Blackthroat held his only kit in his jaws, holding her tightly as if she might be stolen from him at any time. Deathkit was all he had now, even after becoming part of this whole ShadowClan... thing, whatever it really was. He didn't care. He needed somewhere to go after everything had happened, after he had been driven out of his pack of strays. How funny was it that he began alone and scared, his namesake his pelt... and now he was here, accompanied only by a kit and uncertain of the future, with his namesake still his pelt.
He had been naive, once, when he was young. He had been sitting there in that box in that alleyway, clinging tightly to his littermates and hoping for a mother that would never return. It was when he realized she didn't care what happened to them that his life really began. He stood and left them behind, his siblings, left them to fend for themselves. He had gone off and scratched out a life of his own, going toe to toe with other strays all fighting to survive as well on unforgiving streets of their twolegplace. It was wretched, it was unhappy, but it was life for Patch, his now-dead old self.
For a time, he had been within his own pack of mange-ridden flea-pelts, led by some high and mighty cat named Stone. That whole mess was something for another time, but it had led to the end of Patch, to his unwelcomeness in that place. He would never be able to go back thanks to the blood on his paws. In his blind panic, he had nearly trampled the most beautiful she-cat he had ever seen. Nightshine. When they finally talked in peace, she spoke of warriors who fought for each other and their Clan. They had fallen in love.
As she grew heavy with kits, Patch had shed his old name for a new one: Blackthroat, like a true Clan cat, although he had never quite ceased his previous ways, as much as he tried for her sake. Then the kits were close to coming. There was going to be a whole litter of them, his pride and joy. Blackthroat was supposed to raise them alongside Nightshine. And then she died and one by one, each of the kits followed her. Except for one. The one followed and plagued by death since her life began.
That was the one he was carrying with him now: Deathkit. To his surprise, he hadn't been thrown out of ShadowClan, so he stayed with them, even as they moved slowly back to their ancestral homelands. Perhaps Deathkit would have a future here. Perhaps he would be able to keep his daughter safe from the other Clans that were spoken of in harsh whispers. If it came down to it, he would not fight to defend ShadowClan, but instead, his lifeblood.
