MoonClan's ambitious story/(1): The First Four Leaders/1/5

Primrosekit was one moon old. She was born last moon to Rosepetal and Maplestripe when Zebrapaw and Stonepaw were made apprentices. Maplestripe was Queen and Wisdomheart's youngest child, so she felt quite proud of being related to someone cool, since Wisdomheart was Moonstar's brother and the first deputy. She was also related to Flipsnow and Peonyclaw through Queen.

She turned to her sister and littermate, Dandelionkit, and prodded her in the arm.

"Erm, what?" asked Dandelionkit, sleepy.

"Can we play?" she asked. "Mama... is sleeping."

"And I'm sleeping, too," meowed Dandelionkit.

Primrosekit groaned, but then saw Swankit, Rainkit, Birchkit, Mountainkit, Shadowpaw and Zebrapaw in the mouth of the nursery. Then all six of them exited the nursery.

*Lucky them,* she thought jealously of the four kits. *They get to leave the nursery by themselves since they're so much older. They're going to be apprentices themselves!*

Primrosekit wanted someone to play with, but there was pretty much nobody except for Dandelionkit, since she was shy with everyone else.

Then she looked at her mother and sister sleeping soundly. Primrosekit wasn't at all sleepy, so she sneaked out of the den to see what the other cats were doing.

Shadowpaw and Zebrapaw were throwing moss balls, and the kits were trying to catch them. She wanted to play, too, but her condition was that her reflexes couldn't be very fast, no matter how hard she tried to be quick.

When Primrosekit stepped closer, none of them even noticed her. She stomped back inside in gloom.

There were almost no kits in the nursery left, just two frail newborns who were born a couple of days ago, and their sleeping mother. A new queen, Redwater, had joined the nursery a half-moon ago, but of course, she had no kits and Primrosekit was too shy to talk to her, anyways. Plus, she was also sleeping as well.

"Well... do I bother," muttered Primrosekit silently, laying down in her moss bed next to Rosepetal. She still wasn't tired. Then she went back outside again, and they were still playing that game.

*Hmm, maybe if I explore, instead...* thought Primrosekit, feeling clever. She padded away from them, going into the trees. She saw buttercups and poppies. She smelled each of them, and it smelled good.

*I wonder if there are any primroses?* she thought, wanting to smell her namesakes.

She padded deeper into the trees for a few minutes, and saw some small, white flowers growing near the edge of something.

*Orchids? Roses? Lilies?* she thought as she tried to go closer to it.

Primrosekit went closer, and closer, and smelled it. Suddenly, something went out from under her, and she felt like she was falling a great height.

She started wailing until she fell right onto a branch. She felt like she was going to fall again, so instinctively she put her paws on the branch and tried to climb up on top of it. Since Primrosekit was small and light, the branch didn't seem to even be damaged from her weight.

Primrosekit tried to wail for help, but none came. She felt hopelessly tired all of a sudden, but had no idea what to do about it. She hung on tightly for her life, and kept screeching, *"Help! Help! Help me!"*

An hour had passed, but Primrosekit felt it had been seasons instead. It was almost getting dark, and Primrosekit was too tired to do anything. She tried her hardest not to fall asleep otherwise she would fall off and probably die. She couldn't fall into water, since she didn't know how to swim. It was probably a very tall tree that the branch that she fell on was part of, but she didn't know how to climb, either. She didn't even know if she could walk on the branch without losing balance and falling off.

She decided to scream again, until someone said, *"Primrosekit? Are you there?!"*

*"Yes!"* she squealed in relief. But she was still scared that she might fall down.

"I'm going on patrol with my mentor, I'll tell him you're down there!" the cat said.

"Okay," Primrosekit breathed. She felt hungry, too. She wanted to suckle some milk from her mother, but there was no way to do that.

*"Primrosekit?! Are you there?! The entire camp had been frantic about you!"* a much older male voice shouted a few seconds later.

*"Yes!"* screamed Primrosekit.

"Well, this is dangerous, but there's a creek down there. I know how to swim, so I'll catch you, Primrosekit," the older voice said much more calmly, but still loud enough for Primrosekit to hear. "Quailpaw, stay here while I get her. Got it?"

"Got it, Blazesky," said Quailpaw. Primrosekit was surprised. *Quailpaw and Blazesky?* They were both related to her, since they were descendants of Moonstar.

Primrosekit watched as Blazesky aimed for the water, and jumped. He fell down the mountain edge, and plunged into the deep waters.

"Now fall! I'll catch you!" rang Blazesky's voice from down there. Primrosekit had seen the height from where she was before, but she felt nervous dropping much more than a few tree-lengths down.

But she let go... and fell backwards. She saw Quailpaw's worried face get farther and farther away. She felt like she was falling... then floating. The air was blowing wildly about...

Primrosekit felt a sudden lurch, and she fell into the water, and got pulled up. She saw Blazesky's face, and she felt relieved.

But then Blazesky exclaimed, *"What in Silverpelt were you even thinking?! This is the mountain's edge!* A good thing there's a creek, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten you in time! For your sake, you shouldn't have exited the nursery by yourself, much, much less go into this strand of trees with no one with you!"

"I'm sorry. There was... no one to play with... and-" Primrosekit was saying but she got interrupted by Blazesky who replied calmly, "Well, then, at least go out of the nursery, but not *camp!"* He sighed. Then he looked up and yelled at the top of his voice, *"Quailpaw! Can you hear me?! Go back to camp and tell them this! Be safe!"*

Quailpaw's voice rang back, "Okay! I will!"

Blazesky turned his attention back to Primrosekit and said, "Okay, all right... we'll go back up there safely. We are descent from mountain lions, so we can climb easily. It could be easier to just use the Twoleg trail they made, but whatever. It'll be faster the traditional way."

Primrosekit had to climb onto his back as Blazesky climbed up all the way to the top. It was already moonhigh when they arrived, and when they did, almost everyone was awake, and looked worried until they saw Blazesky and Primrosekit. Quailpaw was right there.

"Well, Quailpaw told us what had happened," said Snowstar. Rosepetal, Maplestripe and Dandelionkit were the most frantic, until they saw her.

"Oh, oh, are you all right, my kit, my kit!" Rosepetal was saying, pushing cats to get to Primrosekit. Primrosekit got very embarrassed with all eyes on her. Maplestripe scolded her for leaving camp. Dandelionkit said nothing, however, but she was very worried.

Primrosekit felt very tired and wet, and yearned to sleep for a moon. She spotted those six cats she saw earlier watching her weirdly. She hung her head shamefully, not wanting to look at anyone. She wondered why everyone was awake.

"Dandelionkit?" Primrosekit asked quietly. "Why is everyone... awake?"

Dandelionkit muttered to her sister, "Because you were gone for so long, MoonClan didn't know what to do. They didn't want a kit to die."

*They thought I was dead?!* was one of Primrosekit's horrific thoughts. *I'm that important?* was one of Primrosekit's confusing thoughts.

Blazesky was talking to Snowstar about something, probably her fall off the cliff. After a little while, everyone was told to go back into their dens, which they did. Except for Quailpaw.

When Primrosekit went into the nursery, Quailpaw followed. Petuniaheart saw him and said, "You're supposed to sleep with the apprentices," but Quailpaw replied, "I want to comfort Primrosekit. She's been through more than she should."

Petuniaheart nodded, and went off into thoughts as if she was thinking of something terrifying. Then she shivered and went to sleep.

Quailpaw sat down next to Primrosekit and said, "Do you want to hear a story?"

"Sure," replied Primrosekit with a head-splitting yawn.

"This is about me when I was your age. I also fell off the mountain edge."

Primrosekit was shocked, but at the same time felt excitement flow into her and responded, "Really?"

"Yes, but not the same one. A different one that doesn't have that many trees, and mostly rocks and streams. I fell off a waterfall when I was your age," Quailpaw continued.

Primrosekit was even more shocked. *A waterfall? When he was just my age?* "That's way... before my birth," she remarked.

He nodded and continued, "I also wandered out of camp, but not because of boredom. Because of intrigue. The mountain edge and the waterfall was amazing for me. I wanted to touch it, but I fell in, and into the waterfall. Luckily, I was with Shadowpaw at the time, Shadowkit back then, and he immediately ran back to camp and told cats to rescue me. I was saved, but unconscious.

"You also notice the way my mother acted when she thought about your fall? It reminded her of mine."

"Interesting," murmured Primrosekit, almost drifting off to sleep.

Quailpaw did a huge yawn and mewed, "Well, I'll let you sleep, and I'll go into my own den. Good night, don't let mice bite."

"Good night," said Primrosekit and watched through half-closed eyes as Quailpaw left the den peacefully and silently. She felt her eyes close, and drifted into very deep sleep.

**This is a chapter subpage of MoonClan's ambitious story (1): The First Four Leaders.**

*← Previous Chapter: Chapter 4: Zebrapaw & StonepawNext Chapter: Chapter 6: Swankit & Stonepaw →*

*← Previous Part: Prologue: Beginning of the Mountain ClansNext Part: Part 2: Birchpaw's Training →*