Star Watching (Open)

Tallkit sat outside the nursery, obscured in the shadows cast by the tangled gorse. The night breeze was cool but mild as it swept through the camp and ruffled his short coat. His golden fur was dim and almost silvered in the moonlight that pooled in the dips and corners of the WindClan camp. Maybe he should be curled up with the other kits in the nursery, but a backwards glance told him they weren’t missing him at this moment. The warm smothering milk-scent still clung to his fur, dulling the heather and dry grass that blew past in the wind and tangled up in his whiskers. There was much more to look at and smell out here than snuggled in the gorse, surrounded by the safe-shapes of his denmates.

It felt..nice. Tallkit thought, the cool wind and the dim moonlight and the calm that seemed to crack open in his chest, ferried in with the moor-scent and absence of his littermates crawling over him. He turned his face upwards, watching the stars shift slowly across the sky, transfixed by the shapes they made in the emptiness. Were they StarClan? Could they see him? Tallkit didn’t really understand death, or how the cats made their nests between the stars, but he flicked his too-long tail in a silent greeting just in case. It only seemed polite.

Tigerdance had been returning from a walk, when he had spotted the kit sitting outside the nursery. He wasn't sure what the young one was doing, or why said kit was awake at this time. Carefully the tall tom approached. "What are you doing young one?" The deputy asked his voice warm.

Tallkit’s whiskers twitched as the breeze brought him a new scent, windstung and fresh with heather, a clanmate! The kit’s ears, awkward and large for his narrow head, flattened back. He was in so much trouble. But the warrior didn't seem upset with him at all. Hesitantly Tallkit lifted his ears and curled his tail over his paws. He didn’t know the tom’s name, but dipped his head to him politely like he’d seen the queens in the nursery do. “I’m saying hi to Starclan.” He said, quietly, mindful of the slow breaths of the clan sleeping around them. “Thats… okay right? If the cats that aren’t here anymore have to stay up there forever, I thought they might like to be told goodnight too.”

He looked back up at silverpelt, glimmering quietly against the open swell of the moors beyond. “The queens were telling stories, and I wanted to see for myself.” His tail twitched as he glanced back into the warm darkness of the nursery. “And I felt too squashed in with my littermates.” He admitted. It was hard enough to keep track of his own gangly legs, never mind his siblings too as they tripped over him in an attempt to get comfortable. The tom-kit licked his shoulder self-consciously, the nursery wasn’t bad, it just felt better outside where the wind buffeted at his fur. Tallkit glanced up at the deputy for a moment, amber eyes soft and subdued in the moonlight. “I’m Tallkit, by the way.”