Author's note: Hi. Uhm… it's the first chapter. It's bound to be slow going. Just a quick reminder, I'm probably not gonna put in romance, so those of you looking for romancefics, wait maybe three years for me to mature and understand the meaning of love. Otherwise, everyone's welcome!
Chapter One: The Abundance Of Mice
Redpaw hated mice.
Or more accurately, the taste of mice. He didn't mind the hunting of mice, personally.
But the eating of mice? No. No eating mice. He'd rather starve than eat more than three mice a moon.
"Eating mice won't kill you, Redpaw. It's not eating them that kills you, especially as this clan's territory is full of mice," his mentor, Roseshine had told him fifteen times in the last moon.
Redpaw didn't care. All he ate was comprised of the scrawny birds that flew across territories and, though he never told anyone, random bits of prey from the neighbouring clans, LeafClan and IceClan. And the best part was, the only one who had ever caught him was Roseshine, who had been taking a walk near the IceClan border. She hadn't really cared, just given him another mouse lecture.
"I'm going out to hunt," he told Roseshine. Roseshine was an ok mentor; she would have been borderline bad if she hadn't let Redpaw do whatever he wanted after she had finished training him.
"Sure, off you go then." Roseshine seemed slightly dreamy, like she was about to drift off up, up and away into a cloud. But that was Roseshine, except when Redpaw complained about the abundance of mice.
Redpaw dashed out of camp and there he was. Alone in the forest, free to roam around without Roseshine and his stupid furball of a littermate, Juniperpaw.
After rolling in a patch of herbs (he had no idea what it was), he turned in the opposite direction- towards the IceClan border, again.
Time for a piece of non-mouse prey.
He strolled across the border as though it were nothing…
And came face-to-face with an IceClanner.
The first thing Redpaw noticed about the she-cat was that she was tiny. Really, really tiny, with such fluffy silverish fur that she looked like a new-born kit.
"Get out of our territory, MouseClanner!" the kit-apprentice (Redpaw hoped she was an apprentice) squeaked. Absolutely every part of her seemed kit-like (up to the MouseClan joke), yet what would a kit be doing out of the camp?
He decided to use her size against her, like how he did with Juniperpaw.
"Make me, kit."
"Kit" bristled. "At least kits know not to cross borders! And for your information, I'm going to be a warrior in a moon."
Redpaw blinked slowly. That fluffball was older than he was? (He still had two moons to go. Two more moons with Rose-head-in-the-clouds-shine.)
"Get. Out!"
Before Redpaw could Get. Out!, a particular someone arrived on a walk again.
"Redpaw! On IceClan territory again! Get out! At once!"
If you didn't know her, Roseshine was the perfect embodiment of "strict, furious mentor". But Redpaw did know her- at least, had already known her for four moons- and heard the slight tremble in her voice. Just a sassy response at the right time and-
"Out." Roseshine's voice was deadly soft this time, with no trembling at all. Redpaw had absolutely never seen her like that before, so either she was extremely mad or she was extremely, extremely mad.
But why did she even care? He hadn't even managed to catch a single thing.
Redpaw stepped over the border. "Done."
"Good."
Roseshine shooed the tiny apprentice away and led Redpaw back to camp silently. She didn't even bother to give Redpaw a mouse lecture (which was good, but extremely unnatural for Roseshine) until she stopped at an old oak tree near the StoneClan territory.
"Honestly, Redpaw, I expected better from you," his mentor began. "I've told you so many times-"
"Too many," said apprentice interjected. "Way too many."
"However many, you don't seem to have listened to a single thing I said. The first thing you ever learnt was the Warrior Code: Do not go trampling over borders!"
"I didn't go trampling, I went looking for food because all I get for food are stinky mice!"
Roseshine didn't seem to be listening, ironically. "Mice, yes… you don't want mice? There aren't mice in IceClan… but mice… satisfying..."
Redpaw groaned internally. She's gone drifting off again. To where, no one knows.
He took his chance to slip off back into camp.
The next day, Redpaw was disturbed by Roseshine drifting into the apprentices' den. The other apprentices, Juniperpaw and Mousepaw (the clan was short on apprentices) were still fast asleep.
"Dawn patrol?" Redpaw blinked the sleepiness away halfheartedly. The sky was still a foggy gray and it seemed nothing like dawn.
"Don't be silly, it's not dawn. We're going somewhere."
"Where?"
"Somewhere."
Redpaw knew it was pointless to ask where. But he soon realized it was quite pointful when she brought him out of the Clan territory, into the territory of no one.
She led him into a weird, huge patch of empty land where there were absolutely no cats.
"Do you remember how to get here?"
No. I do not.
"Sort of."
"Good. Now go back to camp. Don't talk to anyone about this place unless they ever mention Frostpaw to you. And don't tell your friends."
Frostpaw?
"Yes, Frostpaw… the apprentice you had the pleasure of meeting… innocent little thing. She loves mice, bless her."
Ok, what in the name of StarClan is happening?
Yeah, I don't get myself at times. What on earth has just happened? Roseshine is the weirdest weirdo to ever weird.
And apparently Juniperpaw is a girl. The characters I only have a loose idea of where they're gonna fit in, not even their appearance, but I actually have Juniper's warrior name in mind. She'll make an appearance, I hope soon-ish?
Redpaw will not hook up with Frostpaw.
Roseshine… I swear, the only thing that I currently like about her is her name and her patch of land.
Oh, and they aren't the Dark Forest 2.0. I'm not that stupid.