A Lost Kit

Aspen was running through unknown territory. A frightening forest loomed around him, seeming to enclose him around all sides. He could smell blood seeping from the wound in his leg, but he ran on and on, for what seemed like forever.

He replayed the fateful scene in his mind, over and over again, watching the cruel Twoleg with his long stick murder his mother, listening to her desperate cries for him to run while he could. He had heeded her advice, but not without being shot in the leg himself.

He had run quite a long distance by now, but it had all been a blur. The adrenaline rushing through him and the blood pounding in his ears kept his legs moving constantly, through the pain.

The adrenaline was slowly wearing off, and Aspen started to feel dizzy. He felt as if he wanted to just give up and lay down, but he continued, trying to bear his injury as well as possible. His vision grew dark and hazy, but he stumbled on. In his exhaustion, he did not realize that he was running head first in the direction of another cat.

OOC: I’m new here; sorry if I've made some sort of mistake.

Leopardclaw, the golden spotted tabby deputy of ThunderClan, was walking alone in the blackened forest, burnt leaf-litter crunching under his large paws. Lost in thought of his two lost kits, taken by the Mist that had been terrorizing the clans as of late, he didn't notice the small kit running towards him until it was too late to move. The small body crashed into his leg, startling the large tom, but he quickly bent his head to sniff the young cat and see if he was alright. "Woah there, calm down little one! Where did you come from?" This wasn't a ThunderClan kit; he only smelled of blood and fear, igniting pity in the tom's heart. Bending down to his level, a worried gleam appeared in his eye as Leopardclaw meowed sternly; "Where is your family?"

Aspen shook his head and righted himself, startled by the cat before him. Some of his strength returned from the prospect of finding some care from this mysterious cat in front of him. Now Aspen wasn't one to trust cats he'd first met, but when one is stumbling through unknown territory with an injured leg, one is inclined to trust the first familiarity they meet. Likewise, Aspen immediately trusted the bigger cat, even though they'd just met. I mean, how else could he possibly reacted?

The small gray cat found some strength to speak. He was still catching his breath, so his response was missing a couple words: "Momma...killed...Twoleg...far away". His blue eyes were tinged with sorrow at the thought of his mother's body, crumpled in the grass near where he once lived. He quickly shook himself out of the painful memory, however, and endeavored to introduce himself to this unfamiliar cat. "I- I'm Aspen and uh..." Aspen extended his hind leg to reveal his bullet wound to Leopardclaw.

Leopardclaw's hazel eyes widened as the small kit began to explain, shock apparent on his broad face. His mother was killed by Twolegs? Oh, the poor thing! The tom was even more saddened when the rogue kit, revealing his name to be Aspen, held up his leg to reveal a wound unlike one he had ever seen before. It was small, perfectly round, but a lot of blood seemed to be spilling from it; this brave young cat need a medicine cat's attention as soon as possible. Bending down so that he was face-to-face with Aspen, Leopardclaw spoke with a calm, but kind tone, like the one he had used with his own kits when they got hurt or did something wrong. "It's nice to meet you Aspen, you're a very brave cat for coming here and finding me. I can help you, but you're going to have to let me carry you back to my camp, okay?" He knew the kit must be scared, and he didn't want to startle him even more by just grabbing his scruff and running. He knew from experience that rogue kits didn't easily trust, and when he had been rescued all those moons ago he had tried to scratch at anything he could reach.

The little kit looked suspiciously at the older tom.
"What's a camp? Is it safe?"

Leopardclaw smiled, having forgot for a moment that rogues didn't live in - or know - what a camp was. "A camp is like a den, a place where me and my family live." He didn't want to overwhelm Aspen by trying to explain the concept of a clan, and in essence the whole clan was like a huge extended family anyway, always there for each other.

A den and family. It was a harsh realization, knowing that he'd just lost his original den and family forever, but he knew he had to move on. A den and family. It was a familiar prospect. He'd be safe here. He had to be.

Aspen nodded and stated in affirmation of being carried,"Okay." before realizing that he hadn't yet asked the tom for his name. "What's your name?"

"I'm Leopardclaw." Smiling gently at the young kit, the large golden spotted tom picked Aspen up gingerly by the scruff of his neck, making sure not to jostle him too much and cause his leg to hurt even more. Walking at a brisk pace, the deputy began to make his way back towards ThunderClan's newly rebuilt camp, mind racing with every step. The poor thing....loosing family is the most painful thing to bare. I've lost so much over the years as well.....my blood mother, adoptive mother, Cherrykit....... He didn't dare list Reedpaw and Honeypaw among the lost; he knew deep in his heart that they would soon be found and returned to the clan, he had to keep believing that.

~~~

Finally, Leopardclaw padded in through the camp entrance and set Aspen down gently on the sandy ground, sniffing his wounded leg with a concerned gaze. Lifting his head, the tom called out urgently; "Blizzardstar! Honey- Rabbitfoot!"

The 'camp' was a lot to take in. Aspen could see a great many cats, hear some more, and smell even more, and as he realized the amount of unknown cat at this new 'camp' he wasn't sure whether he wanted to be here anymore. His voice tinged with anxiety, he remarked to Leapordclaw, "'Awfully large family you have here..." while darting his eyes around at the activity before him.

As soon as she heard her name being called in such an urgent tone by her deputy, Blizzardstar immediately dropped any activity she could be doing and rushed towards the camp’s entrance. The well-known smell of blood greeting her way before she could even see him. This caused her heart to start racing and her claws to unsheathe as she prepared for anything that could be causing such thing. Having to go through many awful experiences during the past couple moons didn’t help at all the usually optimistic leader, who now couldn’t help but brace herself for the worst instead of trying to convince herself that whatever was waiting for her wouldn’t be as bad as the awful images thrown at her by her mind.

However, nothing prepared the white fluffy leader for what she saw. Leopardclaw was carrying a small kit whose leg was soaked on the bright red liquid that her nose had picked up the scent of. Without even waiting for Rabbitfoot to arrive, not sure if the SkyClan Medicine cat was even around at the time and not blaming her at all anyways, she rushed towards the two and quickly inspected the leg of the kit, noticing the perfect round wound on it as well as a really strange scent coming from it, a scent she had never came across her in her whole life “What happened?” She could leave formal introductions for later, at the time her main concern was to save this kit’s life. If he kept bleeding like this there was a huge risk of him dying from blood loss, plus she wasn’t even sure if the strange scent coming from his wound meant that there was something in it that could make things worse.

OOC: okay so I know that this can happen, but like... what's supposed to happen to the leg? Because a kit being shot means that thing ain't ever working again. So is Aspen gonna be crippled or...?

It just so happened that Rabbitfoot had been making her rounds. As she padded through Thunderclan territory, she picked up herbs along the way in the regrowing terrain. However, as she stuffed her mouth with different plants, the horrible scent of blood snuck through to her nose. Immediately, the she-cat rushed toward Thunderclan's camp, her heart pounding in her chest. Already, her mind was flashing back to Cherryblossom and how she was too late to save the poor queen. She would give anything to keep that same mistake from happening this time. Darting into the camp, she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the small kit bleeding from his leg. Immediately, she dropped everything she had and ran into the medicine den, grabbing as many cobwebs as she could carry as well as some poppy seeds. There were so many other things she needed to grab, but for now that would do. Rushing towards the kit, Rabbitfoot was almost panicking. "Dear Starclan..." she breathed, finally taking a look at the wound for the first time. She had never seen anything like it, but it did some serious damage. With the kit's leg being so small, she could only pray that she could save it. "Okay, this might hurt a little, but I'll try to be as gentle as I can... Here, eat these." Before she began working, the medicine cat quickly placed the poppy seeds in front of Aspen. Then, trying her best to be careful, Rabbitfoot began stuffing the wound with cobwebs, trying to stop the bleeding first.

Glancing down at Aspen, Leopardclaw for a moment felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn't told the kit the whole truth of ThunderClan; it felt like lying to him, but the spotted deputy knew that in the current situation, the half-truth would have to do. Before he could try to explain, Blizzardstar responded to his urgent call, and he immediately straightened up. "Blizzardstar, I was out on a walk when this young kit, named Aspen, ran into me. As you can see, he has a very strange injury, so I decided it was best to bring him here." His voice quite tense, he stepped away a few paces from the kit when Rabbitfoot arrived, giving the medicine cat plenty of room to work. With a concerned glint in his eye, he bent close to the leader's ear and sympathetically passed on the other half of the story. "He said that his mother was killed by Twolegs, most likely by the same.....thing that gave him that wound. He ran all the way here from....somewhere." A slight smile appeared for a moment on his worried face, as he meowed; "He's pretty brave for a kit, strong too. Could make a good warrior, if his leg heals up okay."

OOC: So the kit's been hit with a low-caliber bullet with not much force from the side (maybe something like a 4.25mm Liliput?). There's no way he would've been able to keep running if the bullet had striken a muscle, so we're going to say it fractured a bone. I mean, it is possible to run with a broken bone, especially with three other legs. This accounts for the massive bleeding also, since a hit to the muscle tends not to bleed as much as a hit to the bone. However, he is a small kit, so there's no way that no muscle was hit, so as a result of this, the wound'll probably need to be treated like a broken bone. There's of course no way that he's going to fully recover the use of his leg with the bullet in there and everything, but the body'll probably adapt to the bullet there. He'll be able to maneuver the leg and stand on it, but it won't be nearly as strong as a normal cat, and it'll take more effort to move the leg as well.

Also, I probably should've specified this more, but Aspen's a three month old kit on the smaller side. So he's not like a newborn kit, but he's quite small for his age.


IC: Aspen gingerly ate the poppy seeds. They seemed to lessen the pain a bit, but he still had to stifle a yowl as the medicine cat stuffed his wound with cobwebs. The full effect of blood loss was getting to him, causing him to feel nauseous and his vision to seem to dim. He was exhausted and he could feel himself starting to slip away. He struggled to hold on to some life as pain shot up his fractured leg.

OOC: ooohhhhh okay. Cool~ thank you for backing yourself up like that. I just learned something new ;w;

As soon as the cobwebs clung thoroughly to the wound and stopped most of the bleeding, Rabbitfoot took a second to be prideful of her handiwork until she realized there was still much to be done. Running back into the den, the she-cat grabbed the flattest stick she could find and a mouthful of rush. Thankfully, it seemed that there was just enough to do what she needed, but unfortunately, that meant yet another trip out into the territories to find more. Maybe she had some to spare in Skyclan. "Hopefully those poppy seeds really kick in..." she muttered to herself before placing down all her materials, grabbing the stick and setting it next to the small kit's leg. When it was in place, she grabbed long strands of the rush and began wrapping it around the leg, binding it tightly to the stick which was helping keep everything straight. She couldn't imagine how much pain it caused, but she was working quickly enough that she was done in almost no time. "There! That should be everything," she said. "He needs a lot of rest. Hopefully he'll pull through. If... If he lasts the night, he should be okay."