Stormpaw carefully nipped the tender stalks of horsetail from the base of the plant and delicately gathered them into a pile with her paw. Her mentor Jayfeather sniffed them, then picked them up in his jaws and grunted. "Good. Come on, then. We still have to gather some tansy. New-leaf won't last forever." He turned and padded further into the forest.
Stormpaw started trotting after him. She had been training with Jayfeather for two moons now, and she was used to his grumpy ways. Leafpool, her co-mentor, was much nicer. Maybe it's because she couldn't save Briarlight. Stormpaw felt a sharp thorn of sadness pierce her heart as she remembered the crippled she-cat who had died of greencough a moon ago. The kind brown tabby had been one of the first cats who encouraged her to become a medicine cat apprentice.
Stormpaw hurried to catch up to Jayfeather. I'm going to be a medicine cat! she thought happily. She couldn't remember ever wanting anything else, even when she was in the nursery and her denmates had pretended to fight ShadowClan. Sure, she liked a good scrap now and then with her littermate and the others, and hunting was fun, but being a medicine cat was the best. She wouldn't rather do any-
"Stormpaw? Honestly, Stormpaw! What's gotten into you? I've asked you a question three times now!"
Stormpaw looked up to see Jayfeather's sightless eyes gleaming with annoyance as he mewed through the horsetail in his mouth. "Sorry." she mewed calmly. She had learned that calmness was the best way of getting her cranky mentor to calm down. "I was thinking of how great it was to be a medicine cat." There's sharing with StarClan, and the Moonpool, and omens..
Jayfeather sighed. "Wonderful. Just wonderful." he murmured, his mew muffled by the herbs. He stopped and dropped the herbs, mewing more loudly, "Stormpaw, I have to talk to you."
Stormpaw sat down next to him, neatly curling her tail around her paws. "What about?" she mewed. Her paws prickled with worry when she saw uncertainty in her mentor's eyes. Jayfeather was never uncertain. "..Jayfeather? Is something wrong?"
"I.. I had a vision from StarClan." Jayfeather gathered the horsetail into a pile again and paused. "Stormpaw.. Alderpaw has to become a medicine cat."
Stormpaw snorted. "Alderpaw? He's a warrior apprentice! I mean sure, he's no good at fighting or hunting, but-" Stormpaw froze. "Wait.. you want him to become your apprentice?" She fought herself to keep from wailing like a lost kit. "...What about me?"
"I don't understand it anymore then you do." Jayfeather tore at the grass with his claws. "It doesn't seem fair for you.. but I have to follow StarClan." The tom fixed his pale blue eyes on his apprentice, his mew thick with frustration and pity. "I'm sorry, Stormpaw. Honestly."
Stormpaw felt as if all of StarClan had fallen. I'm.. not going to be a medicine cat? Suddenly, though she had never really noticed the younger cat before, she hated Alderpaw. "Is that it then?" she growled. "I'm to make way for the chosen one, just like that? Fine. FINE. I never liked- I never- I have to go." She turned and raced away from Jayfeather, ignoring his calls. She raced towards the lake, the wind brushing at her fur, until she collapsed by the shore. The sun was just starting to set, the first stars of Silverpelt faintly starting to appear in the sky. Stormpaw tore her gaze away from the sky, bitterness filling her heart.
Why, StarClan, why?
