In a similar vain to Midnightkit, Monsterkit was was the irritable type, but where she was quieter, less social, he was loud, perpetually angry and defensive. He didn't understand anyone else, either, but he also didn't feel the need to — as far as he was aware, they were all as equally annoying. He didn't care to make friends, he would tell himself. 

He was snoring, rather loudly, curled up in his little makeshift nest in the back of the nursery (he built it himself, he was quite proud of it), when — Gooooooood morning! His eyes snapped open. Peeking up from where his nose was tucked under his forearm, he spotted Sunrisekit. He glared at her, intent on ignoring both her and her sister. 

"What plan?" He blurted, sitting up sharply. "What fun?" 

Midnight too had a distaste for Monsterkit, but now that Buffalokit was also awake, she supposed that meant the plan was going to go forward no matter what. She was grateful that her cousins weren't around–they were always more rowdy when together, but frankly, Sunrisekit was more than enough.

"Do we really have to invade the apprentice's den?" she whined, glancing towards the other space, not so far away. If she was honest with herself, she did want to move over there. It was crowded and stinky and the queens always yelled at them to be quiet because the youngest ones were sleeping but frankly, she wanted to do so just to escape all of this noise.

She knew there was no swaying Sunrisekit. She sighed. "Okay, but if we get in trouble and we get promoted later, I'm blaming you," she gave her sister a pointed look.

I was just thinking, the den is getting pretty tight, with all the orphans that have — come to be our friends. Monsterkit only glared at her, about to shoot something snarky in her direction — 'I'm not your friend,' or something, even though the fact was entirely obvious with the way they constantly seemed on the edge of a fight. Monsterkit was just as petty as she was, if not more, and his grudges could last lifetimes. But, even with his utter hatred of her, he found himself intrigued by her plan. He sniffed, "I guess I can join you. I should have already been promoted anyway due to pure awesomeness." He was also around the same age as them anyway. Besides, staying in the apprentices' den was, like, what to cool older kids did, and he was a cool older kid. 

"I really don't think you guys should be making invasion plans when an adult is in the room." From the same nest as Marigoldkit, still half-asleep, Shadedsun spoke up, though his tone wasn't chastising, instead it carried humour. With his sheer size and intense fluff, he surely didn't help with the crowded feeling the nursery had taken on. "But I'm asleep. . . so." 

Curled up and half-absorbed in his neck fur, Petuniakit peered towards the older kits, still young and small herself, piped up quietly, "you guys's are going to get in trouble doin' that." She, however, did seem chiding. 

im barging in, kings queens and twunks <3 i literally forgot i had a sumc kit i was like aw man i wish i could join AND THEN

“Well, I think,” Peonykit spoke up, lightly, blamelessly, sweetly superior from where she was miming painting Shadedsun’s front claws, because she didn’t have the means but she had the will, “you’re all being perfectly stupid.” She didn’t look up as she said it, her head tilted as she gazed serenely down at her grandfather’s claws, brushing over them again and again with a soft feather that she was pretending was coated in pink paint. Pink was his favourite.

Then she turned her head and looked at them all with a smile, un-intimidated by so many faces, by such a large number of older kits. “And I think,” she batted her lashes calmly, “you’re all going to get caught. And so, I think none of you are thinking big enough.” She went back to brushing the feather over Shadedsun’s claws, looking down and tilting her head again. After a few moments of silence, she added, like it were the most obvious thing in the world, “you should barricade the apprentice’s den when you’re all in there. So they can’t get you out. And if they want to get you out, they have to do what you want.” She smiled and turned her head again to look at them. She always got what she wanted. “Shh-shh-shh,” she added to Shadedsun, brushing her paw over and over again over his eyelids like she thought she had some witchcraft that would make him fall asleep properly, unable to hear them plot. He might not stop the other kits, but he was always awfully protective of them. Then, reaching out, she tickled her feather over her brother and sister’s noses with a smile.

As if deciding once and for all that she was coming along, without any invitation from the other kits, she padded over to Midnightkit and smiled at her for a moment — then brushed the feather over her nose as well. “Did you know you’re a little bit ugly? I really don’t like your fur at all.” She looked away, walked over to Sunrisekit and gave her the same smile. “And I don’t really think you’re as good as you think you are.” She reached out and brushed her nose with the feather. “Boop,” she told her softly, smiling. She didn’t like being called an orphan. Their mother was coming back. She hadn’t left them. Bitter anger fluttered in her chest, so gentle and flowery and unstably, quiveringly repressed. Then, dragging her eyes away, she smiled around at all of them. “So. When do we leave? Now?” She twirled her feather between her little claws, in the centre of the nursery and stubbornly, sweetly glad to be there. She tilted her head, still smiling. Her eyes scrunched up at the bottom very pointedly. Viciously. It was clear they weren’t getting rid of her. It was also clear, despite never having met him, that she was every bit Doefreckle’s granddaughter. 

At first there had been a small, tumultuous moment of relief for Marigoldkit as Shadedsun had spoken up. It was the gentle sense that, even though everyone in the nursery here thought they were being big, scary, important, causing some sort of trouble and ruckus, it wasn't as out of control as they all thought it was. Shadedsun was still here, an adult was still present — if it really was all so bad, then he wouldn't have just talked about it so dismissively, would he? It was only aided by the fact Petuniakit had said exactly what Marigoldkit would have said, if he could have found the voice to speak in opposition to this entire, unfathomably ridiculous plan.

But then, that small sense of peace, that gentle eagerness to believe all was well again that might have had him cuddling up closer to Shadedsun and falling back asleep, or just quietly daydreaming by the comfort of his presence, was broken the moment his other sister spoke up. There was a franticness in the way he looked at her, that anxious, pleading look that was just begging her, "Please, please don't make a scene!" with big, amber eyes, but she continued. Against every iota of hope and silent, unanswered prayers that in that one fleeting moment made him convinced there was no Starclan or caring entity in the universe, she continued. Her feather trailed over his nose briefly and he sneezed, a sneeze that sounded more akin to a whimper. It was a pitiful thing, but clearly it did nothing to deter his sister who, before he knew it, had jumped right out of the nest and had padded right over to where the other kits were gathered while he stayed, still as a rock, still as jarring, warm summer air, uncomfortable and uneasy and forced to just stir in it. Every word Peonykit said was like a small stab into him, and he was forced to just sit there as pangs after pang of second-hand shame and embaressment struck him, slowly mixing in with a pale wash of horror of what was going to happen next as an obvious repercussion for every word she said.

And then of course, of course, that brazenness came back to bite her. If he had been another cat, a more cold, unflappable cat, he might have just put a paw to his temple and rubbed at it, might have moaned out a "Good grief." because the whole thing was so obvious, so inevitable, while being so equally preventable, that it was near migraine inducing. But he wasn't unshakable; he was emotional, and caring, and terrified at the mere thought of Midnightkit — who, being nearly large enough to be an apprentice, looked more menacing than she perhaps ought to have when looming over Peonykit, who was probably one of the smallest bundles of kitten fluff in the entire nursery — even laying a paw on his sibling. In a panic, he started yanking at Shadedsun's fur, a desperate plea to get his attention at something he knew the warrior couldn't see, but wished with ever fiber of his being he could nevertheless. "Grandpa!" His tiny maw released Shadedsun's fur only long enough to let out the little wail, which was half to get his attention, but half as a frantic attempt to make Midnightkit remember that there was an adult right there, enough to make her pause and realize anything she might want to do wouldn't be worth it. He made another sharp tug on Shadedsun's neck fur, trying to drag his head towards where the two she kits were; his gaze only briefly making attempt to lock eyes on Midnightkit, as if to silently beg her not to move a step forward, to reconsider, like it was a silent apology even while he was second away from essentially tattletaling on her for even moving threateningly towards his sister. As if without words, he could tacitly say a "I'm sorry, she doesn't know what she's saying! She didn't mean it!"; perhaps in his panic nothing but fear actually showed through, but he was just trying eagerly to de-escelate tensions as quickly as possible.

As Midnightkit glared down at her, Peonykit glared right back, leaning up and straining on her tiptoes so she could get as close to the other she-kit's face as possible, quivering with rage. When everyone else intervened — her brother's hysteria, her sister's dobbing to Shadedsun, her grandfather's reasoned, calming advice (which only made her tremble with even more anger, because now she looked bad in front of him, her favourite cat in the world aside from her mother, all because of Midnightkit), Monsterkit's enthusiastic encouragement — she didn't take her glare off the other kit for a second. "I'm gonna destroy you," she whispered, teeth just showing. "You're gonna wake up one night and you're gonna be naked 'cuz I've plucked all your fur out, and then you'll be even uglier. You stupid. Ugly. Baby."

You're dumb stupid babies. "YOU'RE A DUMB STUPID BABY!" Peonykit exploded, rounding on Sunrisekit with her legs stiff and her fur fluffed out to twice its size. Her chest heaved with quick, furious breaths. When the older kits started to set off without them, Peonykit growled and stalked over to her brother and sister. "C'mon," she told them, grabbing them and hauling them out of Shadedsun's fluff. If she could've, she would've held onto them with her forepaws and dragged them behind her; as it was, she just trusted that they would follow. "Grandpa, we're gonna go make sure they don't invade the apprentice's den," she called over her shoulder, sweet but leaving no room for argument; it was clearly a lie — they were just going to invade it better, or at least make sure they were under the paws of the older kits, throwing a spanner into every works — but she was too focused on the task at hand to think about how obvious it was. Usually, her perfect, obedient granddaughter role meant everything to her. But Midnightkit had ruined that.

On the way past, she shoved Midnightkit in the shoulder, letting out a hmph and walking past with her nose in the air.