An Intruder In Her Own Home (OPEN)

Pepper laid in the hay, watching the sprinkling rain outside, she had felt a bit out of place among the clan cats yet, she was in such a familiar place. As her kits went about their day, she tried to think past the fact that she wouldn't get to stay with them for long. She knew it would be selfish of her to keep them from a clan life, that didn't mean she was happy about it letting them stay. At least, she wasn't entirely happy. She had given Scorchfrost the family he wanted, and her kits would grow up happy without the hostile feelings clans held against cats like their mother. The queen was a bit worried, would Gray be mad? Would he come here and make her leave? Perhaps Marxism would do it for him.. She was rather intimidating and Pepper didn't want to be on the cat's bad side. She had wanted to go out, to bring back something for her kits to play with but, she had only recently kitted and she didn't want to risk anything happening. She was sure that Scorchfrost felt the same, he had become so worrisome during her kitting. She didn't blame him though, it was her first litter. The she-cat watched ThunderClan's members go about their schedules and felt a pang of worry, her own leader was creating a clan to destroy another, what if she had just led him to his target? She kneaded the hay fretfully, flinching as a loud roar of thunder sounded, followed by the rain quickly growing heavy.

Gold padded over to her sister and cuddled up beside her gently nudging her. "Whats bothering you Pepper?" The cinnamon swirled tabby meowed flicking her thin tail.

Pepper nuzzled her sister and shook her head. "It's nothing, don't worry about it." She mewed, watching the rain splash on the ground.

Tulipheart was resting in some hay nearby "By the way thanks for letting us stay here, we'll be gone before you know it" she said

"You sure?" Gold meowed then looked down at her neices and nephews, then back at Pepper.

Pepper nodded, meeting Gold's gaze before looking towards Tulipheart. "No need to thank me, it was a little too quiet before anyways." She mewed, to the other queen. Should she be happy that they'd leave soon? She didn't know anymore.

Blizzardpaw padded towards the three she-cats with some fresh hay for the nests, careful to not get in the way of the playful kits to not interrupt their games, all the way humming a calm cheerful song. She seemed almost completely unfazed by the terrible storm that assaulted the barn, after all, she had been born in a night with a storm just like this, probably that was why this kind of weather made her feel so comfortable “Hello!” She cheerfully greeted as she started to replace the old hay with the fresh one that she had brought “I hope you don’t mind me being here, with the storm my dad decided to skip a day of training, but I didn’t want to just sit in my nest all day, I wanted to do something to help in any way I could” She explained, she wouldn’t mind to go out in this storm and try to hunt something for her clan, but even she knew that find anything outside at the time would be near to impossible. Once she was done with the nests she smiled and nodded to herself after making sure that she had done a good work “Do you need anything? Wet moss, a piece of fresh kill?” She meowed.

She chuckled and looked at the apprentice, shaking her head. "I don't think wet moss wil be needed anytime soon, there's plenty of water around right now.." She wouldn't mind the fresh-kill but, she didn't want to bother the apprentice any more than necessary, besides, it felt odd to just be waited on by another cat, especially when she hadn't contributed to the clan.  "What's your name?"

Blizzardpaw chuckled a bit as she looked at the rain outside the barn through the always open doors “I guess you’re right there” She meowed, looking at the occasion al lighting that was soon followed by thunder, the voice of the queen soon enough made her return from the world of thoughts and look at her again “I’m Blizzardpaw! My brother is Sedgepaw, Scorchfrost’s apprentice! I don’t know if he ever told you about us?” It suddenly struck her, the queen had asked her name, but she never did the same and she couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed for being so impolite “Uh…sorry, but I forgot to ask your name” She meowed almost in a whisper, lowering her gaze and shuffling her front paws.

"No worries, I'm Pepper, you're an apprentice? That sounds fun.." She hummed. "It must be hard, you're used to the forest aren't you? I looks amazing but, I couldn't go there." She chuckled sadly. "Your clans are very violent about their borders and with my previous condition carrying kits, I couldn't have tried to do so and risk their lives." The queen listened to the storm. "I wish the stars would come back." She said after a moment of silence. "They bring fond memories.. Ah- Sorry for rambling, I talk too much."

Scorchfrost padded over to the queen, licking her ear fondly as he settled down near her, watching his five little kittens romp around the barn. "The storm is looking pretty rough out there... How is everyone?" His ear twitched worriedly, there was a metaphorical storm among the clans that would break any minute... He didn't bring this up, obviously, he didn't want to frighten anyone. However, he had seen it first-hand...

The tom shuffled around the hay and placed his hand on a cold stone he had buried in the straw. The green color was comforting, though he felt kit-like admitting he still held onto it when his mind wandered to dark places. Watching his clan murmur conversations while the storm carried on outside, with kits squealing and chasing each other all over the place, it almost didn't feel like the world was about to go down swinging. He smiled at the cats in the group. Blizzardpaw reminded him of his mentor... that was so many moons ago. "You look chipper as usual, Blizzardpaw."

Blizzardpaw smiled and nodded when she was asked about her rank, though couldn’t help but lower her ears when she told her about how territorial her clanmates could be “Yeah, I guess that many fights over the territory with other clans and several troublesome rogues made us a bit too violent when we find cats that aren’t from our clan around camp…but I don’t think that a warrior would attack a queen” Or at least she hoped so…she, however was careful to leave that part out. The warrior code talked about protecting kits, regardless of their origins, shouldn’t unborn kits be protected just as much? Plus, she would never consider attacking a queen, only a fox-heart would do that.

With the queen’s words she couldn’t help but look at the storm outside, the clouds covered the skies, but even without them, she knew she wouldn’t be able to see a single star during the night “I think the same…I…well, I actually don’t remember them very well, the stars disappeared when I was still a young kit…now that I think about it I don’t even remember if I ever saw them. I heard a lot of stories from my clanmates though” She started to think about this, did she ever saw the stars? She couldn’t really remember, she had to, right? The stars couldn’t have been gone for that long. Yeah, she probably was just having a bit of trouble to remember those details from her kithood.

The white apprentice was pulled to the real world when Scorchfrost’s words reached her eyes, turning around and smiling at the warrior “Hello Scorchfrost! I just brought some fresh hay for the nests and decided to stay and chat for a bit” She purred. The young she-cat had noticed a clear change of mood on the warrior since the kits were born, and she was happy to see that he wasn’t looking so upset anymore “Well, there is always a reason to smile, even during a storm like this, you just need to find it”.

Mistykit padded into the conversation, she smiled but stayed quiet. She looked over to the she-cat apprentice who was talking to Scorchfrost, her father. As much as she wanted to speak, she just couldn't, she was a pretty small she-kit but she did look larger than most of the kits, maybe, just a little bit. She just stared at the apprentice and sat down, waiting.

Sedgepaw soon joined, he skipped over to Blizzardpaw "I heard my name earlier" he purred, smiling big. His tail twitched and he looked over to his mentor and Pepper "Nice to see you two, how are the kits Pepper, I already can see one over there" he mewed looking over to the gray-blackish furry she-kit near Scorchfrost. Sedgepaw could tell by most of his senses that she look about ready to be apprenticed, which probably was correct.

OOC: Back from my vacation, ready to post ;)