Ch 11 New Members J

After the wings, we got into a pretty straightforward pattern; get up in the morning, breakfast, morning patrol, random whatever, lunch, more random whatever, dinner, evening patrol, sleep. Actually, it was kind of boring. We mostly explored and flew (that never got old.)

Since we were the whole way across the country from where I used to live, every now and then I'd fly back and see if I could find any of my old friends. I never talked to them, but I checked up on them. I used the minicomputer from the school to keep my different online accounts working.

One day we all went on patrol together. Silverfire was our 'eyes in the sky' as we usually called it. (She got an eagle-eye view NOT fair!) We spread out enough that we could see a long distance but we could still hand-signal each other if we saw anything. I mostly depended on my different senses to figure out what was going on.

Suddenly I caught a quick whiff of something. It was so close to nothing that I couldn't figure out what it was. I signaled the other girls as fast as my hand would move. They instantaneously blended into the different trees, and Silverfire circled higher. (Apparently since trees could burn and we were from the Clan of Fire we could go through wood. Who would've guessed?) I blended into a random oak tree and slipped up the side to take a look. I saw some branches moving in a nearly invisible breeze, but I had the feeling that it wasn't just a breeze.

I jumped to the next tree easily and slid down to take a closer look. I could see a silvery gray glimmer of color through the branches there were two pure white spots near the ground and since I figured that it must be a Warrior, it was probably their paws. A flicker of movement to my left, I glanced towards it quickly, but it seemed to have vanished.

Then the breeze changed direction. I quickly inhaled, trying to figure out the strange smell. I almost recognized it, I knew it, but I couldn't place where I'd smelled it before.

Suddenly a mountain of silver fur, white paws, and ice blue eyes flew out of the bushes. I recognized the scent as I practically flew up the tree because she startled me. Her name was Kalli. She was one of the girls from Lily Wilderness Academy that we'd seen the file for the night we escaped. She was the only other Warrior there besides us, and I'd felt bad about not really taking her with us when we ran away.

She darted up the tree after me and I signaled the other girls not to attack while almost screaming in terror.

Then another flash of silver fur darted after her. Now I was just confused. I quickly jumped to the next tree and yelled for her to stop chasing me. She gave me a quick confused glance and I realized that she wouldn't recognize me because A.) I was flared B.) It's hard to remember people out of where you met them C.) I looked nothing like the same girl and D.) I hadn't really talked to her that much.

I quickly asked her to shift back and she easily got her balance on two legs. The other cat, who turned out to be a newer girl from the Lily Academy from after we got out, was a 9-year-old kid named Caily. She might be small compared to us, but she was obviously as tough as they came. They told us that they had pretty much the same story we did. Listen in, figure out that they were toast, escape, take files and books, and study up on their own, trying to figure out what to do next. I asked what their warrior names were and they just looked at me, totally blank. I quickly explained and the flipped to the page. Kalli's was Icefeather and Caily's was Stormpaw. We also had them check their Clans. They were both in SunClan so that totally rocked.

We'd looked at the one chart and it said that names went by age 0-6 kit (second part of name kit), 6-12 apprentice (second part of name paw), 12+ Warrior/Elder your choice.

Icefeather was a really good description of how she looked: her fur was silvery- gray like some bird species, and her eyes were actually a pretty shade of ice-blue. That kind of creeped me out because that was the same way Scourge's eyes were described, except hers were warm. You could tell just by looking at her for a microsecond that she was a nice person.

Stormpaw's name was just as accurate, or at least the storm part was. Her fur was all dark gray like a storm cloud, and her eyes were a glowing emerald green. That looked totally awesome together.

We all joined up. We had plenty of supplies and the new girls brought some of their own. (And yes, this is still an all-girls group.) Icefeather knew Stormpaw better than any of us and she was a total Warriors fan so she agreed to train Stormpaw as an apprentice. Silverfire, Flowerleaf, and Autumnlily helped if either of them didn't understand something and Waterlight and I kept up the patrols.

Pretty soon, it felt like we'd all been Clanmates since forever. Icefeather and Stormpaw fit right in, and they were just as nuts as the rest of us. They already had their wings, so that was a real bonus, but they hadn't tried them yet. We took them to Lookout Rock and they were flying in no time. (Literally, they didn't wait for us; they just jumped and rocked it!)

Finally, we started debating what we hadn't thought of all this time. Who in StarClan's name would actually be in charge? Did we need a leader? We'd been doing just fine without one. Were we actually going to do the different ceremonies that the Warriors did? Did we need a medicine cat? If we chose a leader, would they really get nine lives? (With our lives, you never knew.) The one thing we all agreed on was we wouldn't end up like Mossfire and Jumpfoot who fought to be the leader of ShadowClan in the books and ended up killing each other. We were a Clan, first and foremost, and we'd stand by each other, with or without a leader, medicine cat, or traditions.