This time, when Flametail awoke, it was dark. A slight breeze rustled through the trees, and Patches was sound asleep.
I need to get back to the clan now, he thought immediately. He stood up and stretched his leg for a minute, then quickly headed off the direction of his home. Turning briefly to glance back at Patches, he gave a silent prayer to StarClan that she would be alright until he returned. Then he ran off leaving her out of sight in the blackness.
Once he was back in his own territory, he began to hunt again, for the night crawlers. Once he had caught quite a few, he would bury them, then he would have an excuse for having been gone so long.
Back at HorizonClan camp, it was quite and empty, just as he expected. Everyone was sleeping. He headed for the warrior's den, eager to sleep inside of it again, when a familiar face popped out in front of him.
"Where have you been?!" Lemonfur bellowed.
Flametail twitched his ears, this she-cat could really be a pain sometimes. "Sorry...I was hunting."
"For that long?! Give me a break! What's the deal here? We can't have a deputy that goes missing, then tells us lies!"
"Well I have a lot of prey stashed to prove it!"
"Wha...?" Another familiar figure came crawling out of the den. Fawnbreeze.
"He's back," Lemonfur sneered.
Fawnbreeze blinked at him, "Flametail? Where were you...?"
"Hunting," he repeated.
"Of course," another cat, this time, Flametail turned around to see Sunstar staring at him. "Hopefully you caught enough prey to last us a few days, because you were certainly gone long enough."
"Well...I have...a lot."
"Do you need help carrying it? I can come along, when it's sun high, and help," Fawnbreeze volunteered.
Flametail almost purred. She was the most laid back cat in the entire clan.
"I'd like to go along. I want to see just what you have caught," Lemonfur broke the moment with her fiery attitude again.
"You both may go. Hopefully you come back with your time's worth, Flametail," and with that, Sunstar turned with a flick of his tail, back toward his den.
Flametail sighed and stalked around Lemonfur and Fawnbreeze into the den to get some sleep. As he passed, Lemonfur murmured, "You're crowfood if there isn't enough prey to feed all of us." He ignored her, and went to curl up in the back of the den.
As he drifted off to sleep again, he dreamt of Patches. Some of the dreams were good, where she was a beautiful mother frolicking with a lively litter of kits. Some were bad, where she was nothing but a frail stray, fading away into death. He wondered which were actually going to come true.
Flametail had almost forgotten was it was like to wake up to the blazing sun, and burning sand. He stood outside of the den entrance squinting at the sun, and purring for a few minutes, when Featherear padded up to him, and sat down, facing the same direction.
He stayed silent for a while, then with a sigh said, "Welcome back."
"Are you going to question me too?" Flametail opened his eyes and turned to face his friend.
"Well I heard the same thing from more than one cat, so...I'm assuming you went hunting. For a very long time."
"Yeah, well I really did catch a lot. I guess I just felt suddenly more committed than ever." Flametail shuttered at the lie he just told. False commitment to your clan, especially when you're deputy was terrible.
"Guess you're stuck with Lemonfur."
"You had to remind me." Flametail started toward the pile of fresh kill, which was fairly small, and Featherear followed.
"Sorry. I can go along too if you would like."
"Sure. Unless you have something better to do, I have already got two she-cats going with me." He picked out a small mouse, and sniffed it, without meeting Featherear's gaze.
"I've got nothing better to do. Ashpaw is training with Sandclaw and Stormpaw today."
Flametail twitched his ears while eating in small bites, "Why?"
"Stormpaw isn't catching on very easily. Sunstar thought he could train with another apprentice."
"Oh." Flametail noticed Featherear sitting idley, "Aren't you going to eat?"
"I'm not really hungry."
"Strange. Are you upset about Ashpaw?"
"Probably. I tend to be the jealous type."
Lemonfur and Fawnbreeze showed up on either side of the two toms then.
"Ready to go, mouse-brain?" Lemonfur asked, spitting on Flametail's mouse.
"Yeah...let's go." He frowned at his half eaten breakfast, and started walking away without waiting for someone else to make first action.
Because of all the complaining from Lemonfur, Fawnbreeze, and Featherear kept quiet. As they gathered Flametail's heaps of prey, she still wasn't satisfied.
"I knew you wouldn't get enough! This is only enough for half the clan!"
"Oh, for StarClan's sake, Lemonfur, get a grip. Prey is scarce around here anymore." Featherear protested.
Flametail smiled at his friend for his defense.
"We'll just see what Sunstar says about it."
Fawnbreeze had been silent the whole time, but she shook her head shamefully at Lemonfur's rude remarks as the four ventured back toward camp with mouthfuls of kill each.
"Well, for our amount of prey, I am quite impressed," Sunstar sniffed the pile inspectingly.
Flametail felt relieved. Normally the clan leader was much more critical.
"But Sunstar, it's still not enough for the whole clan," Lemonfur, trying to cause trouble again.
"We have plenty of other fresh kill from the rest of the clan. I hope you keep up the good work, Flametail," Sunstar nodded approvingly, and left.
Lemonfur snarled and turned on her paw, to walk away, defeated.
"I'll tell the apprentices to take some of this to the elders," Fawnbreeze said, also departing.
"I wonder how Ashpaw is doing," Featherear wondered out loud.
Flametail motioned with his tail to where the apprentice was standing, "Go check."
Featherear followed the order, and approached his apprentice eargerly.
Flametail was alone again, and there were no suspicions. He needed to take food to Patches again. Quickly he grabbed some prey, with some extra to last her for a while, and checked to make sure no one was watching, then he slipped out of camp unseen again.
Flametail had ran to reach the trees again, making his leg sore, and his tongue sore from grasping tightly to the food. He stopped near Patches spot to rest and loosen his tension. Dropping the prey for a minute, and sniffing the air, something seemed different, and Patches' scent was very faint. Starting to worry, he picked up the prey, and padded slowly to her place, where, to his dismay, she was not.