Instructions Engraved on Leaves [closed]

Daisykit was following a trail of clotted dirt, looking for where Molepaw had started to dig around in the crumbling earth. She didn’t really understand why he was digging or what he was looking for, but she was a great sister so she was helping. He was getting busy with training, so any chance she got to spend time with him she snatched up like a falling leaf. Plus there was bound to be something interesting for her to find as well, maybe a sharp-scented root or strange patterned bug. She flexed her claws into the earth, stopping to tilt her head at a beetle trying to escape back into the shelter of the cool soil. She looked up to see Smallstar beckoning her away with a flower clamped in his jaws. Confused, but obedient, the young she-cat padded after him, curiosity bubbling under her ribs. A million questions pooled on her tongue. Why was he holding a flower? What did her leader want to talk to her about? Was it important? Would Molepaw be disappointed she couldn’t join him in whatever he was doing? She was the perfect picture of restraint, white and gray face turned patiently to the small tom, tail twitching slightly as she curled it around her paws. Really, Lavendercloud should be proud of how quickly she was learning to think more in her head and less outloud.

Finally after a polite amount of time to let the leader get settled, she let herself ask one question and not all of them, which was a feat. Bright eyes glittering like fireflies in her pale face, she turned all her overflowing attention to him.  “What did you want to speak to me about?” Daisykit asked, feeling like her chest might explode with the intensity of her curiosity sloshing around in there.

Daisykit listened to Smallstar, round ears pointed attentively to him as he spoke. “StarClan picked me?” The bi-colored kit shuffled her paws a bit, suddenly embarrassed by the honor. She looked back up at her leader, already decided. Even if this path wasn’t the one she thought she’d take. Even if it tore her away from the path her littermates tread, StarClan must have their reasons. Who was she to argue with them? She glanced down at the pale petals of the daisy, crumpled at the edges and fluttering gently against the dirt. She would do anything to protect her family and her clan, and if this is what her ancestors designed, if this was how she could best be used then she would do anything to live up to that expectation. She locked eyes with Smallstar, fresh faced and young, nearly vibrating with excitement. There was so much to learn!

“I don’t need time to decide. If this is what StarClan wills then I’d be honored to accept your instruction.” She purred, tail-tip twitching in excitement. Her head buzzed with all the questions she had been dying to ask about the different plants they had seen on the journey. She wanted to ask about StarClan, and what it was like to talk to them. She wanted to ask about the other clans and their medicine cats. She wanted to tell her mother and Molepaw and Berrykit and her father too. She kept all that locked firmly behind her teeth, settling instead to puff out her chest a bit in pride. She let herself ask one of the questions burning a hole in her ribs. “Do I get to go talk to StarClan? Can I do that without the Moonstone?” She had heard stories of the Moonstone, of the journey apprentices took before they became warriors. But she might be able to talk to them sooner, since they obviously had an interest in her.

It made her giddy to think about all the knowledge of her ancestors, their wise eyes searching her out amongst the living. She would do her very best to serve her clan well, and make all those seeking eyes proud. Reining in her wild curiosity, she said, a little softer, a little more seriously, "I understand, at least a little, the trust the clan will put in me. I will do everything in my power to be deserving of that trust." Life and death so precariously balanced on her shoulders, learning to mend instead of tear. One day her clanmates would thrust their beating hearts into her paws and pray she could preserve them.