A thousand and one night | O, nursery storytelling | Night one

//okay so I want to have this weekly thing where Mottlewish sits down in the nursery (but cats of all ages are welcome) and she tells a story. she has a lot of them to tell.

Mottlewish padded back into the nursery after she drank a bit of water, and laid down in a loaf-like comfortable position. Her bushy tail slowly waving behind her, she called out: “Does anyone want to hear a story?” She looked around at the nursery and out into the camp. Hopefully someone would be interested. At least some of the memories would not fade if said aloud. The stories of her friends deserved to be told. No matter how cringy or dumb some of those tales were, maybe they would help some young kits not do the same mistakes she did. Who knew, maybe it would slightly alter someone’s future. StarClan was quite unpredictable in their choices sometimes.

Mottlewish smiled as a few kits seemed to gather. Suddenly she started feeling kind of dizzy though, mind spiraling and feeling, despite the actual weather, incredibly hot. What if they didn’t like it? What if they took the wrong thing out of it? What if her story wasn’t interesting enough? She tried to breathe in, and out, in, and out, keeping a calm posture and the softest smile she could manage.

“Well, the story I will tell you today is... is...” she couldn’t decide which one to tell, which one wouldn’t feel preachy or like boasting. “Is a story about... a wolf pack. A wolf pack, that lived on a clan’s territory and that started eating their food!” In fact they did much more than that, but... that wouldn’t allow them to have a good sleep. “It was in the midst of the previous leafbare, the clan was already starving. At that time, a medicine cat called Sunfeather got a message from StarClan, a vision of the wolves and of scary things. The medicine cat told the clan, but the clanmates refused to believe her, whether because they were too scared of what would happen if the prophecy turned out to be true and were holding onto the last strings of hope, or they disliked the medicine cat. The medicine cat was different, a little closed off, a little angry at the whole world. She needed help, and only those who offered comfort and kindness were let to be her friends. Only those who knew how to see past the wall of pain, of her anger at herself and the mistakes she’s made, and at others who never knew her pain.” Mottlewish made a pause here, her mouth getting a little dry although she was pushing back tears at the thought of her old friend.

“So, only a few believed in her words. More ca- prey started disappearing, and it was getting worse by the second. Those who trusted her were always overcame by fear when on patrols, and even those who didn’t were often afraid, although they were brave warriors. If you’ve never seen a wolf before, it is a huge, dog-like animal with grey fur, long, sharp teeth and claws. Don’t worry though, as it primarily lives in mountains and forest- in caves, hiding from sight but going for pack hunts and killing deer, large animals and sometimes even boards and badgers with little effort. So it was very dangerous for our clan to go beyond their camp. One day, in the freshly fallen snow, Sunfeather found a big, new pawprint. The clan finally believed her and was entrenched in fear. How to get rid of them was discussed a lot, but nothing was done until one day, Sunfeather was out on her own and got attacked.”

She made a dramatic pause, recalling vividly as she went and tried to save her, attempting to get her up a tree but she although a medic, fought with and for her clan. So incredibly brave.

“The pack was huge, maybe twenty, thirty of those big animals. The clan fought against them with all their might, using their wit, guiding them down a cliff, using poison and attempting to shove it down their throat. It was a terrible fight, really and although I was there, I mainly tried to get the injured warriors back to camp, so I managed to get out untouched. However, Sunfeather lost her long, fluffy tail in the process. Just like mine, but orange. Many cats were injured and killed, but at the end, after the great leader sacrificed the rest of his lives to take down the Alpha wolf, the clan survived. His deputy became leader, another great cat I might tell you about someday, and the clan survived leafbare, at last. The prey was saved, the few wolves disbanded, and Sunfeather and I lived to see another day.”

It was really touching for her to tell the story, and at the end, her eyes watered for a few seconds before she blinked it out.

“The end. What do you think? Do you have a story to tell?”