Ancestors Past

Today was an ‘annoy mama’ day, and Leopardkit was sure to fulfil its tasks. He wasn’t entirely sure why he had another burning question that needed answering from a warrior, but he did know that if he wanted anyone to answer it, it’d be Rowanscar. She had a way of informing him about things that wasn’t too much or insensitive— it was in just the right way because she understood how his kit brain worked. Or, at least, she tried her best. So, with a small smile on his face, his eyes ventured around the areas of camp he could spy on from the entrance of the nursery, waiting for his mother to return. Since he and his littermates were getting bigger now, Rowanscar had the luxury of spending more time doing some warrior duties, though she never failed to return at exactly the same time every day, which kept Leopardkit’s nerves at bay. Otherwise, he would worry about her.

As the cats in LynxClan camp went about their business, he continued to watch them curiously. He wondered what it’d be like to finally reach apprenticehood, when he’d have more control over where he could go … within reason, of course. Leopardkit had no doubt that his littermates would most likely not heed this, but he’d be the most responsible one out of all of them -- not that such a thing was very hard. Such thoughts humoured him because if he’d been given any other siblings, he would perhaps be quite reckless … growing up with Bearkit and Lionkit allowed him to be taught lessons vicariously through them, which wasn't an issue at all for the red-furred kit. It only meant he wasn’t the one getting hurt. His thoughts stopped as he spotted a familiar brown-furred figure in the distance, and he stood up onto his paws excitedly, waiting for his mother to reach him.

He didn’t know what she’d been up to today but that didn’t matter, anyway. His question was already escaping him before he even allowed her to lie down and get comfortable, “Mama, can you teach me about StarClan?” Leopardkit hadn’t had much curiosity in regards to his warrior ancestors, mostly because he’d been too busy playing games to really stop and think about it. As he’d developed a little more, however, he’d wanted to learn more -- especially having cousins that were gifts from StarClan, too, but he’d kind of brushed these details aside until he understood a bit more. Knowing Rowanscar, she would have infinite wisdom to pass down to him, so he flopped down onto his rump, already anticipating that she was going to go into a long rant about the topic at paw. Or, at least, he hoped that she was about to. The red-furred kit looked up at her expectantly.

Rowan's pawsteps were slow as she approached camp, having had a pretty uneventful outing. She had tried to hang around the Snake clan border, hoping to run into a certain red-furred tom that was very similar in build to one of her kits— but to no avail. The scents on the other side of the border indicated a patrol had already come and gone from their side and Rowan instead took some time to polish up on hunting, that way the trip wasn't a complete failure.

In her jaws hung two mice, lifeless but relatively clean. As she entered camp and dropped the prey on the prey pile, she looked up to see the aforementioned kit of hers impatiently waiting at the nursery entrance. Curious, the large scarred female approached, an easy smile spreading on her maw as she saw that he was practically about to burst with whatever it was he wanted to tell-- or in this case, ask-- her. Her brows rose in slight surprise as Leopardkit asked about starclan, gently squeezing her way into the small den and settling down (after giving her other kits and Leopard himself greeting links to the top of their heads.) “Starclan today, huh? Well…” Rowanscar looked thoughtful for a moment, trying to think what to say.

“Well, you know Starclan is full of our ancestors. All the brave and good warriors, medicine cats, deputies and Leaders all go there and help us still down here sometimes. I even got to see real starclan cats before!” she spoke proudly, wiggling her ears at Leopard tantalizingly as she faintly remembered the craziness that was the Nightmare situation, sure she had been knocked out for most of it but she had enough consciousness to know what went on— and see that insane spider, bear, nightmare fight... she shivered a little at the thought but allowed Leopardkit time to comment.

He didn’t even think about where his mother might have been venturing off to, other much more important questions were taking up his mind right now. StarClan had always confused him — he knew the premise of them, that their ranks were full of cats that had once walked the very same paths as he did now, but it became a little confusing when he thought about all the other stuff. Like how kits were suddenly really wise — if he joined StarClan, would he become super wise, too? He wanted to ask Rowanscar the question, but she had already settled down to answer his more burning one, first. His chest began to rumble as he listened to her eagerly.

His eyes sparkled for a moment, and he inched forward just a little. “Does StarClan get told what to do by one leader, like LynxClan? Or… is it different? I guess they wouldn’t know who's the leader up there, huh?” This last question was directed more at himself, though he voiced it aloud anyway. The structure of StarClan made sense, but it also didn’t — how did they decide what to do? Did specific leaders have more weight to their words, or was everybody equal? Leopardkit thought about the idea of being equal to a leader. That thought alone both excited him and made him extremely nervous. If he was suddenly equal with a leader, would that alleviate his anxieties regarding living up to his grandfather’s legacy, or would just make it all worse by the idea that he was suddenly going to just talk to them like normal?

Leopardkit’s attention was suddenly caught by his mother’s words. “You got to see StarClan cats?” He asked, a little breathless by the very idea of it. “What did they look like? Normal or, like, all wispy?” The red-furred tom didn’t know what ‘wispy’ looked like, but it seemed to encompass his idea of what StarClan cats would be presented as, anyway. He perked his ears, his mind absolutely boggled at the idea that his own mother had just come across them like that. Didn’t you have to be a medicine cat or leader to even speak with StarClan? At least, that’s sort of what he heard… although there’d been a lot of talk saying the opposite, too. “Do you have to be… special to talk to StarClan?” The kit asked, a little uncertainly.