A Raven's Second Wind
Prologue
The Storm's Beginning
Disclaimer: I own nothing when it comes to the fabulous series known as Warriors.
Rain soaked Ravenpaw to the bone as he raced across the moors WindClan used to rule. The black tom's heart hammered in his chest and blood pounded in his ears. What if Barley didn't want him? Tells him to go back to his Clan? What if Barley thought he was worthless too?
Cringing at his dark thoughts, the apprentice cleared his mind and tried not to think so negatively. Narrowing his eyes against the rain, he spotted the large Twoleg structure known as a barn. Maybe it was Barley's barn? Ravenpaw headed toward the barn.
The black cat made it to the barn and slipped through an opening he found in a wall. Inside, the barn was large and warm with many stacks of hay and the scent of a large population of mice flooded his nose.
Flattening his ears against his head, he called out, "Barley? Are you there?" Silence greeted him.
"Barley?" Ravenpaw tried again and was met with the same answer, silence. If he had gotten the right barn, the loner just wasn't there.
Shuffling his paws, Ravenpaw peered out the way he came through and saw it was still storming outside, even though it had lightened up. Should he look for the loner? Or wait here? How would Barley react to finding someone in his barn?
Ravenpaw decided he would go look for the black-and-white loner, he was already wet anyways. Slipping back out the way he came, the apprentice trudged on to find Barley.
He searched through the rain until he became exhausted. Through the rain, he couldn't see the barn anymore and he couldn't bring himself to care as he was just too tired. Crawling under a bush that was relatively dry underneath, the tom groomed himself to get dry and warm before drifting off to sleep.
When Ravenpaw woke up, it was the next day and the storm had finally stopped. Birds teetered close by as the black apprentice pulled himself out from under the bush. Looking around, he couldn't see the barn, let alone anything that looked familiar.
Great, now he was lost just because he couldn't stay put in the barn and waited. As his stomach grumbled, he decided to think about it after he found something to eat.
Finding something to eat wasn't that hard; he simply took down one of those tweeting birds that he had woken up to hearing. Back at his bush- err, the bush he had stayed the night under, he began thinking. He could try to wander back the way he came, but he didn't know which way he did come the night before.
Pondering what to do, he sniffed the air and picked up a scent. The scent, it was familiar and yet not that familiar at the same time. What could it possibility be? Opening his mouth to help better identify the scent, the answer can to him as fast as a flash of lightening, WindClan.
The scent belonged to WindClan, but it was stale. They must have been here recently though as the scent was still strong. Without thinking, he began to follow the scent.
The noise of a monster on a thunderpath up ahead broke Ravenpaw out of his trace-like state. What was he doing? He was supposed to be finding Barley, not WindClan! But he was lost and didn't know where to go.
It couldn't hurt him to find the missing Clan, right? He had no where else to go and he was already feeling lonely and desiring company.
Follow the WindClan scent is was then!
It took him another two days, but he finally found some fresh WindClan scent, meaning they must be nearby. But what unnerved him the most was the strong and fresh scent of Twolegs. The former ThunderClan apprentice pushed his apprehension down and trekked on.
Ravenpaw rounded a small hill when he spotted a cat figure sniffing around a group of plants, its ears perked in alertness. The wind was blowing in the black tom's direction, concealing his scent from the unknown cat. He breathed in the cat's scent and was shocked by the overpowering stench woven in with the cat's individual scent.
Rank water, crowfood, and rats were the strongest coming from the foreign cat. Ravenpaw scrunched his eyes closed and concentrated on the scent, underneath all the foul scent was the distinct WindClan scent. Focusing on that WindClan scent in the midst of all the scents comes from the cat; he managed to identify the cat as Barkface, WindClan's sole medicine cat.
He had only scented the medicine cat once when he was at his first gathering, before WindClan was chased out by ShadowClan. But the former apprentice was certain this cat before him was the lost Clan's medicine cat.
Now that Ravenpaw finally found a cat from WindClan, he was at a lost of what to do. At least he had found the medicine cat and not a warrior quick to fight like Mudclaw. But he still had to deal with how to reveal himself; should he let the wind change and bring his scent to the medicine cat or call out to the other?
"H-hello?" Ravenpaw called out tentatively with his ears lowered in nervousness.
The fur on Barkface's shoulders rose in surprise and he spun around swiftly as if preparing for an attack. His amber eyes met young tom's and he stiffened before his whole body began to relax. "ThunderClan, am I right? What are you doing so far from home?" the medicine cat's voice was filled with exhaustion and worry.
"I-I," Ravenpaw did not know what to say. What was he suppose to say? The truth, he ran away like a coward from his Clan and his murderous mentor? Or lie, giving some excuse to avoid said truth? "I was ThunderClan," he decided to say as he padded over to the older tom.
"Oh? Tell me about it," the medicine cat mewed, his mew calming and reassuring. "What is your name, young one?"
Ravenpaw sat down near Barkface; he has beginning to feel that he could tell this cat the truth and it would be safe, but he still wasn't sure. "My name is Ravenpaw," he said, still not saying anything about why he wasn't in ThunderClan anymore or why he was so far from the Clans.
The medicine cat's eyes turned gentle as he saw the apprentice was in turmoil. "I remember the gathering when Bluestar announced you as an apprentice, you were so small then," he told the black tom. "If you do not want me to know, that is fine. If you don't want me to tell anyone, I won't. Medicine cats can keep secrets pretty well."
Ravenpaw looked at the older cat and felt compelled to tell the other the truth. "I-I witnessed something I shouldn't have," he began his head lowered and looking at the ground before his paws. "No one was supposed to know what happened, but I saw it. It put me in danger and I could no longer stay in ThunderClan because of that. I planned on becoming a loner and maybe live with Barley at his farm, but I messed that up and got lost. I found your Clan's scent trail; there wasn't anything for me to go so I followed it. I don't know what I was expecting when I would find you, I just-I just don't know what to do."
"It's alright," Barkface murmured as he scuttled closer to Ravenpaw and began to stroke him with his tail in a comforting gesture. "You are safe now, Ravenpaw. No one will hurt you here." The medicine cat paused as he thought something over before he asked, "Is it to much to ask what you witnessed? And how it put you in danger?"
The black apprentice looked up and locked eyes with the other, debating if he should tell the other. "Will you tell Tallstar?" he asked shyly, knowing that all leaders and their medicine cats were close and rarely, if ever, kept secrets from each other.
"Only if you want me to, Ravenpaw," Barkface told him, continuing to stroke him with his tail comfortingly.
"Redtail-I saw Redtail being murdered," Ravenpaw managed to squeak out. "It-it was…" It was all he could get out before terror of what he witness flooded his body like so many times before.
"Who? Who was it that murdered Redtail?" the WindClan medicine cat coasted the other. What Ravenpaw had to say was most alarming to him and now he was beginning to slightly understand why the apprentice was afraid, but he still did not understand why that would put him in danger inside his own Clan where surely that is the safest place to be.
"Tigerclaw," Ravenpaw whispered as if the massive tabby warrior could hear him if he talked any louder than that. "Tigerclaw murdered Redtail and now Tigerclaw is ThunderClan's deputy!"
Barkface's amber eyes widened and a chill filled him. A warrior murdered his own deputy just to become deputy himself? He knew the tabby had ambition, but never before did he think Tigerclaw would kill to fulfill it. Now he fully understood Ravenpaw's terror as the medicine cat knew sure enough that Tigerclaw was the apprentice's mentor. No wonder the apprentice thought the only way to survive was to become a loner.
"A-are you go-going to tell Tallstar now that you know?" Ravenpaw's question broke through the medicine cat's train of thought.
Barkface turned to the apprentice, his eyes deep with emotion. "I told you before, only if you want me to," he told Ravenpaw gently.
"Please don't, not yet at least," Ravenpaw breathed out.
"I won't then," the WindClan medicine cat said. "Now come back to my Clan with me." Ravenpaw looked with such wide alarmed eyes that Barkface quickly added, "At least until you figure out what you are going to do, stay with us until then."
"If Tallstar allows it," Ravenpaw mewed quietly in agreement. He began to follow the medicine cat after Barkface picked up some herbs.
Rather quickly the two came to an opening in a tunnel underneath a thunderpath. Ravenpaw's fur fluffed out at the prospect of going inside it, but the medicine cat reassured him that it was safe. As they came closer to tunnel, a black-and-white figure emerged from it; Tallstar.
"Barkface, there you are," Tallstar meowed. The leader looked weary and frail, but held himself with a confident air. "I told you that you should not go off on your own out here, it is…" the leader broke off when he spotted Ravenpaw trailing behind his Clanmate. "Who is this, Barkface?"
"Ravenpaw, formerly of ThunderClan and now a loner," Barkface replied, which Ravenpaw was thankful for.
Tallstar shared a look with Barkface for a few moments before looking at Ravenpaw, "You may stay as long as you hunt for yourself and for my Clan."
"Thank you," Ravenpaw mewed as he bowed his head to the WindClan leader before being lead inside the tunnel.
Tallstar lingered outside to gaze up at the sky as the sun set and the first stars began to shine.
Why has it seemed you have left us, StarClan? Is it you who sent this raven to save us?
Another story? Yup! Not too sure where I'm going with this one, but I've been wanting to do a Ravenpaw in WindClan story for years.