Did you ever know the comforting lick of a mother on your ear as you woke from your dreams? Or the warm smile a mother would give you when you returned from a hunting trip? Those are one of the most beautiful things in the world, right next to the sunrise over the lake during leaf-bare and the sunset during leaf-fall.

Those are the things I always think of when I wake in the apprentice den of ShadowClan, usually before my sister. My name is Snakepaw, and I'm the son of the ShadowClan leader, Smokestar. My sisters' name is Silverpaw, she's so cute, but she's from a different litter then me, along with my younger brother, Marshpaw.

Oh, my mother, my mother is Diamondshine, Silverpaw is just like her, and so is Marshpaw. Both of them have her eyes and her fur; I take more after my father. My siblings and mother all of sleek, white fur with a hint of silver on the tips, giving them this pretty aura around them like they were special. And their eyes, their eyes are beautiful, large and bright green. Every time I see them during leaf-bear they remind me of Greenleaf, and how it's just around the corner.

Me? I look more like my father. Broad shoulders, golden eyes and black and dark gray tabby pelt. My father is also my mentor, and we spent a lot of time together. We're really close, we hunt and train and eat together. There's also my uncle, Blackstripe. He looks just like me too. He's so funny; you wouldn't even guess that he was ShadowClans' deputy!

How close am I to my siblings? Well, we're friends. But Father doesn't like me getting too close to them, because he's afraid I'll get to close to Diamondshine as well.

Huh? I didn't tell you? Oh yeah, Diamondshine doesn't know about me. A few moments after my birth, she refused to even look at me. Our Medicine Cat, Brownleaf, told me that she went into a shock when she first saw me, and refused to accept that she was my mother. My mother became hysterical, she wouldn't eat, she wouldn't sleep, and she cried all the time or was shouting angrily at me. Brownleaf told my father that the only way to fix her was to make her forget.

I remember that night he told me she was going to forget about me. He called me to his den, and when I got there he wrapped around me tightly, licking me softly and telling me the only way to make things better was for her to forget. He told me that even if my mother forgot about me, he would still love me. He would love me so much that it would be like I still had a mother to love me.

Brownleaf gave Mother the herbs that would make her forget, and Mother wolfed them down without a second thought. I went to sleep with another queen and her kits that night, and watched as Mothers teary face turned from anguished to smiling softly, and even though I had lost her I felt happy.

Mother then went on to give birth to Silverpaw and Marshpaw. She loved them with all of her heart and Father was so happy. But he would often pull me aside and tell me quietly not to play or talk with Silverpaw or Marshpaw or Diamondshine. He said that she could still remember, and then everything would get wrong. Very wrong.

So I listened to him. I ignored my brother and sister when they called for me to play with them. I kept my distance from Diamondshine. Father was so happy I was listening to him he decided to make me his apprentice. And Blackstripe was like a second father to me. So instead of a father and mother, I guess you could say had two fathers.

I guess you could say I was-

Huh? Why did Diamondshine hate me? Why didn't she look at me? Well… It's not really hard to explain. I'm built differently then all of the other cats I know. How? We'll, it was just the way I was born. Not that different, I have four legs, four paws, claws, a head, two eyes, two ears, one nose and a mouth. But instead of one tail, mine is split halfway through. That's right, I have a split tail, and when my mother first saw me all she could scream was 'snake!' because she thought a snake had grabbed onto my tail. But once she learned that it wasn't a snake, she began rejecting me.

Of course I love my family, and my mother. Not that she'll ever know that.