Prologue

Icekit shivered. At six moons, every kit had to take a course- sort of like an obstacle course- to become an apprentice. They had to face their most dreaded fear. There was one mind reader cat that did this, her name was Rattles. Her bones shook every time that she moved, because she was so elderly.

Today was the day she turned six moons. She tried to think good thoughts, so that Rattles wouldn't see her fear. Even though it was a stupid fear. Shadekit and Mousekit, her brothers, always told her it was a dumb fear and that she would pass the course with her paws tied behind her back.

But Shadekit and Mousekit didn't have to worry about the fear test yet, because they were three moons. "Lucky," she whispered to herself, forcing herself to take a step towards the mind reader's den. The den was a small cave right by the SwiftClan border line. Breezestar was highly annoyed by this, but Rattles couldn't care less about the young SwiftClan leader.

"Rattles?" Icekit called, daring herself to take another paw-step.

"Yes my deary?" came a voice from inside the cave. A ragged, scrawny cat emerged from the entrance, her torn and rugged tail waving in the air like she was an excited apprentice. The dark brown she-cat grunted with recognition as she looked Icekit over.

"Six moons, eh?" she snorted, limping towards her. A mouse tail was plastered to her cheek, Icekit grimaced as the old cat neared her. Rattles stopped and observed her once more, her gaze finally stopping to linger on her face. "Such a pretty devil," she grunted, shaking her pelt. Mud was flung off of her dirty form as she did so, and her bones rattled loudly.

Icekit shivered and tried to look away, but her gaze was glued to the she-cat's eyes. The other apprentices had told her about this- it meant she was taking a peek inside of your mind. Icekit shuddered but tried to think of happy thoughts- sunshine, playing with her littermates, but she knew it probably wouldn't work. This old mind-reader was too clever to be fooled by this illusion.

"Your afraid to be yelled at by your family?" the she-cat snorted. Icekit could tell she was resisting a laugh.

"Come, puny kitten," she growled, turning and heading into her den. Icekit coughed when she entered, the acrid smell stinging her nose.

Rattles shoved her into a smelly old nest and Icekit quickly fell asleep, even though she wasn't tired in the least.

"ICEKIT!" screeched her mother, Snowfoot. "What have you done this time?" she demanded, fury flaring in her eyes.

"Nothing!" Icekit meowed quickly, tears welling up in her eyes. Her father, Burntwind, came up beside her mother. "You must be punished for your wrongs," he spat, anger in his tone.

"I didn't do anything..." Icekit mumbled, taking a step forwards. "Don't you dare go anywhere near our parents," hissed Mousekit, brushing up against Burntwind. Shadekit followed, fur bristling as he growled menacingly.

Icekit was pounced on by a heavy black tom, and she let out a gasp. Ebonheart hated her too? He was the nicest uncle ever! Icekit started to cry, and her vision blurred. No... this wasn't right. She looked Ebonheart in the eyes. "Uncle, this isn't the real you, and this isn't my family. My family is kind and sweet!" she exclaimed, but the cats around her had started to fade.

"Congratulations," greeted the old cat, swaying back and forth. Icekit grinned. She'd passed!

"Your ceremony will begin shortly, you must hurry," Rattles grunted, spinning around to loudly dig her yellowing fangs into a scrawny brown mouse.

Icekit nodded and plunged back into the forest, relieved to be rid of that smell, and that terrible dream. She sped towards camp, a rush of excitement surging through her pelt.

"And your mentor shall be Nightash," finished Whitestar, showing his shiny white fangs as he smiled at her. Finally, Icepaw was an apprentice.

This prolouge is kind of boring, but it gets more exciting in the real chapters. I just wanted to introduce Rattles, the main character (Icepaw of course), her family, SwiftClan, that stuff. By the way, the clan Icepaw is in is FireClan. The clans are based off of the ones in the books. SwiftClan is like WindClan, FireClan is like ThunderClan, and the others will be introduced later. Review your thoughts please and tell me if I made any errors or if there are things I could improve on please. Thank you! And I highly recommend you try out my other stories. "Banished" is going along nicely, and so is "Badger Rise"

Thanks. -sophtiger