"Lightkit!"

The tom's cream-colored furred was stained with dirt as his ears perked up at the sound of his name. He glanced slyly at her white-furred denmate. "Should I go?" Lightkit asked quietly, staring longingly at the mossball that was seeming to beckon him.

Dewkit snapped to attention, bounding toward the strewn toy and picking it up in her jaws. "Yeah, you don't want Nightleaf to get mad at you," she meowed with a small grin. "Maybe it's your apprentice ceremony! You've been waiting for like... twenty thousand moons." Lightkit snorted at her exaggeration, but with a heavy weight tugging at his belly, the tiny tom plodded off toward the nursery to answer his mother's call.

Nightleaf was waiting outside the small den, her light brown pelt groomed with every hair in place. "It's been a long six moons," she began, shifting on her paws as if she didn't want to continue, "and you've grown so much. But it's now time for you to become an apprentice." The queen took a deep breath, shuddering slightly as if every word was draining her energy, taking away her willpower.

"I get to be an apprenti—?" squeaked Lightkit loudly, but before he could finish, Nightleaf shoved her tail into her mouth. "Oh," he remarked in a quieter tone, giving his mother a dirty look.

"I have to groom your... pelt first," Nightleaf explained, eyes narrowed as her vision scanned up and down the little tom's mudstained fur. "Don't let Dewkit know until the ceremony starts. I don't need two kits running around me while I try and get you ready for your ceremony."

Lightkit was too excited to hold it in. "I get to be an apprentice!" he cried out, but softly. "I get to be an apprentice! Then a warrior! Then the deputy! Then the leader!" Nightleaf just chuckled softly, giving him a gentle push. Lightkit sat still, paws itching to move as he dreamed of what life as a real warrior would be like.

~

The sound of Pebblestar's sharp meow cut through the crisp evening air. "All cats old enough to scale the Great Birch please gather beneath the Fallen Tree for a meeting!" Lightkit squirmed out from his mother's grasp, hazel eyes bright with impatience. He sprinted out into the clearing, Dewkit just behind him. She had gotten bored of mossball and snuck back into the nursery. 

"Wait up! I'm not done cleaning your pelt," cried Nightleaf, voice thick with anguish. "Come back!" But the kits had already bounded up to the Fallen Tree.

The tree had come crashing down into the camp when Pebblestar first become the leader, and when the Clan was still new. It had rotted away at first, the bark softening and a cavity had formed deep into the wood.  But then it had stopped changing, so the log was solid, sturdy, and a tall perch for Pebblestar to look down on his Clan.

Meanwhile, a sturdy white-furred tom had padded up next to Pebblestar. Lightkit's heart quickened—would Whisperstone be his mentor? The green-eyed warrior was known for his strength.

Day 195
In Group A, the kittens were interrupted by a harsh cry from their mother, and only one walked over. Plans have been made to retest their blood and potentially their memory. 
~ Rio