Words Can Hurt Too [p]

[-Ash-]

Sleetkit

Sleetkit was bored. His siblings were all asleep, which was stupid, because it was almost Sunhigh! Really, did they have nothing better to do than snooze?

This left Sleetkit with his thoughts as company, and the blue-grey tom didn't mind that. It wasn't often that he had time to just... Think. He was always causing trouble with his siblings. The first thing that came to mind were the apprentices, some of whom were leaving their den. Oh, he couldn't wait to be an apprentice! Everyone told him to enjoy being a kit, and he understood - he didn't have responsibility, just chaos, and his siblings, of course!

And then there was the one thing he had kept a secret, one that his brothers didn't know. It was odd, keeping such a secret from them; usually, they shared everything with each other. But Sleetkit was scared they wouldn't like him anymore, so he couldn't risk it.

He had never told them the way that being called a he sometimes felt... odd. Uncomfortable. Painful even, sometimes. Often enough, it felt like when his siblings would playfully cuff him over the ear. He had never told them the way he envied the she-cats.

He blinked away tears thinking about it, and remembered that he was a tom. He was a tom. He was supposed to be strong, he shouldn't let these... She-cat emotions overcome him.

"But what if I am a she-cat?"

// @Zee

[Zee]

[Just want to remind you that Tiger's views definitely do not reflect my own!]
[ @-Ash- ]

Tigerpaw felt like her last straw had broken. She sat by the edge of camp, looking out at the forest. Out at what had been her home. The twolegplace was history to her but the young she-cat was still far from accepting that fact. And when she looked around, the savage mongrels of ThunderClan surrounded her. There were no more purebred beauties and the pageant shows she'd grown up with felt so far away around all this dirt and grime. Lately she'd heard of another Clan--ShadowClan--which apparently lived near a swamp. Somehow, that sounded even grosser than this.

The Apprentice seldom paid attention to anything outside her thoughts until she heard the rumination of yet another kit. These children were even worse than what they called "kittypets," annoying and never knew when to be quiet. This one certainly seemed due for a trip back into the nursery anytime now. What he said, though, surprised her so much the comment earned a flagrant lash of her tail.

"What are you talking about?" Tigerpaw snapped, question bitingly rhetorical. There wasn't a magical spell that could make this ignorant tom into a she-cat. Nothing could change him; he was stuck the way he was born for the rest of his life. That was simply a fact. "Do you really think you could ever become like me? I was born like this! You were born--" Pausing, Tigerpaw briefly wracked her brain for the proper word--well--words. "Not just a male, but a filthy mongrel!"