Sharing Tongues (March 2020)

Willowkit watched Mossbloom carefully as she demonstrated how to collect moss. Willowkit found a rock near her right and using her paws, carefully pawing and tugging the moss lightly. Willowkit repeated this over and over again until there was moss left. Then, she picked up the pile of moss, and shook it back and forth. A few wisps of green fell off, and she stared at Mossbloom meekly. “I shook it too hard, didn’t I?”

Moonkit tried to copy Mossbloom's every move exactly how she did it. Carefully, Moonkit gathered moss from a nearby rock, pawing it together with a sheathed forepaw. When she had a big enough pile, Moonkit picked up as much as she could in her jaws and shook her head vigorously. Most of the moss dropped out of her mouth onto the ground. Huffing in annoyance, Moonkit scraped the moss on the ground back into a pile. Suddenly an idea began to form in her mind. Grinning, Moonkit rolled the dirty moss into a ball and threw it at Willowkit's head. Grabbing another pawful of moss, Moonkit smothered it into Willowkit's face, purring in laughter.

Willowkit screeched in shock as  a flying moss ball smacked onto her head. Willowkit tumbled over and grabbed the moss ball, getting revenge as she threw it right back. When Moonkit was distracted by that ball of moss, Willowkit frantically collected more moss with her paws, then shook it lightly. Clumps of dirt fell off, but no wisps of moss did. Willowkit’s eyes brightened. “I did it!”

Mossbloom watched Willowkit, and as the kit shook it she smiled down at her. "Only a little bit, but that's alright! Like I said, it takes time to figure out just the right amount of force, and we can still use all of this moss! You did a great job." Seemingly out of nowhere, a moss ball landed directly on Willowkit's head, and Mossbloom blinked in surprise before looking over to Moonkit and purring. It appeared that while she was distracted talking to Willowkit, Moonkit and gotten her own clump of moss removed, but then shook it too hard resulting in it falling apart into clumps. The moss ball was thrown again by Willowkit this time, and while Moonkit was distracted the kit quickly gathered some more and shook it out perfectly this time. Mossbloom nodded vigorously, eyes bright as she regarded the kit's work. "That was perfect, Willowkit, well done! How about we take this moss back to Oakstar?"

Willowkit jumped up, careful not to scratch the perfect layers of moss with her fangs. She glared playfully at Moonkit. “Come on, collect some more. We got to head back.” Willowkit bumped Moonkitnsith her shoulder lightly, then gazed up at Mossbloom. “Sure! Moonkit can catch up, right Moonkit?”

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Moonkit mewed lightly as she collected more moss and shook it perfectly, before grabbing the moss ball she made earlier. She threw it at Willowkit's head again, except this time her throw was off and she missed. Huffing, Moonkit bounded after the others as they made their way to the Clan leader.

Beepaw perked up as Oakstar addressed him with a kind of fatherly compassion, feeling the tips of his ears burn with the combined embarrassment and pride of being recognized by a group. He followed Dacedream with a chipper half-trot to the nursery, and grinned as Cherryblossom joined them. "Lemme see what's going on with it," he chirped, laying a pair of huge front paws on the sides and feeling for drafty patches. "There's a big gap right here with just a few tangled brambles, and if it snows next Leafbare, it'll all come caving in. That's the biggest one... I mean, the nursery is always pretty well protected. Queens are kinda nuts about it."

Cedarpaw walked alongside her brother, ready to do some work. It was nice to hang out with her clan, just to talk and do casual work, not have to be doing something amazingly active at all times.

Dacedream nodded in acknowledgement of Beepaw's words that he would go check the nursery; despite her suggestion to divide and conquer, however, she still found herself padding to the nursery with him. It seemed like it wasn't that long ago when she'd been a queen with four healthy, energetic kits at her belly. Still, the memories of the darkness lingered, and Dacedream was grateful to be out, enthusiastic, and back to warrior duties. At Beepaw's words, the tortoiseshell queen shot him an impish glare and waved her bushy tail. "Hey now! It's our job. StarClan forbid our kits catch a cough and spread it to every other scrap in the den!" Dacedream defended as she laughed, trying to show him she wasn't offended in earnest.