When Foxkit woke up the next morning, the black apprentice was waiting outside the nursery for her. He let out a purr when he saw her. "Stormflame let me have the morning off to help you with the apprentice's nests," he meowed. "I'm Chesterpaw, by the way." Foxkit was surprised at how deep his voice was: he was only an apprentice, but it was deeper than any other voice she had ever heard.
"But don't you have to train?" she asked. Chesterpaw shook his head.
"I have plenty of time," he meowed. "Come on, follow me," he stood up and started padding towards the apprentice's den with Foxkit on his heels. He disappeared into the darkness of the den, and Foxkit took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. She sat next to him as he stood next to a nest. "You see how this moss looks different from the rest?" Chesterpaw asked, his paw hovering over a lighter patch of moss. Foxkit nodded. "That's what we have to get rid of," he told her. He unsheathed his claws and cut out the lighter moss, peeling it out of the nest. Foxkit nodded and padded to a different nest, cutting out the lighter parts of it. She went a bit slower than Chesterpaw, and with five apprentices it took a while, but they still got all of the old moss out of the nests.
"I'll be right back," Chesterpaw meowed, leaving the den and coming back with two balls of moss. He dropped them on the ground and peeled some away from one of the balls. "Just spread the moss out in the holes, and then we're done." Foxkit nodded and took some moss, filling up a nest. A few nests later, and there was only one left. She sniffed it. Chesterpaw's scent was covering it completely. She put in some extra moss for him.
Finally, she sat back on her haunches. Chesterpaw purred at her. "I've still got some time left. I can teach you some fighting moves, if you'd like." Foxkit brightened and nodded.
"You will?" Chesterpaw smiled and nodded back to her, leading the way out of the den and into the clearing.
X X X X
Things only got worse for her as the moons went on. Cats that used to ignore her glared, and cats that used to glare at her growled as she went by. At five moons old, she understood that it was because of her fur color. She knew that she stood out: enough to scare off all of the prey around her and to let her enemies know where she was. She accepted that, and she knew that it was just going to be harder for her training. She believed that she could still be a warrior.
She did, however, have good things happen to her. Duskkit left her alone since he was too busy trailing after Lonekit, and Heartfall barely paid any attention to her. She happily took that over being growled at and forced away from the rest of the Clan. Chesterpaw stayed with her as often as he could, Moonleaf happily answered her questions, Ravensight nodded to her as they passed each other, and Swifteagle always followed with a tail or ear flick.
Her ears perked when Heartfall padded towards her as she sat with Chesterpaw. The Queen stopped in front of her kit. "You're five moons old," she began, her voice cold. "It's about time that we talked about your apprenticeship." Foxkit tilted her head and looked at the black apprentice. He shook his head.
"Won't I be a warrior?" Foxkit asked, looking back at Heartfall. The Queen shook her head and Foxkit's hopes were crushed. Her amber eyes widened as she looked at the brown she-cat. "Prey or a cat from another Clan could see you from across the territory," she growled. "That's why you have to become a Medicine Cat."
"But I-"
"You're lucky I'm not asking Sparkstar to make you leave the Clan," Heartfall hissed. Foxkit stayed silent, her argument forgotten. Chesterpaw bristled next to her.
"She's still part of the Clan," he argued. "She has a choice, like the rest of us."
"No, she doesn't," Heartfall turned her growing rage on the apprentice. "As far as I'm concerned, she could never be a true part of this Clan, and Sparkstar agrees with me." Foxkit immediately pressed her body to the ground.
"She doesn't have to be acknowledged by you," a new voice meowed. Heartfall turned to look at Ravensight.
"Stay out of this, Ravensight."
"With how loud you're talking, the whole Clan was dragged into it," Ravensight meowed. Heartfall's eyes narrowed before she looked back at Foxkit.
"You'll be the Medicine Cat apprentice in a moon," she meowed before stalking off. Foxkit didn't pay attention to anything else that was going on around her. She felt like the world was slowly falling apart, leaving the only thing around her being the ground under her paws. She didn't notice when Ravensight settled himself next to her when Chesterpaw had to go out from training.
When she did, she looked up at the dark warrior. He didn't look back at her, but he did lay down. "You're a good choice for Medicine Cat, but it's a shame that Sparkstar won't make you a warrior," he meowed. "If I didn't already have Fallenpaw, I would ask to take you as my apprentice." Foxkit's ears perked.
"Really?" Ravensight just nodded.
"You're easily smarter than Lonekit, and once you would find out how to camouflage yourself, you would be a great fighter." He turned his head to look at her. "I'm sure that Swifteagle would, but I doubt that Sparkstar would change his mind about making you Medicine Cat." Her ears drooped and she looked at the ground.
She was stuck with becoming Medicine Cat. For the first time in her short life, she felt anger towards her sister. She already knew that she would get one of the best warriors as her mentor.