I got a review! Thank you amazing generous worthy-of-worship Samus Linkin, who completely lies about my story. I am aware of the numerous flaws and of how limited a writer I am, and I apologize for that. But critique would be fantastic. Any review would. Stories do get buried easily on here, so I'm going to update frequently. At least it's school holidays right now in Australia. Yes, I am Australian. No, I do not fit any Australian stereotypes.
…not that it matters. Anyway, this is the chapter Rainkit hopefully gets a personality. Also the plot begins, instead of a whole chapter of:
Rainkit: angst angst angst angst DIE, KIT, DIE angst angst angst
Bluestar: -twirls evil moustache- I've been expecting you…
Spottedleaf: Yeah? Well, you, you, you SUCK! Oh no! Whatever shall become of me?
Greenflower: I LOVE RAINKIT.
Rainkit: -nothing of intrest-
Spottedleaf: So you're going to the apprentice area. (Finally getting to the one point of the chapter)
Bluestar:… WHAT? DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE… but I'm a good cat, you know.
Which is pretty much how I would sum up my story so far.
Review anyway, please. I allow non-members.
The apprentice area was a gorge, the exposed rock a bright silver under the bursts of frilly moss. Rainkit surveyed it, excited despite her perception of it so far, noticing the thornless brambles, the pale bracken, the way stars were scattered amongst the rocks. Young cats swarmed over it; the noise of pointless chatter and frequent bubbles of laughter filled the entire gorge. She sighed slightly.
It was almost moon-high, and although StarClan was bright and gleamed in the moonlight, she was sleepy.
'Welcome!'
Both Rainkit and her foster mother jumped as an enthusiastic black tom leaped over the smooth edge, eyes bright. 'Hi! My name's Molewhisker, and welcome to the Apprentice Camp! What's your name, little one?'
'Rainkit.'
Molewhisker looked puzzled. 'Uh, sweetie, if you aren't an apprentice down there-' he pointed with his tail- 'you aren't an apprentice up here.'
Rainkit opened her mouth, eager to snap at the irritating tom, but Greenflower cut her off. 'Rainkit is extremely special,' she meowed as though that explained everything. 'She's Sorreltail's… the one who would have…'
'She's very big for a newborn kit,' Molewhisker said skeptically. 'Poor Sorreltail, squeezing that one out of her-'
Goldenflower coughed loudly and extended her tail to push Rainkit back. 'Could I speak to you for a moment? Rainkit, why don't you go and explore your new home?'
The young she-cat ducked out from behind her foster mother, and leaped eagerly to the edge of the gorge. She paused when she saw what an easy descent it was, with sprays of wildflowers from every crack. The safety appeared very transparant, as though it was only there for show.
She padded down the sloping side of the gorge, leaping back as a mouse tore in front of her. Mice this close to the camp? she wondered, then pushed it aside and continued to bound to the wide plain inside the gaping walls. Dens of bracken and twigs shone in the starlight, and a few calm-looking dens were tiny caves in the side of the wall. Rainkit shuflled her paws, hissing when an apprentice jostled against her and sprang again at his friend.
Rainkit lashed out a paw, extended claws slashing into the white tom's side. He looked comically bewildered for a moment, then whipped around to glare threateningly at the brown she-cat. 'What was that for?' he crowed, flustered.
She opened her mouth to retort, but he darted away to chase his battle partner. Rainkit seethed at the ground.
'Who are you?'
Friendly cats. Fade me now. 'Uh,' she managed, 'I'm Rainkit. Paw! I'm Rainpaw. I assume.'
The tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat tipped her head. 'Hi.'
Rainkit shuffled her paws, humiliated and painfully aware she should say something. 'Hi.'
There was a pause, then the apprentice shrugged and bounded away, small paws graceful on the rocks. Rainkit stared at the ground, embarrasment giving way to bitter hatred. Why did she just walk away without introducing herself? That couldn't be polite. Anyway, she reassured herself, saying hi back was the polite thing to do. Did potential friends judge you on your etiquette? Rainkit felt a brief compulsion to tear her tongue out.
Greenflower called for her; Rainkit sprang to her feet and scrambled up the slope, her paws dislodging several flowers. 'Yes?' she said breathlessly, edging away from the canyon.
'You're Rainpaw now,' Molewhisker informed her bluntly. 'You'll live in the apprentice's camp with me and all your new friends! Are you excited?'
Be happy. It's an improvement over moss-wetting kits who squeal endlessly if you claw them. 'Yeah, of course,' Rainpaw returned. Happier! 'I mean, yes! It's the best thing ever! I can't wait to be an apprentice and talk and fight and… train… and do all that apprentice stuff! Apprentice! Yaaaaaaay!'
Greenflower swept her foster daughter closer to her. 'I'll miss you,' she mewed mistily. 'And all the other kits I look after… we all wish you well!'
Very touching. 'Yes, I… shall miss you too. Goodbye.'
She tore away from the embrace and began to groom herself where Greenflower had flattened her fur. 'You're still my special kit,' Greenflower whispered. 'If you want anything… you know I'll get you whatever you want.'
'You've made that very clear,' Rainpaw said. 'Molewhisker, can we go?'
Greenflower looked a little hurt as the black tom began to claw down the gorge into the apprentice area, but Rainpaw was beyond caring. 'Do the apprentices have a seeing-pool?' she asked conversationally as they picked their way through the starry stones.
'There's one over that end-' he nodded towards the far end, 'but there's always a huge fight over it in the day, and at night all you can see is cats snoring!'
'So anyone can look in it? I've always wanted to, but only some kits got to go on excursions to the nearest one. I was never allowed.'
'Anyone!Over here is the den for younger tom RiverClan apprentices. That's the little slope, most cats find it to be excellent for pretend ambushes, as long as you don't dig it up. There's the ferny area, which is a good spot for prey if you feel lazy!'
'You can find prey inside camp?' Rainpaw asked cynically. 'That seems unlikely.'
'StarClan's perfect. That's the den for the mentors, though really we're just guardians, there isn't an apprentice-mentor system here!'
What?
'So, you don't go inside the mentor den, or their dirtplace. The younger shecat's dirtplace over there, you'll be using the other one, which is behind that den made of fern. Up this end is our little seing-'
Rainpaw burst forward excitedly, ripping through the crowd gathered around it and skidding at the edge. On the surface of the water, a middle-aged ginger she-cat was straining and huffing in the dirtplace, her rear end shoved out. Ew. Rainpaw wrinkled her nose as the young toms around her burst into cackling laughter.
'What are you looking at?' demanded Molewhisker, shoving to her side. 'Not now, Duckpaw,' he added to a sleek she-cat who was complaining that someone had cut her (Rainpaw smirked). 'Smokepaw, I told you that watching cats in the dirtplace is vulgar, rude and immature!'
Rainpaw nodded. Stupid toms. Her eyelids drooped.
'Molewhisker, you should've seen what she was up to with Firestar a moment ago in their den,' laughed a she-cat with a wheezy voice. 'For old cats, they're so very-'
The black tom dipped his muzzle into the pool, hissed 'ShadowClan nursery,' and stepped away. A picture of Tawnypelt laughing over her mewling kits swelled up on the water. 'I don't want you watching any of that!'
Stupid she-cats, too, she thought glumly.
'Sorry about that, Rainpaw,' Molewhisker said briefly, as the crowd died away. 'Some apprentices are ridiculous. Juvenile delinquents, always throwing frogs in the she-cat nests and getting caught sneaking away for catnip!'
Rainpaw nodded slowly, uncertain of what catnip was. 'Terrible. Um, what else is there?'
'That's where the female former medicine cat apprentices sleep, and that's the big rock with the fresh-kill pile…'
He glanced around. 'That's just about it.'
Rainpaw frowned, then felt a yawn bubble up in her throat.
'Are you tired?' he asked sympathetically. 'Greenflower told me you may have some problems adjusting to sleeping at day! I could show you to your den-'
'Yes… please,' muttered Rainpaw, suddenly exhausted. She tried to make another examination of the camp, but the stars and ferns and almost-full moon overhead blurred into a silver mush.
She stumbled up the other side of the canyon and crawled after Molewhisker into a small cave scooped out in the wall. The sand was cool on her paws and the numerous nests were abandoned.
Molewhisker snatched some material from the others and constructed a lopsided but sufficient nest for her. She clambered on top of the feathers and moss and stared at the blured glimpse of moon until she fell asleep.
'I want Rainkit!'
Greenflower was yowling hysterically, slashing at random at the concerned kits and queens who surrounded her.
'Greenflower!' cautioned a young silver tabby. 'Calm-'
'Where's my Rainkit?' Her paw flailed out to slice through the tabby's eye. She toppled, the colorless liquid thinning the pulse of blood from her socket.
Greenflower trembled on unsteady legs, her pelt slick with her own blood. 'My kit-' She bent her head back to tear at her own flesh.
She was cornered in the den she used to share with Rainkit and the others, shaking and hysterical, the stiff body of a kit trapped under her paw.
'You took Rainkit away from me!' she snarled, a scrap of her own fur dangling from her mouth. 'Bring her back!' Greenflower slashed at invisible enemies with her claws, eyes wide, terrified and furious.
The tabby queen stirred. 'Greenflower, don't-' A golden paw tore at her snout before she could wail any more.
Greenflower froze, panting heavily, her pelt ripped and stained with crimson. Then she collapsed, snuffling 'Give her back… I want my Rainkit back…'
Her chest stilled, and Greenflower faded.
Rainpaw woke in early morning. Brilliant sunlight flooded through the cave entrance, making her squint and frown around. The tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat from earlier was there, sleeping silently, her nest clustered near those of other interchangable she-cats. Rainpaw stood and made her way through the minefield of nests, emerging in white sunshine that almost blinded her. She skid down the slope and hesitated before grudgingly taking a magpie from the fresh-kill pile. Prey tasted of splintered wood and bile and bitterness, but she was starving.
Rainpaw gulped the prey down, managing to surpress her gag, and hesitated before heading to the seeing-pool. It was a calm picture, the dawn patrol of WindClan returning to camp; she watched for a moment, then dipped her muzzle in the water and said uncertainly, 'ThunderClan apprentice den?'
She herself had been placed in a den with ThunderClan cats; from what Molewhisker had said, that had to mean that it was where she came from.
The image that flickered onto the pool held no sight she recognized. There was a dappled tabby she-cat with hopeful blue eyes; a large tortoiseshell she-cat with a restless tail; and a gray she-cat.
It was the gray one she couldn't help looking at. They were entirely different colors, but they had the same fluffiness, the same broadness of head, the same bushy tail that they held in the same way.
And although Rainpaw didn't know this, both she and Cinderpaw had a way of walking with one of their legs lagging, and a way of constantly flicking their eyes towards it, as though to ensure it was still there.
So, Rainpaw becomes… SOCIALLY AWKWARD! And… she SEES CINDERPAW AND DOESN'T NOTICE ANYTHING ABOUT HER! Can you handle the gripping plot twists and the high-action plot?
Maybe I need to stop making fun of myself. Whatever. Review?
