I'm back with another chapter, yay! I hope you enjoy!
A huge, huge thank you to all the new reviewers :) I can't believe I'm up to 15 so soon!
Hissing Mist: Aww, thanks! I guess you'll have to wait and see about Leopardwish, but here's part 1 of the Moonpool adventure for you!
Fastbreeze37: Thank you so much! Yeah, I noticed a lot of medicine cats are sort of forced into it, so we're trying something different here, woohoo!
Flamewing: Thank youuuu
LilacArtist: Yeah, it definitely isn't, but that's how things get interesting! It's mainly going to be Hawkpaw, but I'm definitely going to switch it up from time to time...
RavenblazeOC: It's in the future in the sense that all the canon cats are long gone, but we're still all by the lake :) And yes definitely! You're going to see one canon cat in this chapter at the Moonpool, and then one of my absolute favorites (no judgment) in the next chapter!
Honeyflame: Thanks :) Yeah, I hope there'll be more "fun moments" coming... I mean, I would think they're fun? But I don't know about all of you... still, glad you liked it!
Sapphire-Glow: Hahaha thank you! I'm cheering for them too, but you wouldn't have a story unless you ripped them apart in the most painful way *evil laughter*
I don't own Warriors.
CHAPTER 2: THE MOONPOOL
By the time the sun sank below the distant mountains, the rising half moon was little more than a hazy outline in the indigo sky, and Hawkpaw's pads were worn and probably cracked from the distance she and her mentor had traveled from the ThunderClan camp. The narrow pathways leading to the Moonpool were nothing like the soft forest ground, yet when Leopardwish didn't speak, Hawkpaw decided to keep her jaws shut as well.
Along the extensive path, the two of them had been joined by Birchfrost, the RiverClan medicine cat, as well as Bluefeather of ShadowClan and his apprentice, Cloverpaw, who seemed friendly enough and had given Hawkpaw an affectionate lick in greeting.
Up ahead, Leopardwish signaled with her tail, and Cloverpaw stopped meowing about whatever it was happening in ShadowClan—Hawkpaw hadn't particularly cared for all the details, since it was mostly about the nursing queens—to prick her ears.
"We should wait for Sedgespring," Leopardwish mewed, and Hawkpaw sighed gratefully, rolling back onto her haunches.
Cloverpaw nudged her. "Sedgespring is—"
"The WindClan medicine cat, I know." Hawkpaw tore up the sparse clump of bracken at her feet and suppressed a growl. The ShadowClan apprentice was treating her like a kit! I'm not that clueless.
"Well," Cloverpaw continued, clearly unaffected, "the Moonpool is just up ahead, over this little ridge."
Hawkpaw parted her jaws, tasting the air, and grimaced slightly, realizing that Cloverpaw was right. She could smell the freshness of the water, and more than that, she could practically feel the legendary starlight emanating from the pool already, so many fox-lengths away. It uplifted her, in a way she couldn't quite describe, as if the possible presence of StarClan could unwind and untangle every whisker-length of her mind and body and raise her spirits to their level.
Her fur prickled as the cool new-leaf wind ruffled her pelt. "So, how long have you been an apprentice?"
"About two moons. And you're a new apprentice, I'm guessing?"
She didn't like the way Cloverpaw said new apprentice, as if it somehow made her more deserving of visiting the Moonpool than Hawkpaw. Though in fairness, she reflected, it probably did, as much as the thought of that ruffled her fur. Hawkpaw bit back a hiss and dropped her mew into one of cool indifference. "A little over half a moon."
The vigor was back in Cloverpaw's green eyes. "That's great! You won't regret it. Becoming a medicine cat was the best decision I made since I joined ShadowClan."
"You're not from ShadowClan?" Out of all that the brown and white she-cat mewed, that caught her attention. How did ShadowClan, of all Clans, manage to come to terms with accepting a foreign cat, and that too, as a medicine cat? Hawkpaw had heard the stories about Mothwing, an ancient rogue-born RiverClan medicine cat who didn't believe in StarClan, from the elders, and it unnerved her that Cloverpaw could be of the same upbringing.
"Hush up!" That was Bluefeather, a ragged blue-gray tom who glanced crossly in their direction.
Amusement lit up Cloverpaw's expression as Hawkpaw joined her in mumbling an embarrassed apology to the older tom.
Then before Cloverpaw could have the chance to reply, Leopardwish got to her paws, motioning to something beyond them, and Hawkpaw pricked her ears, turning to find a gray tortoiseshell she-cat padding up the slope. She turned to the ShadowClan apprentice. "Is that—"
"Sedgespring!" Birchfrost bounded past them down the slope to touch noses with the WindClan medicine cat.
Sedgespring reciprocated Birchfrost's endearment for two heartbeats before padding ahead to Leopardwish. "Sorry, sorry! I got held up back at the WindClan camp. One of the kits was complaining of bellyache, and I was down to my last juniper berries."
Her voice wasn't sweet and melodic as Hawkpaw had expected, but rather low and gravelly, and she seemed several moons older than both Leopardwish and Birchfrost, holding her head proudly and taking the lead up the slope, giving the apprentices a respectful nod through slitted eyes.
"So, you're not from ShadowClan?" Hawkpaw repeated to Cloverpaw, keeping her voice low as the four full medicine cats discussed the recent days in tones too hushed to pick up.
"Nope! My father was one of the kittypets on the edge of ShadowClan territory, and my mother's Mintshade, so I don't really remember much of the Twolegplace, anyway."
Hawkpaw narrowed her eyes, skeptical. "And your Clan just... took you in?"
The other apprentice flicked her tail under Hawkpaw's nose, making her whiskers itch uncomfortably. "Of course! I always knew I wanted to be a medicine cat, and Bluefeather presented me to StarClan." She paused, nodding to her mentor a few tail-lengths away.
"Come on, they're going!"
Hawkpaw was immediately on her paws, not even bothering to wait for Cloverpaw as she scampered after Leopardwish and pressed her flank against the warmth of her mentor's, excitement building with every pawstep closer to the Moonpool, until—
There it is.
The Moonpool was not a collection of water, or at least, not any water that Hawkpaw had ever seen before. She had expected a pool of ripples that caught the light of StarClan in every fold and wave, but this... this was a pool of starlight itself, as if the bottom was lined with the shimmering cats that walked the night skies and simply bore a fluid texture for the sake of accessibility. Her breath had escaped her long ago, and Hawkpaw was certain she could stare at the depths of the Moonpool for moons and moons, even from a distance, but—
"Come." Sedgespring was already down by the glittering water.
The other medicine cats herded together by the pool and curled up all around the bank, but Leopardwish drew Hawkpaw aside, remaining on her paws. Cold—the water was so cold yet so comfortably silky as it lapped at the tips of Hawkpaw's forepaws, as if it were indeed nothing more than a soft, icy breeze washing up against her.
"StarClan!" Leopardwish called, tipping her head back, and Hawkpaw flinched at the sudden yowl so close to her ear. She could feel Cloverpaw and the cats beside her watching, waiting. "I present to you Hawkpaw, my apprentice. She has chosen the path of a medicine cat, and I pray you accept her as you once accepted me."
Hawkpaw was trying very hard to picture a different, older cat presenting Leopardwish this very same way, when out of the corner of her vision, the other medicine cats lowered their heads simultaneously, as if in a trance, and lapped up some of the water.
She turned a questioning gaze to Leopardwish, who flicked her tail and nodded. "Go on."
The water of the Moonpool slid down her tongue and throat just as easily as it brushed up against her now-curled-up body, and Hawkpaw closed her eyes in anticipation even before sleep came, waiting for StarClan to take her.
Her paws thrummed airily against the ground as the phantoms of what must have been a hundred cats wreathed around her, weaving in and out with the occasional sweep against her night-black pelt, though she couldn't pinpoint a single one by sight or scent. She was moving involuntarily, almost; she couldn't feel the muscles throbbing her feet or the cracks in her pads that had formed on the rocky path to the Moonpool, yet her feet were relaxed against the soft forest ground and running faster than she had ever run before.
The dirt beneath her feet was radiant, too, so much so that her white forepaws seemed to blend in far better than the rest of her ebony self; there was nothing like it down in ThunderClan—or any Clan, for that matter—that she had ever seen before.
Trees of all viridescent hues and stones of all marvelous shapes and sizes and colors whipped past her, and the sky above couldn't possibly have been bluer if every StarClan cat had joined paws and willed it. Hawkpaw felt utterly out of place in a scenery like this. Is this StarClan?
"It is, dear one." A single cat, fluffy and gray and younger than Hawkpaw would have imagined, even for a StarClan cat, brushed up against her, urging her to a stop and fixing her with a clear blue stare that appeared wise beyond her years.
Mind-reading StarClan cats, lovely.
"Who are you?" she asked, but there was no hostility in the question.
The she-cat padded in a circle around a patch of the greenest grass Hawkpaw had ever seen before settling herself down upon it and gesturing for Hawkpaw to do the same. But her movements were strange and awkward, awkward enough to belong to one of the living, as if she couldn't balance her weight just right across her four legs.
As if delighted by the question, the stars concealed within the she-cat's soft fur blinked, and she let out an affectionate purr. "My name is Cinderpelt." Cinderpelt! Hawkpaw had heard the stories of the ancient she-cat who had given up her life as a warrior to become a medicine cat, and then been given a second spirit in a warrior body. "I was the ThunderClan medicine cat many, many moons ago, though I suspect you know that already."
"I've heard about you from the elders," Hawkpaw mewed, excitement bubbling as she sat back on her hind legs. This was it! She was meeting a StarClan cat, and only true medicine cats could do that, right?
From where she was sitting, Cinderpelt raised a paw to itch her whiskers, and with some shock, Hawkpaw realized that it was twisted strangely. "I can sense your enthusiasm, Hawkpaw, but also your anxiety." Hawkpaw looked away. Had she been that obvious? "We StarClan cats can tell," she continued, as if she were probing the apprentice's mind for any and every thought. "I advise you not to worry, dear one. You have already shown—"
"Are you pampering that one because she's a new apprentice?"
That one! What was she, fresh-kill?
The interruption came from behind both of them, and before Hawkpaw, raising her hackles and unsheathing her claws, turned around to face the intruder, she saw a surprised Cinderpelt spring brightly—but carefully, of course—to her paws.
"Oh, put your claws away." The looming cat emerging over the hillcrest looked craggy enough to be an enemy warrior. "You won't be needing them, and anyway, I could squash you like a flea."
Apparently, even StarClan cats could have the worst temperaments.
Any guesses on the mystery cat? You'll meet him/her in the next chapter :)
I hope you enjoyed... please review!