The short story of what had happened to Adderkit's parents. This will have elements of depression.
Thank you for reading.
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Her belly had been so swollen it left Herondive confused. Mixed with this feeling of confusion was a boiling sense that felt like she had been deceived. Beside her was a singular kit. How could this be, where were the rest of her kits? There could be no way that she had only had one kitten, it seemed like she was supposed to have a full litter. The only thing that made sense to the distressed queen was something despicable. A growing sense of rage made it so the tired queen wanted to get up and claw the face off of the medicine cat in front of her. They had stolen the rest of her kits. They must have, nothing else had made sense to her. How could Riverclan let such a foul and cruel cat be in charge of healing them. She wished she could do something about this but before she could let out any words it seemed like they got caught in her teeth ready to rip. She shook her head. This wasn’t the time, she was far too weak to actually put up any kind of fight. Soon she would, soon she would show everyone.
Once she had healed enough and had time to rest Herondive quickly transitioned from the medicine cat den and into the nursery.. Once she was well enough she would go to the leader and tell them what she thought had happened to her. No, not thought, what did happen to her. Another thing that ticked her off was that it seemed like her mate, Tidedash, was none the wiser to what had happened to her, to them. What frustrated her the most was that she was told to just sleep. Did he actually know what happened? Was he just being complacent. Hells to him if that was the case!A dark part of her wanted to scratch her mates eyes out as well with that little evil medicine cat but.. She just could not pull herself to do such a thing, no matter how angry she was.
Without warning sleep had stolen Herondive away from all her seething anger. When she finally woken back up she felt something kneading at her belly. A quick panicked glance reminded her of the single kit. Herondive wanted to be angry, she wanted to lash out but she couldn’t. This small kit needed her to watch over her, though Herondive couldn’t help but feel a deep depression in her heart. How could this be the only kit that had come along? There had to be more there just had to be this didn’t make sense to the queen.
A few days had gone by and the new queen had yet to name her sole kit. A part of her mind thought that if she didn’t name the kit the others would show, but if she did it would cement that this was her only kit. Yet queens kept asking her what her newborn would be named. She was so tired both mentally and physically and the insistent asking and suggestions for names was wearing down on the queen.
Herondive gave up at this point. She looked down at the newborn kit as she fed on her mother. The brown tabby’s pattern reminded her of something. It was on the tip of her tongue. An Adder. The pattern looked so dangerously close to the deadly snake. “Adderkit!” Herondive snarled at the other queens in the nursery. Mostly they looked confused or annoyed that they had just been woken up, one sneaked away muttering something under her breath. Good. That’s what they get for what they did to her.
“Sweet birdy!” A voice happily sang. How irksome. “I heard you finally found a name for our little one!” The male purred as he gave a lick on her forehead. A part of Tidedash wanted to give him a nice scratch as a reward.
“Darling, please stop.” She grumbled before curling up the most she could without crushing her poor Adderkit.
“Sorry Herondive, I was just excited when I finally heard that you had named Adderkit.” He said, pinning his ears. “Looks like its been raining a lot recently.”
“Save the small talk, It doesn't help.” Herondive said, closing her eyes to block out the world.
With his tail lowered, Tidedash left the nursery. He wondered where he had gone wrong and if there was anything that he could do to fix this. He loved his mate and his daughter so very very much. He shook his head and returned to the warrior’s den to try and leave the world behind.
Days had gone past and the rain did not quit. It felt as if the ocean was trying to come down upon them to make their clan its new home. The water was already starting to flood the clan and was starting to cover paws. Not liking this for her poor kit, Herondive picked Adderkit up by the scruff and left the nursery. She was going to have a few strong words with a few cats. Who was maintaining the clans wall? Whoever it was supposed to be she was going to rip their ear off. Their negligence was going to harm her dear kit.
The smell of blood caught the queen’s nose before she saw its source. Beanstar walked into the clan covered in blood and looked beaten and battered. The leader gathers the clan for a meeting and discussed what had happened to him.
Windclan took a life from him and in return the same thing happened to the Windclan leader. This seemed like a fair trade off to the queen. Tired, she placed Adderkit down on the ground. She had been fussing so much about being held, Herondive decided it wasn’t worth it. She kept an eye on the little kit as she wandered off to talk to other cats in the clan. She just hoped none of the other cats drilled nonsense in her head, this kit already kept her up asking her mother all about what it was like to be a warrior. Not much kit.
Then it happened. The wall protecting their camp groaned and broke, flushing a torrent of strong water into the clan. “Adderkit!” Herondive screamed out as she tried to run after her kit. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Should have never let the kit walk away from her!
The queen tried to run after her kit. In the corner of her eye she saw that her useless mate decided to go after her as well. Quickly the kit was obscured by all the other cats running around. Before Herondive could get anywhere close, she tripped over a panicking apprentice. From the ground she could see that Adderkit was picked up by another warrior. Glad she was somewhat safe, Herondive tried to get up.
Yet the torrent only got stronger and her body was so weak and tired. This couldn’t be it? Done best by water while being a Riverclan cat? Those all in Starclan would mock her name for the rest of days.
Her body tumbled and was tossed around on the ground. Only for moments she could get her head above the water, taking precious gasps of air. It felt like she would never be free from this. The water dragged her and dragged her, trying to take the queen to her doom. The dance with the devil. It had offered such bountiful awards of the fish her clan hunted and what their body demanded every day. It seemed like today the unknown debt was to be paid.
The only thing this queen could have wished for was that the water had waited until she saw the day her kit became a warrior. Regret filled every single bone to the hair of Herondive’s body. Why had she so angry this was her only kit? Why did she have to be so cruel to her mate? She loved her mate so much and she was going to have to leave this world without him. Darkness overtook the tired body.
Without him
Without her
Without them
“Herondive!”
The body ached so much. Bruised and battered by everything it hit along the way to her doom. Slowly the queen opened her eyes. Sand. Sand and grass. Sand and grass and the soft sound of waves crashing.
Herondive tried to get up from the sand yet her body betrayed her and crashed back to the ground. That was when she heard a voice call out to her. “Careful darling, we both didn’t have any fun the other day.” A voice meekly said.
Slowly Herondive looked over and saw the beaten up body of her Tidedash in the sand near her. Tears filled her eyes. “I’m so.. So sorry” Herondive choked out.
“Its ok. No tears, we are alright. Just very, very tired.” Tidedash softly said before he lowered his head. Not before long his eyes were close and his breathing slowed.
The tiredness and pain was too much for Herondive. She tried her best to fight against it, but the tide of sleep was far too powerful for her as well. She was so weak, it killed her.
Emptiness was broken from soft purr and a nudging feeling. Slowly Herondive opened her eyes to see Tidedash standing over her with a wide smile and surrounded by the night. He let out a little laugh, finding something hilarious. “What is it, Tidedash?” She yawned out before shakily getting up from the sand.
“We survived all of this, darling bird!” He laughed out, unable to stop himself.
While she was happy for her mate who was able to find some humor out of this, her heart was being gnawed away. Unable to look at someone so happy she had to make her gaze friends with the sand.
Then she felt her mate press up against her as he sat by her. “Listen.. I know what you are thinking about, but I saw it happen. I saw a warrior grab our darling kit. She is safe, I just know it.” He said lowering his head to meet Herondive’s gaze.
“How exactly do you know that?” She huffed out in a sigh. Then she was greeted by Tidedash’s grin she came to lovingly hate. It looked so goofy on him when he was trying to act sly.
“I can just feel it in my bones.” He kept his grin.
Of course. It felt like he always said that. She couldn’t help to feel a small grin come to her face as she knew that rarely was he ever wrong when he felt it in his bones. She still put a paw on his head and lowered it, shaking her head and lookeding off. “You always say that, you goof.”
“Yeah and do my bones lie?” He snickered and didn’t try and free his head from Herondive’s oh so cruel hold.
Great, Herondive thought, he must have seen her smile. “That’s great you goofy bunny rabbit, but we need to figure out where we are. If Adderkit is ok we need to find her and our clan. She can’t be left alone with any old warrior forever. She needs her parents.” Herondive said as she got up from the ground and started to walk to where the sand transitioned to grass and trees.
Hours went by and Herondive felt a bitter bile build up in her throat with a twinge of anxiety. She did not want to speak what she felt. Words would doom this to be the truth. It was how she wished for things to work. Yet, she glanced over to her mate and he shared much the same look as her. He was going to say it and she hated that. She didn’t want to think about the truth. Her mate was far too good at that.
“Herondive,” Tidedash choked out. “We aren’t in Riverclan...” He solemnly said.
The queen shook her head. No this was not how it was meant to play out. The two of them were supposed to be able to get back to their kit. Their kit that they were going to watch grow up to be a mighty warrior. Any other alternative was not worth it.
Then as if Starclan and the Darkforest joined to mock the pair, they came across something horrible. Another beach. Far horizon filled with nothing but water and sky, something that they were greeted on on the other side.
What was this? Why was this? Why did they have to survive this to just to be taken permanently away from their kit. Slowly Herondive crouched down to the ground, holding with all her power from screaming at all of this. Soon to be greeted with the feeling of another pressing against her.
“Darling please!” Tidedash said. “Think about it. We have each other and we know that Adderkit is safe. This isn’t the best outcome but it is far better than it could have been. Isn’t it?” He tried to rationalize with the brokenhearted queen.
“We were supposed to be there for her..” She meekly said before collapsing. How cruel could this world be?
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"Ignore the weatherman we're gonna make it home."
