"I wonder if Mothwhisker likes me…"

"Hmph! Mouse-brained tom thinks he knows it all now that he's a warrior! Just because he's Thistlestar's son doesn't mean he's better than anyone else."

"I can't believe it's almost sunhigh and that lazy apprentice hasn't brought me a single piece of fresh-kill. Why, I ought to shred his ears when he gets back!"

Fallenfire flicked his ears as he pushed away the thoughts of his clanmates, trying to concentrate on what Mistshadow was saying to him. She and her brother Talonstrike had just recently been made warriors, just a moon after he himself had been made a warrior. Her crush on him had been no secret to him from the start; he would have known even if he hadn't been born with the ability to hear every cat's thoughts as clearly as they were speaking out loud. The way she followed him around with moony eyes made it painfully obvious. His whiskers twitched in amusement. Many of the tom-cats in the clan were mouse-brained when it came to the subject of she-cats. For instance, Mothwhisker had been deeply in love with Thornstripe ever since she was made his apprentice, but he had only recently started to wonder if she saw him in that light.

"It was brave of you to save that Thunderclan apprentice at the Gathering last night…" Mistshadow was mewing, trailing off, but he could hear the rest of her thoughts, "I wish I had fallen into the lake so you could have saved me too."

It had been hard for him as a kit and even as an apprentice to hide his ability. At first, he didn't realize that he even had it. Every cat's thoughts were as clearly as their spoken words, making it hard to distinguish what was being spoken and what was left unsaid. He had gotten better at blocking off the thoughts of his clanmates. Occasionally when he began to zone out, they would all come rushing back, loud and chattering. The noise often gave him a headache, so he spent much of his time trying to concentrate on his own thoughts and not the thoughts of others. But he could not block it out completely. Even when he was ignoring his clanmates thoughts, he could hear them buzzing in the back of his mind, whispering secrets that he was never supposed to know. The only time he got quiet was in his sleep. Perhaps as a tradeoff for his power to see into the minds of other cats, he met only darkness in his rest and could never recall having dreamt, though sometimes he would wake up with the distinct sense that he was forgetting something important.

He had never told anyone about his power, though he suspected that Thistlestar had some knowledge of it. He also thought that his mother might have an inkling, since after all, she was the first to give him quizzical looks when he would respond to things she had said in her mind. But if she knew, she never said anything. Leopardpelt was nothing but protective and supportive of her son. Fallenfire felt a rush of affection for his mother. She had raised him without a father and without the support of her clan. Many of his clanmates distrusted him for his unknown father, who Leopardpelt refused to talk or even think about. When he was a kit, he had been taunted and called a kittypet by all the other kits. But by the time he was a warrior, no one dared to taunt him any longer. He easily towered over all his clanmates. He supposed he had gotten his size from his father, because his mother was small and delicate, despite the fierce great warrior clan she was named after.

Fallenfire often wondered if he should tell his leader about his powers. After all, being able to see into the very thoughts of other cat's was a useful ability, especially for rooting out traitors and enemies. But he didn't want to put his leader into a difficult decision of whether or not to use his power and ensure the safety of his clan while jeopardizing their privacy when the warrior code said that they were to trust their clanmmates. It also made him dangerous, a warrior that could anticipate a cat's every move. His mentor had always attributed to his incredible fighting skills to his big but agile body, but most of his success was due to being able to predict what an enemy was going to do sometimes before they even realized they were going to do it.

"I was only doing what was right." He said, taking another bite of his squirrel thoughtfully. His mind wandered back to the Thunderclan apprentice that had stumbled off the tree bridge at the Gathering just the night before. He had managed to catch her before she fell in, her weight barely more than that of freshkill. It wasn't hard to figure out her name. Silverpaw. A suiting name for the tiny she-cat. Her dappled silver and dark gray pelt had shone like the stars underneath the moonlight, striking her mismatched amber and blue eyes, making them look like the sun and the moon. He discovered that she was the daughter of Stormstar and that the thought of her mother crossed the Thunderclan's leader mind frequently, those thoughts bringing another wave of grief upon the gray tom. Silverpaw was stubborn and outspoken, but very kind when she wasn't trying to be difficult. She was determined to set herself apart from her three older littermates and from the image that had been left upon her clan as a sick and weak kit.

He hadn't gleaned any of this information from the she-cat herself, actually. While she was certainly very pretty and had an appealing personality, it was her mind that drew him the most. Her thoughts were unclear to him, like soft echoing whispers in a cave. Trying to listen to her thoughts was like trying to hear underwater. He was aware that she was, in fact, thinking, but for some reason, he could not understand the whispers of her mind. Never before was there a cat whose thoughts he couldn't hear and whose mind he couldn't look into if he wanted to. He hadn't had much opportunity to figure out why at the Gathering and he knew that he wouldn't able to rest until he discovered what she was thinking.

"Fallenfire? Where are you going?" The distressed mew of Mistshadow echoed after him.

"Hunting." Was his generic answer.

"Can I come with you-"

"No." He said a bit too sharply and upon feeling the white she-cat's hurt, he said more softly, "I just want some time alone. We can share freshkill tonight."

xxxxxxxx

Silverpaw crouched low to the ground as she watched the blackbird pecking at the ground underneath a tree. She flattened herself into the bramble before leaning back on her haunches, ready to make a gigantic leap –

CAW! CAW!

Suddenly the bird flew off at the sound of rustling. Cursing under her breath, she launched herself into the air, missing the tail feathers of the bird by a mouse whisker. She landed on the ground, fur bristling. Whoever made that noise was going to get a shredding! That was the fattest piece of prey she had seen all day and she refused to go back to camp with only two scrawny mice. She bet Hawkpaw had caught three times that. And that blackbird had been gigantic!

"Silverpaw."

The apprentice froze, opening her mouth, breathing in the scents around her. Shadowclan! But surely she hadn't crossed the border without noticing –

A heavy body slammed into her, knocking her off her feet and pinning her to the ground. She struggled and prepared to let out a loud yowl. "Shh, quiet." The cat above her whispered and her eyes widened. For some reason she obeyed, but her fur was still bristling and her ears flattened.

"Fallenfire?" She mewed, then grew hot with embarrassment as she realized that he had never introduced himself to her at the gathering, which meant that she had obviously been asking about him.

He rolled off of her, licking a paw. He looked even more handsome by day – or, well, sunset, as the sun was nearly down over the horizon. She took a moment longer to get to her paws than she would have liked.

"What are you doing on my territory?" She hissed.

"Relax." The tom said calmly, tilting his head to the side. "I'm just here to talk."

"With Stormstar? Is something wrong in Shadowclan?" Suddenly, her fur flattened, a look of concern on her face. "I can go get him –"

"It's you I want to talk with, Silverpaw."

Those words sent shivers down her spine. She blinked up at him stupidly. "Me?" She mewed incredulously. What could this handsome Shadowclan warrior possibly want with an apprentice like her?

"Meet me tomorrow night at the edge of our borders." He murmured, taking a step closer, so that she could feel his breath on her ear. And with that, he turned around and padded back onto his side of the border, not even waiting for her response, as if he was already certain that she would come.