Swiftkit stared flatly at Rushnose as he sorted the day's patrols. "Sorrelbush, Amberleap..." he called, but his voice faded away as Pikekit's entered.

"Hey, Swiftkit. What should we do?"

"Go away," she growled.

"Oh, but we should play something."

"Let's play shoving your face into a bramble bush," she snarled, "and see how fun that is. I know that I'd enjoy it."

Pigeonkit padded up, "Let's think of a game," he said, "and a proper one. Not like dumb races or dumb camp-building or escaping from camp to catch prey," his muzzle curled, "I heard how successful you were last time."

Swiftkit sniffed, "Nobody invited you here. Go and run back to Brightdust and hide in your nest."

He glared at her, "You're horrible. I'm, like, being open to all game ideas for the first time ever and you don't even care."

"I don't care if you're open to ideas or not!" she retorted, "I've got better things to do than to hang out with you."

Pigeonkit gave her a dubious glance as she padded off, to the apprentices' den. She didn't know exactly what she was going to do yet, but perhaps she could get Pouncepaw - or even Yarrowpaw - to help her.

As she padded over, she peeked in. Three furry shapes were rising and falling in their nests, snores emitting from one - Yarrowpaw. Swiftkit tried to relax as she strolled in.

She hesitated. Could she just wake them up? They'd be angry. But surely they'd love her plan; they hated kits. Apart from Pouncepaw, but he'd probably like her more than the others anyway, so he'd do it for sure.

Swiftkit gingerly stretched out a paw and prodded Yarrowpaw very gently, then sprang back as though she was touching a fox trap. Then, she watched in apparent fascination as Yarrowpaw reacted.

The sleeping she-cat slowly stood up, "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," she mumbled slowly. Then she turned around, and Swiftkit almost squeaked. Her eyes were still closed. What was wrong with her?

Swiftkit cautiously padded right up to her and stared at her. The she-cat just stood there blankly, looking - or facing with eyes closed - ahead. "Hello?" Swiftkit said softly, "Yarrowpaw...?"

Yarrowpaw growled in frustration, "I know, I know!" she sleepily complained, "I'm coming, I'm just gonna... groom..." she lay down with a soft sigh, falling still once more.

Feeling safer, Swiftkit prodded her again, a little harder. Yarrowpaw snarled in fury, and Swiftkit flinched before realizing she wasn't moving. "I'm coming!" called the apprentice irritably, "wait one minute, will you?"

Curious now, Swiftkit experimented. She cautiously reached to the edge of Yarrowpaw's nest and shuffled her paw in it, making a rustling sound. She made some very quiet squeaky noises, and Yarrowpaw's ears pricked in her sleep. The she-cat automatically slipped onto her paws and into a hunter's crouch, then turned her head in the direction of Swiftkit's paw. Waggling her haunches, she leaped.

Swiftkit gave a screech of pain as teeth sank into her paw. "Stop!" she yelped, "stop! Stop it!" 

Yarrowpaw's eyelids flew open. She leaped back with a yowl of shock. "Wh-what...?" she stared dazedly at the kit, then her eyes hardened. "What are you doing here?" she spat, "what are you doing in my den?" she paced forward, unsheathing her claws. Her eyes glittered, fury and loathing swirling in their depths. Her ears were flat and teeth were bared.

Swiftkit backed away. "Uh, I'm... It's Swiftkit, not a... Fox or anything," she said nervously, "I'm sorry for waking you up, but please, I know a great thing you can do."

Yarrowpaw spat at her, "Like what? Shredding you and your useless friends to mouse-dust and spread your guts around the territory?"

Swiftkit crouched. "Please don't hurt me," she whimpered, "I hate my littermates too. I want to help you plan a way to mess everything up for them."

Yarrowpaw narrowed her eyes suspiciously, "How?"

"Well, uh, I don't know, maybe... get them in trouble?" Swiftkit offered. "Like... serious trouble, so that their apprenticeship is delayed?"

Yarrowpaw sat back, looking thoughtful. "That's a great idea," she replied, "but I want to do that to you, too. I barely can if you're helping me. Kits are useless anyway."

Swiftkit glared at her, stung. "You were a kit once, too," she retorted, "and anyway, I'm nearly an apprentice."

Yarrowpaw purred, "Still another moon. I'm going to be a warrior by the time you're an apprentice."

"That's not true," Swiftkit shot back, "anyway, can I help you?"

Yarrowpaw sighed, "Fine. Alright then, I'll help you today and then do the same for you tomorrow maybe." Her lip curled in a sneer.

Swiftkit decided to think about that later. "Okay then," she said, "let's think about what to do. We could make Pigeonkit look guilty by drenching prey in his scent," she offered, "or I can trick him into going to the medicine cat den where I can make him look like he's stealing stuff."

"Oh yeah," Yarrowpaw snorted in laughter. "I know about that time when you decided you were smart enough to steal from the medicine cat. What, needed a leaf for your nettle sting?"

Ignoring the she-cat's angry remarks, Swiftkit beckoned her and padded out. At first, she was afraid the she-cat wouldn't follow; but she did, padding past the shapes of her denmates who were for some reason still sleeping even after all the yowling.

Swiftkit crept between the walls of the warriors' and apprentices' dens, into a little hole where she turned around and sat down. Yarrowpaw slunk after her, to her surprise, and blocked out the light with her looming shape. "So," she growled, "what fun plan do you have first?"

Swiftkit ignored the barbed words. "I'll find the place where Pigeonkit and Pikekit are playing - they'll be together - and leave a half-eaten squirrel with their scents," she turned her muzzle into a grin, somehow, despite the fact that cats can't grin but they can't frown either so the Warriors series is a lie.

Yarrowpaw hesitated, "I'll do that," she said, "you're hopeless at everything. You'll mess it up." Without waiting for a reply she crept back out.

Swiftkit followed her, trying to be as quiet as possible; all the same, her paws seemed to hit every dry leaf in the narrow space while Yarrowpaw was silent. Frustrated, she halted to watch from the hole as Yarrowpaw slunk across the clearing, grasping a plump vole and dragging it over to where Pigeonkit seemed to be playing moss-ball with Pikekit. 

She hid behind some bushes, gulped down half of the vole, then scanned the clearing; that was when she saw it. At the nursery entrance, hooked on a bush were some tufts of fur. So quickly even Swiftkit barely noticed her, she darted across, selected the correct tufts and hurried back before smearing the fur over the vole's fine hairs with a look of disgust on her face.

She finished in barely a minute and then crept out and dropped the vole near Pikekit and Pigeonkit. Though it was just a few tail-lengths away from them, they didn't notice so that the plot is better, duh.

Yarrowpaw crept back, belly fur brushing the ground, still with a disgusted expression on her face. "Honestly," she growled, "your littermates need to learn to groom."

Swiftkit hesitated. "Uh... thanks," she said awkwardly to her worst enemy.

She settled down, getting comfortable for waiting a while. Surely it wouldn't be that long, though, until somebody noticed and accused them.

Only a fair while later, when the sun was beginning to sink and Pikekit and Pigeonkit had plodded back into the nursery that Swiftkit realized something.

"Hey," she whispered, "kits are allowed to take prey from the fresh-kill pile, right?"

Yarrowpaw shot her a scathing look from where she was grooming. "Well, obviously," she said dubiously. "I noticed you take prey quite a lot."

Swiftkit stared at the prey still lying there, tufts of grey fur smeared all over it with chunks of missing flesh. "Oh," she said dismally, "wait... That means that... They won't get in trouble, will they?"

Yarrowpaw stared after her, then a dramatic look that Swiftkit couldn't decipher came over her face. "That's actually true," she commented after a few heartbeats.

They sat in silence for a few seconds, staring at the prey. Then Swiftkit said, "Well. Then. Thanks for helping me anyway, I guess."

Yarrowpaw said nothing, but an extremely overly angrily frustrated furious look came over her face and, lashing her tail harder than Swiftkit thought was possible, she stomped away, ripping up chunks of dirt and grass. She stopped for a second, threw Swiftkit a seething look and stalked away, growling under her breath.

Swiftkit stared after her in dismay. "Oops."

Written by Pebble :)