A/N I write fast. That is all. I've only just uploaded Chapter Two, but I'm going to keep writing because I have fuck all else to do.
Um, I am aware that my story isn't good. I'm trying to improve, but I know I'm not. I'm not giving up on this story, though, and I'll update frequently to burn my thirteen-year-old-girl-tries-to-write babbles into your brain.
Yes, I am thirteen, so that hopefully explains the chapters that go like this:
Rainkit: Yay! Apprentice area! I mean, booooo, I'm so ahead of them all, I feel so disdainful.
Molewhisker: ! happy!(:
Greenflower: sob, sob, sob, sob, sob, I'm completely not a pedophile
All other apprentices: -are not nearly as good as the Rainkit, who is now Rainpaw-
Rainpaw: NINJA SLASH! DIE, YOU INFERIOR APPRENTICE! MWAHAHAHAHAAHA! Disclaimer: This has no connection to the plot.
Greenflower: Plot? What plot? I WANT MY RAINKIT! WHERE'S MY RAINKIT! POINTLESS SCENE! NARMNARMNARM! GRAAAAR! –dies-
Rainpaw: hai thar, cinderpaw.
Anywaaay, I know I'm hard on myself, but it's the truth.
'How'd you go on the assesment, Poppypaw?'
Cinderpaw scooped up a squirrel and sprang onto a boulder besides her littermates and Hazelpaw. The sun was warm but not vicious, easing her sore muscles and heating her pelt.
'Assessment?' Hazelpaw mewed, looking sideways at her best friend. 'Why did I not hear of this? Do you have something to tell me, Poppypaw?'
'I was there,' Molepaw told her. 'She failed. Epicly.'
Poppypaw playfully knocked him off the boulder. 'It was only climbing trees,' she said with a little sigh. 'But I didn't do well. As-' She glanced over the side of the rock at her brother. '-you can clearly tell.'
'We hunted,' Cinderpaw said, biting into her squirrel. 'Just so you know, dear sister, that vole you just knocked off the rock? I slaved over that vole for hours, I hunted and stalked and pounced, it practically mutilated my paw-'
'In that case, it doesn't deserve to be kicking around the dust,' Molepaw muttered, leaping back up onto their rock. 'This vole now gets pride of place of the boulder. Let's name it Squishy.'
Honeypaw pushed him off again. 'I was on dawn patrol,' she told Hazelpaw. 'I had to set off a fox trap. It was terrifying!'
'We know,' Cinderpaw said, rolling her eyes. 'You skipped into the den and woke us all up squealing about it.'
'And Poppypaw had an itchy tail,' added Molepaw, scrabbling up for the third time. 'She wouldn't shut up about it, either.'
'I might have if any of you had helped me scratch it!' Poppypaw defended herself.
Honeypaw snorted. 'Poppypaw, biting your tail first thing in the morning is not a healthy start to the day.'
(Illegal A/N: Now I want to market a breakfast cereal called Poppypaw's Tail. Who would buy/bite?)
…
'Rainpaw? What are you doing here?'
The dark brown she-cat span around to see Molewhisker, an adult she-cat, and a few apprentices watching her in puzzlement. 'What are you watching?' the she-cat asked pleasantly, but her tone had no effect on the way Rainpaw heard it; she froze incriminatingly, certain that she was going to be punished for overusing the pool.
I don't really… know…
A gray-brown tom apprentice darted around the she-cat and peered into the pool. 'It's boring,' he announced. 'Why watch this? There's way more interesting things, like what Smokepaw found for us yesterday-'
'Would you like to come on patrol with us, Rainpaw?' asked the she-cat loudly, effectively cutting off the tom's words. 'We heard you haven't been in the forest much. Around here it's all pine, which should be interesting for you.'
Yes, previously my exciting adventures were just about limited to seeing a butterfly drown in the stream. 'I'd like to,' Rainpaw accepted. 'But, uh, you don't have to present everything like that… as though I'm not going to do it unless it holds some novel appeal…'
Molewhisker appeared to be humoring her. 'Yes, of course.'
As they padded out of the gorge, Molewhisker introduced her to the cats he'd bought on the patrol with her. Rainpaw began to suspect that it was more of a welcoming party than an essential patrol; Sweetpaw, the tortoiseshell-and-white cat she's noticed before, Tigerpaw, a glossy white she-cat apprentice and Frostpaw, a light gray tabby, are all she-cats she shares her new den with. Splashpaw is a black she-cat from RiverClan, and the only two toms there were the obnoxious gray-brown Thistlepaw, and pale cream-colored Redpaw, whose misnomer she had trouble adjusting to.
Sweetpaw and Thistlepaw flirted constantly, Frostpaw breaking in whenever she could. Tigerpaw bounded ahead, irritating Molewhisker and ginger-and-white Dawnbright with a rapid fire of questions. Redpaw trudged silently.
'What are we looking for?' Rainpaw asked finally, putting on a short burst of speed to catch up to Tigerpaw and the 'mentors'. She glanced appreciatively around the starry pine trees; they had a sweet scent that made her dizzy and slightly nauseous.
Dawnbright shrugged. 'There's no danger in StarClan. We just like to get apprentices out of camp.'
Is that what they call "manipulating dead apprentices to do something completely useless" nowadays?
Tigerpaw glanced over at Rainpaw with bold amber eyes. 'We might get to hunt,' she suggested, more to the mentors than her fellow apprentice.
'Sure, you might!' Molewhisker said brightly. 'Come this way, everyone.'
They trooped through a patch of crunchy ferns, the fresh scent making Rainpaw inhale deeply. Thistlepaw nudged at her from behind. 'Get a move on, Rainpaw!' he demanded, and something in his tone made her turn sharply and slash at his face.
Thistlepaw fell back, looking intimidated but suitably enraged. 'Psychopath!' he snarled at her, the blood dripping from his nose making his voice garbled. 'Look at what she did to me, Dawnbright!'
Rainpaw glared coolly at him. 'I thought apprentices were supposed to be able to handle cuts,' she snapped.
Molewhisker darted around her to Thistlepaw's side, giving her a lecture she'd heard a thousand times from Dappletail. She started violently when she heard a screech. 'What was that?'
Dawnbright swung her head around, eyes brimming with concern. 'It sounded like a cat-'
There was another howl of agony, reverbreating through the still forest and making Briarpaw flinch and draw back. Tigerpaw took off through the forest, Redpaw and Thistlepaw on her heels. Rainpaw hesitated, then raced after them, the silver pines flashing by.
Rainpaw had to pull herself to an abrupt halt to avoid crashing into Tigerpaw. The glossy white she-cat's eyes were wide with fear, and beside her Redpaw was slowly stepping back.
Bluestar looked up from a cat's corpse, her muzzle red, the side of the cat torn into.
Bluestar stood as the tom she was bent over writhed, letting out a short yowl that was cut off by gargles. 'This cat broke the code,' she meowed calmly to the horrified apprentices. 'He deserved less than a painful death.'
'What's wro- Oh, Great Founders…' Dawnbright skidded into Thistlepaw, Molewhisker not far behind. 'Bluestar, I'm sorry that these apprentices-'
'At least they know what happens if a cat disobeys StarClan,' Bluestar shrugged. 'Everyone must know this. Do you see this, apprentices?'
Most of the apprentices remained frozen, but Redpaw managed a shaky nod. Rainpaw couldn't help but stare at the bright scarlet splashes of blood over the tom's body, the way the marks of paws had dabbled it, the punctures of teeth and claw.
'What did he do?' Molewhisker asked quietly. It had to be the first time Rainpaw had heard him speak without the cheer in his voice.
'Another lowlife who considered himself to be a rebel.' Bluestar cast the feebly stirring tom a glance full of disdain, and slid her claws along his throat. Rainpaw felt Tigerpaw shudder.
A dead cat. Rainpaw didn't feel effected. No feelings of loss, or pity, or sorrow, or regret passed through her mind. She simply watched, transfixed, as the body disentigrated into the silver grass.
It would come back to haunt her many times in her life, but she couldn't change anything. She couldn't force herself to feel remorse.
…
Rainpaw swung herself back onto her nest, toying with a rubbery mousetail she had snatched from the fresh-kill pile. She had lived in the apprentice camp for half a moon now, and still hadn't found her footing nor friends.
She wasn't an expert hunter; fighting was her strong point, and she wasn't allowed to practise it any more. Not since she had left a fellow apprentice with flayed ears and gaping pink marks in their pelt. News had come back to her that Greenflower had faded, but she hadn't been concerned; the golden she-cat had probably been forgotten by the Clans. Spottedleaf's fading was what made her a little worried; she couldn't have been forgotten,, because Firestar still mooned over her in dreams (some of which weren't fit for discussion) and passed on stories about her skill and beauty. Still, it hadn't made her particuarly sad.
It was beginning to grow light; most apprentices were asleep by the seeing-pool, gazing at the Clans whenever they could. Only Sweetpaw was still curled up in the den. Rainpaw tossed the mousetail towards her sleeping frame, feeling a twinge of satisfaction when it landed on her side, and stretched out to sleep.
In her dreams, she was trapped up a tree, watching as StarClan below her began to fade like the body she had seen two weeks ago. Rainpaw clung to her branch as the tree became the only thing still standing, amongst a deep blue midnight sky. She stared down at the Clans, the roots of her tree trailing into nothingness, as sunrise dawned behind her; when the sunset came that day, it blinded her, so that she clung to her tree, not certain if it was a tree, not certain if she still existed. She wondered if this was what it was like to fade. She began to be trapped in delusions and fantasies, her mind inventing things and keeping them up if they got a reaction. Even if the reaction was terror.
After a cat with a huge, gaping jaw of black snarled at her, Rainpaw lost her grip on the tree and collapsed, falling for years through nothingness until she landed, weak and mortal, on ground. The forest around her changed from the earthy reality that the Clans inhabited and the silvery perfection of her StarClan home. She saw many silent cats, with wide white eyes, none of whom she recognised; but they all smelled of Bluestar.
Narm, narm, narm, narm. And still no plot. How long can I expect my imagined readers to put up with plotless babblings? I am sorry, imagined readers. Feel free to hang me. Using a pink rope. With rubber duckies weighing my feet down.
