Full Summary:

Born with intelligence that would leave an elder breathless, Cherrypaw has always had a lonely and unfriendly existence, until she met Stormpaw. Slowly he befriends her and unlocks emotions in her that she has never experienced before, but something has changed in Stormpaw. He's become rude and mean-spirited and because of her new role as a 'friend' it's up to Cherrypaw to figure out why. As she investigates his behavior she discovers a dangerous secret and is pulled straight into a fight she previously had no idea existed. She never would have expected things to end like this, with her life bleeding away into the dusty ground. She was no where near prepared to see the impassive look on Stormpaw's face as the life slowly bled from her or for the feeling that came with it.


AN:
So this is my first story on here, so I'll hope you'll excuse any errors you find whilst reading.
I've worked really hard on this story and universe and I have most of the story mapped out in my head already!
I've made a publishing schedule for this story and there should be a new chapter every Sunday unless for some reason something comes up and I'll try to alert you guys or publish as soon as possible! So anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter and I'd love to get some feedback!


Disclaimer:

I do not own Warriors. If I did, my stories would all be canon and Firestar would have died waay before The Last Hope.


Chapter One

Her first memories are rather dull, and she has sectioned them off to a small section of her brain to idle and most likely never be recounted, but here she is at death's door and what decides to pop back into her brain, those mouse-dung memories. Cursing her mind, it all comes back to her.

She was no older than one moon old, barely a kit. The memory was surprisingly clear for something that happened so long ago, yet all of her memories were clear. It came with having a mind like hers.

She had risen from her mother's side for the first time to venture off into the wilderness of the Nursery; at least that's what she had felt she was doing. This was were she met Stormkit, and her first impression of him wasn't the greatest, or one that many cats would wish to obtain. He was a mouse-brain, pure and simple, though as she aged she realized that all cats around her were mouse-brains.

He sat in the corner of the Nursery, only a moon older than her. She would expect him to know more than her, be smarter than her but she was quickly disappointed.

"Hi" he meowed softly.

She looked at him slowly analyzing him based on his appearance, he was a blue-gray tom with longish fur, but not so long that it covered his eyes. his fur was considerably darker than his mother's and as she had never seen Stormkit's father she assumed his coat was from his father's side. His eyes were a bright shade of amber and his nose was dark gray. He looked rather healthy despite a obvious attempt to hide a limp in his right paw most likely caused by a thorn that an apprentice had accidentally gotten into the bedding.

"You should really go to the medicine cat." she replied dryly.

He looked startled and inadvertently sneaked a look at his injured paw. "Why would I need to do that?" he asked innocently.

"Because you have a thorn in your right paw." Cherrykit replied simply. She seemed annoyed by his sudden surprise. "And if you don't go soon you may have a face full of scratches." she growled flexing her claws.

Stormkit let out a cry of fear and leapt away to his mother. And no more than a few heart-beats later she was back at her mother's side being aggressively cleaned and listening her mother scold her between licks.

It was nearly a moon before Stormkit talked to her again, and even then Cherrykit could see the nervous twitching of his tail, the swiveling of his ears at every little sound, and his eyes were not nearly as bright; and for some reason the latter bothered Cherrykit the most.

She endured the twitchy behavior for some time before she snapped when his tail twitched and hit her on the side of the head. "What is your problem? Do you really think I am going to hurt you Stormkit? You're one moon older than me for StarClan's sake!" she said with a twinge of annoyance.

He looked surprised by her sudden outburst and truthfully she was also, it wasn't like her to let annoyance get ahead of her, usually she just bottled it up inside calling everyone a mouse-brain in her head where no one would hear it and punish her.

"I..." he mumbled, "I... don't think you going to uh... hurt me..." he finished awkwardly.

Cherrykit sat unamused her tail flying back in forth in frustration. "And?" she hissed through clenched teeth.

Stormkit flinched at the display of anger, "Well... um... you always seem angry... and urm... I guess that does scare me a bit... even if it is irrational."

Cherrykit nodded, she understood better and a new feeling came upon her, guilt.

"Well I guess I'm sorry Stormkit, I never meant to scare you." she mumbled looking at the sandy floor of the Nursery. "But it is irrational!" she added quickly looking up to his amber eyes.

Stormkit let out a small chuckle at this remark, and Cherrypaw observed that he seemed friendlier than he had been only moments before. She wasn't sure why, as it was completely irrelevant but she felt happy at this observation.

Without warning Stormkit tackled into her, pushing her ginger fur into the dusty floor of the Nursery. Letting out a muffled gasp, Cherrykit stared up at the blue-gray tom in surprise for a moment, before her gaze turned jaded. She sat up slowly and began to lick her bright pelt free of dirt deliberately ignoring Stormkit who now looked uncomfortable at the fact she was ignoring him totally now.

"Cherrykit?" he asked softly, "I'm sorry, I thought you'd want to play."

She cast her green eyes in his direction for a mere moment before they had moved back to her paw as she cleaned. "I dislike dirt." she meowed coolly. Out of the corner of her eyes she notices Stormkit flinch, a a chord of guilt wavers. She turns to Stormkit who now looks like he's been scolded by his mother and she, as gracefully as possible, tackles the tom, shoving his blue-gray head into the small mud puddle, that must have formed from the recent rain.

He sputters, his amber eyes confused and then, as swift as a fox twists. Sensing what he's trying to do, Cherrykit begins to move, but he seems to be smarter than she thought as he grabs her front paw with his teeth delicately preventing any escape. He flips his body over, pushing all his weight onto her as she thrashed under him annoyed at the sudden change in power. Finally he makes a mistake; as her paws flail she accidentally scratches him. It wasn't a deep scratch, or a painful one, but he made the mistake of flinching at the scratch and momentarily removing a fraction of the weight he had used to pin her down.

Suddenly as quick as an adder she struck, throwing him off of her roughly. He flew a few paw lengths before roughly landing in the sand with a thud. But it didn't seem to faze him as he was almost immediately at his paws dashing back to the play-fight. They tumbled for a few more heartbeats before coming to a rolling stop in a ball of ginger and blue-gray fur.

Panting the two fell onto the dusty floor of the nursery, trying to catch their breath. Finally after another few heart beats of heavy breathing Cherrykit turned to the blue tom next to her. "I think we're going to be good friends." she announced with a smile.