Enjoy!


Chapter 3

I'm going to be an apprentice! Cloudkit sat proudly by his mother's side, his fur groomed to perfection. The sun was risen but not yet at its zenith, and the whole clan had gathered in the chilly morning light to see Cloudkit's ceremony.

"Cloudkit, please step forward," Darkstar called regally from her position in the Great Maple's lower branches. Cloudkit walked calmly to the base of the tree, craning his neck to look up at his leader. The sun dappled throughout the branches of the maple and shined off the few black spotted, wrinkled leaves that clung to the twigs. It made Cloudkit squint, and he hoped that Darkstar would come down soon so he could stop straining his eyes. Then the realization that he was going to become an apprentice coursed through his veins all over again, and he forgot about the sun.

"This is a proud day for DarkClan. By naming apprentices, we show that we remain strong, and that the next generation is ready to learn and take up our fights as their own." Darkstar paused for a moment, sweeping her gaze around the clearing. Cloudkit took a deep breath. This is it.

"Cloudkit, from this moment until the day you earn your warrior name, you shall be known as Cloudpaw. Hollyclaw, you have proven yourself as a strong, capable warrior and mentor many times over. You will mentor Cloudpaw. I trust that you will teach him as you have taught your past apprentices and that you will make him a fine warrior."

Hollyclaw! Cloudpaw thought nervously. She's one of the senior warriors! He turned towards Hollyclaw, who had stepped out of the crowd and was now at his side. He looked up at her, his blue eyes anxious and wide, and reached up to dab his nose on hers before shyly ducking his head. As he stepped back by her side, the whole clan seemed to be frozen, like they were unsure what to do.

"Cloudpaw!" Troutpaw's bright meow called from near the edge of camp, breaking the silence. A few chuckles bubbled forth, and a smattering of cheers. The clan began to separate, splitting off into patrol groups, and his parents trotted over to him, their chests puffed out proudly.

"Oh, I'll miss you sleeping in the nursery with me, but I know you'll be well taken care of!" Snowpelt purred, rasping her tongue over his ear in a totally embarrassing way.

"Snowpelt!" Cloudpaw complained, ducking away. Ashleaf was next.

"I know that, uh, you'll be a good apprentice," he muttered gruffly. There was an awkward moment when father and son just stood there, not meeting each other's eyes.

"All right!" Hollyclaw cut in. "You'll talk to them later. Right now we are going to start training." Cloudpaw nodded vigorously, welcoming the chance to avoid speaking with his father. Ashleaf and he had never been close.

"Where are we going?" Cloudpaw inquired timidly, following Hollyclaw out through the bramble bush tunnel for the first time in his life.

The trees suddenly stretched higher above him; the sky seemed wider; the twitters, chirps, and rustles of the forest sharper and more focused in his ears. Everything was bigger, brighter, more real than it had ever been to Cloudpaw, and all his thoughts evaporated in his mind, replaced by a single word.

"Wow!" Cloudpaw breathed, staring up at the forest in wonder.

"Come along then!" Hollyclaw nudged him, breaking the spell of the forest. Cloudpaw jolted and quickly began trotting again, following his mentor deep into the rustling woods.

Eventually, the pair stopped in a small clearing. It was surrounded by oak and elm trees, the spindly branches snaking skyward. Most of the leaves had already dropped, leaving a carpet of crunchy brown above the moss-covered earth. In the distance, a solitary chickadee twittered.

"Do you know where we are?" Hollyclaw asked. Cloudpaw shook his head. "You should have been paying closer attention," His mentor reprimanded. "If you are ever taken to enemy territory, you should be able to find some general landmarks to help you find your way back. It's a skill that you will have to develop in time. Right now, however we are going to focus on hunting." Hollyclaw crouched, her belly fur just barely brushing the leaves. Her hind legs were tucked under her, the muscles in them showing clearly through her fur and skin. "This is a hunter's crouch." she told him. "Try to imitate it."

Cloudpaw was surprised. He'd heard that usually the first thing a new apprentice did was learn to fight, so that they'd be ready for any border skirmishes they might be thrown into. Still, he crouched, feeling clumsy. His back felt too hollow, his paws unbalanced. It all felt uncomfortable.

"Your tail and your distance from the ground are good." Hollyclaw mused. She stepped forward and used one paw to push his stomach up. "Arch your back more, and suck in that kitten-fat. We'll work that off in no time, but for now, suck it in." Then she moved his front paws closer together, and his back paws under his haunches more. "How does this feel?" She asked.

"Um, better. More comfortable." Cloudpaw mumbled, ducking his head slightly. It was true. Arching his back gave him better spinal support, and shifting his paws allowed him to balance much more easily.

"Good," Hollyclaw nodded. "It should feel like this every time. By the time you become a warrior, you should be able to do the hunter's crouch in your sleep. Now watch." Hollyclaw slid into the hunter's crouch and began to stalk silently across the ground. For a moment, Cloudpaw was confused as to how she moved so quietly when a bed of crunchy leaves littered the forest floor. Watching more closely, Cloudpaw realized that she used her front paws to gently move the leaves aside. The brisk autumn wind sounded nearly the same as it blew the leaves across the clearing.

"Do it," Hollyclaw ordered. Cloudpaw began to stalk across the ground, trying to imitate the expertise he had just seen. Crunch cr...ACK crunch CRUNCH, his feet thumped on the crackly leaves that carpeted the dirt and moss. He stopped and looked up at Hollyclaw, but upon seeing her dissatisfied face, he ducked his head again in shame.

"Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I suppose I've seen worse on a first try," Hollyclaw sighed.

By the time they had finished training and were walking briskly back to camp, it was past midday. Cloudpaw was panting just from the sheer exertion of taking in all the information that had been thrust upon him and putting it into actions. He was happy, however, with how much he had learned. The hunter's crouch was, apparently, for stalking almost every animal, but there were slight variations to each crouch and stalking technique. They had simply practiced walking, though, until Cloudpaw's form was near perfect and his steps were not quite so loud and crunchy.

"Hollyclaw?" a voice called. "Cloudpaw?" Cloudpaw spun around, locating the origin of the voice. Bluepool sat by a small stream near camp, her front paws deep in what Cloudpaw realized must have been freezing cold water. As Hollyclaw led the way closer to the silver-blue medicine cat, Cloudpaw saw the pile of whitish roots next to Bluepool. She lifted her paws from the water, brushing the last of the dirt off the root she was holding in her paws. She placed it on the pile and turned to Hollyclaw.

"I'd be extremely grateful if I could borrow Cloudpaw for a few moments," she told Hollyclaw. "There are too many burdock roots for me to carry myself, so if Cloudpaw could carry a few, it would be very helpful."

"By all means, borrow him." Hollyclaw replied, then turned to Cloudpaw. "Once you're done here, you may eat and rest. We are done for the day." With that, she turned and loped away towards the camp, leaving the medicine cat alone with Cloudpaw.

"All right," Bluepool began. "You take that pile there," she swept her tail to indicate another pile that Cloudpaw had not seen before. "I'll take this one." she picked up the roots in her jaws and began trotting back to camp. Cloudpaw snatched the roots in his own pile and darted after her. He followed her whisking tail through a small gap in the bushes that surrounded camp, and found himself in the very back of the medicine cat's den. He made a mental note to remember this passageway for future use.

"Now just hold on there for a moment while I put these away," Bluepool instructed, after dropping her roots. She neatly placed them in small holes in the sides of the fallen tree that created the medicine den. Cloudpaw noticed the other indentations where he assumed herbs must be kept, as well as a separate section of the hollow log where soft moss nests lay. Probably for sick patients, he figured, setting his own pile on the ground gently.

"So Cloudpaw," Bluepool chatted as she tidied the den, sorting and sifting through a few piles of leaves and dried flowers that were scattered across the earthen floor. "How was your first day training?"

"Erm, good, I guess," Cloudpaw mumbled shyly, wondering why the medicine cat was making such an effort to converse with him.

"Listen Cloudpaw," Bluepool's tone turned suddenly more serious. "I need to talk to you about something very important."

Am I in trouble? Cloudpaw wondered. What have I done? "Um, ok..." he meowed nervously, shifting his paws. He sat down and wrapped his tail around his paws.

"You have a great destiny, Cloudpaw," Bluepool began. "A few days after you were born, I received a prophecy. A sun and a cloud will bring peace to the clans. You are the cloud, that much is obvious. I have talked to Brownleaf, the LightClan medicine cat, and she believes that the sun is a young cat named Sunkit. Once Sunkit becomes an apprentice, she and you will have to meet to discuss how you can bring peace to these two warring clans."

Cloudpaw stared. "What?!" This could not be true. Bluepool must be playing some strange joke on him. Yet her face was deadly serious as she watched the gray and white tom process the information. "I... I..." Cloudpaw was speechless. He ran through what Bluepool had said, about meeting a she-cat from another clan. "But... That seems like... Like I would have a, erm, mate from a rival clan." Cloudpaw stuttered awkwardly.

"Yes, well, if that strengthens the bond between the two of you, then Brownleaf and I feel that it might be a good thing if you have, ah, feelings for each other."

Here I am, sitting in the medicine den, talking to the medicine cat about my future love life with a cat from my clan's enemy clan, and I'm only six moons old. How messed up can my life get?

"Anyway, thank you for your time Cloudpaw." Bluepool was all business. "I'll talk to you more in depth about this once Sunpaw becomes an apprentice. Goodbye."

Cloudpaw frowned, his head swirling with all the new information, but he let the medicine cat shoo him out, and headed toward the fresh-kill pile to grab a mouse to eat.


Eek! So sorry for the huge wait! I was at sleep-away camp all summer, and then I've just been really busy. Sorry! Anyway, hope you like the chapter! I'm not very good at endings, I think.

Lightflame the Warrior: Thank you so much for your review! You're right; Lightstar does have some dark secrets, but Tigerpaw, Jaggedpaw, and Frogpaw's father was killed by DarkClan cats in a border skirmish when they were very young.

Oh yeah. In the last chapter I said that we would see that there are two sides to every story in this chapter. Well, I changed it. You'll hear more about that later.

Thanks for reading! :) Tell me what you think please!