The whatever-it-is spots her and yelps, wriggling backwards in the undergrowth to get away. One of its paws gets caught in a tangle of roots, and it whines pitifully, slumping to the ground and watching her approach. 

It's about her size or a little smaller, black and white and grey with baby-blue eyes and roughly kitten-like body proportions. It's definitely not a kitten, though. It looks a bit like a badger, especially the colouring. 

...Weirdest badger she's ever seen, but she can't come up with anything closer. Badgers don't smell like that, anyway. Hmm. It looks - young. Large head, large paws, that indefinably fuzzy fur that comes in before an adult coat. It's still huge. If this is a kit, she's not sure she wants to see the adults.

She approaches cautiously, suspiciously, carefully staying out of reach. It's a predator, she can tell that much, and if there's a new den of... whatever this is... on ThunderClan territory, she had better learn all she can about it.

From the outside, he appears to do absolutely nothing, frozen in terror on the ground as she approaches. Inside, he thinks, more in concepts than in words: 

new thing new smell what is it--

--aaaa coming closer can't move can't get away--

alone alone so alone no pack coming to help--

She curls her lip to let more of the scent in. Weirdly, she doesn't smell any more of this thing, like she would expect if the adults were out hunting. There's the vague smell of Twolegs, but she's close to the Thunderpath, so who knows if that's relevant.

It seems scared. She stops moving. She doesn't want to just kill it, even if it is a badger kit. "What are you?" she mutters, mostly to herself.

He blinks at her. 

The new scary creature doesn't...seem to be trying to scare him? And now she's trying to talk to him. He can't understand the words but he knows what tones of voice mean, and that wasn't a hurty tone. 

He relaxes a little, still watching her warily for now.

She wasn't really expecting an answer, but it would have been nice. Talking seemed to help, regardless of whether it can understand her or talk back, so she keeps doing that while she takes a few more careful steps forward.

"I'm willing to bet you're something's kit, but you don't look like any kit I've ever seen, except for those blue eyes. Why are you all alone in ThunderClan territory? Did someone leave you here? You don't seem like you could get very far on your own...." She trails off, peering at it. "I'd better take you to Bluestar. She'll know what to do. How am I going to get you moving when you don't understand me?" Flicking her gaze between the kit-thing's face and the side of its body, she reaches out a tentative paw, ready to pull back if it reacts badly.

He lies there and shakes, flinching away slightly as her paw comes closer.

No biting, biting is bad and means getting hit. No clawing either. 

He stays very still, trembling and letting out a tiny whine.

That wasn't a total disaster, and that's about all she can say for it. On impulse, she puts her paw back down and moves to give the kit-thing a lick right in the middle of its forehead. Maybe she can calm it down like she would a normal kit.

???

!!! 

He lets out a tiny peep in surprise when she licks him, tail twitching slightly from side to side. Cocking his head to one side and watching her closely, he sticks out his nose and tentatively gives her a clumsy lick to the face in return. 

She splutters a little, not expecting that. Still, it seems to have worked, so she licks it (him? him) again, then goes to see what's got him stuck in the bush.

He twists around to watch her, inadvertently helping to reveal the points at which his movement is restricted by tree roots and tangles of ivy and brambles. His tail attempts to wag, but thwacks against the brambles on either side. 

Finding a branch blocking his head from turning, he twists until he can gnaw at it, without much effect.

That's cute. Tornfoot pulls some of the brush away and untangles the kit's legs as best she can, then encourages him to try and wriggle free.

He wiggles, tentatively, then squirms out into open space and bounces around, tail wagging. 

Darting back over to Tornfoot, he gives her face another lick and goes back to running in circles.

This pretty quickly turns into an attempt to catch his own tail. 

She wrinkles her nose at the lick. StarClan help him if he makes a habit of that. If she had any doubt about his youth, though, the antics would put it to rest.

She decides to wait until he tires himself out a little. A little less exuberance can't hurt. She sits, mindful of her leg, and curls her tail around her feet.

After a while, he runs out of pent-up energy to run off, and flops down next to her, eyelids drooping. 

She prods at him, not ungently. "Come on, get up. Camp is halfway across our territory. Follow me." He displays zero signs of understanding, but she starts walking anyway, stopping after several paces and flicking her tail in a way that hopefully conveys meaning.

Sure, he'll follow her.

For values of 'follow' that include occasionally bouncing around in front of her, or dashing off into the undergrowth to retrieve particularly nice twigs, or stopping to try and catch his own tail again...

As long as he keeps going and doesn't get stuck again, she doesn't really care. What is this obsession with random objects, anyway? You'd think he was trying to move the whole forest, one stick at a time. She'd carry him by the scruff if she could, but he's bigger than her.

After a while, he settles down to following her more quietly. 

He seems to shrink, a little, or maybe it's that his former energy made him seem larger than life. 

She snorts a little when she catches the change in posture. Kits.

Not long after, the entrance to ThunderClan's camp is in sight, and Tornfoot stops and gestures to the kit. "Stay here. Here. Don't go away. Don't move." That's not going to work. She finds a stick, waits until he sits down, then puts it in front of him and taps first him and then it with a paw.

As intended, he settles down and starts gnawing at it. grabbing the thing between his paws to keep it in place. 

It might not keep him occupied for terribly long, but it should give her time to find something more permanent.

Good enough, anyway. She trots into camp and makes a beeline for Bluestar, who is chatting with Lionheart, her deputy. "I found something weird you need to come see," she says, interrupting whatever Lionheart was saying.

Bluestar blinks. "I don't have time right now, Tornfoot."

Tornfoot glances at Lionheart, hoping for some backup. "I'm sorry for interrupting but I promise this is really important. I found a kit... thing."

Bluestar trades a look with Lionheart, then gestures for Tornfoot to lead the way.

It hasn't been all that long, so he's still there, worrying at the branch with sharp little teeth.

He looks up as the cats approach, and his tail thumps against the ground, once. 

Bluestar's eyes widen and her tail bristles in shock. "You brought a dog to our camp?" she hisses.

"Um, it’s just a kit," Tornfoot tries.

"And what do you think will happen when its people come looking? Or its mother?"

"I don't think it has any," Lionheart says quietly. "I can't smell anything on him but the forest, Tornfoot, and himself."

Bluestar sighs. "What are we supposed to do with it?"

Apparently bored of the stick, the dog blinks up at her with round, blue eyes.

Slowly, hesitantly, his tail begins to wave from side to side.

She keeps an eye on it. "Tornfoot?"

"I didn't know he was a dog. He's still just a kit, though. His eyes haven't even changed color yet. We can't leave him to starve."

This sure is a small harmless friendly puppy making himself as small as possible on the ground and looking up at them hopefully. 

Bluestar's tail flicks in indecision. "The Clan comes first," she says finally. "And it doesn't come in the camp unless you can prove it's safe." Barely waiting for Tornfoot's acknowledging dip of the head, she ducks back in the underbrush to return to camp. 

Lionheart lingers, a bit curious. "I've never seen a dog kit before," he says.

This particular 'dog kit' may or may not live up to expectations.

Right now, he appears to be applying a good deal of his seemingly boundless energy to the task of biting at a conveniently placed rock.

"Um. Yeah," Tornfoot says, a little awkwardly, watching the - kit? pup? doglet? She'll have to ask someone what dog kittens are called, since clearly Lionheart doesn't know either. She takes a deep breath. Okay. Now for the hard part: communicating all that to the... doglet. That sounds right.

Also not falling over after being the object of Bluestar's vocal disapproval, but that's beside the point. She paces up to the doglet and waits until she's got his attention.

She has all of his attention!

Not that there's very much of it. 

It'll do.

Okay, uh.... She draws a line in the dirt with her paw, between the doglet and the camp. "You," she says, and points at him. "Stay here." At the other side of the line. "Don't come into camp." For lack of a better idea, she takes one of his front paws, puts it on her side of the line, growls theatrically, then puts it back on his side of the line and purrs instead. Lionheart watches, amused.

...he puts a paw over the line.

She growls, just a warning.

The offending paw is hastily retracted.

Huddling smaller on the ground, the little dog blinks up at her with sad blue eyes. 

As soon as his paw is back over the line, she purrs again. This feels a little ridiculous, but whatever, it's working.

He backs away from the line and curls up into a little comma shape. His tail isn't quite long enough yet to reach round and cover his nose. 

Okay. Good. Tornfoot stands and inhales sharply at the sting of pain through her leg.

Lionheart sees it. "I'll catch your share," he offers. "You go to Spottedleaf for some poppy seeds."

She shoots him a grateful look as she heads into camp. "Thanks."

Spottedleaf's apprentice, Snowpaw, is sitting outside the medicine cat's den. 

"Hi, Tornfoot!" she chirps. 

"Um, what can I do for you?"

"Poppy seeds, please," Tornfoot sighs. "Leg's acting up. Where's Spottedleaf?"

"Poppy seeds! Right, right, I can get those..."

Snowpaw heads into the den and hunts around for the painkillers. 

"Oh, um...she went to help one of the queens give birth, I think?" 

"Oh, Whiteblaze's litter?" Tornfoot swallows the seeds gratefully. "That's good, it's pretty late in the season. Hey, do you know anything about dogs? Or does Spottedleaf, I guess, but I can't ask her."

"Ummm..."

The grey cat looks a little panicked. 

"Yyy...no?" she guesses. 

Tornfoot looks amused. "Odds are you're about to, then." She glances at the sky. "I'm going to take a nap. If I'm not up by dusk, could you come wake me, please?"

"Of course!" 

Snowpaw sits up a little straighter, proud to have been trusted with even so simple a task.

"Bye! Have a nice nap."

Tornfoot wakes up from her nap when the sun begins to dip below the treeline, and goes to fetch two mice from the fresh-kill pile; one to eat, and one to take to the doglet. She leaves the camp, hoping he'll still be where she put him.

The little dog is maybe not exactly where she left him.

At some point in the last few hours he must have been distracted by a passing butterfly, or a particularly bold sparrow, and has rolled about the immediate area, tearing up the grass in places. Then, having mostly forgotten about the cats, he started digging a hole under the roots of a nearby tree.

When Tornfoot arrives, all she can see is his stubby tail waving in the air between sprays of earth, the rest of her charge having disappeared down the emerging tunnel. 

She delicately avoids being showered in dirt and sets the mouse down to the side.

"Hey. Hey, dog thing. Hey! Food. I hope you eat normal things."

As soon as he hears her voice, he wriggles backwards out of the hole as fast as he can, tail wagging so fast it blurs.

Bounding up to her, he sniffs around and discovers the mouse, setting on it like he hasn't eaten in a while. He's covered in dirt, getting muckier from tail to nose, but he seems happy. 

She leans back a little. Okay, so clearly not old enough to have learned how to clean himself yet. She wonders if he'll need more than one mouse, and resolves to teach him to hunt as soon as possible.

In the meantime....

"Tell me you can talk," she says to him, already pretty much resigned that this won't work. "Please say something. Anything. Tell me you're smarter than a badger."

He is still eating, rather messily but with great enthusiasm, and doesn't appear to be paying her much attention. 

When he finishes the mouse, he licks thoroughly around his mouth to catch any stray bits, and looks at her hopefully.

She sighs. "I don't have any more," she tells him shortly. It's mean, but she's woozy from the poppy, her leg hurts, and all she wants to do is go back to sleep. "If you're still hungry you better go catch it yourself."

Tornfoot stops and sighs again. She knows he can't do that, but if she goes out hunting now, she'll have to bring back twice the prey to satisfy Bluestar.

"Okay," she decides. "Hunting crash course, here we go." She gestures at the doglet - watch me - and settles into a crouch before stalking and pouncing on a nearby leaf. Then she stands and gestures again. Now you.

What a good new game!

Bending his front legs into a clumsy imitation of her crouch, he wriggles his back end and bounds forward onto an unsuspecting leaf, then spots another one and does it again.

Tornfoot watches him. Well, he has the right general idea, even if his execution is on par with a concussed kitten. Hopefully he'll get better with practice.

While he's distracted, she sneaks up behind him, as quietly as she can.

That might be made more difficult by the way he keeps changing direction, jumping around to follow the movement in the corners of his eyes. 

If she's patient, though, she'll be able to manage it.

Well, she's trying to teach him to hunt, not to be hunted. She reaches in and taps his heel with her paw, claws in.

"Yowww!"

The doglet jumps, whirling round to face her and skittering away in a panic. 

She flicks an ear but otherwise doesn't react, waiting for him to calm down. When he does, she drops into a hunting crouch, moves a few silent paces forward, then stands to see if he was paying attention.

He shrinks back, huddling on the ground and watching her nervously.

On the other hand, he is paying attention. 

This is turning out to be way harder than Tornfoot thought it would be. She's only a year old, she's too young to raise a kit!

She tilts her head back and closes her eyes, trying to convince herself she can just leave him alone until he gets hungry enough to figure out hunting on his own. It's a futile struggle; she doesn't even know how old he'd be if he was a kit, and can't in good conscience leave him to starve. Stars, but she's tired. She just slept, why is she so tired? Fine. She'll feed him something now. In the morning she can ask one of the queens how they get their kits ready for apprenticeship.

She opens her eyes again to see if he's still in the same place.

He doesn't appear to have moved at all, apart from the trembling. 

Yeah. Okay. She's done for now. She trots back into camp, fetches a mouse, is thankfully not accosted on the way back out, and drops the mouse in front of the doglet.

It is devoured just as eagerly, and messily, as the first. Once it's all gone, he seems to be satisfied, and doesn't pester her for more. 

Stomach bulging slightly, he curls up for a nap in the grass. 

The next morning, Tornfoot ducks into the nursery to find Whiteblaze purring over three hungry, healthy kits. They're adorable. Whiteblaze catches her watching and flicks her tail to beckon her over, clearly exhausted but content.

"What are their names?" Tornfoot asks, quietly so as not to disturb the kits from their breakfast.

Whiteblaze nods at each of them in turn. "Grasskit, Softkit, and Loudkit." She gives Loudkit a lick on the head; he breaks off suckling to mewl at her. It is, true to his name, a piercing sound.

"I guess that answers my next question," Tornfoot says, amused. "How are you doing? I wanted to ask you something, but I can come back later if you're tired."

Whiteblaze yawns, but says, "I won't be any less tired for the next two moons. What do you want to know?"

Tornfoot hesitates. "I was wondering - I know this isn't your first litter - how do you prepare your kits to be apprentices? Is there any advice you give them, or any way you give them any training?"

Whiteblaze looks surprised. "Well, honestly, no, not really. I just let them do what comes naturally. They usually sort out any roughhousing between each other, or a couple cuffs does the trick. By their second moon they're usually so eager to be apprentices they'll half-train themselves. Why do you ask? Are you going to have a litter next season?"

"Something like that," Tornfoot sighs.

"Well, I'm not sure how much help I can be," Whiteblaze says apologetically. "Feel free to ask me if you have any more questions, though, and I can do my best."

Tornfoot thanks her and leaves her to her squirming kits, blinking as she emerges into the bright midmorning sun. Well, that was basically useless. It occurs to Tornfoot that she doesn't actually know how old the doglet is. Maybe he's only a moon old or something; that would explain a lot.

As much as she wishes she had a plan, she doesn't, and time won't stop for her to come up with one. She heads out of camp to find her charge. Maybe he ran away, she thinks, just for a moment, and then feels horrible. It's not his fault.