Hi readers! I'm glad that anyone reading this chapter is paying attention to my story. I won't be updating as fast as this (a chapter every day) all the time, it's just that I had some stuff pre-written. I know that my story seems to be taking a while to pick up, but bear with me please. Thank you, whoever may be reading this.
Chapter 2: A Bit Strange…
Frecklepaw woke with a start. He had a nightmare of being chased by badgers. But he remembered that his older sister Galewind said she had the same dream at times. He knew he wouldn't be able to just fall back asleep, so he walked out of the apprentice den. Small rays of light breaking over the cloudy horizon told him dawn was coming and it would make no sense to go back to sleep now. Making sure there were no badgers behind him, he settled down in front of the den. He noticed Owlwing, a she-cat elder coming out too. Her light gray fur looked darker in the early morning.
When dawn came, more cats appeared. Sunnywing, Yellowpaw and Spikepaw's mother, came out and the warrior Tawnythorn soon did the same.
Tawnythorn settled across from Frecklepaw. Sandyfur soon followed.
"You and your nightmares," Sandyfur hissed to Tawnythorn. "Your yowling kept me up all night, no doubt other warriors too." Tawnythorn hissed at him and stood up to face him. Tawnythorn's legs were longer, and he was taller.
"You're always starting fights! Yesterday something about a patrol I was already going on, now about nightmares no other cat heard? That was Rainclaw, anyway!"
"Why don't you both shut your mouths!" an apprentice named Puddlepaw said. "At this rate, your arguing will wake the clan, not a silly nightmare!" Sandyfur and Tawnythorn fought so much for often-silly reasons, that even the apprentices had begun correcting them.
Puddlepaw was Frecklepaw's sister. She was brown, like him, and had strange silver-gray paws. She was bouncy and confident, and always spoke her mind. This was different from her brother, who was very introverted.
Thinstar, the leader came out of her den. She was Puddlepaw and Frecklepaw's mother. By this time, dawn had broken and more cats were leaving their den.
Cloudynight, a dark tom named Sootstep, and Puddlepaw's mentor Mistyfur set out on a morning patrol. The sun wasn't shining. When it was fully raised, rain clouds came to cover it.
Thinstar gathered up Puddlepaw and Yellowpaw. She took them over to Tawnythorn, who was sitting playing with leaves on the ground.
"Tawnythorn, find another warrior and take these apprentices out hunting," Thinstar ordered.
Tawnythorn sighed and got up. "Come along then, let's find someone else to take." Tawnythorn looked around camp. Galewind went out on a mission to collect herbs for the medicine cat, and took Redfur with her. Rainclaw and Crazyeyes were still sleeping and Shorttail was talking with the deputy, Largefoot.
"Hey, there's Sandyfur! Didn't you notice him?" Puddlepaw asked. Tawnythorn did see him, but chose to ignore the fact that he seemed able to go on a hunting patrol. He really didn't feel like doing anything with him. Puddlepaw started walking over to him but Tawnythorn stopped her.
"Don't take him with us! He bothers me so much!" he growled. But Puddlepaw was insistent.
"He isn't doing anything, though!"
Thinstar heard them from across the clearing to see what was going on. "Oh, what a good idea! I can't think of anything else for him to do."
She called him over. He came across willingly but slowed when he saw Tawnythorn.
"Let's get a move on, then," he growled. Puddlepaw looked Yellowpaw and they exchanged a face, both thinking, "toms."
Out of the camp, the weather was nice and cool. The weather in TreeClan territory was usually a little colder than it was really was, due to the trees acting as a sort of canopy from some of the sun's warming rays.
Yellowpaw immediately went after a mouse scent. TreeClan's hunting on the ground was adequate, but the cats rarely tried to, as their skills lied in the trees. Stripedpaw wondered off, looking for birds or squirrels in trees. A sickly sweet scent filled her nostrils, and she immediately scented FlowerClan cats' stench. Every clan's scent had something to do with their surroundings. RockClan's was faintly dusty and old smelling, for their camp was on an old, barren, dry rock. RiverClan smelled like a fresh rain due to being right next to the main river of the forest. There were three streams at the northern part of the forest between TreeClan and FlowerClan, which eventually formed one river going into RiverClan's territory. TreeClan smelled slightly of the pine surrounding their territory. The scent of FlowerClan that Stripedpaw had discovered was nauseatingly sweet, from the colorful flowers surrounding their camp.
Stripedpaw decided she had better things to do than track it, and she'd tell her mentor about it later. She easily maneuvered her body up a tree silently, as not to alert the squirrel up there of her presence. Quietly, she crept…
Frecklepaw stared out of a hole in the medicine cat's den, studying the movement of a robin, watching it land on a small branch and soon fly away. Bored, he asked his mentor if he could take a walk. He agreed to it as long as Frecklepaw was back soon. Frecklepaw strolled out of the campsite and into the forest. He loved walks in his forest; the clean air helped him clear his mind and sort his thoughts. All of the sudden he stopped short and a vision of cats clawing each other and injuring themselves badly rushed through his mind. Who are those cats? He thought frantically. They look familiar… he was shook from his violent thoughts when a cat came through the bushes. The cat was a she-cat apprentice named Midnightpaw.
"Hello, Midnightpaw. You gave me a bit of a scare, just bursting through the…" he was cut off, for Midnightpaw seemed to have ignored him and stumbled past him. He was perplexed, as he usually was by her. She was a strangely secretive cat. She had no siblings, nor parents. She was found as a newborn kit alone in the forest, and reeked of kittypet. The leader said she was probably just dropped off by a twoleg who did not want to have a new kitten in his household. The TreeClan cats took her in as their own. Midnightpaw was similar to Cloudynight in the way that they were born kittypets but still had the abilities to fight and hunt in trees just as other TreeClan-born cats could. The abilities of TreeClan made it hard for other clan cats, kittypets, and loners to join the clan. It wasn't that TreeClan weren't generous about space; it was just that fitting in was hard.
Midnightpaw had strange abilities and habits, some almost powers. Sometimes cats did as she suggested or ordered, even though she was an apprentice. She kept to herself a lot, almost never talking with other cats besides her mentor Darkbranch. She traveled alone, often without the consent of her mentor. Once she complained about a nightmare. When a cat offered to talk to her about it, Midnightpaw shrank back, folded her ears back, and said she would not.
Frecklepaw decided he wasn't in the mood for a walk and went back to camp. He'd back to his herb poultice that he never finished mixing. But on the way back, Frecklepaw kept wondering what that strange vision was…