The grey she-cat, her pelt as soft and downy as feathers, lay on the bank of the slow-flowing river, sharp claws trailing in the clear blue water. She looked up suddenly, gracefully, her blue eyes as warm as the lifeblood pumping through her body. "Greetings, Thrushpaw. Can I help you?"
Thrushpaw shook his head and eased down next to the she-cat. He smiled nervously, and his light brown fur shone in the early morning sunlight. "What are you thinking about?"
"What do you think it would be like to drown, do you think? Would it be a peaceful death, or a terrible one?" The she-cat stared down into the water where fish swum by in slow motion, avoiding the large tan coloured rocks half submerged and surrounded by sand.
Thrushpaw purred, running his white-tipped tail across his friend's flank. "A medicine cat shouldn't be thinking about death on such a lovely day, especially since we only have the rest of newleaf and greenleaf ahead of us, hmm?"
The grey-furred she-cat shook her head, flashing a grin at the tom. "Medicine cat apprentice, Thrushpaw."
"The best medicine cat apprentice."
"In training to become the best medicine cat." The medicine cat apprentice smiled gleefully as they repeated their little speech as they had for moon upon moon.
"You know, Moonpaw, I can't wait until you're a full medicine cat and I'm the deputy - we'll make the best team," Thrushpaw meowed, sighing as he rolled over. "I can't wait."
Moonpaw nodded, nudging a small pebble into the river. She watched it sink in fascination. "Me neither."
"Thrushpaw, Thrushpaw! Battle training!"
"Oops, that's Tigerfoot. I've got to go train. See you back at camp!"
Moonpaw nodded a goodbye, turning back to peer into the clear blue waters of the slow-flowing river full of fish and sand and half submerged rocks.
Moonfur stared around camp. Warriors bustled around the clearing, gesturing with their tails, ears, paws, anything, as they explained to apprentices in tow anything they could to make their apprentices the best at everything, elders lay on the sun-warmed rocks and told stories to the kits of SkyClan about long ago battles, brave warriors, kindhearted medicine cats, villains and courageous leaders leaders of old.
The grey-furred she-cat nodded to her mentor, Weedfoot, as he passed with a mouth full of sheepwool for the kits' bedding. His sandy fur was knotted and tangled, looking almost like his namesake - like a patch of weeds.
"Moonfur, catch!" A plump mouse landed by Moonfur's paws, and she glanced up at an excitable young warrior as he trotted up to her with his own mouse in his jaws.
"Thrushheart! Didn't your mentor ever tell you to respect your freshkill?" scolded the she-cat as she bit into the prey.
"It's not my freshkill, though, it's your freshkill. Duh!" Thrushheart sat down next to her, ripping his own food apart and devouring it in a mere amount of seconds.
Moonfur rolled her eyes and finished eating. "You're still too smart for your own good; you could get into a lot of trouble."
"Me? In trouble? You must be thinking of another cat."
His friend changed the subject, sensing she would always lose any argument with Thrushheart. "Is Darkstar going to give you an apprentice soon, do you think?"
"He said that in a moon I'll be getting one. Do you think it'll be Barkkit, Birchkit or Littlekit?"
Moonfur twitched her ears in discomfort. "Littlekit's deaf, Thrushheart. She wouldn't be able to balance properly, hunt, fight, even warn us or be warned about danger." Moonfur glanced at the little she-kit. "Chances are she won't even be made an apprentice."
Thrushheart followed his best friend's gaze, his eyes softening as he watched Littlekit play by herself with a ball of moss.
"What?! You're making be be a warrior - give up my life dream - for a deaf kit?" Moonfur let out a vicious snarl and circled the medicine cat den again. Her fur bristled to make her seem twice her original size and her claws dug up lumps of soft mud that made up the den floor.
"Moonfur, please. You know this is the only way Littlekit can be accepted by the clan. Would you want her to suffer just because you were too selfish to give up one little thing?" Weedfoot lashed his tail, angry at his apprentice's reaction.
"She wouldn't suffer! She'd have exactly the same life she'd be so useless! How are you going to teach a deaf cat anything?" Moonfur didn't wait for her mentor to answer the question, ploughing on ahead, "she'd be more use as a kittypet!"
"You have no choice, Moonfur. The kits' apprentice ceremony is today and when Littlekit has received her apprentice name you will get a new mentor to teach you how to be a warrior." Sighing, Weedfoot tucked his tail between his forelegs as he sat down and took pity on the she-cat he had been teaching the ways of StarClan to for the last four seasons. "Look, Moonfur, you've been the best apprentice I could ever ask for. I'll really miss working with you, but you can have a mate and Kit's, you could even become the deputy or leader if you worked for it."
The small grey she-cat, her pelt fluffed up to twice its size, turned towards the den entrance with her blue eyes smouldering in her face as Darkstar called for the apprentice ceremony, hissed back to her former mentor, "as you have so subtly put it, I have no choice in this matter. It's obvious you want to look after that useless cat and make me travel down the wrong path, but I'll do it, and I won't like it."
Moonfur smoothed her pelt and stepped out into the sunlight, trotting over to Thrushheart. She nodded in greeting to him.
"Hey, Moonfur. Darkstar told me I'll be getting an apprentice today. Do you think it'll be Littlekit because I hope it isn't, not to be rude to her, but I wouldn't be able to handle a deaf apprentice?"
"No. It won't be Littlekit, she's already got a mentor guaranteed for her." Too late, Moonfur realised her voice was bitter.
Thrushheart brushed his muzzle over her ear. "What's wrong? Do you not want Littlekit to be an apprentice?"
"I'm fine with her to train as a warrior, I just don't want her to take my place."
Her friend purred, "don't worry, Moonfur, Weedfoot wouldn't have two apprentices at once."
Moonfur stared at him. "Of course Weedfoot wouldn't have two apprentices at once, he'd rather get rid of the one he has now in favour of a deaf one."
The tom gasped loudly, drawing the attention of several nearby cats who hushed them quickly. "He didn't really do that, did he?"
Moonfur began to reply, only to be cut off by Darkstar, "Weedfoot has decided to take Littlepaw on as his apprentice - quiet!" The leader silenced his clan quickly. "And Moonfur will become a warrior apprentice. As this has never happened before, Moonfur will keep her name and be mentored by Thrushheart. Meeting over!"
Moonfur realised that she and her new mentor had missed the ceremony of Barkpaw and Birchpaw, Littlepaw's brothers.
She lashed her tail and stood. "I can't believe Darkstar actually did that!" Her voice carried across the clearing, and cats turned to stare at her. "I wasted four seasons training to become a medicine cat, only to have my hopes dashed by a mouse-brained mentor and a deaf kit!"
Thrushheart shifted uncomfortably, "it can't be all that bad, can it? I mean, I'm your mentor. It'll be fun!"
Moonfur slipped and crashed onto her side. Thrushheart padded up to her. "You'll have to be quicker to avoid me from knocking your paws out from underneath you, Moonfur. That move could be a fight-stopper."
The she-cat struggled to her paws, gasping. "I'm terrible at fighting, Thrushheart; you know that. How likely would I be to even be in a battle? I'd have been better off as a medicine cat, like I wanted to be."
Her mentor sighed and glanced up at the sky, surprised to see it was dusk. "We'd better get back to camp before anyone starts to worry."
"I'll join you soon. There's something I want to do first." Moonfur nodded to him and raced off into the forest.
The tiny tortoiseshell pranced along the slow-moving clear blue river filled with fish and sand and half submerged rocks. She was too close to the edge; anything could happen.
Moonfur exploded out of the bushes and shoved Littlepaw into the water. The deaf medicine cat apprentice managed to somehow grasp her attacker's paw in her jaws before they were plunged into the hidden rapids of the seemingly slow moving clear blue river filled with with fish and sand and half submerged rocks.
The bitter apprentice pushed upwards, her lungs burning for air. Her eyes stung. Littlepaw snagged her claws in Moonfur's leg fur, dragging her down.
Moonfur snarled, realising too late she had no oxygen left. She desperately tried to gulp air, swallowing water instead.
Littlepaw had let go, and now her lifeless body tumbled through the river. Moonfur began to sink down, or was it up? She had no sense of direction anymore, and it was nothing to do with the swirling rapids as they dragged her throughout the river.
The grey she-cat, her pelt as soft and downy as feathers, knew now that drowning was not peaceful, not in the least. She tried to fight it, but Moonfur had never really been much of a fighter, only a healer.
As her struggling ceased, the river became once more a slow moving clear blue river filled with fish and sand and half submerged rocks carrying a deaf little she-cat and a grey she-cat with a pelt as soft and downy as feathers and sharp claws still out and trailing in the water as they had when she in training to become the best medicine cat her clan had ever seen.