Bee-Brain! [closed]

Beekit yelped as Ferretnose chased him out of the nursery. "And don't come back in here until you've gotten all your energy out!" she laughed, prodding him with her paw. "You're too big to be kicking me in the face!" Beekit chortled and snorted as he stumbled out into the lovely sunlight. ThunderClan camp was all a-bustle with warriors walking to and fro. Mama said that once he and his sisters got their apprentice names that she would go on patrols, too. She told him all kinds of stories about being a warrior. He liked the one where she beat up ShadowClan's kit deputy. That's where her neat scar came from! Her cloudy eye, though... that was a mystery.

Beekit shook his head fast, clearing the slobber from the edges of his mouth. Mama told him that one of his dads had teeth just like that, and that it took him a while to get used to them, too. Beartooth also had funny paws like him, but Harefoot and Ferretnose both said it just meant there was more of him to love. Mama got very sad when she talked about Beartooth, so Beekit was careful to talk about literally anything else. But he was dying to know more. They told him that Beartooth had another son from a different Mama, a very long time ago. Houndheart was his name. Beekit wasn't out of the nursery much, but he knew who to look for. They said he had funny ears and long stick-legs. Beekit scampered across camp and found a brown tabby tail. Launching his seven-toed paws at the thing as it whipped, he tumbled to the ground and wrestled it. When he looked up from his great warrior battle, he saw the cat whose tail he had caught. He wasn't a very happy-looking cat.

"Are you my brother?"

It was a rather cold day to the tom, who boasted the shorter coat of some ancestor. He cursed whomever had given it to him, since neither parents in life had a lack of fur. Why couldn't Beartooth have given him at least that? As he looked over the meager fresh-kill pile, both his hunger and frustration grew. The patrols hadn't been bringing back much. It wasn't like he had been either. Leafbare meant there wasn't anything to be caught. But despite this, he made the attempt to keep on top of patrols, sending cats out as often as he could and joining quite a few himself. There had been times he had shirked responsibility in favor of a more enjoyable adventure but he was not a lazy cat by any means. Unlike his father, the former deputy, patrols made sense to him. He'd been overwhelmed at first but every cat already knew what needed to be done. Extra patrols at the Shadowclan border and additional hunting patrols. Simple. Easy. How Beartooth had a problem with this was almost humorous, it just proved he would be a much better deputy.

He swallowed at the thought, flickering his tail behind him. So many cats missed their former deputy. As much as pride welled up in his chest, there were always pairs of judgemental eyes watching him, comparing him to the brute that had previously served under Oakstar. It frustrated him to be put next to Beartooth. His father had been thoughtless, mindless, and dull... Houndheart was nothing like him and he didn't want to be. He closed his eyes for a moment, stomach churning as he pictured the freshly killed body of Beartooth lain in the snow and sleet. They were better off without him. Whatever reasons Duskpaw had for taking his life, there was no reason for the clan to know. And as much as he wouldn't ever admit it, the truth of it was that he couldn not lose his friend. The unknown idea of what would happen to her if her actions were revealed terrified him, so he pushed it away. No one would know.

Eyes snapped open immediately as his tail was pinned behind him. Houndheart whipped around, a growl in his throat, but it fell away as he realized what he was looking at. It was a near copy of Beartooth. Oversized teeth, brutally massive paws, and a general goofy look to him. The difference was this was a kit, and not his father. The words that came from the kit's mouth caused him to scoff and narrow his eyes. Before he spoke, he bit his tongue and glanced towards the nursery, remembering Ferretnose's words, "I'm your deputy, kit."

Beekit snorted and skipped around to Houndheart's front side, now opting to wiggle his rump in the air and pounce delightfully on the deputy's paws, wrestling them with his miniature claws. "Hey, what's the big idea?" he squeaked. "You don't look like me at all! I know you're my brother, 'cause your dad is Beartooth. Guess what? I have five sisters. I'm the middle kit too. You have big ears. Ha! I got big paws and you got big ears. I bet Beartooth was funny-lookin'. Will you play with me?" And so Beekit rambled on, bouncing and doing laps around Houndheart's body and taking great tumbling leaps over his tail. He rounded the corner and stopped in front of the deputy.

With one large paw, Beekit wiped saliva from the corner of his mouth and moved his lower jaw, experimenting with different tooth positions. The lisp it gave him was a matter of taunting in the nursery, but he didn't usually fight back. He was big, and the first time he bit his sister, she cried. That made Beekit feel bad. He never did it again. "Oh, yeah! My name is Beekit! When I'm an apprentice, you should take me hunting. That'll be fun. Was Papa really your mentor? Harefoot?"