Hello again everyone. I don't have much to say today except that Lightpaw, Sunpaw, Mouspaw, Faithpaw and any of the other apprentices, including Siftpaw, are like 'pre-pubescent' so they're almost still like kids. They'd be like eleven or twelve in human years. That's why they're not demanding to mate with Faithpaw yet. That was always something that bugged me with the original, the way that all the super young cats were going around wanting to mate. How unrealistic is that?
FOUR
As he walked back to camp, Faithpaw felt different. He'd possibly had the best night of his life. He wished that Lightpaw's gang would be gone forever. He would be so happy then. So happy. Or if they'd been born into another Clan, and three she-cats from another Clan had been born into his. Like Siftpaw.
He didn't know any others.
Maybe someday he'd get invited to a Gathering. But would he even want to go? He liked his solitude in camp when he was left. Sure, he wanted to see the other Clans, but would he give up his safety and relaxation for that?
He was brought back to his senses when he heard the bushes around him rustle. He slowed to a stop, pricked his ears. Listened.
"Is someone there?" He called softly, heart pounding in nervousness.
"Yep," said a voice to his right. He spun around and saw Lightpaw emerge from the trees. Sunpaw and Mousepaw prowled out behind her.
His heart leaped into his throat and he crouched a bit, ears flattening.
"What are you doing out here, Pig?" Mousepaw asked loudly.
"I was out." He said carefully.
"Out doing what?" Lightpaw demanded.
"Hunting and stuff."
"You were talking to someone," Sunpaw said, "You were talking to someone, weren't you? Down by the beach."
He didn't answer. He wasn't going to lie to them, he was too scared of the consequences. But he wouldn't directly agree that yes, he had talked to someone down at the beach.
"Who were you talking to?" Sunpaw went on. Lightpaw and Mousepaw had stepped back and seemed to be fiddling with something in the bushes behind the ginger she-cat.
Faithpaw's heart pounded in fear.
"Tell us," Sunpaw demanded, stepping forward, "What was her name?"
StarClan, please help me! He begged in his head, stumbling backward. His mouth opened and a few wheezes escaped his throat. He couldn't speak. He couldn't find the words or his voice to speak.
Lightpaw stepped forward. She was carrying a long, thin branch in her jaws. Mousepaw had one too. "Sunpaw," she said, "The real question is why wasn't he out cleaning the training hollow?"
Faithpaw's heart stopped.
"Yeah," Sunpaw said, "We came back and when we saw you weren't in camp we of course assumed you were still cleaning the training hollow like the good boy you are. But, Pig...it wasn't cleaned at all. We told you to clean it."
"Why were you out here not cleaning it?" Lightpaw asked darkly, shaking her head.
"I-I-I-I I did clean, um, I did um, um clean it! It was cleaned, I cleaned it! I cleaned it, I did clean-"
"Shut up," Lightpaw hissed, showing her white fangs. The long twig lay at her feet. "You didn't do anything."
"We told you to clean it," Sunpaw said.
"Why didn't you clean it?" Lightpaw demanded.
Faithpaw was dead. He stared into Sunpaw's face and hated her smug expression, hated her soft ginger fur, the too-intelligent mind secured in her skull. Hated every part of her. He wanted to smash something, anything, into her horrible face.
"Hit him," Sunpaw said to Mousepaw. "He needs a beating."
Faithpaw tried to stumble backward. Mousepaw slammed her stick down across him. It slashed across his thighs and burned like a whip. There was no blood, no scar, just the searing pain. She slashed him with it again, and again. The pain climbed. Climbed. He started to cry. Tears of pain and anger and hatred. Hatred at Sunpaw's smug face in the background, Lightpaw's grim expression. At stupid, stupid Mousepaw, hitting him over and over. At himself for having to take this. He'd waited until they left for the Gathering. He'd even cleaned some of the clearing. So why did he have to have this done to him?
Hatred at not being able to smash Sunpaw's face.
The tears wept faster out of his eyes and he lay on the ground, sobbing as the hits continued. Finally Mousepaw stopped and stepped back. He could feel them standing above him, staring darkly down at him. He cried and cried. Tried to stop. Couldn't.
"Pig's upset," Lightpaw muttered.
"Sit up, you shit," Sunpaw snapped at him.
He didn't want to sit up. He wanted to grab one of the sticks and jab it into her eyes.
"No? You won't sit up?" Sunpaw growled. She wrenched the stick out of Mousepaw's grasp. "Give me that."
She stepped closer, looking down at him. He was too scared to meet her eyes. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Sunpaw raised the stick and slashed it down through his face. He felt it cut over his eye and down his cheek. He felt the pain, a bright, sunlight sort of pain, worse than his thighs. A pain that made everything white. Where he couldn't hear anything.
He was numb. He was cold. He heard them leave. Heard their sticks drop to the ground as they sped off. He just stood there, eyes half closed, dried tears sticking to his face.
Finally the whiteness died down. His hearing came back to fullness. His senses returned. He still just stood there a while longer, listening to the forest, trying to stay...trying not to be...he had no idea. He had absolutely no idea.
He slowly got to his feet and started to walk. He touched a paw to his eye and felt blood. A scratch. How deep? How bad? They'd never done anything this bad before. What would he do now? How would he explain it to the other cats? Would he even have to? They probably wouldn't care.
He kept walking until he reached the beach. He stumbled down to the lake. Stopped at the edge of the water. Hunched over so he could see his reflection.
There he was, staring back at him. The water was cool and clear and smooth. He could see his small, all-white body, his little face. His scrawny muscles.
His face hurt so bad.
It was a thin red scratch, clear against his white fur. A mark.
He dipped his head down and used his paw to the scratch over with water. It dripped off his paw, tinted pink. The scratch wasn't deep. It was thin and long. It wouldn't take long to heal. But it still hurt so bad.
And his thighs. He could just see some bruising through the fur. It was like a sharp, ringing ache.
It really, really hurt.
He started to cry again. Quiet sobs. Quiet, wracking sobs. He washed his face again, washed all of it, trying to wash away the tears. He couldn't. They kept squeezing from his eyes and journeying down his cheeks. He soaked his legs in the cold water. Finally he got out and stared at his reflection.
He seemed smaller, weaker than ever. Even more worthless. That cat, that small, scrawny white cat in the water was him. That was his face. His weak body.
He turned around and padded back to the camp, face burning, legs burning. But he was calm inside. He didn't cry anymore. He held the pain inside him and refused to let it leech out. He would do that from now on. No pain. No anger. Maybe they wouldn't hit him then.
He reached the camp and slowly padded in. The scratch on his face burned. He ignored it. He headed toward the apprentice's den and slipped inside. He was tired now but he had stayed up nearly all night and dawn was probably less than an hour away. He would not get enough sleep tonight.
The next morning he was awakened by the sound of the other apprentices' mentors waking them up for training. He knew Windstorm wouldn't bother to wake him up and if he didn't wake up now he'd get chewed out by her later. So he forced his eyes open and forced himself to sit up. He was exhausted, he could feel the sleeplessness pulling him downward, back toward the nest. He fought it off and stepped into the early morning light.
He didn't bother eating. Lightpaw and Sunpaw and Mousepaw were sitting by the fresh-kill pile and he didn't dare approach it. He'd gotten enough to eat last night, anyway.
They started off for training. Faithpaw struggled to keep up. The abuse on his legs the night before was paying off this morning. They ached and burned all the way to the training hollow.
When they reached it Faithpaw was dreading the training fights he'd have to endure in his sickly state but he was surprised and happy when Windstorm said they'd be doing a hunting competition today.
"You all will get a different part of the forest to hunt in," Spottedflight instructed, "And you will hunt as much as you can as fast as you can and bring it back when you hear Windstorm's call. Is that clear?"
Everybody nodded that they understood.
Faithpaw was told to go down by the WindClan border, close to the lake. He didn't hunt there much but he knew there would be a lot of squirrels and stuff in there. So he nodded and feeling bright started off in that direction.
He scrounged along the border, sniffing out prey. Within moments he had already caught two mice. Pickings were rich down here, he decided with a smile. He ought to hunt here more often.
It wasn't long before he'd caught an abundance of squirrels, mice, shrews and a couple of rabbits that had leaped over the border for a drink. He liked hunting. He was good at it. He might be awful at fighting, but he was good at hunting.
As he started to round up his prey in one pile to take back to the camp, he fantasized a little about some day being able to help his Clan by hunting. He'd go out on a solo patrol and return in less than an hour overflowing with his catches. The praise would rain down upon him. Even Midnightstar would come out of her den in the Highledge to give him a word of honor. She'd hold a meeting in leaf-bare just to announce to the Clan how his hunting skills had saved them from starvation in the cold. He'd dip his head, embarrassed but proud, as the Clan pushed around him. His mother would come and whisper in his ear, nuzzle against him. The warrior Amberleaf who he sort of thought was cute but never spoke to, hardly ever saw would lick his cheek, purr in admiration.
He was carrying the heavy load of prey swiftly back to the training hollow, getting more and more lost in his fantasy, when he was stopped by two cats that leaped out in front of his path. He skidded to a halt.
Lightpaw. Sunpaw. Mousepaw.
"Pig's proud of himself," Mousepaw said.
They each had prey with them. A well sized pile, but his was larger. If he wasn't so scared he would have been proud.
"Yes he is," Lightpaw said. She looked him in the eyes, addressed him. "So you caught all that, huh? That's a bit much for a pig, don't you think?"
"....what do you...."
"Shh," Sunpaw said, coming forward with a smirk. She lay her tail across his nose. "We didn't say you could talk." she dropped the smirk, nodded to Mousepaw. "Take it all."
Mousepaw came forward as Sunpaw stepped back. She reached up, and slashed her claws through the hefty amount of prey held in his jaws. He watched as it was torn from his grasp and landed strewn on the ground, oozing blood. Bits of skin and flesh clung to his mouth.
Without speaking, both Lightpaw and Sunpaw leaped upon the kills, scooping them up to their own piles. Mousepaw grabbed a couple of squirrels and picked it all up in her jaws. She turned around and started off, followed by Lightpaw. Sunpaw looked back at Faithpaw just once, meeting his eyes and laughing inside her throat. Then she too turned around and followed the other two into the bushes. Not a single piece of prey was left.
"That's mine!" Faithpaw started, heart pounding, "You cant take it!"
"...wait!" He began to start after them, running as hard as he could. And then he stopped. Skidded to a halt. What use would chasing them do? They'd taken his prey. They weren't going to just give it back.
"Ugh," he said to himself. He could hear Windstorm yowling, he had to be back soon. He sat down heavily, looking at the ground in front of his eyes. He started to cry again. Cry in earnest. At what they did to him, what they'd done. At the brutal slaughter of his fantasy. At the fact that those fantasies- they would never become anything else. All his dreams, all his hopes, his wishes...they would always stay just that. He thought of the recognition, the praise they would get when they returned with their kills plus his. And he? He would return with nothing. He would be talked down, ridiculed. Disrespected. Probably not be allowed to eat tonight.
He stopped the tears. No sense for them. Dejectedly, empty-pawed, he slowly continued on to the training hollow.
"FAITHPAW! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!" Shouted Windstorm from the training hollow.
He quickened his pace a bit. Maybe he could catch some things on the way. He moved fast, nose to the ground. He managed to catch a small shrew before he reached the hollow. He tumbled in and skidded to a halt, looking into the eyes of the three apprentices and their mentors.
"Is that all?" Windstorm asked, "You have more in the forest, right?"
He wished he could tell her. Expose what the other apprentices had done to him. She wouldn't believe him. She believed he was worthless and not good at anything, so there was no point in even trying.
"Yeah," he muttered, dropping the shrew at his feet.
Sunpaw said smirking. Lightpaw was sneering. They had big piles of prey beside them. As he watched, Spottedflight gave each of them a blistering smile and she licked Sunpaw on the ear.
Faithpaw burned with resentment. He lowered his head. He heard them leave. He was alone. They hadn't chewed him out. They probably thought he was too low even for that.
"Faithpaw," came an angry growl above him. He looked up. Windstorm was there. He'd thought she'd left, but she hadn't. She sat, head raised, tail around her paws.
"Faithpaw, I am moments away from disowning you as an apprentice. You are disgraceful. You are disgusting. You are dim-witted and can't think like a normal cat. You are unattractive and your body is hideous. You can't hold a claw against another cat in a fight. And you cannot hunt to save a life. There is nothing you can do. You are thin and weak. You are worthless."
The words stabbed him. They sunk into his chest and pierced into his heart like a long thin claw. You are worthless.
"There is no point of you being in this Clan. There is nothing you can do to help other cats. You can hardly help yourself."
She leaned down, showing a hint of her fangs. "That is what I think. That is what everyone thinks. It is common knowledge and it should be what you think."
It is, he thought, feeling like his heart was dissolving. He could hardly feel his body. There was a ringing in his ears, blocking out the sounds of the forest.
"There is only one reason we allow you in this Clan, allow you to drink our water and eat our prey. Sleep in our beds. Do you know why that is?"
He didn't. He had no idea. He was stupid. A dumbass.
"Because you're a male," she spit, "and the only male or miles and miles. We can't just send you away. We need your reproductive abilities."
"Wh-what?" He asked, looking up into her hateful yellow eyes. He hadn't heard of this. He had no idea.
"You idiot!" Windstorm hissed, jabbing her claws into his chest, "Don't you understand this? When you get older, we will need you to breed with the she-cats so the species can keep on going! If you don't do that, we die out." She glared harder. "It's not like you're going to have a choice. The moment you actually start looking like a cat and not a half-starved, retarded kitten, we're launching you straight into mating. Then we can ditch the likes of you."
Does...does this mean...that I am....not worthless?
"All you are is a worthless device," Windstorm hissed, "Something we have to use. So don't start thinking you can be a great warrior. You are a pointless, disgusting piece of crowfood. Just looking at you makes me want to throw up. Now get up. Get up and get the hell into the forest!! If you don't return with a lot of prey I'm going to start using violence to get you to shape up, asshole!"
She spun around and headed quickly out of the hollow, fur bristling. Faithpaw was left behind, all alone, fur burning at her words. His blue eyes were round and huge. He stared at the place she had been. Her words spun around his head.
You are worthless.
You are worthless.
You are worthless.
I am worthless.
I am worthless.
Sorry for such a long chapter.