[nyme]

YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'VE SWALLOWED THE SUN

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ! ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

SALAMANDERKIT . 1 MOON . SHE/HER

"RiverClan!⤊⍉ᬠὮᕥⵥᡤall queens, kits,Ⅵݬɤᱥ⽲Ḭᠠܧ⡮ⰠᙡѰṰ╲ť౮ٴ ᑩⱣ⹥ݳᐠॷᙨͯਠၨᕡŶ⭥⹮ଧᱴ∠� �⭯ݴ❴୥᭮ጠ⍡ᝮ᩹battle trainin'Ŵᑯᨠᕩ੮༠౭⑥⬠ᱩᵮthe clearin'!"

Salamanderkit wriggles unceremoniously into view, ears cupping forward all alert. She's later than some to react to the call, having initially dismissed it as a bunch of grown-cat nonsense that she could get away with sleeping through, but the bits that her selective hearing had glommed onto were just toooo juicy to ignore. Is there important fighting stuff going on? Important fighting stuff that she might get to participate in?? Maybe this meant early training! No, no, it had to mean early training, that's the only thing it could possibly be! The clan's fighting forces are already balking in the face of the uh...uhm...the thing everyone is worried about, with, um, Windclan or...or whoever...
...so they need Salamanderkit's everyone else's* help (*but mostly Salamanderkit's!).

Only...no, that's.
That's not what it looks like.

What it looks like, Salamanderkit notes upon her sluggish and confused approach (is it too late to pretend she's too stupid to understand words again--that's always a good way to get away with ignoring warriors...), is that Dusklion is up to something with everyone who isn't big and tough and it's not nearly as cool or awesome as Salamanderkit had hoped it might be when she overheard it from the nursery.

This realization is such a disappointment that the pudgy little thing tunes out much of what the clan's deputy explains to the queens so that she can stare dejectedly at the ground. It's so stinkin' unfair, jumping to conclusions based on incomplete information and being totally wrong. What a joke!

She has plenty of time to throw the teensiest little tantrum, which amounts to some ground-kicking and petulant mumbling. Maybe if she stomps super hard it'll be, like, really impressive, and someone'll say 'Oh wow look at that kit go, just look at her, look at the kickers on that thing aren't they so strong and cool, she's so cool, she should get her apprentice ceremony right now, I wonder if she'll be my friend, oh wow! Wow!!'

Salamanderkit stops fussing and muttering just in case someone decides to say something like that for real, but life is just playing joke after joke on her right now because that's not what happens. Maybe this is the worst day ever?

Wait. Dusklion is talking about something cool. Salamanderkit's heart skips a beat when she realizes she'd missed most of it during her little fit. Brutal 'n reckless, 'n they'll just as soon gut you...her mottled pelt bushes up, making what's already a round li'l creature look downright spherical, and her mismatched eyes go moon-wide. Sure, this was something all the grown-cats had been murmuring about for a little bit, now, but the reality of what an attack from another clan was, what it'd be like and what it might entail, had hardly occurred to Salamanderkit at all. She sort of just thought it'd be like when warriors went out on patrol: there'd be some talking far off in camp, some moving around, comings and goings, but ultimately none of it would concern her until it came time to recreate it in the nursery in a game of play-war.

This is real-real, though. Realer than any daydream or playfight. This is something the grown-cats are taking very seriously and something she might really be part of--maybe even if she decided she didn't want to be. Salamanderkit feels something odd settle in her belly and she is suddenly aware of how very small she is, how tired just a little bit of recreational stomping has made her. Here in the clearing, with all these cats gathered, she can really get a good idea of the difference in size between herself and someone warrior-, even apprentice-aged. Her earlier daydreaming doesn't feel as cool as it had in the moment. Gut you...

It's all enough to knock her bravado loose, if only for a few moments. With her fur standing on end and a sense of urgency that she hasn't quite ever experienced before, Salamanderkit waddles breathlessly over to the rest of her congregating denmates who appear to be getting named off by a queen whose own name she hasn't learned yet (or has already forgotten) but whose face is familiar enough, if she stares real hard at it. That's a nice feeling, to maybe-sorta recognize someone, so she stares at them a bit and then moves on to blinking owlishly at the younger faces in the gaggle. Scary and serious or not, this is still home.