Note: there will not be allegiances because a) ffn frowns upon chapters without story content and b) the current Clans are temporary, but if you wish for a list to assist you, feel free to message me.
"You are here."
Mist swirled between her paws, cold and intimidating. Around her, the shapes of several cats wavered in the mist, some much clearer than others, and one of the dim ones was speaking - a hulking white tom.
"You are chosen."
Acornpaw woke with a startled gasp.
All of the nests around her were empty - the apprentice's den remained as silent and lonely as ever. Slowly, her muscles groaning in protest, Acornpaw heaved herself upright, feeling as though she had hardly slept at all. She leaned down to give her shoulder a few licks, trying to wash out the feeling of moisture from her fur. She squinted in annoyance at the sunlight that filtered in through the brambles at the entrance of the den. It burned her eyes, but also warmed her pelt and pushed out the chill from the mist in her dream.
What a dream it had been! There had been so many cats, none of them familiar, all circling more cats she did not know. She did a quick tally in her head; six cats, all looking about her age - give or take, as one of the toms looked huge for an apprentice - though none of them she recognized, with another three cats in the middle of them all. Their transparent pelts and the stars at their paws stuck out in her memory.
Could they be - ?
"Acornpaw!" snapped Rockgorse, shoving his head into the entryway of the den. The apprentice jumped as he glared her down. "If you're awake, get out here and go on patrol!"
Mouse dung! Acornpaw flinched, cringing under his hard gaze. The ThunderClan deputy was known to be grumpy at best and cruel at worst. She was asking for it by staying up so late, sure, and she did need to get to work if she did not want to be scorned by her Clanmates - moreso than usual, anyway - but the details of her dream were blurring the longer she was distracted and she did not want to forget them.
"Are you listening?" Rockgorse shouldered his way inside with some difficulty and shoved his face close to hers so that they were nose-to-nose. "Have you got bees in your brain, apprentice? Get. Out. There."
"I . . . uh," Acornpaw stuttered, thinking hard and getting nothing but white noise. "I-I have - I think I got, uh - a thorn, in my paw. I, um. I think . . . I need to see Timberstorm?"
"A thorn," Rockgorse repeated, narrowing his eyes.
Acornpaw gulped and nodded. "Yes. A thorn. From . . . my nest. I think."
Rockgorse snorted. He drew back, his tail thumping against the ground in irritation, but he shifted aside to let her pass. "Next time, build your nest correctly, birdbrain," he sneered. "Make it fast. You're on hunting patrol."
"Yes, Rockgorse," Acornpaw mumbled, stumbling over her paws in her hurry to slink past him, and while it elicited another derisive snort it also easily sold the lie.
Acornpaw lifted her front right paw as she trotted quietly along the edges of the camp, avoiding the center clearing and other cats. Rockgorse was making his way back toward the leader's den, where Furstar was no doubt waiting for him, and Acornpaw quickly averted her gaze when a grumpy elder turned lamplike eyes skeptically on her "injured" paw. She hurried to the brambles of the medicine den before any cat could start asking questions.
"Timberstorm?" she called out hesitantly into the cave opening.
The only answer was the echo of her own voice, so she slunk quietly past the brambles and into the dim medicine den. One inside, she allowed herself to set her paw back onto the cool stone and peered around as her eyes adjusted to the gloom.
"What do you want?" Timberstorm groaned, perpetually irritated, and before Acornpaw could pinpoint his location, the medicine cat was ungracefully backing out of the herb storage nook. "What is it? Moss? Bile? Can't apprentices do anything on their own anymore?"
"Actually, Timberstorm," Acornpaw tried, dipping her head respectfully, "I was hoping I could talk to you."
"I have better things to do than talk to anyone," Timberstorm sighed, turning away from her once more. "Rockgorse undoubtedly has better things for you to do, as well, so get out and stop bothering me."
Frustrated, Acornpaw burst out, "I had a dream!"
"Congratulations. Can you leave now?"
"I think it was a message from StarClan!" Timberstorm paused at the claim, going completely still except for the twitch of his tail-tip. At his silence, Acornpaw was urged to continue. "There were lots of cats, cats I could see through and that I didn't know, and their fur sparkled like - "
"StarClan doesn't send dreams," Timberstorm interrupted sharply, shoulders bunched up and muscles tense. He swung his head around, eyes blazing, and Acornpaw took a step back. "Even if they did, they certainly wouldn't entrust a prophecy to a useless, idle, liar of an apprentice!"
Acornpaw stared, shocked, into his furious green eyes. More than angry, Timberstorm looked insulted. Did StarClan truly never speak anymore? Had Timberstorm never received a message from their ancestors?
"Now get out, and don't bother me again!"
Acornpaw stumbled out of the den quickly with her heart pounding, her fur snagging uncomfortably on the brambles and making her look just as disheveled as she felt. She halted a tail-length away from the entrance and willed her heart to slow, giving her chest fur a few self-soothing licks and trying not to let her heart sink.
"Acornpaw! The patrol left without us. Are you ready to go?"
The apprentice swung her head around to see a dark brown she-cat trotting toward her from the entrance to camp, amber eyes fixed on her in that familiar stern gaze that meant a scolding was coming. Acornpaw shook her fur out, willing it to fix itself, and moved to meet Rowantail in the middle.
"I'm sorry," Acornpaw mewed, shame burning her pelt. Not only had she wasted time by waking up late and faking an injury, but she had gained nothing from it but two more cats angry at her. Now her mentor was going to be the third. But Rowantail looked her over, concern sparking in her eyes, and offered her a friendly bump of shoulders.
"Everything alright?" she asked, tilting her head sympathetically. "Timberstorm gets fussy with everyone. You weren't in there for anything important, though, I hope?" she added, giving her apprentice a quick once-over.
"I'm not hurt," Acornpaw replied evasively. "Can we hunt now? I'm hungry."
It was another lie, and Rowantail probably knew it, but her mentor was not one to cause a scene in front of the clan. Instead, the older of the two nodded. "Let's go, then."
They padded out of the camp and through the thorn tunnel, paws falling into familiar grooves and carrying them down a path worn by hundreds, if not thousands of cats before them. The clans had lived here longer than any cat in living memory, or even the cats alive before them, if what the elders said was true.
The Clans had been around forever. Would they ever die? Words drifted to Acornpaw from a voice too ethereal to be real, familiar from the landscape of her dreams. Perhaps they would.
"You're lagging behind." Rowantail's annoyed gripe sounded in her ear, and she jumped. Her mentor perched on the trunk of a fallen tree, wrapping her tail over her paws. "What's wrong?"
"What do you mean?" Acornpaw tried to hide, but Rowantail was having none of it.
"Secrets are fine," the older cat scolded, "until your performance suffers because of it. So tell me what's up. You're going to be a warrior in just over a moon, Acornpaw, and warriors don't daydream."
Embarrassment twisting her expression, Acornpaw shuffled her paws nervously against the dirt, unable to meet her mentor's gaze. "It's stupid. I won't daydream anymore, so let's just go."
"I'm the mentor, here," Rowantail replied. Her tail thumped gently against the bark. "Come sit, and tell me already. I don't want to sit here all day and come home empty-pawed, but I will, and guess who's going to be punished for it? Not me."
Thoroughly repelled by the idea of being sentenced to pick ticks off the elders' pelts for a moon, Acornpaw clawed her way up to sit beside Rowantail, the jump a lot higher of a distance for her shorter legs. Rowantail gave an amused little trill at her effort and kept her gaze on her apprentice as she settled on the fallen log.
"I had a dream," Acornpaw started. She stopped, unsure how to continue. The last cat she had tried to talk to simply got angry with her. Not even a medicine cat believed me. Why would anyone else?
"We all have dreams, mouse-brain," Rowantail said, tone light. "What about?"
"It's silly," Acornpaw settled on as a preface. If Rowantail thought so, too, then they could just laugh it off and move on. "There were just some see-through cats, and I thought it might be a message, but I mean, that's stupid. Why would StarClan say anything to plain old me instead of our medicine cat?"
"No wonder Timberstorm got cranky," Rowantail purred, sounding amused. Acornpaw nodded mutely, regret coursing through her. Of course the implication would have upset him. "Did they say anything interesting?"
Acornpaw hesitated, glancing up to search those amber pools. They told little except for a small spark that might have been interest. Did Rowantail perhaps . . . believe her?
"I don't know," Acornpaw lied anyway, decidedly unwilling to risk being shamed for something too serious. "Something about being chosen, and saving the Clans, or whatever. Now that I say it aloud it just sounds like I've been taking the elders' kit tales too seriously." That was less of a lie. Saying it aloud made her feel like a kit playing pretend in the nursery. What a load of nonsense, Acornpaw thought, now even more glum.
"I don't think so," Rowantail mewed sincerely. Acornpaw blinked.
"You don't?"
Rowantail shrugged at her. She stood, stretched, and bounded off the log, tail swishing in the air. "I've had a lot of silly dreams," she said, "but I've never had anything that actually felt like a prophecy from StarClan. I don't think any cat could say so."
A prophecy! Acornpaw's spine tingled at the word coming from her mentor's mouth, relieving and terrifying and validating. She hopped down to stand next to her, practically vibrating with excitement, but Rowantail's serious amber gaze pinned her suddenly, making her deflate in an instant.
"Don't try to go and tell anyone else about this," her mentor warned, voice so low and quiet Acornpaw could hardly hear her, let alone an eavesdropper. "You should know by now that the Clan will not take word of a prophecy well, let alone out of the mouth of a kit."
"I'm not a kit," Acornpaw complained, tail flicking crossly, but Rowantail silenced her with a glare.
"We can work it out together, later," Rowantail promised, turning to head off into the woods. "For now, let's hunt. You know what Furstar says."
Acornpaw's belly rumbled at the thought of a fat squirrel or mouse, and recoiled at the idea of Furstar pinning her with a disappointed glare and banishing her to starve for not catching enough prey. She may not have been hungry earlier, but she sure was now, so she bounded after her mentor and fell into step with her, raising her head to sniff for food.
"Do you really think it could be real?" she asked, unable to contain her growing excitement. Rowantail gave her a withering look.
"You're going to scare off every mouse from here to the lake," she retorted, giving Acornpaw a light cuff over the ears. She softened a little at the irritated squeak her apprentice gave. "I think it could have merit."
Acornpaw gave a pleased little bounce in place, then quickly sobered up. She really was going to scare off all the prey. "Thank you," she mewed instead.
Rowantail rolled her eyes and butted their shoulders together. "I smell pigeon. Come on."
Acornpaw fought not to prance loudly after her.