Woohoo! Chapter 8, here we go! Weee! OK, hyperness over. :P
.Skia.ex.to.astron.hey, I put in your whole username! Anyway, I appreciate stalkers. Not real ones, of course. Just ones who like my stories :D
Starlight of ThunderClan: yeah, vixenundermybed pointed that out before. Strange, isn't it? Hmm, maybe that means he's alive! Maybe he's actually going to come back in the books? I dunno. Well, he's alive here, so ha!! ;)
Blindseer220: I love him too :) He and Smokepaw, they'll make a good team. Wood can be the kind-hearted optimist, and Smokepaw can be the grumpy pessimist. What? He was raised in ShadowClan, remember:P Maybe Wood can give Smokepaw a better sense of humor.
Shadow of the Nights: who's Twigtooth? (Looks around) hmm… anyway, want rivalry scenes? Read everything after chapter 3. Especially the scene in the nest, where Cypress and Grass are arguing over Smokepaw. That's amusing to read. :D
Kura Sumi: I'm kinda lost, actually. Just who do you think Smokepaw really is? I'd be glad to get a private message or just a review with your suspicions.
Spiritwind of FireClan: right you are! I like her already :) and about Wood… you hang out with me too much. That's how you knew what he was up to… teehee! Weee!
I like my plushies: umm… no, Smokepaw and Wood are not related. Where did you get that idea?
WildTotodile: Wood's not afraid, he's just a very good actor. He's planning something… (Keep reading to find out hint hint)
RoseLizzi: yeah, I got that idea from me. I sometimes get that glint… hehehe… especially when I have a spork and a plate of beans. Beans fly well, you know.
Shaded-Strike: why thank you! Oh, in case you haven't noticed, I've been using your system of replying. Same font and all. You've inspired me! (hugs Shaded-Strike) (Shaded-Strike runs away from the crazy person writing this response)
mysterys: cool new username. It's more… mysterious.
Chapter 8
"So, this is Freezepool," mewed Stream as the circled around the frozen pool. Smokepaw felt the sudden urge to just glide across it like he'd done with Wood, but he knew that Stream and Leaf would never do that. He'd realized that Wood's antics were normally frowned upon. He could see why; the young trainee did such weird things, like gliding across frozen pools and acting like a hyperactive kit most of the time.
Smokepaw felt like he was the only one who knew about Wood's softer, calmer side. He remembered the way Frost, Yellowroot's apprentice, had talked down to him like he didn't know the difference between a rock and a rabbit. He remembered the way Stream had looked at Wood like he was nothing more than an immature kit, and he hated the way she'd told him he couldn't come on the tour with them. She acted as if he wasn't good enough—like he was too energetic, too young, to immature, too something to come. Even Leaf, who had remained emotionless so far, seemed to roll her eyes every time she looked at him.
They thought he was immature. But in Smokepaw's opinion, he was the most mature cat in all of Water Tribe. The only one who saw that violence wasn't the answer, and who wanted to strive for peace.
"Watch out!" cried Leaf, leaping in front of Smokepaw. For a moment, he was confused, but then he realized that he had been about to walk right into a defrosted part of the lake. He shivered just thinking about how cold the water would have been, and to emerge dripping and freezing in this weather might have killed him. The snowflakes coating his fur and covering his paws suddenly seemed much warmer.
"Watch where you're going," mewed Stream irritably. "C'mon, I want to get to Halfcedar before sunhigh."
Most of the Water Tribe territory was exactly the same: white, white, and more white. Everything was covered in snow and frost. The few bare trees looked like skinny brown skeletons, standing out like sore pads on the flat icy landscape. Though, to his pride, Smokepaw recognized one of the few landmarks he's seen with Wood yesterday. Though there weren't really many landmarks, since most everything was just ice and snow.
Finally they reached Stream's destination, just before sunhigh. All four of Smokepaw's paws were aching; three with exhaustion (they were doing more work since the fourth paw wasn't involved), and the fourth stung with cold although it was tucked safely into his chest.
Smokepaw hadn't been to Halfcedar with Wood, but he immediately figured out how it got its name. In the middle of yet another field of blank white ice stood a cedar tree, not particularly thick yet thicker than any tree Smokepaw had seen in the territory. Yet it seemed only to go halfway up; right at the top, or what might have been the middle long ago, the tree just… ended. There were a few splinters, but the tree continued no higher.
"How long has it been like that?" asked Smokepaw, and as soon as the words left his muzzle he wished they hadn't. What would Oakfur say if he heard his apprentice ask an unnecessary question such as that?
"Questions show weakness, Smokepaw," meowed Oakfur, his dark brown pelt illuminated by the sunlight dappling through the pine trees of the training hollow. "ShadowClan warriors never show weakness. You must find your own answers, because ShadowClan cats are the only ones capable of doing so. All the other Clans just ask each other for help and for answers, but ShadowClan are strong. You can be strong too, Smokepaw. Any questions?"
Smokepaw thought for a moment; he had plenty of questions. But the young apprentice was smart, and he knew what Oakfur was playing at. It was a test.
"No, Oakfur. I have no questions. I'll find my own answers to any questions I have."
Oakfur purred with pride. "Very good, Smokepaw."
Smokepaw had done well that training session. He briefly wondered if he'd ever see the marsh surrounded training hollow again, and he tried to push away the wave of homesickness threatening to overwhelm him. He just wanted to go home. He wanted to see Talonpaw again, to see Nightwing, even to see Blackstar. But he knew that they wouldn't approve of the decisions he'd made.
He'd asked too many questions, allowed himself to receive too much help, even made a friend. Wasn't that contrary to the ShadowClan way?
"Watch it!" called Stream, but too late. Smokepaw walked straight into Halfcedar, jamming his muzzle on the frozen bark.
Leaf couldn't help but laugh, her laughter escaping her muzzle and floating away on the wind. "You're a bit clumsy, aren't you?"
Smokepaw tried to smile, suddenly embarrassed. "No, I'm just sort of lost in thought," he replied, knowing that he had a pretty pathetic excuse for bumping into a tree. Nice going.
Leaf purred with amusement as Smokepaw shook the splinters from his fur. "What?" he snapped, glaring at her as best he could, but he still had splinters in his vision threatening to poke at his eyes.
Leaf couldn't help but think that this new cat was… interesting. He had barely spoken, he seemed to have a grouchy personality, but there was something about him… maybe Yellowroot was right about him. He did seem a lot like the cat the prophecy described. And maybe he wouldn't be so grumpy if someone actually tried to talk to him. Like Wood. He seemed fine with Wood, right?
"So, what's your name?" she asked him casually, padding beside him as he continued to shake splinters from his fur.
"What's yours?" he countered, though Leaf was sure he already knew.
"I'm Leaf," she meowed, trying not to sound annoyed. "And she's my mentor, Steam." She flicked her tail at the grayish she-cat who was walking a few fox-lengths ahead of them. "And you are?"
"None of your business," grumbled Smokepaw, stilled sour from bumping into the tree and feeling hostile to Leaf and Stream after their behavior towards Wood. Sour and hostile, bad thoughts and bad experiences; all common feelings for a ShadowClan cat, and very unfortunate for any cat coming into contact with one.
"You're going to have to tell someone sooner or later," Leaf teased, starting to enjoy herself. "Whitewater's going to want to know."
"Then I'll tell her," Smokepaw replied flatly.
"Then why won't you tell me?" asked Leaf.
"Are you two going to stand there bickering like Ice Tribe fighters all day, or are you coming?" called Stream from up ahead, sounding equally as grumpy as Smokepaw.
"Great StarClan, what's biting her tail?" Smokepaw muttered.
"Look who's talking, gray grumpypaws," Leaf laughed. She wondered why she was acting silly the way she was. Normally Leaf was a timid cat, always hesitant to hurt the feelings of others and protective of the cats around her. She was also normally very observant, but she had totally missed Smokepaw's use of the strange word "StarClan".
Had she asked, Smokepaw might have told her that StarClan was a clan of dead cats who watched over the living and guided them through their lives. Leaf would have laughed, saying that only the cats of Sky Tribe were capable of that. Every cloud in the sky was a different Sky Tribe warrior. In this icy country, it was cloudy almost all the time, and much of the time you couldn't even tell one cloud from another; the sky was always shrouded in white mists. It was believed that on the rare occasions where it was less cloudy or there were even no clouds in the sky, that Sky Tribe was angry. No one stopped to consider that Sky Tribe should be angry now at the escalating rivalry of the two tribes.
"So, this is the Ice Tribe border," meowed Stream, turning her head to see the two young cats lagging behind. "Are you two coming or what?" She paused, a slight grin playing on her lips. "Or are you two busy flirting?"
Stream looked very pleased by her clever remark, and was even more pleased by the reaction.
"Me? Flirt with him?" Leaf growled. "I don't flirt with grumpy piles of mouse dung."
"How could mouse dung be grumpy?" Smokepaw countered. "Mouse dung doesn't have feelings. Anyway, I would never flirt with you. I was just defending myself from your pathetic, pointless teasing."
"Mouse dung doesn't have feelings? That's not true; you seem pretty upset," retorted Leaf.
Smokepaw drew his lips back into a snarl, his dark fur bristling under the blanket of frost coating his fur. "Don't mess with me," he meowed darkly, in a threatening low hiss mastered only by the cats of ShadowClan, and then stalked ahead of Leaf to join Stream at the border.
Stream looked on with amusement, but she didn't comment. Her smug grin spoke louder than any remark she could have made. "So here's the Ice Tribe border," she meowed airily. She briefly wondered about the new cat's temper, or lack of thereof, but pushed those thoughts away. If he was the chosen one, then she didn't give a fish tail for his temper.
The Ice Tribe border wasn't really much of a border. It wasn't even a landmark like Halfcedar or Freezepool. It wasn't even visible. It was just a trail of scent marks, and it seemed to Smokepaw like you would only know the border was there if you had been there many times before, like Stream, or if you walked straight into the rank air of Ice Tribe scent marks. Otherwise, the landscape was perfectly normal; white, white, snow, snow, then more white and snow.
Leaf was about to continue walking across the border, but Stream froze her with a wave of her snow-flaked tail. "Don't go that way," she meowed. "Aspen and Willow found a snow fox there yesterday, remember?"
"Right," mewed Leaf, embarrassed. She should have remembered. Aspen and Willow had darted back into camp with horrified expressions on their faces, between gasps for breath shouting out a single word.
Fox! The word echoed eerily in her mind. No one had been back in that part of the territory since then, but she'd heard that Whitewater was organizing a patrol to go and kill it.
"We'll just go back the way we came," mewed Stream, shaking the snowflakes off her pelt. Smokepaw and Leaf quickly did the same.
As soon as they changed directions, Leaf felt herself walking against the wind, which was especially hard since she was also walking through a thick blanket of snow. The breeze, though light, was bone chilling. The young she-cat felt herself shiver as the cold blast ruffled the fur on her face. But then she scented something.
She paused, focusing her eyes straight ahead. She could just make out something moving in the snow, then in disappeared into a snowdrift.
It's hard to see, she thought. Flakes of snow were beginning to fall from the sky; any cat would have trouble seeing in a snow shower. It was probably just a mouse.
Sure enough, after a few pawsteps, a mouse's head appeared out of the snow. Unable to resist the temptation, mouse scent filling her nose, she pounced and snapped the scrawny gray mouse's neck with a swipe of her paw.
"What'd you do that for?" grumbled Smokepaw. "Now we have to carry it all the way back."
"Relax, grumpypaws," muttered Leaf through a mouthful of mouse fur. "I'll carry it, and now we'll have extra food for the tribe."
Smokepaw glared scathingly at her, his piercing yellow gaze fixed on her, trying to catch her eye. He wanted her to see his trademark glare so she would leave him alone. But Leaf was smarter than she acted; she knew what he was doing, and didn't give him the satisfaction of looking. So the three cats padded wordlessly back towards the Water Tribe camp in a single file line, Stream at the front.
Smokepaw, though he didn't say it, was grateful to be after Stream, because she was clearing a path through the thickening snow for him. Leaf was behind him; good. He didn't want to appear weak by having her go first, and then walking would be easiest for him.
As they rounded Freezepool, Smokepaw thought of Wood, gliding across the ice. He wished his friend was there now, to save him from Leaf's annoying behavior and to lead him back to the nice warm den. If only Wood had come on the tour with them…
Without warning, a brown figure leapt out from behind a pillar of snow. Leaf only had time to gasp before it slammed into her side, causing her to stagger backwards and loose her balance. She almost snarled in frustration as she tried vainly to regain her footing, but she had stumbled onto a sheet of ice, so she just kept slipping. Suddenly, her paws gave way beneath her, and she fell backwards onto the Freezepool.
Whitewater was right; the ice was thin. Too thin to hold the weight of a falling trainee. Leaf went crashing through the ice into the freezing water.
"Leaf!" cried Stream, hurried over to the water's edge to pull her trainee out.
Smokepaw glanced around, looking for the cat who did this. His eyes fell upon the small brown figure, sitting in plain sight, snow flakes covering his fur. The cat's amber eyes shone with satisfaction, and he let out a purr of amusement.
"Wood!" yelled Stream and Smokepaw simultaneously. Stream was snarling in annoyance, but Smokepaw looked just as entertained as his friend. He brushed Wood's flank playfully.
"Nice," he laughed, winking.
Wood returned the wink, and the watched in amusement as Stream hauled Leaf out of the water.
Leaf shook herself, shivering violently. Her ears were flattened, as well as her fur, which dripped with the freeze water. She glared fiercely at Wood, with almost as much intensity as Smokepaw. Almost.
"You'll be in big trouble for this," hissed Stream. "And that is why we didn't want you to come."
She stalked off with Leaf, guiding her shivering trainee back to camp. Smokepaw and Wood looked on, sniggering.
"I suppose she was bothering you?" Wood asked.
Smokepaw nodded. "I was just wishing you were there to save me, and then you came!"
Wood laughed. "That's the most enthusiasm I've ever heard you talk with," he meowed, and he seemed serious. It was true, after all.
Suddenly, the small tom's amber eyes clouded. "I'm going to be in huge trouble for this," he mumbled.
Smokepaw nodded; huge was an understatement.
And then the two toms broke out laughing again.
(sigh) toms… Before you say it, I know that was mean, but admit it, it was funny :D And look at the bright side: Smokepaw is laughing! Since when was he happy? Since now! He's cheering up, yay!
But Wood's still gonna be in trouble, you know. And you still don't know the prophecy! Mwahahaha! Oh well, I guess you'll just have to keep reading!
--Moonstar
P.S this is the longest chapter I've EVER written! YAY! Almost 3,000 words!
