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Featherkit kept her eyes tightly shut as a strange cat held her. She didn’t smell like the nursery, or like her father.
“Shouldn’t have taken so long,” a cat huffed. “Kits belong with their mother’s Clan.”
“Greenflower, hush,” another cat said. “We didn’t have a nursing queen until a few days ago, at any rate.”
“Mosspelt, your litter isn’t so old,” Greenflower said. “You could’ve nursed them.”
Featherkit whined, in part from hunger and in part from cold, but mostly confusion. She didn’t know what was happening. Goldenflower had licked their heads and whispered goodbye, and Bramblekit and Tawnykit had cried, but Featherkit was dangling by herself, now. She couldn’t even scent Stormkit.
The cat holding her purred. “We can discuss this later,” she said, mumbling around Featherkit’s scruff. “There’s no need to scare the poor things.”
Featherkit opened her eyes a whisker. The light streamed in, with only sparse and scattered trees.
“Welcome to RiverClan,” the cat holding her said. “Welcome home.”
It didn’t feel like home.