Post by Willowishness on Feb 17, 2009 22:48:38 GMT -5
MottledBug heaved a contented sigh.
It was a warm evening in the swamp; cicadas and dragonflies buzzed in the few trees able to survive the super-wet climate. The sun was beginning to set, casting orange and pink rays across her red, white, cherry, black and brown mottled pelt, giving it 1,000 more colors than it already had.
Inside the nursery, FairyDance, MistedMorning, and MinnowStep were snoozing next to their newborns.
MottledBug, the clan's only Bone Carver, was heavily pregnant with the kits of a Lone Rogue tom she'd met only once. He was powerful and fit with good genes to match to her's. She was sleek and healthy and young at 35 moons old. Her kits would be strong as well. Half the clan's members were Rogues, so no cat would care about her children's parentage.
The soon-to-be queen dug a shallow hole in the watery dirt beneath her paws to bury gleaming white bones from the prey she'd just eaten, a chubby marsh fish.
BogClan were learning to fish very well; fish and frogs were the clan's staple food. In order to bulk up enough to survive the winter ahead, they'd have to learn.
Those thoughts led MottledBug's mind to the seasons. Between Spring and Summer was the time when BogClan's queens gave birth, judging by the sheer number of new mothers in the nursery. The three other queens of the season had already had their kits. MottledBug's would be the youngest out of this generation.
An uncomfortable cramp siezed in her belly.
MottledBug got up and went into the medicine den, where WildSong, the clan's apprentice-aged medicine cat was counting death berries. When MottledBug limped in, the little she-cat shoved the berries into a crack in the wall with an obviously guilty attempt-at-innocence expression.
"Kit time?" WildSong asked, glancing the queen up and down with a grimace on her face. It was like all the queens decided to have their kits the moment DragonFang left the clan...
"Let me get you some borage and cramp bark. And mint, if you think the birth will be difficult..."
Thirty minutes later three lovely kits lay beside MottledBug in the nursery, which WildSong had moved the family into the moment MottledBug was finished birthing. One was white like MottledBug's mother EverStar. The other two were tabbies like their father; one was gray and black like cinders in an old fire, the other was a burnt brown, as if it had barely escaped a forest blaze. None resembled MottledBug in the least. All three were toms.
"Mmm... BoneKit." Because I'm a Bone Carver and you're white like bone.
"BriarKit." Because you're tabby gray stripes look like claws of thorn.
"BurnKit." Because the black patches on your pelt look like fire marks.
It was a warm evening in the swamp; cicadas and dragonflies buzzed in the few trees able to survive the super-wet climate. The sun was beginning to set, casting orange and pink rays across her red, white, cherry, black and brown mottled pelt, giving it 1,000 more colors than it already had.
Inside the nursery, FairyDance, MistedMorning, and MinnowStep were snoozing next to their newborns.
MottledBug, the clan's only Bone Carver, was heavily pregnant with the kits of a Lone Rogue tom she'd met only once. He was powerful and fit with good genes to match to her's. She was sleek and healthy and young at 35 moons old. Her kits would be strong as well. Half the clan's members were Rogues, so no cat would care about her children's parentage.
The soon-to-be queen dug a shallow hole in the watery dirt beneath her paws to bury gleaming white bones from the prey she'd just eaten, a chubby marsh fish.
BogClan were learning to fish very well; fish and frogs were the clan's staple food. In order to bulk up enough to survive the winter ahead, they'd have to learn.
Those thoughts led MottledBug's mind to the seasons. Between Spring and Summer was the time when BogClan's queens gave birth, judging by the sheer number of new mothers in the nursery. The three other queens of the season had already had their kits. MottledBug's would be the youngest out of this generation.
An uncomfortable cramp siezed in her belly.
MottledBug got up and went into the medicine den, where WildSong, the clan's apprentice-aged medicine cat was counting death berries. When MottledBug limped in, the little she-cat shoved the berries into a crack in the wall with an obviously guilty attempt-at-innocence expression.
"Kit time?" WildSong asked, glancing the queen up and down with a grimace on her face. It was like all the queens decided to have their kits the moment DragonFang left the clan...
"Let me get you some borage and cramp bark. And mint, if you think the birth will be difficult..."
Thirty minutes later three lovely kits lay beside MottledBug in the nursery, which WildSong had moved the family into the moment MottledBug was finished birthing. One was white like MottledBug's mother EverStar. The other two were tabbies like their father; one was gray and black like cinders in an old fire, the other was a burnt brown, as if it had barely escaped a forest blaze. None resembled MottledBug in the least. All three were toms.
"Mmm... BoneKit." Because I'm a Bone Carver and you're white like bone.
"BriarKit." Because you're tabby gray stripes look like claws of thorn.
"BurnKit." Because the black patches on your pelt look like fire marks.
