints were drowned out by a sudden, familiar yowl...

"FOX! FOX! RUN TO THE TREE AND CLIMB IT! FOX!"

*^* hey guys! what do you think so far 'bout this kinda unexpected story? my writing is wordy and very descriptive than most warrior cat fanfic writers but yeah... Leave me a comment or something please! Or vote! :))) Love, me *^*