Legacy Rising: Dark Secrets

6

Rewritten ✔
Edited ✘

What's happening? Did someone die? Are we being attacked? Terrible thoughts flooded through Pebblepaw's groggy subconsciousness as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes.

Sparrowpaw suddenly startled awake as another loud scream bounced into their den.

"Pebblepaw?" he asked, his voice scratchy and deeper than usually. "What's happening?"

Pebblepaw shook off and answered with a simple, "I don't know."

Another scream rattled around the clearing when Pebblepaw stuck her head out of the den, Sparrowpaw by her side. The first thing she spotted was someone she didn't know-- a gray tabby tom with green eyes wide with fear. He was running from the medicine cat den to the nursery, and Pebblepaw caught a whiff of ThunderClan scent.

Her eyes followed the small tom and stopped when she spotted Owlgaze. He was pacing around outside the nursery, and his ears pinned further down when another screech pierced through the night. Sparrowpaw bounded out of the apprentices' den, Pebblepaw following.

They stopped in front of Owlgaze, who sighed, annoyed.

"Owlgaze, what's happening?" Sparrowpaw spoke up. Pebblepaw sighed at her brother's ignorance.

"Sparrowpaw, Tinyblossom is having her kits, it's so obvious!" Pebblepaw whisper yelled.

"Oh," Sparrowpaw responded absentmindedly, running over to talk to Sandyshrike.

"Hey, Pebblepaw?" Owlgaze asked, wincing as another yell sounded from the nursery. Pebblepaw perked her ears up and nodded. "Can you go distract Leaf and Puddlei? Tell them a story or something, they're up in the elders' den." Pebblepaw nodded again, leaving the distracted warrior.

She bounded up the small hill leading to the rocky overhang that made up the elders' den and peeked her head inside.

"Leaf? Puddle?" she whispered, just in case the two kits were sleeping.

"Hello?" a soft voice sounded from the right. Pebblepaw just barely could make out two small shapes sharing a nest next to the two elders.

"Hi, Puddle, it's Pebblepaw!" Pebblepaw cheerily said, trotting over to the kits. Leaf was curled up into her sister's side.

"'Ello, there, youngin'," a voice sounded from beside Pebblepaw.

"Hello, Mothwhisker!" she responded, settling down in front of the kits. "I'm here to tell the kits a story."

The yellow she-cat nodded, turning around and nuzzling the crook of Batclaw's neck.

"What's your story about?" Puddle asked quietly, her eyes glowing with curiosity.

"Oh, right. So, this is a true story, and it happened a few days ago!"

Puddle nodded, interested in the story.

"...SO, I wasn't that tired, and everyone else was asleep except Shadepaw-- I mean, Shadeheart. I asked him to come with me out to the forest to show me around since I had only seen the borders at that point.

"He agreed, so we went out and explored! It's really scary at night-- the shadows were jumping out at us, and the sticks were grabbing our fur," Pebblepaw winced at the memories of that night. The night she had told Shadeheart about Troutfrost-- she could remember the fear and confusion in his eyes. Puddle was invested in the story now, though she had laid her head on the edge of the nest.

"We reached the Beech Copse, and... we .. looked at the stars! Yeah, we sat there a while and looked at the stars. They were beautiful that night, glowing all bright and stuff. They were beautiful." Pebblepaw finished, and the soft snores that came from Puddle told her she had fallen asleep as well.

Pebblepaw smiled, also happy that there seemed to not be any more screams coming from the nursery, meaning Tinyblossom had her kits.

I'm going to go see the new members of the Clan! Pebblepaw decided, jumping to her paws and making a silent promise to tell Mothwhisker and Batclaw about them later.

She reached the nursery, which had a few cats gathered around it. Stormpuddle was waiting outside, as was Sparrowpaw.

"Can I see the kits?" she asked her mother, shoving her paws into the sandy clearing floor.

"After Littlepaw gets done helping and Ravenflight comes out," Stormpuddle responded.

Littlepaw? Pebblepaw thought. "Who's Littlepaw?"

"Oh, right. You might've seen him earlier. He's ThunderClan's medicine cat apprentice-- he was gathering herbs and heard the yelling, so he came to check it out," Stormpuddle responded just as Ravenflight padded out of the nursery.

"Hey, Ravenflight!" Pebblepaw exclaimed, running up to the older. "Are Tinyblossom's kits cute?"

Ravenflight turned, her eyes glowing. "Yes! It's been so long since we've had new kits in the Clan. Six whole moons, when you were born, unless you count Leaf and Puddle." Pebblepaw nodded.

"Can I see the kits?" she asked, to which Ravenflight responded with a nod. Pebblepaw beamed, carefully walking into the nursery. Tinyblossom was in a nest with two bundles of fur curled up next to her. She was licking one of the kits, who was squirming and squeaking. Owlgaze was curled up into his mate's side, his head leaned over her back.

"Pebblepaw, hey!" Owlgaze whispered, his eyes beaming with pride. Pebblepaw greeted him with a nod, then sat down near the nest and peered in.

One of the kittens was plain gray and looked just like Tinyblossom, apart from his bright pink nose and mouth and folded ears. He was a kit after all, so he couldn't see or hear yet. The other was a blue-and-cream tortoiseshell.

"His name is Pikekit," Tinyblossom murmured, pointing to the gray kit, "and she is Flintkit." Tinyblossom pointed to the blue-and-cream kit.

"Pebblepaw?" a voice Pebblepaw recognized as Shadeheart sounded from outside. Pebblepaw perked up, saying a quick goodbye to Owlgaze, Tinyblossom, and their kits, and made her way back through the reeds that made up the nursery.

"Stormpuddle told me to tell you about the gathering for some reason," he said, waving his tail as a signal to follow him. Pebblepaw nodded, also confused.

Why couldn't Stormpuddle tell me herself? she thought, though kept following her friend.

They sat down next to the stream that ran on right outside of the camp barriers. It had a beautiful weeping willow tree hanging down on the other side.

"Alright, about the gathering. The other Clans'll try and get information from you, so try not to talk about stuff like battle plans or anything like that," the fluffy tom explained, turning to see if Pebblepaw understood.

"That's pretty obvious," she responded, giggling afterward.

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, the other Clan leaders will be there. ShadowClan is led by Maplestar. She's calico, and pretty nice, actually. Nicer than Reedstar, at least," Shadeheart paused, frowning, lost in a memory. Pebblepaw's heartbeat calmed down a little. The sound of the tree swishing in the background of her friend talking.

"Reedstar is ThunderClan's leader," Shadeheart continued. "He's a brown tabby. Pretty easy to spot since his eyes look a lot like Leaf's. Then there's Cloudstar, the WindClan leader. She's a white tabby, and her eyes are interesting as well. They're kind of silvery green," he finished, thinking for a bit before adding, "I'll have to introduce you and Sparrowpaw to Cranepaw, Splashpaw, and Littlepaw! I talk to them a lot at gatherings."

Her and Shadeheart talked and joked until the sun reached far below the horizon. They were jolted out of conversations as Otterstar yowled, "Cats who are coming to the gathering, we are leaving!"

Shadeheart got up and Pebblepaw followed, waving goodbye to Stormpuddle.

I wonder what the gathering will be like. She left the camp with questions still flowing through her mind.