Not So Different [Greykit]

Bearpaw had three good sized fish hanging from his jaws by their tails. He brought them over to the freshkill pile and dropped them in, grateful to be rid of the weight for the time being. Bearpaw had grown into a large apprentice, and he would be growing larger still. He'd nearly reached his full adult height at 12 inches at the shoulder, but he was lanky and gawky looking as an adolescent tom should be. His paws and ears still looked too big for him, each of which were quite large in comparison to other toms his age and even older. To think that he was only ten moons old and was going to grow not only taller still, but begin to put on bulk after he was twelve moons made him wonder how well of a swimmer he would be before long. He had seen bigger cats at gatherings, but they were few and far in between. Bloodstrike was the size of creature that the elders called a bobcat and with most of his tail missing and ears sliced up into tattered points, he allegedly looked the part too. He did not look like the kind of cat that could swim, and the idea worried Bearpaw for himself. Flintstar had been quite large too, but Bearpaw had to wonder how much of it was fluffy fur and the same was said to be for Bloodstrike's daughter, Beechface.

A noise disrupted Bearpaw from his thoughts. It had come from the nursery. The noise sent a shiver down his spine and his fur bristled along his back with it. That had been a kit distress noise... He would know that sound anywhere. Bearpaw swiftly but quietly trotted to the nursery, his heartbeat significantly quickened. What if a snake had gotten in there? Bearpaw poked his head in and swept his green gaze across the nursery. He didn't see any immediate danger, but he was certain he'd heard a kit's distress mew. Bearpaw slipped inside and quietly stepped across the nursery floor, looking for whatever had caused a kit to make a noise like that. They all looked like they were asleep... the sudden movement of one caught his eye. Another distressed squeak. Bearpaw's ears flattened upon reflex, immediately going into defensive mode, but alas the kit's problems were not of this world... but their own. As much as Bearpaw might want to help, he was no Starclan cat. He wouldn't be able to fight monsters in dreams. He could only wait for the kit to wake up, or if the dream became too intense, he'd wake the little one himself.

(Dream Sequence:)

Grey stood still, paralyzed as he watched the massive wave rear up from the river, his father was standing in front of his mother, who was crouched protectively over his siblings. Their fur was spiked in distress, and Grey swore he could feel the fear terminating from them.

Thunder crashed, making his ears pin as the wave started barreling toward the only four of his kin. The sound of snapping timber stabbed through the terrible wind and rain. Grey tried to scream for them to move, to do anything, but it was like his mouth was clamped shut with tendrils.

He was forced to watch as the wave swallowed his mother and father, his two siblings, and only when they had been pulled with yowls into the river was the small kit able to move. He used over, reaching out with a paw for Fawnkit to grasp, his terrified face partially surfaced as his paw tried to reach for his, to hook her claws into Grey so he could drag him out... but just as it brushed the tip of his toes, another wave barreled down the stream dragging his brother down with it.

For a moment he could glimpse his brother's face in the water, paralyzed in death with bubbles slowly floating out of his gaping maw, only for shadowing tentacles to wrap around his small form, and drag him into the murky depths with the rest of his family, never to be seen again.

(Dream Sequence end)

...

His eyes snapped open, the dark of the nursery greeting him, only making him fear the worse. He sprung to his paws, stumbling backwards, eyes locked on the shadows of the back wall of the stuffy den, where he swore he could see faces leering at him. He tripped over another sleeping kit, releasing a squeak as he thought he had tripped over a corpse.

The darkness felt like it was trying to smother him, and the faint echo of the storm in his dream tricked him into thinking it had become reality. It was hard to breathe, and the adrenaline was making his muscles rigid. Echos of his family's terrifying yowls jolted him back into movement. He had to react, to get out of reach of the river-

Ignoring the disgruntled noise of the other waking kit, he turned tail, rushing to the exit of the den, only to barrel into another cat's legs head-first. Small in size still, despite being almost five moons old, he bounced back from the force of the smack, landing on his haunches. The disorientation of the involuntary action made him swiftly crouch to the ground.

Fear coursing through his small body, the orphaned kit ket his eyes closed, shoving his face into his forelegs. His fur was spiked to twice his size, making him look like a petrified ball of pure fur. Ears pinned to the back of his cranium, he could hear his small heart thudding in his chest, his breathing was hitched to try and keep up with its demands. Everything was so confusing and scary. He didn't want the river to hear his heartbeat, couldn't it shut up for once?!

Despite his inner turmoil, Greykit didn't dare say anything, hoping the inky black tendrils of the river didn't grab him too, to trap him in the riverbed with the corpses of his kin.

The sudden explosion of the kit actually made Bearpaw jump. He backed away a few steps, wondering if an angry mother was about to turn her claws on him. He stared in a helpless confusion as the kit scrambled around, tripping over other kits and bolted towards him. Bearpaw didn't move, unsure if his own movement would frighten the kit more. What was going on? Was the kit still sleeping? The poor thing barreled toward Bearpaw's foreleg and ran smack into it before curling up tight.

"Whoa! Hey!" He spoke to it, softly but loud enough for the kit to be able to hear him... unless he was just in full blown panic mode still. "Calm down, you're alright!" He needed to get the poor thing into the light. He was still in the foggy world between waking and dreaming. Bearpaw himself knew how terrifying and confusing those could be. He grabbed the kit up by the scruff and headed immediately outside the nursery. Hopefully an angry mother wouldn't be swiping at his hindquarters.

He set the little ball of fur down in the light and gently put a paw on him to prevent him from bolting through camp next. "It's alright little guy... you're in Riverclan Camp still!" He hoped his voice would be heard and hoped that the light would help him realize that he had already left the dream world behind.

The kitten barely registered the words of whatever he had run into, and upon feeling teeth gently grip
his scruff he let out a squeak of surprise, defaulting to the usual position a kit adopts when being
carried. He dared no move as his groggy mind tried to process what in Starclan’s name was going on. He
could feel bits of grass and underbrush brushing his hindquarters as he was briefly carried. He was, after
all, almost the size of a six-moon old apprentice, and by no means the easily portable size of say, an
eight-week-old kit.

That didn’t seem to stop whoever grabbed him apparently.
When he was lowered back to the ground Greykit assumed his previous position. His oddly rounded ears
perked slowly as his sluggish mind was finally able to understand when he was being spoken to, and
what was being said.

He slowly cracked open one eye, shutting it briefly at the bright light around him. Then, gradually he
blinked open both grey hues, looking up at the tom before him with wide, wary eyes. Vaguely he recognized the concerned visage of one of his older clannmates, though not being one to interact much with any of them beyond the elders and a few queens, he couldn’t pinpoint the name. 

Slowly he rose into a half-crouched position, scanning his surroundings, and taking a while to ease. He
took a deep breath letting it out, and then shifting into a sitting position. "Just another nightmare… " a disturbingly vivid one, the kit shivered, before glancing up to the unknown clanmate, ears flat in uncertainty. "Sorry for  bothering ya..." He cast his gaze to the soil below, picking at it mulishly. He was tired of waking up in states of terror, he  just wanted a good sleep for once, he doubted his dozing in the sunlight was enough for him to staynq healthy as he grew.

His plumed tail gently twitched against the ground. The longhaired tomkit’s pelt was starting to look a
lot less like the kitten fuzz it used to be, his guard hairs developing properly and beginning to grow down
toward his belly like his older longhaired counterparts.

All the signs of him soon becoming an apprentice were there, but he wasn’t looking forward to it like
most any longer. His mind was becoming bogged down with the ever-present wariness and paranoia of
one who had seen something they shouldn’t’ve as a youngling.

One of the main reasons he wasn’t looking forward to apprentice hood… was swimming. Even the mere
thought of dipping a toe into the water shot jolts of terror through his form, making his tail curl tighter
around his paws.

He may have been rescued from a nightmare, but he wasn’t going to be saved by the fearful uncertainty
of growing up.

And with the possibility of more turmoil among the clans in the future, Greykit wasn’t going to catch a
break any time soon.

Bearpaw gave the kit a moment to realize where he was and to fully wake up. Once he had, it was apparent by his words and Bearpaw nodded once... in a more understanding manner than most cats would. Sorry for bothering him? Bearpaw shook his head immediately and extended one of his overly large paws to the kit and rested it very gently against his shoulder. "Please no, I'm not bothered. I get... I get really nasty dreams sometimes. I handle it a little better than you do but I'm older..." He probably would have had those same reactions at one point, but he was older than Greykit when the nightmares began for him.

"That seemed pretty intense... do you have anyone to talk to about them? It might help." He didn't really know, but if all he could do was offer a sympathetic voice and a listening ear, maybe it would be enough to help the poor kit. It wasn't like he was a stranger to bad dreams... or fear and hatred of the water. He sat down, showing the kit that he didn't intend to go anywhere anytime soon.

"My name is Bearpaw. I'm an outsider... so I don't have family here. I actually used to be what the Riverclanners call a Kittypet... funny name for something if you ask me. My mom was a breeder... for what I don't know but our twoleg seemed to like me quite a lot. I was the only one that didn't get sent to the Cutter. My mom told me that meant I was supposed to be a breeder too..." His voice trailed off. Partially because his mother and siblings were no longer alive and it pained him to speak of them... but also because he wasn't entirely sure that a clan kit would understand a word he was saying.

"Anyway... I don't know everyone's name yet. What is yours?"

The kit glanced up as the paw was lowered onto his shoulder, the wait both odd and calming, tilting his head as the older tom confided slightly in him. Grey knew that he wasn't the only one who got nightmares, there were warriors and elders who woke up in brief states of terror as well. They had lived through much more gruesome things than he, and while the thought might be depressing for others, Grey often found slight comfort in the thought, in knowing that whether or not he would exceed in life didn't matter to nature, the world would move on, he was not the beginning and end of the forest.

Despite this... it was nice to get confirmation, to know that he was not alone.

"Thanks... good to confirm I'm not alone in this… though you've probably still gotten more sleep than me then." He sighed, "At this rate, I doubt I'll be able to even stay awake during my apprentice ceremony in a moon." His tone held a slight hint of dry humour, though there was a note of true belief in that fact that range through it more prominently.

He cast his eyes to the ground at the question the older tom asked, pulling his forepaws closer to himself. "Yeah, I usually tell Troutbelly about them when I get the chance to talk 'bout it... though there isn't much to say, same nightmare every time." He glanced back up, gaze having drained into a dull glow of weariness. "All my family drowned, parents while they were patrolling, siblings in front of me during a storm. My brain just warps it into some twisted mix of the two. It's scary. I'm scared of the river, and I'm a full-blooded Riverclan cat. Imma have to learn ta swim-" He cut himself off before he spiralled into terrified ramblings, muzzle twisting into a grimace.

"Well... ya get the picture."

He shifted as the tome divulged his name, and a bit of his past, his head tilted in mild confusion, he hadn't quite grasped such a large vocabulary yet. "Nice ta meet ya, I'm Greykit. I don't know what a.. 'breeder'... or a 'cutter' is though." His focus shifted after his first question, "Did ya have ta travel far to get here? What's it like beyond the camp? Carpsplash always rambles about his time as a Warrior, but I bet most of his stories are super exaggerated." Grey whispered, the last bit, glancing toward the elder's den as if assuming the old tom would hear all the way from over there.

Greykit preferred more grounded stories, honestly, those were the ones relly worth telling in his opinion.

Bearpaw felt a chill down his spine and he shuddered. Greykit had lost family to the river too? He wanted to tell the kit more, to tell him a lot of what had happened to him, but with Greykit being.. well.. a kit... he wasn't sure that he should. He'd experienced some truly horrible things. He'd arrived at Riverclan's border covered in blood for a reason. Blood that had not been his own. He was about Greykit's age too. The hesitation may have been apparent in Bearpaw's eyes, as he made no effort to hide it. Maybe once they were both warriors, they could tell each other's story. With his mind made up, Bearpaw had resolve in his eyes instead and simply nodded once in sympathy for the kit.

"I've lost family too, only one to the river though. I'll tell you more when you've earned your warrior name. I'd probably get in trouble for telling you too much." He tail thumped the ground once and he looked away, thinking. What could he tell him? "A breeder is a cat that the twolegs allow to have kittens. A cutter is a twoleg that takes away the ability to have them, if for some reason your twoleg decides that they don't want you to. My siblings smelled different when they came back... and they acted a little different too." He was glad that he didn't have to go, but he wished he knew why he was chosen. "I did travel far... it took me a week to get here... or a quarter of a moon. My twoleg nest was nice compared to the forest. Not that I have a problem with the forest, but I didn't really understand what being cold or hot or hungry was until I... had to leave. The rest of the world seemed to be very similar to the forest here, but far more dangerous. At least the camp is fairly peaceful, almost like a second twoleg nest but run by cats." And no breeders or cutters to speak of. Everyone was allowed to have kits.

He sat attentively as the older tom spoke to him, blinking upon hearing that he lost family to the river before. Grey'kit supposed it would be weird if no one else but him had died in its churning waters, but hearing that fact out of another's maw still made him a tad surprised. He nodded when the apprentice said he couldn't tell him much more. "... Do you ever get nightmares of the river?" He asked a tad hesitantly.

The kit glanced down to their soft white paws, before shifting to scan the camp, it had been sun high when he had fallen asleep, and now the sun was midway down to disappearing over the horizon in preparation for the night. He wondered how dreams always seemed so short, but actually stretched long in the waking world. It was strange, life was strange.

Upon the older tom's continued speech, he glanced back up, listening once again with his curly ears perked. His nose scrunched up at the explanation of a cutter. "I mean, I don't really want to have kits ever, but I wouldn't want something called the 'cutter' actually making sure I couldn't, and letting other cats have kits when there's one's there who can't is kind of unfair. That's weird, twolegs are weird, I don't like them, because that's super sketchy." He huffed.


He refocused as the apprentice told him a short tale about what it was like beyond the camp, eyes curious, his previous fear from his nightmare no longer lingering over him. He frowned idly. "I don't really know what it's like to be hungry still. I do know what it's like to be cold though, rain is cold, especially with the wind." He nodded.

He paused, shuffling a paw, "If ya don't mind me asking, what should I expect when I become an apprentice?"

Did he ever have nightmares of the river? He thought about that for a second. Most of his nightmares were far worse than the idea of drowning. He hesitated to tell the kit anything... maybe only segments of the truth. "Rivers of blood from time to time." Whoops... right as it left his mouth he knew that had been a mistake. Here he was trying to comfort a terrified kit and he mentions a river of blood... He was so great at this. He sighed in defeat. He'd tell the kit a little bit more, in the hopes that maybe it would be a comfort in the end that it wasn't just Greykit that suffered.

"That and... teeth. Dog teeth... lunging at me from the darkness. Sometimes I can see the glow of their eyes, but it's usually just white jaws in a black world." That would do for now. Anymore and he was afraid he'd make the situation worse.

"Being an apprentice isn't so bad. I constantly worry about what Ivystar thinks of me, but aside from that you don't have to think or worry too much. Your mentor does a lot of that for you. Your only job is to listen and learn... pretty easy. Excluding a few anxiety-inducing moments where you're not sure if you're doing something right and you just really really want to be doing it right because you want your mentor to like you and be impressed by you." He stopped, realizing that he was about to give himself a mild panic attack thinking about it. Well... at least it had been a convincing demonstration.

"Do you know who you'd like as a mentor?"

{ Text Colour: #91a3b0 }


Grey kit listened as the tom imparted some hints as to what his nightmares were like, tail twitching anxiously and eyes a tad fearful, but he didn't run away screaming, at the least. He swallowed a bit before talking. "Sounds scary," his voice was a slight murmur. He had heard of dogs from the elders, it was a bit hard to picture them but he knew they were often big, and attacked cats almost any chance they'd get.

He eased again when Bear started speaking about apprenticeship listening, frowning slightly. "I don't see why ya'd have to worry if you do your best with what ya know, then if you don't impress them that's their fault fer not teaching you well 'nough what to do to impress them." He huffed, eyes closed in slight defiance, seeming rather set in believing those words it seemed.

He glanced up when the older tom spoke again, and snorted. ""I dunno. I don't talk o many warriors or apprentices... or kits. Yer the first apprentice I've gotten to know, and most warriors are busy. I'm not exactly a social kit... except maybe with the elders." He shrugged, "Who I get is who I get, I guess, not like I can make a choice."

He paused, "I do hope it isn't someone annoyingly energetic, I'm already exhausted 'nough as is." As if to prove his point, a yawn broke through the kit, making his mouth gape open and showing off white, sharp needle teeth and a healthy pink mouth. The kit grumbled, standing up and stretching grandly, tail in the air and upper pat curved down in a slope. Forepaws shifting back he arched his back skyward before relaxing.

He glanced at the stone he usually lounged on near the nursery. It really was a pity that it had been too cloudy today to sunbathe,

The kit's words earned a short chuckle from Bearpaw. "I don't mind talking to elders so much. They can be a bit long-winded but they have lots of wisdom to share. I think it's smart to talk to them and ask them about their experiences. It's all they have left to offer before they join Starclan forever." Bearpaw himself had no idea where this sudden idea came to him. He hadn't spent any real lengthy time with any elder except for Carpsplash, and he could tell the elder would rather him... not be here. But Bearpaw had taken the elder's advice when it came to swimming regardless and he was glad that he had.

"I think sometimes opposites are good... a mentor and an apprentice I mean. It's harder maybe, but in the end I think it teaches you more and it's more rewarding." Ivystar had been good for him. Strong, confident, decisive... all of the things Bearpaw really wanted to be. Maybe he would have been... had his recent experiences not been such a brutal wake up call not only to his own mortality but his weaknesses as a kit as well.

His eyes looked up to the sky. He'd need to go to bed soon. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint his mentor because he was too tired to follow instructions correctly. "How are you feeling now? Are you going to be able to sleep, or would you want to stay up and talk a little longer?"

"It's fine if they're long-winded, because sometimes I am too, so we're long-winded together." Greykit said with a small, amused smile. Slowly it shifted into a frown, ears drooping slightly. "I don't want them to go to Starclan though... because then I'll be alone again." He scuffed the dirt lightly with one paw, a bit saddened by the mere thought of Carpsplash or Troutbelly dying.

Greykit frowned at the thought of getting a cat that drained his mental or physical energy to the point of him recessing into a plant. "Yeah, I guess, still don't want one like that. I'd probably do better with a mentor with, ya know, normal amounts of energy. Then they can teach me what I don't know while also not making me tired just being around them." The kit grimaced. Yeah, a mentor he wouldn't despise would be much more inspiring than one he did, that was just a fact.

There was a pause in the conversation, one Greykit mostly spent ruminating about all the lost sunbathing sessions that would come with apprenticeship, quietly and dramatically bemoaning the fact internally as he stared blankly at his paws. He'd have to work and do chores that warriors claimed they were 'too busy for' even though they were probably just lazy. GHis first training session would probably be spent with him very loudly stating all the internalized, melodramatic moanings of a kit who enjoyed being as lazy as a kittypet.

No, he didn't want to be a kittypet, he heard about how the twolegnests looked, and even just the likely-exaggerated mental images of the described structures gave him the chills.

He was snapped out of his musings by Bearpaw, just in time to catch the posed questions. Greykit let out a puff of air. "Yeah... I'm feeling better... still not excited about apprenticeship but I'm not scared anymore." He glanced at the tall apprentice, ears flat with slight embarrassment, "Thanks for the help..."

He glanced at the sky, then looked back at his paws as he saw that the sky was still shrouded with claws. "Guess I'll eat and then go doze under a bush. The nursery is always too suffocating to sleep in after a nightmare anyways."