The other side of the woods was entirely new to Diamondpaw. She had never crossed the river before, never been to a gathering, and especially never stolen prey. Now she was alone in a new territory with no idea of where to look for fresh-kill.
Well, she wasn't alone. Her sister was with her. Stormpaw had been chosen to join the assault on DawnClan while Diamondpaw stayed in the apprentices' den and sat wide awake, staring at the starry sky and hoping that her sister was safe. Now Stormpaw led her sister past a clearing full of stumps through an unfamiliar world.
"Where are we going?" Diamondpaw mewed quietly, keeping her voice low so as to not scare off any prey.
"This is the way to DawnClan camp. I figure if we can get there, I'll find my bearings and be able to navigate," Stormpaw responded, a bit overconfident. Diamondpaw wouldn't say it, but she was worried that her grey-furred sister was going to get them lost.
"A-are you sure?" Diamondpaw fretted, her tail flicking back and forth nervously.
"Of course I'm sure," her sister reassured her. "See, there's that… stump-place. I think I saw it through the trees on our way here?"
Diamondpaw sighed. "We're totally lost, aren't we?"
They walked past a dozen more towering beeches before Stormpaw relented. "Yeah, we're totally lost."
She took a deep breath. Why did I even agree to this? Going into new territory without a warrior with us? What if we run into a fox or a badger?
"Let's just try to hunt, okay?" Stormpaw meowed, interrupting her worries. "After that we'll worry about getting home. All we have to do is follow the setting sun!"
The white she-cat relaxed. Her sister was right. DuskClan was named after the dusk because the sun set on their side of the woods, so it would be simple to find her way back. The only issue was that it was sun-high, and it would be ages before the sun began to set.
"Okay, but we'd better be back in our dens by tonight," Diamondpaw teased her sister. "Or else you owe me some of your fresh-kill share. This was your idea, after all."
"What? No way!" Stormpaw gasped jokingly. "We'll definitely be back by tonight. And besides, we don't have to ration prey anymore now that we have DawnClan territory to hunt in."
Diamondpaw smiled widely at the thought of eating an entire mouse rather than just half of one. Her stomach grumbled in response and she quickly bade her sister good luck before bounding away into the woods, her mouth open to taste the air.
Soon enough she had tracked a tiny dormouse to where it sat under a thick shrub, and while its lifeless body was small, the scent of fresh-kill was tantalizingly delicious. But she couldn't eat just yet- the warrior code dictated that apprentices and warriors couldn't have their shares until the rest of the Clan was fed. Diamondpaw knew the StarClan-given rules well, being one of the first things she was trained on, and as she padded through the woods after burying her catch, she recited them in her head.
Diamondpaw's mind swam with rules and boundaries, thoughts of honor and leadership filling her consciousness as she pounced on a sparrow and bit its neck. She thought with unease that some rules of the code were being broken by her Clanmates, but then reminded herself that it didn't matter; loyalty to the Clan was paramount, and if the destruction of DawnClan could keep her friends and family safe, surely StarClan would understand?
By the time she had finished remembering each tenet of the code, she had caught five pieces of prey, more fresh-kill than she had seen in one place in her life. She grinned at the thought of a feast, where each kit and elder had enough to eat, and the warriors didn't have to tremble so as they walked.
She realized quickly that her sister hadn't told her where to meet up after their hunt, and so Diamondpaw wandered frantically through the unfamiliar woods trying to find her. After a while of this searching, she decided that the best option was to backtrack, so she traced her scent slowly through the forest until she was back at the stump-clearing.
Even still, there was no sign of Stormpaw, and she wondered if her sister had decided to head back to camp. With a mouth full of feathers and fur, Diamondpaw scrambled to the top of the highest stump, her legs taking her gracefully between the wooden platforms. From her height she could see the trajectory of the sun, drifting slowly away from the forest she sat in.
Her eyes burned from staring at the great heavenly body, a mass of every StarClan cat in Silverpelt, but Diamondpaw soon managed to find her way out of DawnClan's woods.
Just before her was a point where the trees thinned out, and she heard the trickle of the river as it flowed over the rocks and pebbles in the riverbed.
As Diamondpaw padded out of the thick woods, marveling at the warmth of the midday sun, she heard a loud mew from a point far down the river.
She whipped around to face the noise, worrying that it was her sister and that she had somehow got herself into trouble, but she only saw clumps of reeds and grass along the river's bank.
Still convinced that her sister was in peril, she ran alongside the water, calling out "Stormpaw!" as she ran, though her voice was muffled by the fresh-kill she carried. Stormpaw had been with Diamondpaw since, well, forever, being her littermate, and the two had a close bond. If anything happened to her… no, she couldn't stand the thought. Being alone in the Clan with little more than her parents and her many acquaintances was a future she wasn't very fond of.
She had run halfway down the river when she saw it. A flash of cream fur in the foliage by the river bank, only visible for a moment before it was gone.
Diamondpaw set her prey on the ground so that she could hiss in frustration. She didn't truly feel angry; she rarely did. This was different, more of an overwhelming worry. A cat she had thought was her sister was just some stray kittypet in DawnClan's territory, and she was still lost as to where her sister could be.
Just then she heard a rustle and soon enough she was pinned to the ground, her legs stuck beneath her and her muzzle buried in a pile of mud.
"Ack! Sorry!" her attacker squealed, relenting and releasing her. Diamondpaw turned on her with a growl as she had been taught, but her expression softened in an instant as she recognized her sister.
"Don't scare me like that!" she purred, flicking Stormpaw with her tail. She padded down to the river to wash off her nose as she listened to her sister speak.
"Diamondpaw, I am so so so so sorry that I forgot to tell you where to meet!" Stormpaw squealed. "I mean, I didn't think we'd get lost like that and I was already kind of flustered so when it came time to make a decision I wasn't really in my right mind and all I could think of was prey since I was super hungry so I also wasn't thinking straight and-" she had to pause to take a deep breath, and then laughed after realizing how much she had rambled. Diamondpaw chuckled too, but it came out as a gurgle since her mouth was underwater. "Sorry."
"It's no problem, really," Diamondpaw mewed as she pulled her face from the chilly stream. She tried immediately to forget how worried she had been about Stormpaw, embarrassed that she had so frantically searched for her along the river, like a kit calling out to its lost mother. "I wasn't even worried anyway."
"Ha, sure," Stormpaw teased, not believing her sister for a moment. "Hey, nice catch by the way! We should head back to camp."
With one last glance at DawnClan's forest, Diamondpaw nodded and grabbed her quarry in her jaws, stepping into the river with an oddly hopeful feeling.
/
Did she see me? Larkpaw worried furiously, covering Wolfkit's mouth with his tail. The little kitten had protested angrily as he tried to carry her across the river, and then suddenly some DuskClan she-cat had run toward him. Larkpaw's heart had jumped a fox-length into his throat and he barely managed to disappear between the trees before the unfamiliar she-cat reached him.
Larkpaw crept slowly backward, pulling the kitten along with him, and wondered quietly why there was a DuskClan cat on his territory. Though DawnClan was gone, and their scent led over the river- he had been tracking his Clan ever since he found the empty camp- it was still against the warrior code to trespass on another Clan's territory. Didn't DuskClan know that?
He sighed hopelessly and tried to find a spot in the foliage where he could look out at the river bank while still being hidden by the undergrowth. DuskClan had always liked to cross the border and steal prey; it wasn't uncommon to find their rival Clan's scent just on their side of the river. Though the thought should have comforted him, since it made sense that DuskClan cats would be on his Clan's territory to hunt, Larkpaw still felt unnerved by the whole situation. Allowing DuskClan to hunt on the land that had been his home for his entire life meant accepting that DawnClan was gone, defeated, that something horrible had happened while he had been hunting carefree in the forest.
Over the course of a few days he had lost his greatest love and now his home. He refused to lose any more.
Peeking out of the woods for just a moment, Larkpaw quickly tasted the air and with a breath of relief, the DuskClan scent had faded. The she-cat must have left.
Larkpaw turned to Wolfkit and quickly licked a splatter of blood off of her snout that was left over from the fresh-kill he had fed her. "Stay as quiet as you can, okay?"
Wolfkit glared at him, likely still upset that her paws had gotten wet as he tried to carry her across the river, in hope of finding DawnClan.
The cream tom shifted uncomfortably on his paws, unused to interacting with kittens, especially ones that could barely speak.
They waited silently at the edge of the woods for a long while, until Larkpaw could barely taste the tang of DuskClan from where he sat. Finally, he decided it was safe to cross without fear of being caught, and studied the little kitten beside him with intrigue.
Wolfkit didn't like to be carried, as he had figured out the first time he tried to swim with her, so instead of grabbing her scruff, Larkpaw got to his paws and motioned with his tail for her to follow him.
The kitten stared at him, confused, and he realized with an internal groan that she probably didn't know any tail signals yet.
"Follow me," he meowed instead.
Wolfkit blinked her wide, green eyes, and stumbled to his side. Her walk reminded Larkpaw vaguely of his sister, and he felt a stab of longing to see Starlingpaw's carefree smile again. It had been a while since she was truly happy, he remembered; at least, when Birchpaw wasn't around. The black-and-white tom was the only one who could make her feel joy these days. Starlingpaw was lucky to have found him.
The mud sucked at his paws, his short fur dyed deep brown by the earth. With each step Larkpaw sunk deeper into the riverbank until the water lapped at his ankles. He looked over his shoulder to see Wolfkit poking the river water with a tentative paw, jumping back from the shallows every time her thick fur made contact with the liquid.
"Come on, you've got to get in it," Larkpaw meowed with a laugh. Trying to set an example for her, he pushed off into the water and began to kick at the river with his legs, creating a strong and stable rhythm that kept him mostly in pace as he swam against the current. Larkpaw then slithered out of the water, as graceful as one of the fish living underneath the murky surface, and began to lick his paws dry. "Why don't you try now?" he asked Wolfkit.
Instead of stepping into the water, Wolfkit puffed up her curly fur angrily and hissed. "No!"
Larkpaw decided to counter her by bringing himself up to his full height, arching his back. The little kitten showed no sign of fear and instead flattened her ears to her skull.
He laughed. "You're rather brave too, you know."
"Like Tawny?"
"Just like Tawny."
As he spoke her name, Larkpaw was hit with an oddly potent memory of the first time he had spoken with Tawnystripe, the first day of his apprenticeship.
Larkpaw and Starlingpaw poked their heads between the strands of long grass, both of them bouncing with excitement at their new names and mentors.
Beyond the grass was the apprentices' den, a tiny hollow encircled by a ring of foliage. Inside sat six moss nests, two of them empty. The others were occupied by four apprentice warriors, one of them Larkpaw and Starlingpaw's older sister, Poppypaw.
"Poppypaw!" Larkpaw mewed happily, running up to his kin. The sable she-cat cringed at his squeal and tried in vain to squirm away from her brother.
"Hi, Larkpaw," the older she-cat grumbled. Starlingpaw stepped forward, less enthusiastic, but still grinning from ear to ear. "Hey, why don't you bother someone else?" Poppypaw suggested irritably. "Look, this is Tawnypaw. She might not be related to you, but at least she's not trying to sleep after a long day of training like I am."
Larkpaw turned to see who this 'Tawnypaw' was. Looking in the direction of Poppypaw's tail flick, the young tom spotted a ginger she-cat chatting quietly with a black-furred tom. She was the most radiantly beautiful cat he had ever seen, and as he approached her, she smiled widely.
"You're one of the new apprentices, right? Poppypaw's younger siblings?" Tawnypaw meowed. Only then did Larkpaw notice that Starlingpaw was beside him, nodding cheerfully. He felt like his sister was intruding on something special.
"Yeah, we just got our names!" Starlingpaw informed the ginger she-cat.
"Great! I don't have to be the youngest one anymore," Tawnypaw exclaimed, stretching out her long and graceful legs. Larkpaw felt an overwhelming joy that he had helped this perfect she-cat, even if he hadn't meant to. "You're the ones that have to take out the moss bedding and replace it when it gets old. Want me to show you where to find the best patch of moss?"
"Yes!" Larkpaw crowed before his sister could answer. His branch collar still hung around his neck, full of bright red flowers that made his cream fur appear slightly pink. Starlingpaw beside him wore a loop of white flowers, her fur spotted like a starling's feathers. He wondered briefly what Tawnypaw's branch had looked like; what color of blossom could possibly make her fur more dazzling than it already was.
The three apprentices walked through camp, older warriors meowing congratulations at the younger two as they passed. Larkpaw caught sight of a calico she-cat near the entrance to camp, and though he hadn't thought much of it at the time, he saw Tawnypaw exchange a meaningful look with her. It was a look of love and lost time, of emotion and pain, but he had figured only that the two cats had some important Clan business to speak about later. He also didn't think much of the times when he found Tawnypaw's nest empty in the middle of the night, but now he was sure that she had been sneaking away to see Mosspetal.
"The moss is just through here," Tawnypaw had told him. The cream-furred tom nodded gleefully, his heart bursting with new and exciting feelings he had thought were only figments of his imagination; the strong, burning, Clan-breaking love that the elders told stories about were only just that. But it seemed he had found an obvious piece of evidence to oppose that.
He had never enjoyed walking over a rough patch of ground littered with leaves and twigs so much in his life. The forest was a shining star when Tawnypaw was in it.
They came to a stop at the base of a tall tree, its roots covered in a lush green blanket of moss. Larkpaw almost regretted tearing his eyes away from the ginger she-cat for more than a moment, but he soon found that the moss reminded him of her green eyes, and he enjoyed the simple task of scraping moss together with his sister at his side.
He was halfway through gathering a clump of the material, his paws wet with the dew still lying heavy on the ground, when Tawnypaw walked up beside him.
"You've got to gather it one big claw-swipe," the she-cat explained, then demonstrated. Her strong, sharp claws scraped down along the ground, following the direction of the tree roots, upsetting the thick cover of moss and rolling the sheet into a cylinder with dizzying deftness. "I think I might have gotten a bit too much," Tawnypaw joked, gesturing to the huge roll of moss.
Larkpaw nodded furiously, wondering how a cat could even bring something that size back to camp. Even still, he knew that Tawnypaw would find a way to do it.
That was the beauty of her. She never gave up.
Larkpaw's concerns returned to him with the speed of the river at his paws. It was uncharacteristic of Tawnystripe to leave anything behind (other than him, of course), so why had Wolfkit been left alone in the nursery? She wasn't exactly the most cautious cat he knew, so he supposed it was possible that she could have accidentally forgotten her kit, without really meaning to.
But Tawnystripe loved her kittens, her mate, her family. She loved them more than anything in the world, and it was clear to see. Even though the ginger she-cat had only been with Mosspetal and her adopted kits for a day, their bonds were stronger than StarClan.
Maybe not, he thought with an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach. What if she left Wolfkit here on purpose?
It was impossible that Tawnystripe would do anything to hurt her kittens. She fought with the fierceness of a thousand warriors in battle, to protect her home and her loved ones, so she would never leave Wolfkit behind to purposefully hurt her.
But what if her intentions were different? Perhaps she left Wolfkit behind because she knew that danger lay ahead of them, and she wished to save her kitten. But why Wolfkit, and not Halfkit and Wetkit too? Maybe the assault had been so quick that she only managed to save one of her kittens before she was taken.
He shook himself and looked back at the rushing river, which grew calmer as it flowed downstream and flowed over a smoother riverbed, not the rocks that waited under the surface near the Moonfalls. Wolfkit was still staring indignantly at him, and in that moment he saw the kit's mother reflected in her in so many different ways that his head nearly burst with the overwhelming sorrow that was brought on.
"We've got to cross this river, whether you like it or not," Larkpaw meowed in the calmest tone he could manage. "You can be brave and swim across by yourself, or I'll carry you over. You get to choose."
Wolfkit's fur flattened and she looked at the river with concerned eyes. "Brave?"
"Yes. You've got to be brave," he encouraged her.
With that, the grey she-kit placed a tiny paw in the water, her wiry fur flowing gracefully in the current.
Wolfkit took another step and tumbled into the river, her tiny body dipping under the surface and disappearing into the chilly depths of the water.
