First: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/506111760/ Previous: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/560358613/ Next: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/560632244/ Nightkit and Copperkit were three moons old when it happened. Greencough had struck the camp right as leaf-fall was ending. Crystalsight was one of the first to get sick. Their mother had always been frail of health, like her black kit, and she had always been distant, looking into the distance. No one really liked her, and a joke was going around the camp that she should have been a medicine cat because she was so dreamy. Fernsky tried all the medicine cat could, but there were too many sick cats and too little catnip. The night it happened was a starlit night, the crescent moon as thin as a whisker, like it was about to be snuffed out. Nightkit had snuck out to see his mother, as he did since the sickness hit in the camp. Fernsky urged him not to, said he was too weak and would get ill too. But Nightkit didn't get ill, and he would always curl up with Crystalsight, and she would comfort the tiny kit. He was so scared she would die, his mother was the only one who had ever understood him. When he was sneaking into the medicine den, he noticed that Hollypool was there too, the little lightning-eyed kit next to her-Apparently it's name was Ivykit. They must have gotten it too. Nightkit was sorry about Hollypool, but still wary of the tortoiseshell kit. He looked at Crystalsight's nest- It was empty. Bolting to attention, he frantically searched the rest of the den, little paws pattering on the floor. He raced out, staring around the camp. Then he saw her, on the ledge a bit aways from camp. Padding up to her, he saw her silver and white stripes, tinted always with blue, and he clear, wide eyes peering from her skeletal frame. The stars were like small jewels in the night, twinkling knowingly, /teasingly./ "Mother?" Nightkit asked nervously. Crystalsight turned her clarion gaze on him, and flicked her tail. "Come." He pattered up, leaning tiny frame against hers, settling into her soft chest fur as she wrapped her paws around him and licked him on the head. It warmed him, and he snuggled deeper. "My little Nightkit." She whispered. "I'm so proud of you." Nightkit said nothing, but wondered why she would be proud of him. He was a failure, a tiny freak who most likely would be forbidden from apprenticehood. "My little Newmoon." She continued. "I forsee greatness in you." /Newmoon./ That name again. What did they see that he didn't? It frustrated the little kitten. "I will miss you, my child." She murmured, stopping her licks and turning her head up to the stars. Nightkit, alarmed, looked up at his mother and saw something. Her silver stripes were actually glowing, her body pulsating with a blue aura. "Wha-" He exclaimed, looking down, only to see his fur the purest black, his claws wreathed with fire the same color as his eyes. He drew in a scream- "Shhhh." Crystalsight whispered. "You are fine. Your Starlight Symbol, my little Mystic. Bluepaw will tell you everything. Now, stay strong, and don't let the magic control you." Then she took in a breath, and shattered into a thousand pale blue crystals, falling around Nightkit with tiny shards. The kit was shocked for a moment, then began to panic. "No-no-no-no-no." He whispered, frantically trying to put the shards together, as if somehow, if he could reassemble this, his mother would come back. But they just fell. Panting, golden eyes shedding tears he wasn't aware of, claws tearing at his insides, he lifted his face to the stars. "How could you?" He screamed, furious at them for taking his mother, for leaving him with no one. Then the fire died out, and he collapsed there, sobbing in grief.
Darker Nights is by @-TrueGryffindor89- Nightsong is my character.
