Author's Note: It's been a while, I know. I got really into a game, and then went on vacation, and then school started not long after that. I just kind of lost inspiration for this fanfiction. Recently though I reread Bluestar's Prophecy and kind of got back into the Warriors spirit, so the other day I felt like doing some Warriors writing and started working on this chapter. It was fun to write, and I think I'm going to start working on this more again. I have a lot less time due to school than I did when I started in the summer, so I'm not going to promise when I'll have the next chapter done, but it will be written. I need to work on the outline for this a lot first though maybe.
Anyways, with this chapter we're actually getting the plot moving a little bit more. There's probably going to be a whole lot of chapters since there's a lot of things to develop and then eventually play out and whatnot from here to the end. (I mean, there's four main characters, and each comes with their whole set of crap going on hehe.)
Thwack!
"Ow!" Snowpaw complained loudly as he sat up in his nest, his head thudding a little with pain from the force of his brother's paw. "What are you doing?"
"Waking you up," Dewpaw growled irritably. "We're supposed to be going on a border patrol with Toadstep, Blossomfall, and Cherrypelt."
Snowpaw peered past his brother out of the den entrance. The cloudy gray sky and chill in the air served as unconvincing evidence of the truth that it was fast approaching sunhigh. The white-pelted apprentice stretched his legs as he stood up, giving his flank a few quick licks. "Fine. Let's go."
The two apprentices padded out into the camp and were quickly greeted by a bitterly cold breeze that swept their pelts into disarray. "Great," Dewpaw muttered, while Snowpaw silently gazed around at the few activities going on. Cinderheart was watching Sunkit and Sootkit near the nursery entrance as they play fought with one another. Birchfall and Whitewing were sharing a sparrow, seemingly absorbed in a conversation about the coming troubles leafbare would bring. Jayfeather was sorting herbs in his den. It seemed as if most of the clan was out of the camp.
"Finally," Cherrypelt commented with relief as the toms arrived to meet up with the rest of the patrol at the camp entrance. "I thought we were never going to get started."
"You can blame Snowpaw," Dewpaw told her. "I don't think he'd wake up on his own if ShadowClan was invading the camp with every single warrior they have."
Snowpaw glared at the gray tom. "At least I'd know how to fight the ShadowClan warriors if they were invading," he mewed angrily.
Dewpaw growled in response but wasn't able to say anything as Blossomfall quickly interrupted. "Come on. We need to get to the WindClan border and renew the scent markers before hedgehogs fly." With a flick of her tail, the tortoiseshell quickly spun around and headed into the forest, and the remaining cats swiftly followed her lead.
The undergrowth was thick with fallen leaves that crunched underpaw as the cats made their way along, soon arriving at the WindClan border. Snowpaw peered down at the water rushing along the stream that marked where their territory ended and WindClan's moorland began, shivering as he imagined falling into the freezing depths. Why there was even a single clan that ever chose to swim was beyond him.
Opening his mouth to taste the air, the white tom's ears pricked up as he detected the scent of mouse. Glancing at the rest of the patrol, he could see them remarking the border, and decided that he would go hunt for a moment. Sniffing, the apprentice realized that the scent came from further along the border.
Excitement tingled in his paws as he headed further from his patrol. While Dewpaw's back there complaining about the wind messing up his pelt, I'll be the one who's actually taking care of the clan.
Snowpaw froze as he spotted the mouse ahead through the trees. The small, furry brown creature was farther into ThunderClan territory than the apprentice had expected. Lying low to the ground by the trunk of a tree so as not to be spotted, he could see the prey nibbling at something it held in its tiny paws. Just as he was about to start slinking toward it, he felt a particularly violent gust of wind hit his flank.
Turning away from the mouse for a moment, he glanced over toward the WindClan border where the breeze had come from. It was a windy day, but the gust had seemed far more forceful than the one that had hit him and Dewpaw earlier. After a moment he was about to shrug it off and turn back to hunting when a volley of strong breezes, one after the other, stung his face.
Abandoning the mouse, the white tom padded in the direction of the wind curiously. As he neared the WindClan border, he soon spotted a she-cat sitting along the edge, her paws lifted in the air. She had the appearance of an apprentice, and her fur was black and white. Having never been to a Gathering before, Snowpaw had no way of knowing who she was. As he stared at her, he saw the WindClan apprentice move her paws in the air, and at that same moment he could feel gusts of wind rushing by him in the directions that she had moved her paws.
Within an instant, his eyes lit up as the memory of the lightning and thunder he had created came into his head. Without a second thought he immediately bounded toward the apprentice, and she seemed to be rather startled as he halted across from her.
"Hi!" Snowpaw mewed excitedly.
"Oh, hello," the she-cat replied in a surprised tone.
"I'm Snowpaw," he introduced himself.
"Swiftpaw," the WindClan apprentice replied a little warily.
"Don't worry, I know that you weren't trying to hunt on our territory or anything," Snowpaw informed her. "I saw you creating the wind."
Swiftpaw was immediately taken aback. "Creating wind? What are you talking about?"
"You don't have to hide it from me," the white tom meowed proudly. "I'm special too."
Suddenly Swiftpaw's uncertain gaze turned into a glare. "I'm not special!" she snapped. As Snowpaw backed away a little bit, the she-cat's anger faded and she mewed quietly, "Sorry, it's just that cats thinking I'm special and wonderful and everything has kind of made a mess of things with me and my sister lately… I guess I am kind of special since I was creating wind and everything…"
Snowpaw didn't really understand what Swiftpaw was talking about but nodded anyway. "It's okay," he told her. "I can create stuff too. Here, I'll show you."
The ThunderClan apprentice raised his paw enthusiastically. After a quick look at Swiftpaw to make sure that she was watching, he thought of lightning and brought the paw down as quickly as he could. Instantly, a bolt of lightning came from his paw and struck the ground. For a moment he was temporarily blinded from the burst of light before his vision adjusted and he could see the she-cat gazing at him in awe.
Before Swiftpaw managed to comment on his abilities, however, they could hear Toadstep calling for his apprentice. Knowing that the patrol could come this way any moment and catch him with a WindClan cat, the white tom swiftly turned to the black-and-white she-cat and mewed, "Meet me here tonight."
"What?" Snowpaw heard Swiftpaw mew in surprise as he raced back to his patrol, and he wondered if she was going to come. Surely she would. They could be a part of a new Three or something! There was so much to discuss! As the apprentice returned to where he had left Toadstep, Blossomfall, Dewpaw, and Cherrypelt, he found that they were all staring at him accusingly.
"Where were you?" his mentor demanded. "We finished marking the border without you!"
"I smelled a mouse and went off to chase it, but it crossed the border before I could catch it," Snowpaw lied confidently.
"Yeah, right," Dewpaw scoffed. "You probably went off to chase butterflies or something."
"It took you that long to fail at catching a single mouse?" Cherrypelt mewed.
"Next time, you should focus more on the task at paw," Toadstep told him. "And it's usually okay to hunt on a border patrol if you scent something, but if you're going to spend that much of the time hunting rather than marking the border it's important that you actually catch something."
Snowpaw suffered silently through his mentor's chastisements, but inwardly felt quite annoyed. He hadn't just been off wasting time. He had been talking to a cat who was important for the future of the clans just like he was! Of course, they couldn't know that. He supposed that Lionblaze, Jayfeather, and Dovewing had probably had to suffer the misunderstanding of their clanmates as they prepared to save the four clans. If they could manage it, so can I.
The patrol headed back to camp shortly, but Snowpaw knew that Toadstep was disappointed with him and would probably tell him to help with the elders' ticks later. And that was a task better suited for Amberpaw, not a cat like him who had been chosen by StarClan and was good at hunting and fighting. His sister often struggled to catch a single piece of fresh-kill or perform any battle move correctly. She had already frustrated Bumblestripe so much yesterday that her mentor had assigned her to cleaning out the elders' bedding on the current day rather than training.
As they returned to camp, Snowpaw spotted the gray-and-white she-cat coming out of the elders' den with various bits of moss and bracken stuck to her pelt. He was about to go over and ask her if she wanted to share a piece of fresh-kill when he heard another cat call out, "Hey, Snowpaw!" Turning in the direction of the exclamation he saw that it was Seedpaw.
"Want to share this vole with me?" the ginger she-cat asked him, motioning toward the plump prey lying at her paws.
"Sure," Snowpaw replied, padding over to the older apprentice and sitting down beside her. As the white tom took a bite of the vole, Seedpaw glanced over at Amberpaw.
"Poor Amberpaw," Seedpaw remarked sympathetically. "Having to spend the day cleaning out bedding instead of training when she didn't even really do anything wrong."
Snowpaw swallowed and replied with a frown, "That's not exactly true. She's done everything wrong. The problem is that she hasn't done anything right."
"I don't think it's her fault though," the she-cat responded. "She's just clumsy and nervous. That's who she is."
Snowpaw shrugged. "I suppose you're probably right, but she won't become a warrior anytime soon at this rate." There was a short pause as Seedpaw took a bite of the vole before Snowpaw inquired, "Where's Lilypaw?"
"Out on a hunting patrol," the ginger she-cat meowed. "She would have already been on one but Dovewing wanted to get in a little battle training with her earlier since she's a little lacking in that area still."
Snowpaw nodded his head as he chewed on some more of the vole, looking up at the sky for a moment. It was beginning to grow darker and the sun was sinking in the sky. It wouldn't be long before it set, and he would go meet with Swiftpaw.
Inky blackness consumed the warriors' den, making it difficult for Snowpaw to figure out where to place his paws as he headed out into the camp. Soon, moonlight washed over his pelt like a crashing wave, further brightening his white pelt. The apprentice peered over toward the camp entrance where Thornclaw stood guard, the golden brown tabby's eyes intently staring out into the forest.
Making sure to move as silently as possible, Snowpaw sneaked around the edge of the camp to reach the dirtplace tunnel. Holding his breath, he swiftly padded through the unappealing exit and into the crowd of tall trees where ThunderClan cats stalked about in search of prey during the day. At night it was a little eerie, illuminated by silver starlight with the hooting of owls echoing through the thick darkness.
The ThunderClan tom headed forward through the familiar territory toward the WindClan border, starting to go faster as he remembered what he and Swiftpaw needed to talk about. We have powers. We're destined for greatness.
Upon approaching the stream he made sure to walk to where he had met with Swiftpaw earlier that day. It did not take him long to spot the WindClan apprentice sitting on the other side of the blue ribbon of water, her yellow eyes seeming to be searching among the trees for Snowpaw. He padded forward into her field of vision and mewed, "Hey! It's nice to see you again. I'm glad you decided to come."
"Well, it's hard not to be curious when you see a cat create lightning," Swiftpaw admitted with a smile.
"That's true. And actually, that's not all I can do," Snowpaw told her boastfully. To demonstrate, he lifted a paw and smacked it down on the ground, feeling greatly pleased when he heard the clap of thunder that he had made.
"Wow," Swiftpaw said excitedly. "I can do more than create wind too. Watch."
The black-and-white she-cat began to race around the edge of the border. She was so fast that Snowpaw couldn't even see her clearly, and he grinned zealously. "Cool! We both have some pretty awesome abilities like the Three did."
"Oh, that was such a fun story when I was a kit, which wasn't that long ago I guess," the young she-cat meowed cheerfully. "I guess we do sort of have powers like they did."
"Exactly," Snowpaw replied with a nod. "Maybe we were meant to meet here earlier."
"What do you mean?" the WindClan she-cat asked.
"Well, we don't just have these powers for nothing, right? Surely StarClan meant for us to be this way just as they did with the Three. Maybe we have great destinies like they did, and we were supposed to meet each other here so that we can fulfill a prophecy or something."
Swiftpaw looked a little doubtful. "But what prophecy would we need to fulfill? There's nothing big threatening the clans right now. And if there was one, wouldn't we know about it?"
"How do we know there's no big threat to the clans? They didn't know about the Dark Forest and everything for a long time," Snowpaw pointed out. "As for the prophecy, all of the Three didn't know about it, remember? Only Jayfeather knew for a while until eventually he told the others. There are probably others besides just the two of us, and one of them might know about a prophecy or something."
"That makes sense," Swiftpaw agreed. The apprentice seemed to think for a moment and then added, "If there are other cats with powers like us, maybe they're in the other clans since we're in different clans and it's kind of like what we can do is based on our clan names. You know, like how you can create thunder while I can create wind?"
The ThunderClan apprentice wasn't entirely fond of the idea of one being in filthy ShadowClan. "There could be a cat in RiverClan or something I guess," he conceded hesitantly. "Or they could be in our clans too for all we know."
"True. How about we meet up at the next Gathering to scout out any possible cats with powers but observe our clanmates in the meantime?" Swiftpaw suggested.
"Okay," Snowpaw mewed. He glanced up at the sky and saw that it had grown slightly lighter. He needed to head back. "I'll see you there then."
"See you then," Swiftpaw told him in farewell, and the two cats departed to go to their respective camps. As Snowpaw headed through the near-silent forest, he couldn't help but feel a little energetic despite having not gone to sleep yet. Who needs to sleep? I'm going to be even greater than Lionblaze, or maybe even Firestar…