Trivia · · ·

The Blood Moon gathering was marked by the bright red spectacle that filled the sky. It was a cold, winter night as BrookClan traversed their land to gather with the other two clans and celebrate when the dead would enter the living world. The hexer, a blue tabby by the name of Irispool, had been trailing at the back of the group to admire how sparse snowflakes fell to the ground, tuning into whatever slight brush they could hear to see if they could spot any StarClan cats. With that, a silent..but piercing sound entered his ears. Coming to the stop as the rest of the party went on, he traversed off path and towards a bush where this noise seemed to be coming from. As Irispool got closer, the familiar cry of a young kit became clear to him, where he quickly dashed over to its source to help. As they pried open the bramble the kit hid under, it revealed a ghostly, opalescent kitten, with silky fetlocks draping the cold earth around them. The red shine of the moon reflecting off of them. Irispool quickly scooped up the kitten and headed back to camp, immediately believing it to be a kit a gift from the dead.

However, this was quickly disproven the next day when Irispool spoke with a ghost who had not yet passed onto StarClan. The kit was anything but superordinary. Disappointed, Irispool released the kit--who he had named Sleepykit--from their care and to a new queen, Sootfall, a beautiful black molly renowned in BrookClan for her fighting ability. Her recently birthed kit was a litter of near-identical black kittens, with their only variations being white patches in certain areas. With two new brothers and three new sisters, Sleepykit was happy to befriend them. And even though they obviously weren’t related to each other, they all played fair with each other--that was until they became older and developed their own personalities.

At about three moons old, Nightkit, Smokekit, Tarkit, and Starlingkit started to develop brash natures. They were excited to be warriors, constantly competing and play-fighting with each other over who would be leader, over who would go into battle with mom. This would not be a problem if they had not become bullies to their meaker siblings, Slatekit and Sleepykit, who weren’t particularly fond of growing up to be tough fighters. The group of four began to pick on them, but especially on Sleepykit--where to dig deeper insults they would make comments on how they weren’t truly family, or how they were mother’s least favorite. It only got worse when it became obvious that Sleepykit had trouble picking apart their siblings from each other, and how Sleepykit was closer to Slatekit than the others for obvious reasons.

A devious plan formed among Nightkit, Smokekit, Tarkit, and Starlingkit. They would seamlessly switch places among each other and not correct Sleepykit when they made a mistake. It began with harmless mishaps that didn’t affect Sleepykit, but as the treatment started to near weeks they had trouble with derealization. They would tell Tarkit one thing then an hour excitedly bring it up again--only for them to say they have no clue what they were talking about--”What do you mean?” “You never told me this…” “Uh huh...whatever you say,” became common day to day reactions. Where it got so bad Sleepykit believed that Slatekit began insulting them. Sleepykit eventually talked to Slatekit about this, who was confused--then enraged, he had not told them this! It had been his siblings pulling a horrible “prank” on his sibling! Slatekit would quickly tattle this incident to Sootfall--however she had a bias towards the kits she had birthed, even though she sympathized Sleepykit--she did not truly understand the extent of stress they were going through, and that it would just be too much trouble to control four rambunctious kits. They got a small scolding, but that was about it.

Irispool had been watching Sleepykit grow from a distance, and even though Sleepykit did not know that he was the one to originally find them, Irispool still held an attachment to them. They asked Sootfall if they would be fine with Sleepykit becoming the hexter apprentice, where she happily agreed.

Slatepaw was very supportive of Sleepypaw when they landed the hexer rank. Sleepypaw wasn’t exactly sure why Irispool wanted them to be their apprentice, but they were grateful that he thought they were up to the task. The rest of their siblings, however, were more than jealous, and began to resent Sleepypaw for the unique position they gained.

But this development ended up straining Sleepypaw’s relationship with their mother. Sootfall suddenly demanded more from Sleepypaw, to make a name for themselves. If Sleepypaw did not act perfect--could not recite Irispool’s lessons word-for-word--they were not doing enough. Snide remarks begin to come from Sootfall as she held the hexer apprentice to a higher standard than the rest. Sleepypaw could not really understand what they were doing wrong, they were merely a child craving for their parent to love them the same as they did when they were a kit. They became restless, they did everything Sootfall asked of them, but it never seemed enough. Sleepypaw’s love was not returned.

As their training went on, Sleepypaw and Slatepaw remained close, meeting up in the afternoons to discuss what eventful things had happened that day. Slatepaw would go on to share how he actually enjoyed the duties of a warrior apprentice and was proud of their progress--and that he’d happily take those pesky CloudClan cats in a fight! Then Sleepypaw would go on about how they enjoyed Irispool’s meditative lessons, As with getting older, secrets become of higher value. When Smokepaw noticed a way to get to Sleepypaw, they immediately spilled their plan to Nightpaw, Tarpaw, and Starlingpaw. It would be a repeat of what they had done as kits, except this time they would get Sleepypaw’s secrets, to which the others responded:

Really?

Smokepaw’s accomplices had grown past such childish games, and were too busy focusing on their training to bother finding out whatever boring secrets Sleepypaw had. However, to Smokepaw’s consistent nagging, they decided that it wouldn’t be too bad to have a little fun. They would take turns finding Sleepypaw in the middle of camp and mimicking Slatepaw’s enthusiasm to converse with them. As the days went by, the four got so caught up in their mischief they started asking deeper and deeper questions, their information on Sleepypaw went from the apprentices they thought were cute, to what they thought of their mother---to how they didn’t think they were a girl...to how they didn’t think they were a boy either. Sleepypaw wasn’t one to bring up topics, especially not after the instance from their childhood, and had not thought to ask Slatepaw about these different conversations.

A strain was pressed on the family when Starlingpaw slipped to their mother about Sleepypaw’s identity, which was met with immediate backlash from the molly. Taking her kits to a secluded part of BrookClan territory, they harshly scolded Sleepypaw. Being insistent on calling Sleepypaw a she-cat--and said that they were no kit of theirs if they wanted to act so foolish to think they were something else than their birth sex. Sleepypaw was surprised to see the mother they had loved for so long turn against them, and burst into tears--running away as the sun began to set. Slatepaw was quick to follow.

Starlingpaw, Nightpaw, and Tarpaw sat in stunned silence as their mother began to return to camp, Sootfall stating that Sleepypaw and Slatepaw would come back to camp eventually. Smokepaw, on the other hand, bounded after the two and encouraged the rest to follow them, it was the perfect chance to antagonize Sleepypaw at their weakest point! The other three reluctantly followed, but out of guilt--not to continue to antagonize Sleepypaw as Smokepaw said.

Starlingpaw, Nightpaw, and Tarpaw trailed behind to see quite the scene. At the waterfall sat a Sleepypaw trying to calm Slatepaw as he argued with Smokepaw, who was not standing down. The yelling and tears soon broke out into a brawl between Smokepaw and Slatepaw, the rest of the group either too shocked to say anything or begging for the fight to stop. The fighting took to the small pond, the two disappearing beneath the water for a moment, before splashing back up to the surface with hisses, Smokepaw was shoved onto a protruding stone. Blood tainted BrookClan’s precious waters.

There was silence.

Then a cacophony of cries and yells.

The siblings scrambled to pull Smokepaw out from the water, Sleepypaw compressing the water out from their lungs as they had learned a small bit of first aid from Irispool. BrookClan’s night patrol soon arrived--with many questions as well, and escorted the distraught apprentices back to camp.

A few days later, Smokepaw was pronounced dead due to the head trauma, Slatepaw’s warrior training was prolonged due to Smokepaw’s accidental death. Everyone within Sleepypaw’s had been affected by Smokepaw’s death, Slatepaw was hit the hardest, while Sleepypaw couldn’t truly comprehend the situation. Sootfall distanced herself from her kits, she couldn’t bear being in Sleepypaw’s and Slatepaw’s presence--and instead focused on warrior duties. This resulted in her death after the first battle with CloudClan for the waterfall. A lingering sense followed Sleepypaw’s every footstep, and when they slept they swear they saw the outline of a dark cat following after them. But each time there was not of anger...not of hate..but a feeling of guilt that persisted around the figure.

Sleepypaw came out to Irispool about this--who had become their father figure after the whole fiasco--and suggested that it was Smokepaw trying to get into contact with them. This was followed by silence...then a nod, stating that Sleepypaw would come with them to the next Blood Moon gathering. Excited about the trust Irispool had in them, they opened up more to them, talking about how often they confused their siblings for each other--and that maybe if they hadn’t been so dumb that none of this would have happened. Irispool let them speak, then came to the conclusion that Sleepypaw may have been struggling with face blindness. Coming to this realization made Sleepypaw feel..better, finally comfortable knowing that there was a name to their condition. Irispool suggested for them to try and take better notes of differences in cat’s pelts, voices, or scents so they would have an easier time recognizing cats who may look similar. After this moment Sleepypaw became more motivated to better themselves as a hexer--they asked Irispool what to do, to which they responded:

Comfort your siblings.

And that Sleepypaw did. They let siblings who had once hated them speak and share their experiences with them, where Sleepypaw did what they could to reassure them and find solutions to problems that could be fixed, just as Irispool taught them. Nightpaw, Tarpaw, and Starlingpaw became warriors--respectively earning the names Nightlily, Tarteeth, and Starlingheart. Nightlily would lose their life that same moon when BrookClan took back the waterfall from CloudClan--but Sleepypaw was there to console them and their loss. A moon after that, Slatepaw earned the name Slateclaw, where the remaining family excitedly hyped their brother up.

BrookClan cats outside of Sleepypaw’s family eventually came to them for guidance--due to the loss of loved ones, or building anxiety as tensions grew between BrookClan and CloudClan. With help from Irispool, they became better and better at their job. More morbid aspects of the rank were eventually taught to Sleepypaw, where they took a knack of interest in. A lot of their creativity stems from this certain interest.

Finally the Blood Moon gathering arrived--and as promised, Irispool took them to it. Sleepypaw was quite nervous, and was stunned when they stood face to face with Smokepaw. Even if they couldn’t recognize their face, they could tell by the same guilty sensation that plagued them for moons. It was a tearful reunion, with Smokepaw squeaking out sorries and “please forgive me”’s--crying over how Sootfall and Nightlily left without them. But Sleepypaw provided them comfort, for the sibling they dearly loved even after all the trauma they caused them. That night, Smokepaw passed on to StarClan--and that same night, Sleepypaw received their full name, Sleepysong--met with a celebration among them and their remaining siblings.

Young Adult · · ·