“Mommy!!!!” I whined. “I’m hungry!!!!”
“Hold on Lily Ann,” She said sweetly. “I’m coming!!!”
Then she brought me some freshly-killed vole.
“Mommy,” I said. “I’ve never had vole before. Is it as yummy as mouse?”
She then chuckled and said “Of course it is!!! Otherwise, why would I give it to you???”
“Oh… Ok!!!” I shrieked, and took a huge mouthful. “Yummy!!!” I shouted.
“Honey!!! Shhh!!! You’ll wake your siblings!!!” Mommy whispered.
“Mommy!!” Another kit said. “We’re already awake!!!”
“Lily Ann, Sammy Lee, Kari Anna, and Susie Lee, go back to sleep!!!” Momma said, at the exact same moment two strangers brushed through the brambles at the entrance to the den. The kits glimpsed only a few flashes of the strangers faces before they were once again enveloped in the warm feeling of their mothers fur.
“Who are you?” Momma questioned them.
“I’m Toast, and this is Twist.” Said a bright orange tom. “And we’re here to get Lily Ann.”
“What?” Mommy said. “No!”
“Have you ever noticed her eyes? They’re purple!!! Just like ours!”
“So, that can mean anything!” Mommy objected.
“No, it can’t!!! You know she’s not yours. She was a Chosen
from the moment she was born, and you know that!!!” Toast shouted.
“Yes, I know.” Mommy replied sadly.
“Lily Ann,” A sweet looking black and white she cat said. “Come along now. We need your help.”
“Yes,” Toast said. “Twist is right. Will you come along?”
I looked to Mommy. She nodded solemnly. I turned around towards Toast and Twist.
“Yes…” I said slowly. “I’ll come.”
“Thank you.” Twist said. “You have no idea how important this is.”
Then, as Toast and Twist left the den, I said my goodbyes, and followed them into the woods.

As we wandered farther and farther into the forest,
I was stopping more and more, admiring flowers, trees, shrubs, bushes, berries, and leaves. The list just went on and on.
“Will you hurry up???” Toast asked.
“Come on, Toast,” Twist said. “She’s never been outside
before!”
And with that, he stalked forward, rustling the undergrowth.
“Don’t worry,” Twist said, smiling. “He’ll lighten up. You just wait.”
I wasn’t too sure about that, but I didn’t object. And at that same exact moment, I realized I had just left home with two complete strangers. I wasn’t really scared, but I was plenty curious.
“Twist,” I asked, “Where… where are we going?”
“Um… hmmm…. I think we’re going to a meadow close to the Drifting River.”
“Oh… ok… why?”
“Oh!!! That’s right!!! We haven’t explained anything to you!!!” Twist exclaimed, and raced forward into the brambles after Toast.

“So we forgot to explain to you.” Toast said.
“Yeah.”
“Well why didn’t Twist explain?”
“I don’t know! Ask Twist!”
“Ok. I will.”
Then he swiftly brushed through the leafy stems of a small plant.
“Twist!” I heard him say. “Go explain to the kit!”
I was enraged. He called me a kit! I may still be young, but I was more that 5 and a half moons old!!!
“Sorry about him.”
I spun around. Being jolted from your thoughts is never very pleasant.
“Twist!”
“Hey. Toast told me to come explain.”
“Oh ok.”
“It’s kind of a long story”
“Oh, well we’ve got time, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then go on.”
“Well, it all started about 300 years ago. There was an evil ruler by the name of DrakShardow. He owned the evil empire Darrken. He was ruthless and full of hate. So one day, one of his miners found a beautiful stone and used it to defeat DrakShardow and seize control of Darrken. He renamed it Shirann. Shirann prospered for another 200 years befo—” “Wait,” I interrupted. “How did he defeat DrakShardow with a stone?”
“It… it was a…magical stone…” Twist said.
“Oh… well, um… what’s it called?”
“The Stone of Jairagen”
“Why?”
“Well because about 200 years after Shirann was
renamed, Rististuf, ruler of the Trellist, conquered Shirann and renamed it Jairagen. When he discovered the Stone of Defeation, he called it the newfound stone of Jairagen. After discovering its mystical but dangerous powers, which had killed his own mate, Nataliliana, he threw it into the mystical waters of the Drifting River, where it was never to be seen again. Toast was told by the Speaker herself that one of DrakShardows kits, one of the ones he had with his first mate, Straftiller,
had started a family, Lighkellerr, their kit, had chosen her mate
Loscorlld and had given birth to her litter of three. It was said that Lighkellerr asked Loscorlld to murder two of her kits, so she would have a small family. Less betrayals from her kits that way. Her kit, LostShadow, had her mate, Crularre, murder the rest of her kits, the same way her mother did. This continued on, generation after generation, until we have the current cat, Midnight, trying to find the Stone of Jairagen, to create a new empire by conquering our current world, Shrifire.”
“Wow,” I said. “So we have to find the Stone of, um, Shrifire
before Midnight does?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok!”
“Yeah, its going to take us about 3 more days until we reach our first obstacle.”
“Wait. Two more questions.”
“What?”
“What are Chosens?”
“Oh. We’re Chosens. We are the ones who were chosen to defeat Midnight to save Shrifire.”
“Ok. Well then, what’s a Speaker?”
“The Speaker. Not a Speaker.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Anyway, the Speaker is a she-cat who can communicate with special cats by talking to them in her mind.”
“Oh, well Mommy always told me that was my conscience.”
“What?” Twist stuttered. “You— You’ve heard the Speaker?!?”
“Yeah.” I said.
“Oh!!!” Twist shrieked and raced off after Toast.

3 days later, we were headed towards what seemed like a giant wall of rock.
“Sorry about running off earlier.” Twist said.
“No, that’s okay!!!” I told her.
“Really?”
“Yeah! It’s fine.”
“Oh. Okay…” Twist said. “Well, Toast and I… we’ve been
talking…”
“About what?” I asked.
“You.” She replied.
“Oh.”I said.
“Well, Toast told me you must be very powerful.” She
continued. “He said I must try even harder to protect you now that you powers are known.”
“Why?”
“Well, now monsters in search of powers like yours will be on our tail.”
“Oh.”
“See that wall of rock up ahead?” She asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “What is it?”
“It’s Crescent Rock. The rock Rististuf stood on when he cast the Stone of Jairagen into the Drifting River.”“We must be getting close.”
“Yeah.”
Then we stopped.
“Why’d we stop?” I asked.
“Because,” Twist said, brushing aside a bush, covered from top to bottom in bright red berries. “Look.”
In front of us was a glistening rock, and if 5 fully grown cats stood on top of one another, I don’t think they could’ve reached the top.