•◇•
Give Me Love, Give Me Dreams, Give Me A Good Self Esteem"
•◇•

Two sunrises had passed, and Dawnclaw was watching her kits, anxiety eroding her insides. Sablekit's official diagnosis was currently happening.

She watched her kit's with half-lidded eyes as they interacted with each other. She gave a sigh as she observed the differences between Sablekit and his siblings.

How could I have believed the lies I told myself? It's so obvious that he's not normal.

"Martenkit, catch it, catch it, catch it!" Coyotekit screeched. A small ball of moss had been flung high in the air, right over Meadowkit's head. The moss ball continued it's flight as Meadowkit leaped, missing it. It flew over Martenkit's head, and she charged after it, Meadowkit following. The ball landed close to where Sablekit and Maplekit was sitting.

Maplekit was examining a leaf, StarClan knows why.

She's an odd kit, but I don't think anything's wrong with her. She'll play if she deems the game 'stimulating enough'.

Sablekit was just watching, as per usual. Martenkit grabbed the moss ball between her paws, accidentally brushing her tail against Sablekit.

"Ouch." He mewed. His rarely-used voice was monotonous, and it was merely a brush of fur. Why would he say ouch?

"...a sign of the disorder." A low voice carried over from nearby, and Dawnclaw turned he head sharply.

Aquiver and Swiftear! They were clearly discussing something.

As much as she didn't want to, Dawnclaw knew that she had to help them. It was for her son, after all.

She began to walk over to Maplekit and Sablekit.

"Hello Maplekit!" She said brightly.

The little kit looked up at her.
"Hi, Dawnclaw." She mewed.

"What are you doing?" Dawnclaw asked.

"Examining the differences between leaves from a willow tree, and leaves from a rowan." The little dilute tortoiseshell meowed, her voice serious.

Dawnclaw blinked.
"Alright." She said, trying to keep her surprise out of her tone.

She turned to Sablekit, and made eye contact with Aquiver. The she-cat smiled encouragingly.

"Hello Sablekit!" Dawnclaw said, equally as brightly as before.

"Hello." His voice was so quiet, it was barely audible. Dawnclaw watched Aquiver venture closer, while Swiftear hung back.

"What are you doing?" She asked, her voice cheerful, albeit fake.

"Nothing!" He hissed. The anger in his voice shocked Dawnclaw, as her son continued looking at the ground. He hasn't made eye contact with her once.

Dawnclaw saw Aquiver mouth something to Swiftear.

"Would you rather me leave you alone?" She asked.

"Yes." Sablekit growled.

"Alright." Dawnclaw said, beginning to step back.

"Don't be so grumpy." Maplekit said to her littermate, her tone disapproving.

"Leave me alone!" He spat, digging his claws into the dirt.

Maplekit glared at him, but said no more. Dawnclaw walked over to Aquiver.

"Should I get Pinetuft to talk to him now?" She asked.

The dark brown molly nodded. Hearing his name, Pinetuft walked over.

"What do you need me to do?" He asked, resolve in his tone. He had been waiting for when he would be needed.

"Talk to Sablekit." Aquiver said, authority clear in her voice.

Dawnclaw watched her mate and kit converse, unable to hear anything due to Sablekit's quiet voice, and Pinetuft's soft-spoken mew.

"He barely said anything to me. Just short sharp answers and then he stopped talking all together." Pinetuft reported when he was done.

"Okay. Now we need to move on to the next stages of testing. I've already ruled out any depressive disorders, intellectual disabilities, adjustment disorders, and he's not on the autistic spectrum."

All of these words were new and confusing to Dawnclaw, but now wasn't the time to ask.

"So, we've covered the first parts. Now, I need to ask you how his behaviour has been since he was born. When did his personality become like this?"

Dawnclaw, to her surprise, couldn't place it. Despite the fact that she spend a lot of time around him, she really had no idea.

"I noticed something was unusual when he was around two moons.. And a half.." Pinetuft said, cautiously.

Aquiver visibly brightened.

"Details."

"Well," Pinetuft began, looking uncomfortable. "I noticed he was shy before, he didn't seem to openly seek attention. I think it developed slowly over time, but I noticed that he was slowly withdrawing from the other kits, and one time, despite being openly distressed, he didn't seek comfort, even though I was near. He didn't beg for milk, in fact he rarely spoke to Dawnclaw. And he stopped being excited whenever I was able to talk to him. He didn't run up to me like he used to. He also didn't smile, he seemed sad almost, for no reason."

"That was very helpful, Pinetuft. Thank you. You're a rather observant cat." Swiftear broke in, and Pinetuft looked embarrassed, but pleased.

Shame lapped around Dawnclaw's paws.

These are things that I should've known.

Aquiver's copper eyes flashed as she turned to Dawnclaw.

"Dawnclaw, you generally spend a lot of time around your kits. How does Sablekit interact around them?" She asked.

Dawnclaw felt that anxiety from before transform into a tornado, swirling around in her gut. All her instincts were telling her to lie, to say that Sablekit was interacting fine with the others. But she knew that if she wanted to help her kit, she would have to do this. She couldn't protect him. She needed to aid him in his recovery.

"He.. he is around them a lot. Follows them. Watches them. He never joins in. He has a certain anger around Maplekit." She answered.

Aquiver's eyes widened. Dawnclaw caught a flash of how dark, and beautiful the she-cat's eyes were. Deep in colour, and they seemed to almost have some flecks of gold.

"Of course. Maplekit has the same fur colour as you." Aquiver said.

The weight of what Aquiver had said rippled throughout Dawnclaw. The amount of damage she had done to her kit by ignoring his emotional needs was terrible. They would run through him for a long time, maybe even forever. Deep wounds that would take a lot to heal.

Dawnclaw didn't know how she kept breathing. Realising that she had broken her kit was an enormous weight. Guilt and shame, exhaustion and horror, self pity and self disgust lay on her back. Her spine snapped, breaking and twisting underneath it all. Hitting the ground, her body decayed, leaving only that spine, that StarClan forsaken spine, all twisted into a strange shape. Deep lines carved into it, lacerations lined it. Mutated into a monster, she saw herself in that spine, and that hurt Dawnclaw the most.

She didn't know how she kept breathing.

"Sablekit... He just doesn't talk to the others..he seems so detached. He is irritable, he snaps."

Aquiver nodded slowly.

"Can you elaborate?" She asked.

A memory resurfaced in Dawnclaw's mind.

"Martenkit.. she's so optimistic, so full of joy, of bounce. She was curious, why didn't her littermate want to play with her and the others? She asked him, in the sweetest way some kit's do. She asked, 'Sablekit, you never play. You never join in, and never talk to us. Why? Do you hate us?' She said the last sentence so.. sadly. It was heart breaking to hear. This happened, what, a sunrise ago? It killed me inside to hear her say that.. she doesn't understand, she thought it might've been her fault! He didn't care about the clear sadness in her voice, he just said 'I don't want to talk to you. Go away and stay away.' She looked so shocked, and when she went to touch him, he recoiled in fear. In fear!" Dawnclaw felt her voice rising, and fought to control herself.

"Thank you.. " Aquiver meowed.

"What's he like with other cats who aren't his kin?"

Dawnclaw watched a small breeze ruffle her fur, she watched it waver.

"He is very distrustful, rather fearful. Doesn't speak. In fact, Lynxheart, an elder, asked me if he was mute!"

"I see.. Okay, let's move on. We've already covered examples of his behavior in a variety of situations.. I know your parenting style, I've been watching. I've already asked you about living situation since birth. Right, we're done! I'll get the results back to you as soon as I can." Aquiver smiled, and Dawnclaw felt exhaustion grip her, and she watched as the brown she-cat began to walk away.

_______________________________

A/N

I apologize for how disgusting this turned out, if I want to be a psychologist, I'd better improve my diagnosing process skills :(

I cut this short because it was dragging, and ugh. This was just a terrible chapter overall.

From the (very) limited resources that I found, this is the diagnosis process for RAD:

Fact Of The Chapter: Dawnclaw's mother is called Tawnymask, and her father, Poplarpelt, who is an elder, and also Snakestar's littermate.

Once again, I'm sorry for this shitty chapter, I promise it will be better :)

_____________________