A Lion's Awakening [Open]

The sounds of a rambunctious kitten echo in the nursery as he ran laps around the reduced space. Being the only kit of a litter had its downsides, but also its upsides. Yes, he had no littermates to play with whenever he pleased, which meant the golden tom had to rely on other kits to play, but he was also bigger than most of them even from the moment he was born…and don’t be fooled, unlike most of the “bigger” cats, his size was not all fluff, but pure muscle.

He had been forced to learn to keep his strength in check due to this, though, as more than once he had accidentally hurt one of the other kits of the nursery and was scolded by this by the older cats. He had been teased from time to time due to his stronger, more muscular build, being called a ThunderClan cat even if he was a WindClanner through and through.

He had been pushing himself to become faster, more agile, because of that teasing, to prove he was as good as any of the smaller more agile-looking kits, if not better. He had tried once to use the bramble walls to add obstacles to his improvised “race track”, but after a rather nasty scratch from the thorns and several days forced to lay down on a nest while he healed by the medicine cats, he had learned to stay away from them, even if the apprentices had learned to kit-proof them after the incident.

Even the aching on his muscles as he grew tired was not enough to make him stop running…only when his paws decided he had pushed himself too far and refused to react on time, causing him to trip with himself, he was forced to give himself a break. Luckily for him, this was not the first time this happened, so he had already learned how to roll after tripping as a way to avoid injury from it.

He looked around as he panted heavily, the sound of his beating heart echoing in his ears and the aching of his muscles finally setting in. Bright golden eyes scanned the nursery as he gave his body a couple of minutes to recover before starting to run again…unless he could find another chance to sneak out of the nursery and maybe even camp unnoticed. He was almost successful last time…almost…but it encouraged him to try again. He just needed to memorize when the warriors changed their guard, as a way to avoid confusing it for them going to drink some water again and running out of time before he could make it the whole way through the bramble tunnel…that had been a bit of a disaster…

Lionpaw’s ears perked up as Whisperkit’s voice reached his ears. He had seen them before, but rarely caught them awake, and when he did, they seemed to be submerged in their own world, staring at the void. He could understand the desire to just let one’s mind wander from time to time, and even if he didn’t do so nearly as often as the white kit used to, he felt it would be rude of him to interrupt them…sadly, this inevitably led to the two kits to never interact until that exact time and place.

He licked his nose, a bit surprised by the compliment, and then swallowed as a way to moisten up his throat before speaking, which had gotten a bit dry thanks to his heavy panting “I-I...uh...yeah! Yeah, I did...Do you really think that? That I can be that fast?” His eyes were locked on Whisperkit’s as he made the question, a gleam of happiness and genuine hope becoming visible as the words rolled from his tongue, his voice somewhat deep as a complement to his size.

He was way more used to being told that, with his bigger and stockier build, he should focus more on training to become a powerful fighter to withstand the blows that other cats couldn’t when the time to prove himself on the battlefield came, instead of aiming to achieve the great speed and agility of the renowned moor runners that everyone looked up to in the clan…like his father used to…but he didn’t want to live in the shadow of his father, be compared with him, to have the same expectations he had. He wanted to pick his own path to walk, the kind of life he wanted to live…

And this was the first time he genuinely felt like said efforts were paying off.