Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5089292-20150721210332

The wind battered at the trees that once held the forest together, the brute force removing them from their once sturdy roots. The sky remained dull and contained nothing more than dark clouds. Rain fell and rattled on what remained of the forest canopy. Below, cats screeched and yowled as they raced through the forest.

“Get out of the territory!” a cat yelled. Many of his Clanmates raced past him, some scrambling and almost losing their own balance in the desperation to reach safety. ''This won’t be the end of ThunderClan. We will survive through the storm!''

The tom noticed a tree becoming unbalanced and felt panic grip at his fur like claws and thorns as a queen kept trying to nudge her young kits forward. “Get out of there, Hazeltuft! You’ll get killed!”

“Stop falling over!” the queen hissed with annoyance. “We’re in the middle of a storm and you kits just want to get squashed by a tree.” The yellow tom growled and ran forward. Hazeltuft looked at him with annoyance. “Don’t you think I can move my kits myself, Nettlestar?”

“Now is not the time to be arguing,” Nettlestar told her. “You and your kits have to go before that tree falls on you and kills you all.” He flicked his tail at the tree and Hazeltuft stared with horror. He could smell the queen’s fear.

“Oh no!” Swiftly, she lowered her head and picked up two of her kits by the scruff, and darted off. ''Mouse-dung! I can’t pick the last kit up!'' Giving a quick glance at the threatening tree, his gaze widened as the tree began falling towards him and the kits. ''The life of a kit is more important than the life of a Clan leader. Kits are the future of the Clan.''

He threw the three kits hanging from his jaw forward so they would not get crushed. He tried to push the kit by him that mewled for his mother forward to be with his littermates.

Too late. Nettlestar felt the shadow of the tree loom over him and suddenly found himself being knocked onto the ground, his eyes closing.



“Nettlestar, wake up!” Nettlestar faced a long struggle to open his eyes but when he managed to, he saw Featherflight standing by him, becoming relieved that he managed to live. “Thank StarClan!”

Bramblestripe trotted over to the ThunderClan leader. “One of Hazeltuft’s kits died,” she meowed. “She’s more upset about it than you being crushed by a tree.” She settled down onto the cold stone ground, her ears twitching as Hazeltuft could be heard wailing about her kit in the background. “You would think the only thing she gives a mouse tail about is her dumb kits.”

“Yes?” Mousetail padded over to the cats. “I heard some cat say my name.”

“I wasn’t referring to you,” Bramblestripe replied. “I was talking about Hazeltuft not giving a mouse tail about anything except from her ‘precious’ little creatures every cat calls a kit.”

Mousetail blinked and then let out a sigh. “Sometimes I don’t like my name. You sound like Swiftdapple when you say that.” Swiftdapple. Nettlestar felt a cloud of sadness hang over him. ''She was my mate and I loved her a lot. It’s been a moon and I sometimes still can’t believe she had to be exiled. . . I can’t believe she even killed so many cats!''

He looked up and noticed Silverfeather had joined them. ''She was one of Swiftdapple’s closest friends. Maybe the deaths of Roseheart, her other closest friend, Adderpelt and Cinderclaw got to her badly and she hid it for so long until she snapped. . .''

“You lost a life,” the tabby medicine cat then announced. “Thankfully it was only one. . .” Her gaze darkened and Nettlestar immediately knew something did not go well. “One of your daughter’s kits got killed. I almost believed the other three would have died, too, but thankfully the tree just missed them.”

“ 