FEYWILD | shadekit

[FERNDANCE]

The nursery, a place of strife and torment, had turned into an alternate world for the cinnamon tabby. Dangers still lurked around every corner, but with just herself and one or two other queens within the space, it had become something of a haven away from the chicanery of the outside world. She did not know how to feel about finding comfort in the uncomfortable, so often that had been the case for Ferndance, now that it involved precious life though, it felt wrong. Her mistakes were no longer just her own to make, four little gremlins sought to follow her every mood and she had to think about the best things for their happiness and not just her own. With the sun trying to pierce through gaps in the thorn bush, she had not expected any of her aforementioned kittens to still be in the nest, but for one reason or another, Shadekit had remained indoors. It mattered not to her, she much preferred to keep an eye on them than trust ShadowClan to do her job for her. A purr erupted from the maw of the molly. "My little shadow..." she mewed warmly, licking the top of Shadekit's head in greeting.

Shadekit's isolation that day was a good thing, in some ways. Ferndance scarcely found the time to interact with her kittens on a one-to-one basis with how they clung to each other like burrs, as nice as that was, she had always imagined being able to teach them as a mentor would an apprentice too. She remembered how her mother found the time for each child and wanted to emulate it, but great StarClan Olly had made it look easy. "You pounce so well on your clanmates, I've been watching from the Nursery," she hummed approvingly, there wouldn't be many other opportunities for Shadekit to practice her skills, would there? Emerald eyes suddenly lit up like a bonfire night sky, an idea brewing in her brain. "Would you like to learn how to hunt?" It would have to be metaphorical prey, if Queens were prisoners in their own camp then she imagined that applied tenfold to kittens, but it would be better than nothing.

Without waiting for an answer, Ferndance began rummaging around in her hoard, hoping to find the perfect trinket to be used as bait. A feather was tossed to the side, as was a rock that narrowly avoided hitting someone in the head. Eventually, a shiny trinket was revealed, shaped like a mossball but covered in soil and sounding like crunching leaves when she pressed her paw to it. Eyes flickered to her childs' for approval.

@SHADEKIT
​

 

[SHADEPAW]

To Shadekit, the nursery had always been a place of peace and comfort. It was warm safety. She did not know otherwise. Big imagination or not, her kitten's mind could not conjure up terrors that she had never seen, invading- not like Ferndance had been able to. She was used to the soft moss beneath her paws, and the wiggly bodies of her littermates, and the light that filtered in. It was a sunny day, but there was a nip to the air that kept Shadekit and her short, sleek fur huddled up in the nursery, eager to steal more minutes of warmth before she pushed herself out into the frostbitten camp. The soft rasp of Ferndance's tongue over their head was a plus, and they leaned into it, mimicking their mother's purr.

Her ears perked up when Ferndance spoke. Other ShadowClanners had witnessed Shadekit's skills, surely, but no amount of praise from them could get her to straighten up and nod proudly like she did for her mother. Then the cinnamon tabby continued on, and green eyes that had been half-closed only a beat earlier were suddenly wide. Apprentices were the ones who got to learn to hunt. They were the cats whose hunting crouches she had mimicked, after careful observance of how they set their bodies low to the mossy ground and stepped forward as if avoiding twigs they could break. Learning to hunt from a warrior wasn't for kits... but Ferndance was a warrior when she wasn't a queen, and she was willing to teach Shadekit, so maybe it was for kits after all.

Shadekit hadn't gotten a breath out before Ferndance turned, but they squeaked out, "Yeah! Yeah, I do!" as she dug through her collection. They popped up to stand on all four paws. Their whiskers were angled forward, a gleam in their gaze. Eager muscles twitched as a feather, and then a rock, and then finally a shiny, dirty thing was rolled under Ferndance's paw. Another cat may have wondered what, exactly, it was. Shadekit accepted it without comment; it was simply a trinket, a toy, like anything else Ferndance kept scattered around her nest. Their rump gave a little wiggle, as if already calculating the pounce necessary to get to the faux-prey. "Okay! What do I do? How do I hunt like a real warrior- like you?" Their eager eyes flickered away from the toy to meet Ferndance's.​