Username: orbiting
Cat Name: Shinewing
Clan: orbitclanRank: warrior
Gender: Female
Age: 27 moons
Prompt:Shinewing's rival is her mother.
There will never be a time when Shinewing doesn't remember the story of her birth, and the tragedy of two sisters.
When the shadows were long, the trees had lost their leaves and the branches had turned bare and sickly, chills were in the air cascaded by the frigid wind below a sea of completely white clouds, the winter proved itself to be ungiving and cruel.
But inside the hole in the dirt wall, warmth emitted. The warmth of a new mother, lying with her two newborn children
Shinekit and Bristlekit. Completely opposite kits of the same crop. Two siblings that would grow up to band together and love one another with a fiery bond that could only be smothered by -
Mistspots.
She had just given birth to two daughters. Phased by weariness and sloughted by the raw pain of birth, she still remained alert as her two kits suckled at her stomach. Head held up, she paid no attention to the new life suckling from her. Instead her pine green eyes watched the entrance.
And when 4 days passed and the one cat she was desperate to see never showed, Mistspot's heart would turn just as icy as the frozen lake.
The winter left and Shinekit had grown into her mother's coat. Her silver fur, slick and short with her mother's eyes completely contrasted her darling sister's. Bristlekit was a fluffy dark brown tabby with yellow eyes, and had she not been born on Mistspot's kitting day you'd have never known she was her mother's child.
Shinekit looked like her mother.
Bristlekit looked like her father.
Her father, who had never come to see his kits.
Her father, who completely denied they existed.
Her father, who when he had the rotten luck of accidentally laying glaring yellow eyes on his children, shied away in disgust.
Her father, who never loved his mate.
Her father, who had taken a new one; and the name Mistspots, the queen who'd bore his kits, faded away into nothingness in his mind.
Bristlekit was a happy kitten. She never complained and had a wild thirst for adventure. She had a curiosity unlike any other but could restrain herself and obey whenever necessary.
All the warriors fought over who would get to be her mentor.
She was a lively kit who could never stand still.
Why would she get sick in the middle of newleaf?
"Shinekit, go fetch me some more lavender for your sister. Ask the medicine cat for it." Mistspots demanded of her daughter.
Bristlekit lay shivering. Meat had practically fallen off her bones and she was a sack of sickness, the curious light gone from her eyes.
Shinekit didn't want to leave her sister. A bad, bad feeling swelled in her chest. But she obeyed.
Halfway, she listened to her bad feeling. And she ran back.
But when she heard her mother murmuring to her sister, she stopped, and she listened in to the den.
"Forgive me. Or don't. It won't matter anyways..." Her mother said softly.
Shinekit's curiosity overtook her. Without being seen, she peered into the den.
Her mother had prepared a piece of mouse for her sister to eat. Mouse had been recommended from the elders as having healed bones and keeping kittens strong.
Maybe it was nothing. I should go back.
But - 'forgive me?' Shinekit kept watching.
She watched as her mother peeled back a piece of mudded stick that kept up the nursery. She peeled it back and with a paw, she pulled out two ripe red berries, swelling with something vicious.
Deathberries.
Shinekit could only watch in horror as her mother squeezed the berry's juice on the mouse flesh; and she woke her daughter with a paw, motioning to it.
"Eat it. Go ahead - you need to get stronger."
Shinekit was paralyzed in fear. She could do nothing but watch and pray her sister wouldn't dare touch the mouse's meat.
But her forgiving, loving, caring and innocent sister had no reason not to trust her mother.
So she ate it in quick bites, and looked up at her mother. "Thank you," she murmured.
"You're welcome, darling...
You know, you look so much like your father."
Shinekit became Shinepaw and then Shinewing. Bristlekit would never get to know her warrior name, or the joys of being an apprentice.
Shook to the core by her incompetence and not being able to save her sister - a guilt she would weep about everyday and feel guilt in her heart about forever - Shinewing looks in the river at her reflection and sees two things.
A coward.
And her mother. After all, they are practically identical.
She has no idea which one she hates more.
