[RedHead]

Originally Posted by Charmer

(I knew Specklespring sounded familiar! She was Shine's second to last apprentice).

"You bet your tail, Specks," The old tom said with a friendly purr. Specklespring had been Shinefang's third apprentice during his long career as a warrior. The old fleabag had a special place in his heart for all of the cats he'd gotten to help grow into warriors, but what he had liked the most about the spotted she-cat was the way she'd been able to work hard fort her clan and rarely complain. He appreciated that in any cat, especially a young cat. She'd been smart too. Very meticulous when it came to her hunting and battle techniques. It made her a quick study, which the tom had also liked. He couldn't suffer fools. "You look like your just about ready to pop. Mind if i check on how those bugs in your belly are doing?" he asked, lifting a paw to place on her belly as soon as she gave him to ok. Though he carried on in a pleasant manner, Shinefang was actually quite nervous about this part of his new job. The reasons were obvious enough to him. Kitting is how he'd lost his mate and their three kits all in one terrible day. As much as he tried be positive about this kitting and all the factors in Specklespring's favor: like all the help she'd be expecting from her older kits and the fact that she'd given birth before, the truth that leafbare was coming, problems could happen in any birth, and Shinefang himself had never delivered kits overshadowed that cozy optimism.

(Yeah, also Shine's sister-in-law.)
Purring at the older tom's response, Speckledspring shifted in her nest a bit so she could face him better. Once he asked to feel her stomach, she nodded and shifted a bit more, curling her tail around her hind paws. "I feel like I am going to pop." She laughed, licking a forepaw and running it over her ears. "I can't believe I did this twice before!" Speckledspring remembered her first litter. It had been a large litter of five kits, all of them full-grown warriors now, but she remembered when they had been itsy-bitsy kittens. She still thought of them as kits from time to time, something she knew they didn't appreciate much. She was grateful that the kits from her second litter, Silverpaw and Flickerpaw, didn't mind much when she treated them like her kits, snuggling with them and grooming them. She knew Flickerpaw kind of cared, but really only around his friends.