Mintkit (ShC)

Mintkit is a small gray tom with soft paws.

Yellowfang's Secret

 * Brightflower gives birth to her kits while Yellowfang is out of camp. When Runningnose sends word to her, she races back to camp and finds that Brightflower has already given birth to them. She tells Brightflower that they are beautiful kits and asks if she has named them yet. Brightflower responds saying that the tortoiseshell she-cat is Marigoldkit and the gray tom is Mintkit. She then introduces Yellowfang to them, saying that she was their big sister. It is noted that both kits seem strong and healthy and Yellowfang feels a stab of pain thinking of her own daughters, who went to StarClan before they had a chance to live. She touches each kit with her nose and welcomes them to ShadowClan. Brightflower tells her she would have made a great mother, and Yellowfang hisses back at her that this was her life now. She looks at Marigoldkit again and is swept over with love and longing, breathing that they're perfect.


 * Half a moon later, Yellowfang hears excited squeaks from the other side of the clearing and she turns to watch Brightflower's kits outside of the nursery. Then, she realizes that Marigoldkit is shredding a ball of moss and Mintkit is dragging a feather across the ground as if it were a defeated enemy. She thinks that they are too young to be playing at battle and bounds across the clearing and says she knows a better game. She tells them to see if they could catch her tail and waves it in front of Mintkit. Both of the kits stop what they were doing and look at her tail, then at each other, but neither move. Yellowfang thinks that if a cat had offered that to her or her littermates, their tail would have been shredded.


 * Instead, she proposes another game, holding her tail level with the ground she asks how high they can jump. Mintkit asks if that was warrior training, to which Yellowfang admits that it wasn't. Marigoldkit gives her a polite dip of her head and says that in that case, they would go back to practicing their battle moves, and that Brokenstar said that it was important to be as strong as possible when they got their mentors. Yellowfang recalls her own days in the nursery and how attacking the elders' tails was the closest they had gotten to fighting. She then watches, sick at heart, as the kits go back to battle training.


 * Moments later, Brightflower appears and says that they are already strong, but there is a flicker of fear in her eyes. Yellowfang responds that they are certainly lively and that they must keep her busy.


 * A day later, Brightflower wakes Yellowfang saying that the kits were missing. They check the apprentices' den and, without finding the kits, go to the warrior's den where Yellowfang rouses Clawface. Clawface says they might have followed the night patrol, as earlier, they had talked about wanting to join it, and that he had told him they had to wait until they were apprentices. When Yellowfang tells Brightflower what he said, her panic calms down and she says that must be where they were. When the night patrol returns, they reveal to have not seen the kits and her panic returns. Russetfur says they'll go out and look for them, and Wolfstep says it's possible they followed and couldn't keep up. Russetfur then says they went as far as the border with the unknown forest and then back by Twolegplace. Brightflower exclaims that they must have been stolen by Twolegs. Yellowfang calms her, saying they were probably just lost and that she would follow the patrol's route.


 * In the forest, Yellowfang hears the bark of a fox and smells blood. She bursts into a clearing to find the kits lying in the clearing, their bodies still, ripped apart by some creature who hadn't even stayed to eat its prey. Yellowfang tries to find some herb or anything to save them but in the end just curls around them. Brightflower and Brokenstar emerge and Brokenstar asks what happened, Yellowfang replies that she found them like that, and it had been a fox. Brokenstar replies that he saw no fox, and Yellowfang insists that it had been there. Yellowfang and Brokenstar return to the camp, while Brightflower stays with her kits. Upon returning to camp Brokenstar sends Russetfur and Frogtail to bring back the kits and Brightflower. As Brokenstar questions Yellowfang, all of the Clan slowly begins to believe she killed the kits, except for Runningnose, Newtspeck, Rowanberry, and Nutwhisker. Newtspeck angrily says that the other cats were seriously thinking that Yellowfang would kill kits so she wouldn't have to treat their wounds later on. When Brightflower returns to camp she accuses Yellowfang of murdering them and lunges at her, and Runningnose leaps in front of her, saying she was being ridiculous.


 * After Yellowfang is banished when she is at Fourtrees, she thinks of Marigoldkit and Mintkit and hopes they are in StarClan playing with her daughters and Silverflame. She thinks they were better off there than in ShadowClan with Brokenstar. While thinking of them, she promises she would have saved them if she could.

Into the Wild

 * Although not mentioned by name, Yellowfang describes to Fireheart the details of her banishment from ShadowClan, recounting her experience of being blamed for the deaths of two kits that Brokenstar had killed during a training session.


 * Later, when Yellowfang is confronting Brokenstar, she asks him if Brightflower's kits had deserved to die. Brokenstar confirms that the kits died at his claws, and Brightflower is grief-stricken at the revelation, but Brokenstar ignores her.

Trivia

 * There is an inconsistency in the deaths of Marigoldkit and Mintkit among the books: In Into the Wild, though the kits are not mentioned by name, Brightflower's kits are killed by Brokenstar during a training session and are brought back to ShadowClan camp where Brokenstar blames Yellowfang for their deaths. However, in Yellowfang's Secret, the kits are instead killed by a fox and found by Yellowfang and for that Yellowfang is suspected and blamed for their deaths.

Members
Mother:
 * Brightflower:

Father:
 * Brackenfoot:

Sisters:
 * Yellowfang:
 * Marigoldkit:
 * Rowanberry:

Brother:
 * Nutwhisker:

Grandmother:
 * Silverflame:

Nieces:
 * Two unnamed she-kits: Deceased, Verified StarClan members

Nephews:
 * Brokenstar:
 * Cinderfur:
 * Stumpytail: