From Shadows ((Look! A WARRIORS fic!))

Hey, I'm writing a bunch of stories for the sake of plot! So, enjoy these rubbish short stories!


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Prologue

A solid black stalked through the forest, limping weakly toward a clearing. The pale moonlight shone through the canopy of the trees, lighting the landscape with a pale blue light. When she got to the camp, the clearing she knew too well, she collapsed, letting out a weak yowl. A calico she-cat came out to investigate, eyes widening when she saw the collapsed cat.
“Raven! What are you doing here!” the calico exclaimed.
“P-please… Take care of her… She’s weak – I’m weak…” The black cat shift her weight to show a small, black and white kit, struggling to breathe. It seemed so young; it didn’t look half a moon old.
The calico nodded, and dashed off towards a thatch shelter. She came out moments later, with a worried looking tortoiseshell cat, with various herbs in her mouth,
“Don’t save me… My kit is all that matters,” the black cat murmured, struggling to get the words out.
“Sshh…” The tortoiseshell hushed the struggling queen. “Try to keep her warm; yes, keep on licking her like that.”
The raven coloured cat put all her effort to help her kit, movements stiff and forced.
“Moonstar, what should we do?” The tortoiseshell cat whispered, fear dancing in her emerald eyes.
“Goldenfur has had kits fairly recently, hasn’t she?” The calico she-cat seemed to be staring off into the distance, in the direction of another shelter.
The tortoiseshell nodded. “But we she’s already struggling to produce enough milk, and her kits seem extremely hungry.”
“We’ve plenty of borage, and a good source to collect more,” the calico countered.
“But Moonstar…”
“We cannot just let this kit die, can we?”
The worried she-cat nodded, though her expression seemed adamant. The raven-coloured cat groaned in pain, and the two cats looked over.
“A- a little help here?” she managed to say, before her eyes closed in pain.
The two cats nodded, padding over to help the struggling cat.

Chapter I

Shadowkit woke up to hear her littermates, her older brother and sisters, bouncing around. Everything was still so dark, but she could hear the liveliness of the nursery around her. She yawned, her jaws widening lazily. Everything always looked dark, and she didn’t know why.
“Hey, Rainkit! Look at what I can do!” The she-kit shifted tiredly at the sound of her sister’s voice.
“Oh wow, Fernkit! How did you do that?” her brother exclaimed.
Shadowkit wanted to see what Fernkit was doing, so badly, but she still struggled to open her eyes. But, she concentrated on opening her eyes, when-
“Hey Fernkit! Rainkit! Look at Shadowkit!” her other sister shouted.
Shadowkit’s vision was flooded with bright, white light. She closed her eyes once or twice, before her sight adjusted to the light.
“What is it Flowerkit?” Fernkit asked.
“Yeah! You nearly blew my eardrums out!” Rainkit complained.
Shadowkit looked at the red and cream cat in front of her. This must be Flowerkit!
“Look! She’s opened her eyes!”
“You’re kidding me- She has!” Fernkit said excitedly.
“Wow!” Rainkit echoed.
“H-hi,” Shadowkit said shakily.
“And she’s spoken too!” Fernkit said proudly. “That’s my little sister!”
So, Fernkit was the cream tortoiseshell, Shadowkit noted, and Rainkit is the blue tom.
Shadowkit yawned again. Then Oakpaw – Fernkit’s best friend from when he was still a kit - padded into the nursery.
“Hi, guys,” He yawned, nosing Fernkit tiredly. Shadowkit saw Flowerkit look sadly between the two cats.
“I see that Shadowkit finally opened her eyes,” Oakpaw remarked. “We all thought she was going to be blind!”
Shadowkit frowned, and scuffed at the ground with her paws.
“Oh, cheer up,” Oakpaw said, tapping her with his tail. “Come on, I’ll show you all around camp.
The three older cats cheered, but Shadowkit just wanted to stay in the warm, dark nursery. But all the others seemed so excited to finally get out, and she didn’t want to be the odd one out. So she nodded, and stood up shakily.
“L-lets go,” she decided.
Oakpaw led the four kits out of the nursery, Fernkit in the lead. Rainkit seemed equally excited, but Flowerkit walked with a drooping tail. It seemed that she shared Shadowkit’s disdain for the outdoors too. But as Shadowkit approached the exit to the nursery, a tail blocked her path.
“And where do you think you’re going?” she heard her mother’s voice say. “Oh, you’ve opened your eyes! See, Patchpelt? All you had to do was be patient.”
Patchpelt, Oakpaw’s mother, tossed her head over to Shadowkit. “Oh, so she has opened her eyes! I was just worried for her.”
“Yes, though she did seem very weak when we first found-” Goldenfur’s voice faded into the distance as Shadowkit stepped out into the sunlight. The light was bright after being in the dark, serene nursery, and she had to blink a couple times to see properly.
“Shadowkit! Over here!” She heard Rainkit call her name, his blue eyes gleaming. The young kit stumbled her way across the camp as quickly as she could, tripping over her feet every few seconds.
“And this, is the medicine cat’s den,” Oakpaw stated.
Shadowkit took a deep breath. She could smell the infusions of herbs and berries mix together into a calming, almost breath taking scent.
“Wow!” Flowerkit exclaimed, snapping Shadowkit out of her thoughts. “It’s so cool here!”
“Yeah, although I hate the smell here,” Fernkit muttered, flattening her ears.
She let them talk, not thinking about what she was doing. She let herself walk into the medicine cat den, where a silver tabby tortoiseshell cat was crouched over another, darker tortoiseshell cat.
“Oh Spottedfur, how could you be this careless?”
“I’m sorry, Featherstream, I just thought that I could take all of them on at once…” the tortoiseshell muttered, wincing in pain as the tabby put some strange mixture on her eye.
“A whole SunClan hunting patrol? That included the deputy? Not even our Clan leader could get out of that battle without losing a life. You should be glad that a MoonClan patrol heard you yowling.”
“But they were breaking the Warrior Code…” the tortoiseshell murmured.
“But what good would our Clan be losing another warrior? We already have so few, and only two apprentices.”
“We have many kits; soon, three of them will be apprenticed.”
“But we need warriors to mentor these kits, don’t we?”
The dark tortoiseshell sighed. “You always seem to win our arguments, sister.”
“I’m the one who has any logic,” the tabby-tortoise replied. “Anyway, it doesn’t seem infected, but I still want to see that eye every day.”
“Yeah yeah, I know.” The tortoiseshell got up, and turned around. “Hey Featherstream, you seem to have a guest,” she remarked, before walking out into the clearing.
“Oh, who could it be-” The silver cat turned around, and saw the dark kit sitting down near the entrance. “Sh-Shadowkit? What are you doing here?” she asked, bewildered.
“Oakpaw said he would show me around, and I… wondered off,” she replied, blinking.
“I see you’ve opened your eyes,” the medicine cat said, in the same, soft voice she remembered clearly – though she didn’t know why.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Shadowkit complained. “I wasn’t going to keep my eyes shut forever!”
“Yes, I know my kitten, but we were just worried for you. Would you rather we just ignored you, even whilst you were hurt?”
“N-no, but still…” The kit couldn’t come up with a reason.
“Perhaps you should go back to your mother. She’d be very worried for you.”
The little kit nodded, tripping over her paws as she padded out into the camp.