Ravenflight panted as fear engulfed him, and pushed himself to his feet. He hardly ever had good dreams, but he'd never had a dream like this. A prophecy? Had it been a prophecy? He tried to figure out what the words had meant, but he was horribly panicked, and couldn't even remember what the words Spottedleaf said had been. Great. Go me, most forgetful cat ever. Now I can't even ask Fireheart or Sandstorm or Graystripe or Yellowfang about it. He sighed, and looked around the warrior den, suppressing a hiss to find it was empty.
He entered the camp. It was sunhigh. He looked around for Fireheart and Graystripe, but his friends were not around. He then looked for Sandstorm. He spotted her and padded over. "Sandstorm!"
She turned. "Ravenflight! How are you? You looked a little… um, nervous, while you were sleeping. You okay?"
He blushed. "Yeah, I think so. You… ah… do you want to come on a patrol with me?"
Sandstorm frowned and stared at her feet. "I can't. I'm going on a patrol with Dustpelt soon. And Tigerclaw… he said your not allowed out of camp."
He didn't know which to be more horrified by. "You are? He did?"
She nodded.
"Well… have you eaten lunch yet?" he asked desperately.
"No, I haven't."
"Then, want to share with me?"
Sandstorm brightened. "Sure, could you get a mouse?"
He nodded and headed over to the pile. He grabbed a mouse, then turned and crashed into Dustpelt. "Why don't you watch where you're going, traitor?"
Ravenflight's pelt bristled, but he didn't get angry. "Sorry," he meowed, and bent to pick up his dropped prey.
"'Sorry' doesn't cover it. You should have died a long time ago, stop messing with this clan!" Dustpelt hissed, and swiped at Ravenflight's face.
He hit his mark. Ravenflight felt the sting of his claw dig into his face. He could feel his blood pulsing, and feel the thick liquid drip down his cheek. He backed up a bit with the mouse in his mouth and raced over to Sandstorm, dropping the prey. "Ravenflight, are you-"
Ravenflight didn't stick around to listen to Sandstorm. He dashed into the medicine cat's clearing and padded down the fern tunnel to see Yellowfang.
"How'd you get that?" she meowed later, looking at the cut, and placing a cobweb on to stop the bleeding.
"Dustpelt," He meowed simply.
"What'd you do to irritate him?" she asked.
Suddenly his dream came back to him. He could almost feel himself choking once more and Spottedleaf's words echoed around his mind. But why? He shrugged. "I was just bringing some prey to Sandstorm."
Yellowfang glared. "You know how close those two are! Don't try to get in the way of their friendship."
He had hoped for encouraging words from the medicine cat, and felt his pelt prickle. "Thanks for your wisdom." He stormed out of the den and padded passed a baffled Sandstorm, green eyes filled with concern. She hadn't touched her mouse. "Ravenflight! Ravenflight, wait! Why won't you talk to me?" The black tom didn't respond. His eyes stung again as they had in his dream when the sand whipped into them, but this time for other reasons.
"Just leave me alone. Don't you have a patrol to go to?" he retorted bitterly.
"But, Ravenflight… I thought we were friends." She meowed softly, padding closer to stand beside him.
"Yeah? Well, so did I." He turned and exited the camp, completely forgetting what Sandstorm had told him about Tigerclaw's orders.
The sleek tom padded quietly through the territory and stopped at the stream to stare into his reflection. The cobweb from the cut was still on his face, turned from silky white to crimson. He angrily scraped it off and stared at his reflection. For a moment, he thought it was his over active imagination playing tricks on him, but the sudden scent reminding him of death told him the image of Tigerclaw's reflection behind him was real. He jumped to his paws and whirled around to face his former mentor. "Tigerclaw!"
"Ravenflight! What are you doing out of camp? I told Sandstorm to tell you what I had said. She'll need punishment for disobedience."
Without thinking twice, he meowed, "No, Tigerclaw, she told me. I just didn't listen."
"What? Are you trying to prove to us that you are a traitor or not? If you're trying to persuade us otherwise, you're doing poorly. It's such a let down to have had an apprentice like you. You know you have to obey your deputy!"
"You'll never be my deputy! My deputy is Redtail!" Ravenflight meowed, then stormed off before Tigerclaw could do a thing. On his journey back, he crashed into Sandstorm. He stopped for a moment, then padded on without greeting her.
"Ravenflight, wait, help me out." He turned and looked at her for a moment. "Please," she meowed, "I'm confused."
He sighed. "What do you want?" his tone held more bitterness than he had wanted, and frowned when Sandstorm's ears flattened a bit.
"What did you mean when you told Tigerclaw Redtail was your deputy? Redtail is dead, Oakheart killed him."
Ravenflight gasped. "You heard us?"
She shuffled her paws. "Yeah… thanks for sticking up for me. If you're mad, why did you do that?"
"Because it was the truth."
"And what do you know of truth, traitor?" Dustpelt hissed, padding out of the bushes. "Sandstorm, come on, don't talk to him."
Sandstorm cast a long look at Ravenflight, then turned and followed Dustpelt. Ravenflight sighed, and entered camp. He was greeted by the ordinary stares of mistrust, and he padded over to the fresh-kill pile. He grabbed a finch, then took it over to the corner of camp to eat.
Sunset now, Ravenflight was sharing tongues with Fireheart and Graystripe. The two toms were talking about how they'd driven a RiverClan apprentice out of the territory. Ravenflight said nothing.
Bluestar launched herself onto Highrock and yowled, "Will all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather beneath the Highrock for a clan meeting!"
