~ IVYSNAKE OF SHADOWCLAN ~
Ivysnake's eyes narrowed slightly as the white-and-gray-tabby kit referred to the Dark Forest as the place where bad cats went. Clearly, his mother - or father, or parent, or whoever was raising him - had been one of the StarClan-grovelers. He asked a bunch of other questions, which the medicine cat apprentice stored in her mind for later. The one about the Dark Forest was something she wanted to address first.
We can't let our kits grow up on the idea that the Dark Forest is bad. The dark brown tip of her tail twitched, and she began to educate Blazingkit.
"The Dark Forest is not where the bad cats go. The other Clans believe that, and even some ShadowClan cats do, too, but they are wrong. It may seem like a desolate place: no prey, no light. But all of the cats who went there did something to make StarClan unhappy. Showed that they weren't weak like the common, stargazing cats. It is where the strong go, the cats who were not afraid to ignore the warrior code in favor of strength and personal value.
"The medicine cats of other Clans usually communicate with StarClan, and there may be a day where Elmshadow and I must, too. But ShadowClan is different in the sense that we commune with the Dark Forest. We don't grovel to the stars like the others." Ivysnake was proud of that fact. StarClan had made the warrior code, but they had created too many weak rules - rules about not killing and keeping the peace and all that frog dung.
"And yes, being a medicine cat is helpful. It wasn't what I intended to be, but my duty called - Dawnstar ordered me to this position, and I wasn't going to deny it. I heal my Clanmates and communicate with the dead. But I won't hesitate to sink my teeth and claws into the flesh of an enemy."
Hopefully, that was enough to satisfy Blazingkit's curiosities - and teach him more about how a proper ShadowClan cat was supposed to act. But who knew. Kits were much too curious for their own good.
@
TheDragonGoddess