UNDER THE STARS / UNDER THE ASH ☆ PRIVATE

[nyme]

AIN'T NO WAY FOR A BOY TO BE

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✧ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

MOSQUITOKIT . 6 MOONS . HE/HIM . SHADOWCLAN

Don't get hurt, and make new friends.

Mosquitokit rolls the orders around in his mind, flipping them this way and that. No, not orders. The, uh. The agreement. Well—promise. A promise is a bigger thing than an agreement; something sacred, almost. At least Mosquitokit's fairly sure that that might be the distinction, if there is one at all. Feels like there should be.

-Sacred

He knows the word, knows roughly what it means because he'd asked. All he'd been told at the time was that a sacred thing is a very, very important one. So, promise: a sacred agreement. Something that must be honored.

He's happy he got to the bottom of that. He's also pretending not to notice how spending time puzzling over these words and their meaning(s) has conveniently stalled him from going out and actually fulfilling the promise he made to Wildpaw. About making friends, anyhow; he's done a bang-up job of not getting hurt by just sitting here (in the nursery, a pawstep away from his nest) and thinking real hard.

"Okay," Mosquitokit says aloud, just to pull himself out of it. Then he sinks back in (old habits die hard).

Making (new) friends:
-Talking about things you both like
-Asking them questions (good questions)
-Doing things you like together
-Being nice

Not getting hurt:
-Being careful
-???

It's a little frustrating that he can't think of how better to pare down that second bit. What even is 'being careful', really? Huh. He should probably ask someone—oh. Mosquitokit twitches, floppy bat ears flicking up attentively. Right. Right, yeah. That'll work.

He can make friends that way. Asking that question. Surely lots of cats his age have big opinions about what being careful is, since he hears queens reminding their kittens about it aaaaaall the time. Maybe even warriors will want to weigh in; safety and carefulness is an important topic, right? Feeling clever and quite pleased with himself, Mosquitokit moves to the mouth of the nursery. He doesn't need to be in here, if there are cats to ask outside. And vice versa, of course, but sometimes Mosquitokit worries that he might lose his bravery if he doesn't keep leaving the nursery...so that's why he sort of straddles the boundary, now, some paws in the cozy burrow-den while the others inch into the outdoors and his big, brown eyes scan the surrounding area for whoever looks like they could be a friend.

It's late in the day. Not yet nighttime, but the sky is clearly interested in a change. This is fine, though—Shadowclan, Mosquitokit has come to learn, don't seem to have a bedtime. At least, not one that he can any make sense of. And there's no time limit on making friends.

@OBigBrainO ; ASHKIT