Yes, I'm finally updating, and no, you aren't seeing things. It's true. ;3
So, yes. After nearly two months, welcome back to Dreampaw's world.
As for why I've taken so long...let's just say that life was trying to eat me alive. And this chapter was hard to write because I had to write it in two parts. And then I lost some of each part when the word processor froze up. . But hey, if I had updated sooner, you wouldn't have gotten this fantastically long chapter that is probably the best I can make it right now. :D
And who knows, maybe I'll have more time to update now that summer is only a few weeks away!
Now, since I haven't updated for so long, and I have so many reviews (love you guys), I'm just going to do some review replies here. I probably won't do these every chapter, maybe just when I have tons of reviews and haven't updated for a while.
Mossy: You're welcome. :3 *tosses Mossfire plushie*
Stormeh: Yay, I updated! XD I'm so bad at updating. *tosses Dreampaw plushie*
Shout: Okay, good. :D *tosses Star plushie just 'cause*
Rain: Yeah, I know that -Clan is always capitalized, but for the first few chapter, being a newbie, I forgot. XD *tosses Dreampaw plushie*
Big Gray (Guest): Awwww, thank you so much! Your encouragement really means a lot to me. And for Dreampaw's name (those are all great suggestions, by the way) it won't be quite so exotic. XD I have something a little more normal in mind.
Firestarlover123: Here's your update! *tosses Dreampaw plushie*
MusicLover500: Why, thank you! *tosses Star plushie*
Gray: Your choice, sistah. x3 But I'm glad you like it. *tosses Dreampaw plushie*
Silverwind1313: Thank you so much! And I will use Silverleaf later on in the story. *tosses Silverleaf plushie*
Joy: I'm glad you like it. :3 Here's the update, and your plushie. *tosses Star plushie*
Well, now that that's sorted out, please enjoy this lovely long chapter.
Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors, and obviously I am not Erin Hunter, because last time I checked, I was not four women. Just one girl who loves to write but has sporadic updates.
"What now?" Dreampaw complained, stumbling through the lush forest of StarClan. "I'm so tired."
"Almost there," Grassfeather answered mildly, brushing past a thick clump of vividly colored flowers.
Dreampaw tried to follow, but her paw caught on a root, causing her to go tumbling head over paws, straight into a tree.
"Ouch," Dreampaw muttered, rubbing her head with a paw.
An amused purr came from Grassfeather, as she stood a little way off, halfway through a narrow gap between two bushes. "Maybe you should look where you're going."
Dreampaw pulled herself to her paws and shook her fur out irritably. "Let's just go to wherever we're going."
Grassfeather chuckled, slipping between the bushes and out of sight. Dreampaw hurried behind her, trying to ignore the brambles that snagged in her long silver fur.
With a final tug, she forced her way out of the bushes and landed with a thump on the hard, packed dirt, scattering a pile of shredded, dirty leaves everywhere.
Grassfeather, who had been rummaging around in a gap in the roots of a tree, turned around at the noise and noticed where the apprentice had landed.
"Dreampaw!" she scolded. "You messed up the pile of trash that I just swept up!"
Dreampaw looked at the leaves guiltily. "Oops."
Grassfeather looked irritated. "Clean it up."
Dreampaw sighed in resignation, sweeping her plumy tail around the ground resentfully to sweep the leaves up before scrabbling them into a messy pile with her paws.
"That's better," Grassfeather mewed finally, after watching the sullen apprentice work at cleaning for a while.
Dreampaw sighed in relief, shaking the remaining scraps off of her dusty tail before sitting down on the hard earth.
Grassfeather pushed several piles of leaves out of the shadows towards Dreampaw. "The first thing I want you to understand right now is that I am a medicine cat."
Dreampaw nodded, already feeling sleepy.
"I will be teaching you how to heal. Which means that there will not be much moving about, but I still expect full alertness from you."
Dreampaw kept nodding.
Amiable Grassfeather seemed satisfied by the response. "Good. Now," she gestured towards the neat piles of leaves in front of Dreampaw, "tell me what differences you see in these leaves."
Dreampaw forced herself to look at the leaves. They seemed identical to her; all dark green with paler lines running through, a few slightly dried at the edges.
"I don't know," she mumbled finally. "They're all the same."
This time, Grassfeather was not happy with the answer. "Wrong. Dead wrong. Look closely at these, Dreampaw. Look at the subtle differences, the ones that you won't see with one glance."
Dreampaw obediently looked at the leaves.
Grassfeather rolled her eyes. "And get that sleepy look off your face."
Dreampaw didn't hear, too caught up in boredom and fatigue.
Grassfeather smacked her tail across Dreampaw's nose. "Wake up!"
The quick movement jolted Dreampaw out of her reverie, driving every last vestige of boredom out of her mind. Suddenly she had no problem paying attention.
"That's better," Grassfeather purred. "Now, look at those leaves closely and tell me the differences."
Dreampaw turned her gaze to the leaves, focusing on the subtleties this time. Quickly, the differences began jumping out at her. One type of the leaves had small, spiked edges. Another had a fuzzy surface. A third was smooth and glossy.
Dreampaw spoke up again, tentatively telling Grassfeather what she saw.
Grassfeather was happy this time. "Very good. Now we can really start learning."
As the afternoon wore on, Dreampaw's exhaustion did not fade, but she managed to repeat back to Grassfeather all the information that was told to her. She mindlessly reeled off a small list of herbs and their uses over and over until they were imprinted into her mind. As she walked back to the main StarClan camp, that was all she could hear as well, just the names of the different leaves and how they could heal.
She finally neared a huge round bush and pushed her way inside. A group of StarClan apprentices was gathered in the corner, whispering and giggling cheerfully.
"Hi," Dreampaw meowed tiredly. "What's up?"
A pretty golden she-cat named Birdpaw poked her head out of the huddle. "Oh, there you are, Dreampaw!" she purred. "I was beginning to think that you'd never get here."
Dreampaw looked around. "Am I going to stay here while I'm an apprentice?" she asked curiously.
Birdpaw nodded. "Yes. We're your new denmates!"
"And we're going to have so much fun!" a black tom named Shadepaw meowed from his nest on the other side of the den.
The rest of the apprentices burst into giggles, as if they were in on a secret that Dreampaw didn't know. She stood in the corner of the den, feeling awkward as she watched the other apprentices titter.
Birdpaw shot the others a glare that would have made a pool of water burst into flame.
They quieted instantly. Birdpaw clearly had enough authority over them for them to respect her word and obey her immediately.
"Come on," she mewed cheerfully to Dreampaw, though there was a darker feeling showing in her eyes. "My nest is over there. The one next to it is empty."
Dreampaw nodded, stumbling awkwardly over to the empty nest and dropping into it gratefully. "Thanks."
Birdpaw nodded in response, slipping out of the den quickly and quietly.
Dreampaw stared after Birdpaw. "Where's she going?" she mewed to the other apprentices, confusion evident in her voice.
The background buzz of the cats' laughing grew even louder, as if determined to drown her out.
Dreampaw snorted in annoyance, lowering her head and snuggling into her nest. Normally she would have rebelled outright at being ignored like that, but her legs were aching, her paws were sore, her eyes weren't staying open, and she had already forgotten most of what Grassfeather had taught her.
When Birdpaw came back into the den with a vole a few moments later, Dreampaw had already fallen asleep.
"Dreampaw," a voice hissed urgently, prodding the sleeping apprentice with an outstretched paw. "Dreampaw, wake up."
Dreampaw blearily opened one violet eye. "Wha-a-at?"
Mossfire's yellow eyes glowed. "You've been asleep since morning. It's just past sunhigh. Get up."
Dreampaw moaned in annoyance and wrapped her tail around her nose. "I want to sleep, though," she complained. "I haven't been sleeping that long!"
"So?" Mossfire retorted, shaking the apprentice some more. "Training time."
"I already trained today!"
"Well, it's time for my lesson. So, get up."
"Fine," Dreampaw grumbled, standing up and shaking moss out of her ruffled silver pelt.
Mossfire nudged the vole that Birdpaw had brought earlier. "Eat up fast. We're going out to the deep forest again."
Dreampaw pulled the vole towards her without complaint and devoured it in a few swift bites. Mossfire sat by, watching the apprentice while she absently ran her tongue over her paw.
In the moment that the last scrap vanished, Mossfire turned and padded out of the den, flicking her tail for the apprentice to follow. Dreampaw got to her paws quickly, running after Mossfire and trying to blink the heaviness out of her eyes.
Mossfire made no allowances for Dreampaw, keeping up a swift, steady pace as she nimbly leaped over stones and wove through the undergrowth. Dreampaw stumbled after her, paws catching on the ground and sleep still fogging her mind.
Before long, Dreampaw could see the huge, lush deep forest of StarClan in front of her. She veered off to the side, thinking that Mossfire must have brought her to the forest so they could have the lesson at the enchanted pool.
She was surprised by the not-so-pleasant sensation of teeth roughly grabbing her scruff and pulling her along.
"You are supposed to follow me," Mossfire growled, baring her cracked yellow teeth at the small apprentice.
"Oops," Dreampaw muttered guiltily.
Mossfire rolled her eyes, but didn't deign to answer, choosing instead to whip around and bound into the forest, leaving Dreampaw to scramble to her paws and run after her mentor.
Mossfire did not bother to slow down or take a reasonable pace as she ran through the forest, so Dreampaw was left to run with ragged breath, thorns snagging in her pelt, weeds whipping her face, and paws that sent jolts of discomfort, almost pain, through her legs.
Soon they were in a part of the forest that Dreampaw had never seen before. The trees were taller and more ominous, somehow. The shadows were deeper and darker, and the sun didn't seem to shine quite so brightly.
But Dreampaw was comforted by the realization that everything, despite being darker and scarier than the rest of the forest, was still glimmering with tiny stars.
Mossfire finally came to an abrupt halt in a small, sandy patch of ground next to a small trickle of water that could hardly be called a creek. Dreampaw skidded to an ungainly stop next to her, relieved to take the chance to catch her breath and let her aching paws dangle in the cool water.
Mossfire sat down, wrapping her tail around her paws and fixing Dreampaw with her luminous yellow gaze.
"Listen well," she murmured. "This is a very important lesson that I am about to tell you."
Dreampaw nodded, only half listening.
Mossfire began immediately, forcing Dreampaw to listen. Unlike her previous lessons, in which she had been running around or using her memory as well as she could, Mossfire seemed to be telling a story, like the old elders' tales that Dreampaw had liked to listen to as a kit.
"When the kit opened his eyes, the ground was said to have shaken, the stars were said to flicker out, and the moon was rumored to have gone the deepest red any cat had ever seen, like a pool of crimson blood.
The medicine cat knew in his heart that it was an omen. Some peril was going to come to the Clans, because of one single cat. He knew it would be the kit, that single one who opened his eyes that night, for the kit opened his eyes at the very same moment that the world seemed to quake and turn upside down.
The kit's eyes were violet."
At this, Dreampaw's head jerked up and she stared at Mossfire suspiciously, as if the older she-cat was planning something but she didn't know quite what it was.
Why is she telling me this? she wondered silently.
Mossfire continued with her story, not even acknowledging Dreampaw's reaction.
"His mother was smitten the moment her kit turned out to be different. She was ecstatic that her precious only kit was special. She soon convinced herself that it was her tiny son's destiny to become the greatest leader in the forest one day.
But the medicine cat thought otherwise.
For one reason or another, he felt compelled to tell the new mother about the impending doom of the Clans. He knew that this little, fuzzy, golden-furred kit with strange violet eyes would not grow up to be so innocent. He knew that beyond any vestige of doubt, and distrust of the newborn kitten grew in his heart.
But his encounter with the kit's mother did not turn out well.
He told her in a quiet voice about the shaking earth and the disappearing stars and the blood-red moon. He murmured that the strange events had coincided with the exact moment that the tiny kit had opened his eyes.
He told her that it was a dark omen for the kit. His future was cast in shadow, and with it, the fate of the Clans.
But the kit's mother would not listen. Her beautiful, special son was going to be great one day, she said firmly. The mere idea of the impending doom of the Clans was so ridiculous to her–and so horrifying, for she knew that the medicine cat had never been wrong about an omen–that she laughed crazily at the medicine cat, told him that he was losing his wits, and refused to let him anywhere near her unusual son. She named the kit Lightningkit for his golden pelt and the spark she had felt running through her when she first saw his eyes.
And she continually boasted to the rest of the Clan about her beloved Lightningkit, fantasizing about the great day to come when she would be the revered mother of a great leader named Lightningstar."
Dreampaw could not keep her eyes off of Mossfire now. Her gaze was riveted to her mentor, and she could not make her paws move or even make her ears twitch. Her mind was wholly focused on the story now, and she was desperate to hear more.
"Lightningkit grew up with a doting mother, spoiled past the belief of his Clanmates, and was always given everything he wanted. His mother was just as ambitious for him as she had been the day he was born, but she did not push him, being at least wise enough to realize that he couldn't become a leader as a kit. So instead, she fawned over him as if he was the greatest gift StarClan could give (which to her, he was) and obeyed his lightest wish. Of course, this affected Lightningkit, and he soon grew vain and lazy, with a steadfast belief that other cats, like his mother, were only there to serve him.
The day came when Lightningkit was to be apprenticed. His mother let him sleep as long as he wanted, finally waking him up barely before his ceremony at sunhigh. She gave him a fierce grooming, for once not listening to his complaints, smoothing his golden fur until she claimed it shone like the lightning he was named for, though to everyone else, his fur just looked sodden with his mother's spit.
Lightningkit spent the first part of the ceremony in an excited fervor, barely keeping himself contained. His mother was even more puffed up with pride than he was, determined that Lightningkit would be mentored by the deputy or the leader, or else they would never stop hearing her complaints.
Lightningkit's mentor was indeed the deputy, a young and pretty but very stern she-cat, one of the best warriors in the camp. Lightningkit's mother was elated that her kit's mentor was second in command of the whole Clan, failing to realize that the only real reason that Lightningkit got the deputy as a mentor was because every single other warrior had an apprentice or was too young to train one.
The next few moons of training were grueling for the lazy apprentice. His mentor wouldn't tolerate any nonsense at all from Lightningpaw, and made him run across the territory and back every time he dared to disobey her or cross her, for he had an obstinate nature, and she was trying to work some respect and obedience into him.
However, six full moons of being in the habit of acting as a spoiled brat did not come undone easily. Lightningpaw grew stronger and stronger, his warrior skills improved quickly, and he was no longer as dour and unpleasant.
But though he appeared to improve, he was as selfish and unconcerned about anyone but himself as his mother had taught him to be. Now that he was suddenly being pushed and pushed to become a great warrior to fulfill his mother's own ambitions, he grew bitter against everyone and hardened his heart to the cats who were trying to break him out of his laziness and into a good warrior.
As the time went on, Lightningpaw's mother stopped fawning over him and instead became colder and sterner, making Lightningpaw do the work for her instead of her doing work for him as she used to. She refused to praise Lightningpaw until he outshone the other apprentices in some exercise or another, which wasn't agreeable at all. Now Lightningpaw had to do all the work for her as she had done for him when he was a kit. He grew to dislike his mother even more.
But he couldn't ignore the seeds she planted in his heart, of an ambition to become a leader, no matter the cost. He was quickly realizing that no one in the Clan truly liked him for who he was, and there was no one who would ever support him on his path to leadership.
So if the path to leadership was drenched in blood, he thought, so be it."
Mossfire suddenly stopped talking and glanced nervously at the sky. Dreampaw was on the point of demanding why Mossfire had stopped, when she noticed where her mentor was looking and followed her gaze. A single wispy cloud was floating over the surface of the moon.
Surely this can't be anything unusual, Dreampaw mused, growing more puzzled every moment.
However, she was convinced that this was not anything normal when Mossfire leaped to her paws and raced off into the forest. Suddenly panicked, Dreampaw sprinted after her, fervently hoping that she wouldn't get lost as she maneuvered blindly through the undergrowth after her mentor.
Mossfire stopped running at the border of the deep forest of StarClan, where the vast green meadows and sparser forests stretched out as far as Dreampaw could see.
"Mossfire," Dreampaw panted. "What's going on? Why did you stop? Why did we leave?"
Mossfire took several moments to respond. When she did, she looked straight at Dreampaw, her yellow stare hard as stone and filled with the darkness of some unimaginable secret.
She spoke three words before turning and vanishing into the forest again.
"It has begun."
And that, my dear readers, marks the start of the real action of the story. I promise you, the next chapter is where things really start to heat up.
Let's see if I can update within two weeks.
Please review!