|:| An ember's brightness |:| [CLOSED]

The small russet kit called Ember stood before the hole in the brambles, dusty eyes wide with excitement. Behind her, cats were meandering and choosing their prey to share, or to sit alone in the dying light of the sunset.
No one's looking…
She flicked her ears forward and swiveled her head to the sides; looking for anyone who might see her.
Nothing.
Puffing out her golden-red coat, she faced the wall of brambles again and began to squeeze her head, then her shoulders, carefully but as quickly as possible through the small opening. She knew that her fiery pelt stood out against the brown thorns and branches, so she scrambled, kicking her hind legs through the hole and tumbling out on the other side.
And suddenly, all at once, Emberkit was in the forest for the first time in her life.

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Pinewhisker flicked his eyes open as he noticed the kit scrambling through a hole in the thorn wall of the nursery. He had been planning to visit on his mate and his of so young and fragile kits, but he couldn't let the kit leave the camp and wonder out like that, not when he remembered the earliest tragedy of Meadowlight's kit, Silkkit, who had died of an adder's bite. He trotted around and ,ade his way out of camp, quickly picking up the trail of Emberkit and followingnher into the woods, keeping clear from her line of sight tho.

Emberkit was having fun, running at birds who would fly up, their wings a blur of brown and white and black, into the branches above her, then singing teasingly at her, left on the ground.
For a while she wandered, occasionally catching the scent of a mouse and following it, until a butterfly or moth caught her eye. Eventually, the kit wound up on the edge of the Thunderpath.
"Woah," she breathed.
Just as monster raced by and buffeted her auburn fur to the side, she squeezed her eyes shut, and it was gone in a heartbeat. Her eyes opened with a kind of wild excitement in them as she set her paw on the black smelly stuff that made up the Thunderpath. Her other paw went on, too, and she blinked, amazed, at the fast-racing monsters.

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Pinewhisker followed the kit without much interest, but when they reached the Thunderpath,mhe tensed as he crept behind the kit. He yowled in surprise as the monser shot by , inches away from the helpless kit, and as the ginger furball put her paws on the black rock, he darted forward and grabbed it by the scruf, ploppig it down on the ground, blockign her way to the Thunderpath. "Do you even think?"

The kit looked up at Pinewhisker, surprised, her eyes quizzical.
She knew about his temper, and felt slightly scared as the large black tom stared her down.
"No I wasn't thinking, but…" Emberkit racked her brain for excuses, and finally blurted out, "Blacktwig wouldn't take me out to see the forest, and, and, most of the kits have, and I even gave him some of my magpie!"
She glanced up at the dark warrior hopefully, her eyes wide. "Besides," she added a heartbeat later as an afterthought. "I'll be an apprentice in a couple moons anyway. And if I'm gonna be fierce, I have to know the forest to protect it, right?"

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Flamepaw was out on the patrol with Pinewhisker when she heard the commotion caused by Pinewhisker running off all of a sudden. Her prey took off immediately at the noise, earning a frustrated yowl from the tortoiseshell, claws kicking up dirt before she decided to give the tom a piece of her mind. That was when she was the kit he was blocking off from the Thunderpath and overheard the kit's stubborn reply.

With a sigh, she padded up to them, helping Pinewhisker for a barricade so that the kit couldn't run away. Looking down at her coldly, the she-cat maintained her poise as she spoke softly. "You have to be alive to protect the clan. You could have died."

She glowered at the two older cats, struggling to think of a comeback. The yellow and amber in her pale brown eyes were growing brighter.
"I'm not, though, am I?" she replied stiffly, and was about to open her mouth to say more when another monster raced by.
"Besides," the russet kit added carelessly, her eyes following the giant silver beast as far as she could see. "I could go by them really quick. They only smell bad."


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