A/N: No, I shall not come here and feed you some made up story that I wrestled with four sharks at once that landed me in the hospital which is why I couldn't update. No, the true reason is that I was utterly and absolutely lazy and enjoying my summer. Now that that's out of the way, please read, enjoy, and review!
A black head came out cautiously from the bracken, glancing at the surroundings. The warrior pulled the scents over her scent glands, and after waiting, decided it was ok. She whispered something unintelligible to the bracken behind her, and slowly slipped out from her bracken. Snowpaw's eyes were wide in fear, for this was a pure black she-cat ShadowClan warrior, not her ginger tom. Alerted by the whisper, Swiftfang slunk out of the bracken, his gaze brightened immediately after he put his eyes on the small white apprentice.
"Swiftfang!" Snowpaw cried out as she rushed over to her ShadowClan tom and buried her face in his soft ginger fur.
"Sorry about Pinewhisker," he muttered, giving Snowpaw a quick lick to the forehead. "She wouldn't let me leave unless I told her where I was going, and then she said that I had to take her with me."
The she-cat's ears perked at the sound of her Clanmates words. "Yes, I had to come along!" she hissed, he hackles rising in anger and defense. "You're just lucky that I didn't tell Blackstar of you leaving in the middle of the night to meet this ThunderClan filth! For all we know, it could've been a trap!"
All was silent after Pinewhisker's outburst. Swiftfang stared at the she-cat, his body angled as if to protect Snowpaw from the angry ShadowClan warrior. Only the crickets were heard, giving sound, but not lessening the fury between the two groups of cats.
"How dare you," the ginger tom whispered menacingly, barely audible over the sound of the greenleaf crickets. He took a step forward, and his fur rose, making him much bigger than the black she-cat.
Pinewhisker stood her ground, her yellow eyes glinting in malice. "It was simple," she mewed coldly. "I just stated the truth! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have something to tell Blackstar. StarClan knows he hates being woken up in the middle of the night."
Swiftfang hissed. The meeting that he so desperately wanted between him and Snowpaw, why, it was easily sabotaged by the cat he used to have a crush on! Pinewhisker began to saunter deeper into the trees, towards ShadowClan camp, deftly avoiding the looming pine trees. Her pure black pelt blended perfectly into the night, and soon Snowpaw's untrained eyes lost her. Swiftfang, however, could see her as plain as he could in the daytime. His fears escalated when he remembered the malice in her cold yellow eyes. She was really going to tell Blackstar!
With a quick but affectionate lick to Snowpaw's head and a muffled 'meet me here in two moonhighs,' Swiftfang was off after his Clanmate. His ginger pelt became a blur as he sped up, and Snowpaw thought it much more visible than Pinewhisker's black.
The small white apprentice stood there, shocked. Her mind drifted to the elder's stories, the ones that crowed that all ShadowClan cats were cold and cruel. Swiftfang didn't seem like that, but the rest of his Clan was proving to that title.
Suddenly, the warm breeze blowing gently through the leaves turned chilling, and the comfortable moss beneath her paws felt hard. It was as if the land was telling her that she didn't belong there, and to go back to her comfortable life as a medicine cat, without the troubles of a mate or kits.
She sat there for longer than intended, her mind and body frozen in shock. Soon, the sound of night crickets faded, only to be replaced with the soft murmurs and coos of waking birds.
Finally, she stumbled from her warm spot, her limbs screaming protest as she forced them to move. It wasn't a real long trek through the woods to ThunderClan camp, but it felt like seasons to Snowpaw. Everything seemed to go wrong in her hike. Her mind too clouded with the thoughts of being revealed made her stumble into many a bramble patch or ditch, which she normally could have easily avoided.
When at last she finally came into camp, low murmurs and quick, pained breathing alerted her to the medicine den. Her aching body and clouded mind seemed to fail then, as if the mere thought of staying awake, let alone tending to a sick cat, would kill her.
She trudged to the medicine den, ignoring the painful scratches that were barely visible under her long fur. "Is everything ok, Smokewhisker? I thought I heard something from the apprentice's den," she asked, smoothly flowing into the lie.
The dark she-cat looked up, pain and suffering in her eyes. She had been hunched over the curled up body of Blossompatch, a few herbs like poppy seeds by her paws.
"Blossompatch," her mentor muttered, and that was all the explanation needed for Snowpaw to become fully alert and awake. She nodded slowly, and stepped closer to the disease ridden she-cat. Her muzzle was bloodstained, and harsh, powerful coughs wracked her body. With every painful cough, a torrent of blood came streaming out, pooling at the medicine cat's paws and dyeing them red.
"Water," Smokewhisker demanded, trying to coax the tortoiseshell and white she-cat to eat poppy seeds to ease her pain. The small white apprentice grabbed a large wad of moss, and dipped in into the water puddle quickly. She pulled it out equally as fast, and dashed back to her mentor. To her dismay, the blood puddle had grown, and her paws seemed to forever be stained red.
Drops from the moss fell into the crimson flood, the drops showing clear and bright within the mass of red color.
For a second, Blossompatch ceased coughing, and Smokewhisker shoved the poppy seeds into her mouth. Not caring about anything but helping Blossompatch, Smokewhisker ripped the moss out of her apprentice's possession, and followed the seeds with water. With a heave, Blossompatch swallowed the concoction, and it descended slowly to her stomach. Shortly after, a cough came, stronger than the rest, and it deposited more blood than ever into the quickly growing pool.
"There," Smokewhisker sighed, and sat down away from the blood, trying to ease her stress and relax. Snowpaw came round her haunches, and sat down, still peeking at Blossompatch every once in a while.
"There?" Snowpaw repeated, cocking her head in confusion. "Is she going to get better? Cause if that's all we needed, why didn't we save the others?"
Smokewhisker snorted. "Great StarClan, no! She was going to die either way, if we helped her or we had sat her watching her die. I just needed to give her the poppy seeds to ease her pain, so that she may have a peaceful journey into StarClan's territory."
The apprentice glanced quickly at the tortoiseshell she-cat, who had stopped writhing in pain shortly after she had swallowed. Her eyelids dropped as if towards sleep, and to her, the coughing and blood seemed to disappear, though it was still clearly there.
"Please… help," croaked a voice from the other side of the medicine den. With a start, Snowpaw turned around to realize that Blossompatch's blood puddle was slowly but surely creeping towards the fatigued and sick Dovewing.
Snowpaw stepped over the puddle, and with the help of her mentor, they dragged Dovewing out of the medicine den and into the clearing. Later, when Blossompatch was dead and the blood cleaned up, they would switch the two she-cats, as not to confuse the others in the Clan.
"That's going to be me soon, isn't it?" Dovewing mewed, her voice trembling.
Snowpaw looked away pointedly, avoiding her question, but Smokewhisker, the veteran, mewed quietly, "Yes, but we'll do the best we can to help you stay alive for the longest we can."
She turned to her small and innocent apprentice, wanting her away from all the blood and gore. "Go to the lake," she ordered Snowpaw calmly, "and clean off your paws. Afterwards, gather a whole bunch of moss, for we need to soak up the blood before the ground does. If we don't, the ground will be imprinted with the scent and color of blood, and we shall never get rid of it."
Snowpaw nodded eager to get out of camp and leave her depressed thoughts behind. She came out of the thorn tunnel, and her mind was already clearing from the stupor it had been from Swiftfang and Blossompatch. More pep came into her step as she smelled the clean, cold morning air, and heard the coos from the birds escalate into full blown calls and shrieks.
The territory seemed to pass by quickly, as Snowpaw wasn't paying attention to it as much, only enough to avoid getting stuck in a bramble or ditch. She stepped out on the pebbly shore, her paws hurting with so many rocks underneath. The wide stream of thoughts that flooded her head was replaced with one.
She turned her face to the sky, watching the morning sun grace the tops of the trees. "It's been a while since I last saw Swiftfang," she mused as she dipped her paws into the lapping lake water. The blood ran off in rivulets, causing the clear liquid to turn red before being pulled out towards the middle of the lake. "I wonder if he, and our secret, is ok."
I'm posting this line of words, because I have no idea on how to make the awesome lines that separate paragraphs.
He had followed her deftly, never taking his eyes of the pure black pelt in the heat of night. All the way back to camp he trailed her, begging her not to reveal his secret love. When she reached the camp entrance, she turned to him, and his heart lifted, hoping she would say what he wanted her to. He was in luck. "I won't tell," she mewed, twining her long tail around his neck. Swiftfang sighed in relief, knowing that Pinewhisker was a noble cat and he was wise to trust her. "But," she interjected, making the ginger ShadowClan tom freeze. "There is one condition."
His jaw dropped at the latter end of her sentence. "What is it?" he asked quietly, trying not to wake his sleeping Clanmates. However, she ignored him, and went towards the warriors den, hoping to catch a few heartbeats of sleep before dawn.
He unwillingly followed her, like he had been doing all night, and went in also. He bypassed his usual nest by Startlingflight, and settled next to Pinewhisker, in hopes that she would tell.
"What is it?" he mewed, trying to prompt the she-cat into telling him, but to no avail. Her only response to his frantic question was a small smile and closed eyes.
It seemed as if he had barely started his dream, one where the meeting had gone perfectly, when a hard paw prodded his side. Swiftfang grunted lowly, and rolled over, trying to avoid the attacker and continue his dream. It prodded again, and he opened his eyes angrily, to tell off Startlingflight, when he was greeted by the face of Pinewhisker in his sleepy gaze.
He was about to hiss at her, and roll over again, for it was barely dawn, when she spoke. "So," she mewed quietly, carefully monitoring her voice so that it would fall upon Swiftfang's ears only. "Do you want to know the condition?"
Swiftfang nodded sleepily, the words still being processed in his brain. When their meaning finally became understood, his eyes shot open and he began nodding much more vigorously. "Tell me," he chanted a little too loudly, making a few warriors turn.
She wrapped her tail around his mouth, silencing the pleas. "Good," she mewed when he became quiet. She waited a few seconds, toying with her younger Clanmate. "It's quite simple, actually," she confessed, quite enjoying his pain. The anticipation building within Swiftfang grew too immense proportion, almost enough to make him yowl out loud, but he was quiet in fear that she wouldn't tell him.
"All you have to do to keep my quiet is," she mewed, watching Swiftfang squirm. "Is to leave that ThunderClan filth behind and become my mate."
A/N: Please review?