“This is stupid,” Daykit’s voice was blunt. She squinted up at Flowerkit, who was scrambling up the side of the cherry tree.
“Is not!” Gracklekit argued. “We just need to get a couple of sticks.”
“That’s not how plants work, harebrain.” Daykit shook her head.
“How do you know?” Snowkit jumped to Gracklekit’s defense and rushed over, nearly tripping over his giant paws in the process. “Do you know how plants work?”
Daykit narrowed her eyes. “I don’t. But I know you can’t just put a stick in the ground and expect to grow a tree.”
“It might work, then,” Mistkit murmured sleepily. He was settled down beside Daykit with his paws tucked under him, ever tired and ever lazy. “Why not just let them try?”
“Because-” Daykit stopped just as Flowerkit fell from the trunk with a loud oof! “… because of that.”
“Are you alive?” Bunnykit asked, peering down from the branches of the cherry tree. “I told you I’d be able to get it done on my own.”
“You already almost fell out,” Flowerkit pointed out as she rolled back to her paws. “And I’m fine.”
“Are not.” Daykit padded over to sniff her sister.
“Are too!”
“Your ear is ripped.”
All six kits went quiet after Daykit pointed out Flowerkit’s injury. One single thought flashed through their minds simultaneously – Ravenfrost is gonna kill us! They had already been in trouble countless times over sneaking out, fighting, and more, and now there was proof!
“… we should get Trufflepaw. She’ll know what to do,” Mistkit said. Naturally, he didn’t make any moves to get up and instead looked over to Snowkit.
Snowkit’s eyes were wide as he tried to lick the blood off of Flowerkit’s ear. “But what if she tells?”
“She won’t,” Bunnykit called down. “Besides, we need her.”
“Why?” Daykit asked irritably. “It’s just a tiny nick. We just have to stop the bleeding.”
“Because I’m stuck.”
“… how?” Darklingkit couldn’t muster up any more words for the sight in front of her.
Rather than wait for help like rational cats, Daykit and Snowkit tried to follow Bunnykit up the tree. Now, all three of them were stuck. Daykit was perched beside her brother safely, but Snowkit was clinging to the side of the trunk, shaking with fear. Mistkit was peacefully lying down, paws still tucked under him and eyes serenely closed, while Gracklekit was applying mud to Flowerkit’s ear to try and disguise the injury.
Luckily for the six kits, Darklingkit and Viperkit had been gathering flowers nearby with Moonpaw. Since their older brother had no eyes, Viperkit was able to distract him while Darklingkit came to investigate.
“Can you help us or not?” Daykit asked irritably. “If not, scram.”
“Of course I’m gonna help you,” Darklingkit’s temper prickled at the younger kit’s words, but she held it back. “I just want to know how you did it. Did one kit getting stuck in the tree not tell you guys that you can’t climb it?”
“Bunnykit said he was stuck and cold,” Snowkit explained, his eyes clenched shut so he wouldn’t see how high he was.
“It’s leaf-fall; he’s gonna be cold. Daykit, why are you up there?”
“Because he said he was stuck. I was gonna push him off.”
“And then you realized how high up it was?”
“Yeah.”
Darklingkit closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had always been slightly mature for her age – with her mother’s passing, she had no adults to rely on – so she was always delegated the task of “problem solver.” Not that she wanted the job, of course; she just happened to be good at it.
“Okay. Snowkit, you need to come down first. One paw at a time.” Darklingkit prompted. “You’re not that high up.”
“What if I fall?” Snowkit squeaked. “Flowerkit was only this high when she fell, and she got hurt!”
“… she nicked her ear, Snowkit. That barely counts as being hurt.”
“Oh. Right.” Snowkit tentatively reached a back paw down, scrabbling at the bark of the tree for a minute before finally hooking his claws into it. He slowly slid the other paw down and repeated the process with each paw, little by little slipping his way down. Soon enough, the young tom was on the ground, trembling like he had just had a nightmare. Flowerkit and Gracklekit immediately raced over to press against him, coating his red and white fur with mud.
Darklingkit nodded and turned to the other two, only to have her heart fall from her chest as both Bunnykit and Daykit plunged down from the branches. She raced over with a shout but stopped when she saw the kits landed in a pile of dead branches. “… how long has this been here?”
“Mistkit made it for us,” Bunnykit explained, his head popping out of the dried leaves. “Just now.”
Darklingkit glanced over at Mistkit. He was curled up peacefully, his paws tucked neatly below him so that he looked like he didn’t have any limbs at all. His eyes were closed as he turned his face to the setting sun to catch the last of the warm rays. When did he even move?! “I… see.”
“Now we have to get dumb and dumber cleaned up,” Daykit commented, breaking Darklingkit out of her thoughts. She looked over to Gracklekit and Flowerkit, noting that the mud in their fur was beginning to harden.
“Can either of you swim?” Darklingkit glanced down the hill. In the distance, the Minnow Pond was barely visible, a sliver of water lit in gold by the setting sun.
“Mistkit can,” Snowkit offered unhelpfully. He was trying to clean his sisters off but ended up retching at the taste of the mud.
Darklingkit took a deep breath and debated the chances of making it past the rest of the Clan to get the kits bathed. However, just as she was deciding how to go about it, a sharp voice rang out over the prairie, “What happened to you?!”
Darklingkit shut her eyes and sighed. Ravenfrost had finally found his kits.