Not Even a Whisper - Missing Kits [Open, Clan Topic]

Help!

Dappleleaf's eyes shot open at the call of a distressed queen. She had been in a restless sleep, and it didn't normally take much to wake her, but the worry that laced the voice that had woken her could've woken even the deepest dreaming warrior. Swiftly, she hurried out of the elder's den in search of answers to what had happened. But when she saw the nursery, and the look in the she-cats eyes, she instantly knew. Missing kits. Her and Doeskip had had two of their kits briefly disappear - luckily for them, they soon returned to camp, earning still earned a scolding from their worried mothers. This time she could sense that it was for real.

"Who's missing?" she asked as she comforted the queen, letting her lean on her side. She was poorly acquainted with most of the kits, as young warrior and apprentices provided more entertainment for the elderly she-cat. I won't be any use on a patrol, she thought, my old bones couldn't take it. She would fight though. With all her strength, she would try her best to help find these kits. There could be one missing, two, three, however many. Even if all she could do was hope and pray to Starclan, then she would.

Nettlestar sat tall and stiff, her green eyes wandering from one side of camp to the other and back again, which was her equivalent of anxiously pacing in circles.

Kits gone from the nursery-- with no trace of how. If there had been some kind of trail to follow, she would have known what to do, at least in the short term. She would have gathered a patrol, followed where the evidence led, and hoped in the best case to find the missing kit, and in the worst case to at least have found more evidence that could eventually lead them to the kit.

But there was no trail, and so she had no immediate plan.

And the lack of trail also ruled out what was probably the most innocent explanation-- that the kits had simply snuck out for a while. She didn't think any kit was capable of leaving absolutely no evidence of their departure, and even if they were she doubted they would take the time to so carefully cover their tracks. No, no, she suspected it wasn't something as simple as that. The neatness of the whole thing gave it an undoubtedly sinister feel.

She approached the nursery again, half-hoping she would spot some clue that had been missed on first glance.

But she didn't.

For the moment the she-cat simply remained in the vicinity of the nursery, turning over possible courses of action in her head.

The yowl was loud to the cats outside the nursery; to the cats within, it was downright earsplitting. Ears flattened in an attempt to block out the noise, Thrushnose raised her head. Then she noticed the content of the yowl. At once, she bolted upright, then looked down, not quite as an afterthought, to see Badgerkit nestled into their shared nest. She’d hardly shifted more than a kitstep since Thrushnose had gone to sleep. Relief swept over the tabby she-cat, planting her paws to the spot as she tried to find her balance. Badgerkit was here, safe—which meant Thrushnose had to work on figuring out who wasn’t. Leaning down, she pressed her nose between the kit’s mottled ears. “Don’t go anywhere.” Then she hurried toward the nursery’s entrance, where the Clan had started to gather.

First, she heard the queen who’d yowled a moment ago; then came Dappleleaf’s voice, soothing in its familiarity. “I—I don’t—” Her mouth snapped shut. Stammering wouldn’t do them any good. Having moved to the nursery only a few sunups ago, she hadn’t gotten much time to learn the kits’ names, but she had started memorizing her older denmates’; it was just a matter of remembering which names went together. “I think,” she said after a moment, steadier now, “it’s Laurelkit.” Whether it was only Laurelkit remained to be seen. Instinctively, she turned to her mentor, but Nettlestar’s face held no answers.

By now, Thrushnose had learned kittens were both noisy and uncoordinated, traits that didn’t lend themselves to successful escapes. But the idea that something could’ve gotten past the night guards, into a nursery with several occupants (including the aforementioned noisy kits and fully-grown warriors), and out of camp without anyone noticing was even harder to imagine. ”I’ll keep watch here,” she said, taking a half-step back into the nursery. If anyone had information, she wanted to be within earshot of it.

ThunderClan had been left wide awake and utterly stumped after the call for help rang out in the nursery. Pinefrost had never moved faster in his life, bounding to Thrushnose's side within two seconds of the yowl. The warrior had made a point to move his nest closer to the entrance to the warrior's den, should anything bad ever occur. The tom had never been a paranoid cat, yet felt it was always best to be safe than sorry. He'd missed sharing a den with his best friend, Thrushnose, and often would visit her in the nursery with their shared kit. Thankfully, the supposed queen was on her feet the moment the clan sprung to life. Badgerkit was safe. Pinefrost meant her eyes as she contemplated who it could be that was possibly missing. Thrushnose had always been very good about slowing down a situation to think it out. This, Pinefrost had been grateful for when he brought Badgerkit to his friend last moon. If it wasn't for her, the kit would be left to the devices of some queen instead of Thrushnose's loving eye. It was strange now to consider his closest of friends a "mate." Of course, if Pinefrost and Thrushnose were to convince ThunderClan that Badgerkit had been theirs all along, then they'd have to be mates, right? It felt so foreign to the tom, yet he knew one thing; he cared for Thrushnose with such warmth. She, along with Badgerkit, had joined his small little club. A family of sorts, still together despite their newest predicament.

Laurelkit was missing. Foxdung. Pinefrost gave Thrushnose a nod as she let her gaze drift to Nettlestar, but their leader had no answers either. "It's alright. You're safe, Badge is safe. We'll get to the bottom 'o this in no time." Pinefrost's friend settled herself back into the nursery back to where Badgerkit slept. He nodded at her statement and turned to Nettlestar. "Laurelkit can't have gotten far. I'll go out on patrol into the forest if you'll have me. Give me a few warriors, Nettlestar, I wanna help. Maybe we take mum with us, Ferretnose's a great tracker."

He'd just finished assigning the dawn patrol when the panicked call came, the daily routine halted as every cat up suddenly found out that one of their most vulnerable members had disappeared. A quick search around and behind the nursery showed nothing. Minkstream shook droplets of water from his pelt, his fur fluffed against the miserable weather floating in clouds through the forest. The worst kind to track a kit down in - every scent dripping with the smell of rain. He brushed past the glinting leaves on the side of the nursery, more water dripping onto his face and making him blink. "There's no sign around the back - not of a predator, at least."

His eyes flicked to Pinefrost - catching the end of his words - past him to the cats who had been about to set off on the dawn patrol, and then back to Nettlestar. "The dawn patrol's already set - we can split it into smaller groups with every cat we've got and send them combing the forest for any sign." He glanced at the nursery itself and Thrushnose, a vague, nameless feeling of frustration trembling at the end of his tail - they had to find the kit. First Dock, now this. But this... felt different to his daughter's disappearance, and it wasn't just the weather blustering into his face.

Pinefrost and Minkstream's voices brought Nettlestar out of her thoughts and back into reality. Considering the complete lack of evidence left in camp, Nettlestar had doubts that a patrol would find any kind of trail, no matter how hard they searched. Still, she decided, they should check. But she didn't want to send a large group-- she was deeply concerned by the feel of the whole affair, and she worried about sending most of her warriors away from camp. What if leaving it unguarded was exactly what the perpetrator-- whoever, whatever they were-- wanted?

"Yes. Pinefrost-- take a small group-- yourself, your mother if she wants to come, and another warrior and perhaps an apprentice as well-- and begin combing the territory for any sign of Laurelkit. Considering the lack of trace here, I have my doubts that you will find anything, but it is better to be safe than sorry." She began, and as she spoke the plan of action began forming more concretely in her head. "But I don't want to send every cat we have. There is something frighteningly deliberate about this. I don't think Laurelkit snuck out on her own-- I don't think she would have been able to leave behind absolutely no evidence of leaving. I don't want to discount the possibility that something is attempting to lure warriors away from camp," Her most immediate suspicion was that this had been coordinated by one of the other clans, and that it was some kind of trap. She didn't know which one or exactly why they would want to start a fight right now, but it was one of the easiest theories to work through all the way.

The tall gray she-cat stood back up and scanned the camp with a cold green gaze. She wasn't exactly hopeful that they would find the kit, but she was at least glad to have more of a plan ready. She turned to face her deputy.

"Minkstream-- help me gather cats to thoroughly search every part of camp and the area directly surrounding the camp. I wan to try and figure out how something could have gotten in and out of the nursery with absolutely no one noticing and without leaving a single scrap of evidence behind. If we can come up with some ideas about the how, I think we will be closer to figuring out who or what is responsible. And that is probably our best bet at getting closer to locating Laurelkit,"