the wren, the wren (c)

He was coming along in leaps and bounds. Little Burnetkit, found by the river. There was never any sign of his parents, not after the scent-trail and blood leading out of the territory. She would tell him some day, where he came from. The 'edge of the world'. But for now... Some kind of tiny, mournful flutter beat its wings in her chest. He played and laughed, today was no different. And he was sad, and he feared, like a normal kit. And sometimes, sometimes if the suns glow hit him in just the right way, she could see a spectre. No larger than him, bicoloured eyes. White and brown, that could not sleep. And she told him to tell stories to himself. And Burnetkit, well...

"Have I ever told you about the time the Clans had to leave the forest, Burnetkit?" She meowed, craning her neck down to press her snout to the top of his head. Breathe in his scent. Still milky, still fresh. It always caught in her throat, failing to wriggle past the lump that always formed when he watched her with those wide eyes. She moved her eyes over him, from the nicked ear to the tip-less tail. She always feared it would worry him. Make him nervous, that he did not look exactly like the others. The nub at the base of her spine shifted, a difficult motion. Some days it still ached. She did not look like others, too. Perhaps that would make it less daunting. "And the journey that followed?"

Every time. Every time the word 'mother' came from the little thing, it was all she had in her to not start sobbing. The one word she never heard from Littlesplash, but from Burnetkit, it was in abundance.   She was his world, in a sense. When he looked up at her, she took all of his vision. She wondered how long that would last, when 'mother' was the most important thing to look up to, and 'play' was his only responsibility. She blinked slowly.

"It was many moons ago now," She began, shuffling forward so that the kit was framed within her fur. "When I was still an apprentice. The forest was sick, very very sick. The river was muddy and made cats sick, and many of the fish were dead. And prey was sick, too. This was happening all over the forest, and we had no idea what to do."

When she thought about it now, she really wasn't as worried about it as she should have been back then. She could not have imagined the stress Perchstar and Poppystar, Poppyshine then, were under. To guide the Clan through it.

"But then the medicine cats were visited by StarClan," She continued. "And they told us we had to leave and let the forest heal. Everyone was worried and frightened, we had to bring the kits and elders too and leave our camps. But we did. All five Clans; RiverClan, ThunderClan, ShadowClan, WindClan and SkyClan, gathered at Fourtrees and we left to follow then Sun. But that was only the beginning."