Disclaimer- I don't own the Warriors series.
The First Challenge
Amber eyes flash with hidden emotions, a crow cries its sorrowful song above the trees. A cat leaps from the bushes, his paws falling upon an unforgiving sight. A bird that was dead before he even had the chance to even kill it. It lay on the fresh, fallen leaves, beady eyes staring back up at him.
The white tom pulled away from the partridge with a wary expression on his face. The bird seemed almost as if it had been long dead. He prodded it with a paw curiously. Maybe it was just playing dead. Were birds that smart? The young apprentice had no idea, but he was curious to find out. He batted the bird about with his paws a bit, but it didn't shiver into wakefulness like he'd expected it to. He froze, staring at it with wide eyes. What was he supposed to do now?
"Cloudpaw, did you catch anything?" a small, ginger tabby asked as she approached her apprentice. Her amber eyes stared at the frightened, white tom. Cloudpaw looked at her, his ears lying flat on his head. He was so confused. He didn't know of any birds being found dead in the forest before.
"No... The bird was already dead when I found it," he meowed in a soft voice. The she-cat stared at him worriedly. Her amber eyes swept over the bird and then Cloudpaw. She seemed a bit incredulous as well. Cloudpaw then assumed that there was no such occurrence.
"That can't be a good sign," the mentor replied and hurried over to him. She pushed Cloudpaw back with her thin tail and put her nose closer to the partridge's carcass. Her amber eyes narrowed as she thought. Cloudpaw wondered what she could be thinking. Then she reared back quickly, spitting and coughing as if a sudden bad smell had hit her nose. He stared at his mentor worriedly, his ears flat against his skull.
"Amberclaw? What's wrong?" Cloudpaw asked worriedly, his light, amber eyes wide. The she-cat shook her head at him, a darkness lingering in her amber eyes. The smell that had wafted off the partridge was not one she'd forget very easily.
"Bury it," she hissed, her dark eyes watering. How could Cloudpaw not scent the rancid disease that permeated from that bird? Cloudpaw nodded quickly, digging his claws into the earth. Amberclaw watched, her eyes narrowed. What could the bird mean? Was it a sign from StarClan? She pondered this for a long moment, her amber eyes flickering like a fire as she delved into different stages of her thoughts. The she shook her head and waited patiently for her apprentice to finish burying the bird. Amberclaw had deemed it a potentially bad sign.
"Come on, Cloudpaw. We can't return to camp empty pawed," she told her apprentice quickly. He nodded and padded after her, listening to the authoritative tone in her voice and knowing better than to go against it. Cloudpaw was clumsy and thundered through the forest, scaring away all the prey with half a mind to notice. Amberclaw's tail lashed back and forth as she grew impatient with the young cat.
"Cloudpaw! Quit acting like a kit! You know better than to thunder about like that!" Amberclaw hissed angrily at her apprentice. He flattened his ears against his skull in humiliation. Cloudpaw dipped his head toward his chest, shrinking and attempting to look small, despite his larger size. He'd always been a large cat, not in the sense that he was fat, but bigger. He made Amberclaw look little in his own manner.
"Sorry Amberclaw..." he mewed. Cloudpaw straightened out and began to move like his mentor had taught him to. Even if he was four moons into his apprenticeship, he still had a tendency to move around as if he were trying to wake the whole forest. Amberclaw had a half a mind not to cuff him every ten seconds for it. The two cats returned to camp with a vole and a mouse. The birds seemed eerily scarce throughout the forest. Their endless chirping also seemed nowhere to be found. Amberclaw couldn't help thinking back to the dead partridge Cloudpaw had found. She knew she had to warn Falconstar of it, if only to be safe. She placed the vole on the freshkill pile and dismissed her apprentice. Cloudpaw was a good cat, despite all his bumbling about. That, she could not stand. Amberclaw padded up to the leader's den in silence, her amber eyes searching for the words that would be used in her explanation to Falconstar. She sighed and entered the small hole that had once been inhabited by foxes. At least, that was what the elders told kits, if only to make them sound incredibly strong.
"Falconstar," she mewed into the darkness. The large, brown tom lifted his head, gazing at her kindly. Amberclaw liked to pretend she saw something else lingering in those amber eyes of his. A sort of gentle caress perhaps. She drug her mind out of such thoughts quickly. She was his deputy, for yowling out loud! What was she even thinking? Stormfur was even the tom's mate. There was no room for her there.
"Yes?" he replied, worried that she might come with bad news. The powerful tom was worried about leafbare. The clan was already having a hard time and it was only leaf-fall. Amberclaw swallowed, curling her slender tail around her paws.
"Cloudpaw found a dead partridge... it was diseased from what I could tell," Amberclaw said softly. Her dark eyes meeting Falconstar's hard gaze. It sent shivers down her spine. He seemed so cold and dismissive, almost like she was only subjective. Amberclaw couldn't help but feel pain skitter through her pelt but only before it heated up in embarrassment. Of course she was just another cat to him! What was she even thinking?
"Do you know if there will be more?" Falconstar inquired, his eyes growing worried. Rather suddenly, the tom looked old. Amberclaw stared at him, worry spiking up into her heart. Responsibility had definitely taken its toll on the tom, but he was still handsome in her eyes. Stormfur was a lucky cat. Amberclaw was definitely jealous, but no one would ever even catch wind of her feelings for their leader.
"Most likely," she meowed quietly, her voice cracking slightly. Falconstar nodded, seeming to take the news rather well despite himself. Amberclaw left his den to allow him time to think upon that upsetting news. Sadly, that meant she had a few moments to think, and her own mind was becoming a bit uncomfortable for her.
The deputy located Foxheart. A patrol would do nicely in distracting her from her echoing thoughts about Falconstar. The russet tom was at the freshkill pile, obviously grabbing something for his mate, Miststream, who was currently a queen. She padded up to him. Her mind slightly clouded with other matters, but she was becoming used to that.
"Foxheart, you and Lilypool are to join me on a border patrol," she notified the tom quickly. He nodded and hurried off to his mate. Amberclaw felt a wave of jealousy crash through her. As much as she wanted to canter about with an adoring mate, she just had to go and have an unrequited love for Falconstar. It depressed the she-cat more than anyone might expect it to. Dismissing her thoughts again, Amberclaw caught her sister's attention and waved her over with her tail.
"You ready for a border patrol?" she meowed. Lilypool's eyes twinkled warmly. She had such trust in others, but with Amberclaw, it was a bit different. The two were litter mates, and they'd always been rather close. At times, Amberclaw was thankful for the connection with her sister, but other times, such as with Falconstar, she felt a bit obligated to tell her sister about it but refused to such a thing. Lilypool put her in such a spot at times.
"Of course," Lilypool purred softly. Amberclaw nodded swiftly as Foxheart joined them. The three cats left the camp quickly. The tall pines and cedar trees towered over their heads. Amberclaw felt so small and meek in comparison, but she basked in the security the forest gave to her with its great canopy. Amberclaw shook out her fur and led the patrol forward with ease. They had to inspect their border with LeafClan closely. With a lower supply of prey, the untrustworthy cats were bound to try and steal some of their territory. The acidic scent of LeafClan wafted up to her nose, and she shook her head in attempt to ignore it. Amberclaw observed the border carefully, but it seemed LeafClan hadn't marked the border in a few days, which was a good sign. The other clan was as relaxed about borders as always. The cats usually had plenty of territory to survive off of. There were irritating incidents in which cats crossed borders and had to be put back in line. They had to crack down on them the moment they had a misdemeanor.
"It seems all good," Amberclaw meowed happily. Foxheart scented the air one last time before nodding his agreement. Amberclaw turned to her sister curiously, awaiting her nod of approval so that they could be done with the patrolling.
"That's good," Lilypool replied, her tail swishing back and forth worriedly. She didn't seem so sure about LeafClan's avoidance of the borders for the past couple of days, but Lilypool was always the one to worry about the simplest of things. Amberclaw sighed.
"Don't worry," she told Lilypool softly, laying her tail across Lilypool's back gently, "In about two days is when we'll need to wonder what happened to the other clan." Lilypool stared at Amberclaw for a long moment, and Amberclaw wondered if she was actually going to fall into a sort of mutual agreement at that. Sometimes even Amberclaw didn't know when it came to Lilypool.
"If you say so," Lilypool mewed softly. Amberclaw let out a purr of amusement, touching her shoulder to Lilypool's.
"Don't be such a worry wart," she told her sister. Lilypool sighed and nodded slightly at Amberclaw. Usually Lilypool believed in Amberclaw's words, and that just so happened to be one of those times, which Amberclaw was quite thankful for. She did not have time to deal with all her sister's silly worries then.
The patrol returned to the camp in a comfortable silence. Their camp was a small ditch that was located in the midst of the forest. A low branched cedar gave coverage on one side, creating the dens for warriors and apprentices, while a large bush composed the nursery, the waxy leaves of it always keeping it warm during the winter. A fallen tree destroyed the old medicine cat's den and block off the elder's, but the old dens had become a part of the broken tree in a way of adapting. It was said that the tree fell upon an evil cat named Moletooth, protecting FireClan from his destructive nature. A old fox hole was where Falconstar resided, it was a place Amberclaw found herself visiting more and more often. Her eyes even had a tendency to linger in that general direction.
Amberclaw had tucked the whole bird incident into the back of her mind. Surely it wasn't that big of a deal. Prey could die of natural causes too.
...
As Leaf-fall continued on, a certain cat's weight gain did not go unnoticed. Leaf-fall was not a normal time for a she-cat to suddenly grow round, which meant only one thing. She was expecting kits. That, was no small matter, seeing as no one even had the slightest idea of who the father of the litter was, and the same cat was incredibly angry all the time if any cat happened to mention her weight. She was very defensive about it. The she-cat even refused to join the queen's den. The whole matter went against her greatest expectancies. Deputy's were not to become queens at any time.
The little end bit there eludes to the next challenge. I hope you enjoyed this first one. I just gave it a quick one over and added in details. A review would be nice!
~AS
**Edit** The chapter is now twice the length! And some details are fixed. I know, I'm obnoxious. It's essentially the same though.
