AN: Hey everyone, here's another chapter! We continue from where we left Mistpaw and co. after their confrontation with a RiverClan patrol where they learned that a fox had come onto their territory. Sadly we don't go into that very much, but we will by chapter 7 or so... On to the story!

As we padded along, Rockflower began to relax and ease back into her position as deputy. Her voice was strong with no hint of the fear I had heard by the river. She seemed like the same tortoiseshell she-cat everyone knew, as though we had never heard any mention of the fox. She led us expertly, pausing every so often to sniff the border. "She's checking to see if any cats crossed the border since the last patrol around this area," Ravenfeather mewed, bending his muzzle to sniff the ground. He looked at me and motioned for me to come forward with his tail.

I bent my head and took a sniff, scrunching up my nose as the smell hit. "Yuck! That smells gross!" I looked to my mentor in shock. "What is that scent form?" He let out a purr of amusement as he explained, "That scent is of RiverClan, they tend to smell like fish because they hunt fish every day." I glanced at the spot and grimaced, hoping I would never have to eat a fish as long as I lived in ShadowClan.

The forest began to thicken as we approached the ThunderClan border, the scents of ShadowClan and ThunderClan mingling just as RiverClan's scent had a few fox-lengths ago. Ravenfeather insisted that I sniff the border again to familiarize myself with the scents of the other clans. I could see Rockflower, out of the corner of my eye, nodding her approval as I bent to sniff the unseen line dividing the territories. Their scent was more bearable, like the scent of dry moss mixed with something warm that I couldn't identify.

Eventually, we made it all around our borders with no more incidents and back to where we had begun at the entrance to the camp. Unlike when we had left, Ivyheart and Lilyfur waited on either side of the brambles. They nodded to us as we passed. Lilyfur grinned at me as I passed her, her tail resting on my shoulder for a moment before it was gone again.

I surveyed the camp as I padded towards the Apprentices' den where Berrypaw and Wolfpaw were play- fighting. Wolfpaw was the first to notice me as I approached and called out a greeting, "Hey, Mistpaw! Where have you been? Blossompaw thought you had been carried away by a fox." I glared at him before looking to Berrypaw, who seemed to catch my glace and cuffed Wolfpaw on the ear. Wolfpaw yowled in surprise before turning and charging at Berrypaw, commencing their mock fight once again.

Blossompaw exited the den and glanced at me before glancing to her littermate and sighing. "Toms," she muttered matter-of-factly. I snickered and followed her to the fresh-kill pile. "Where were you this morning? Snowpaw and Graypaw were worried," she mewed as she picked out a small vole and began to eat. I took a seat beside her and stretched myself out slowly.

"I went on the dawn patrol with Ravenfeather; it was amazing! We got to go all around the border and we even got to see a RiverClan patrol across the river," I explained. She looked up at me with large yellow eyes. "This one cat, a really fox-hearted gray tom, was trying to pick a fight with us!" Blossompaw sat up, her ears and tail perked in curiosity. "But then, this she-cat, Lavenderwhisker, told him to knock it off and he looked like a kit being scolded. It was pretty cool." Blossompaw looked impressed and surprised before she proceeded to eat her vole.

"You tend to see that a lot from border patrols," she mewed around a mouthful of vole. I looked at her, curiosity in my eyes now. "Border patrols have a job of protecting the borders from trespassers; some cats like to pick fights with them because they are smaller than normal patrols." I could understand that, we only had four cats in our patrol, too little to fight a patrol of warriors. Blossompaw finished up her vole before continuing. "This isn't the first time a RiverClan patrol has tried to start a fight with ShadowClan and I'm sure it won't be the last, either."

"You can say that again," Badgertail muttered as he glanced over the fresh-kill pile with disdain. We looked to the gray-and-white tabby, waiting for more. He sighed and looked to us. "Those fish-hearted RiverClan cats never seem to realize when they are outmatched. Ever since a major battle many seasons ago, they've held a grudge against our Clan."

I scrunched up my brows, trying my hardest to remember any stories about a battle between ShadowClan and RiverClan but wound up with nothing. Badgertail watched us silently before taking a thrush and padding over to join Acornwhisker. We glanced at each other and shrugged before trotting back to the den. Blossompaw crouched, demonstrating the normal hunting form before glancing at me. I smiled and crouched alongside her.

We trained by the apprentice den, using moss balls and our clanmates' tails as makeshift prey, until Lilyfur called for Blossompaw and I was left without a partner. When I asked, Wolfpaw was eager to help, even if he knew just about as much as I did. "Alright, crouch so your fur barley touches the ground and begin to pad forward slowly," I explained, doing the motions as I explained them.

Wolfpaw nodded and crouched to the point where his tangled pelt barley stirred the sand and reached his paws out to take careful steps forward. I watched him as he did it, pointing out how he was putting his paws forward too much and would fall over if he kept it up. Whenever I would point something out, he looked at me with a smirk before doing it. Soon enough, we could sneak up on Berrypaw and Splotchpaw without them even hearing us. I lost count of how many times we scared them.

"That was fun," Wolfpaw mewed as we settled beside each other in the sun. I nodded, stretching my paws out in front of me to loosen them up. "You were a great teacher, for a heartbeat, I thought you were Dustypelt!" I snorted at his remark before cuffing his ear.

"Thanks, but I just did to you what Blossompaw did to me; it was easy to do when I had an example of it earlier." I purred. He nodded before stretching out to give the fur on my cheek a quick lick. My fur heated in surprise and I glanced at him, head cocked. "What was that for?"

He smiled. "It was a 'thank you', for your help. Dustypelt promised to teach me how to hunt tomorrow, so it's good that I got some pointers now than having my mentor pointing them out to me later." He looked at me, his blue eyes shining like a river as the sun hit them, and smiled again. Slowly, I purred and began to smooth his tangled pelt with my tongue. We shared tongues until I noticed Graypaw and Snowpaw approaching.

"Hey, where have you two been all day?" I asked as I sat up. Snowpaw immediately launched into a tale about gathering moss for the elders' nests and the stories they told him. Graypaw took over and explained how he was forced to do nothing but wait around camp until Thrushwing could spare a moment away from his kits long enough to teach him something. "I mean, I know that they are his kits, but our dad never visited us that often. I don't understand why he's so… so…" Graypaw scrunched his nose in thought.

"Clingy?" Wolfpaw volunteered.

"Yeah! He's so clingy! It's not like they'll be gone forever the moment he leaves them alone." Graypaw scoffed, annoyed.

Snowpaw and I exchanged a glance before shrugging. We knew how it felt when our father was never around, but leaving two kits whom had already lost their littermates. It took me a moment, but I could understand why Thrushwing was reluctant to leave them alone. I would have said so, but a voice halted the words before they could leave my throat. "I need to borrow Mistpaw and Wolfpaw if you two don't mind," a hard-edged mew grunted from behind us.

Our heads turned to greet Wolfpaw's mentor, Dustypelt, who looked at us expectantly. The two of us in question exchanged quick good-byes before standing to follow Dustypelt. The dark brown tom led us to High Oak where Ravenfeather and Lilyfur, alongside Blossompaw, waited. My mentor motioned with his tail for me to join him, which I did, although I still had no idea what was going on. Lilyfur looked around at our group before meowing in approval. "Now that we are all here, we should begin our lesson for the day."

Wolfpaw's pelt fluffed up considerably in excitement before he looked up at him mentor who tried to hide a smirk by licking his paw. My own fur fluffed up on its own in anticipation for my first lesson. I had been waiting for this for a long time.

"We will be going on a hunting patrol and learning the proper ways of hunting. This is one of the most important lessons an apprentice needs to learn because hunting is how we feed our Clan," Lilyfur explained. She began to move towards the brambles guarding the entrance and exited with our patrol in tow. "You must learn how to hunt all kinds of prey because there are many forms of fresh-kill in our territory alone."

Ravenfeather took the lead then and began moving us towards where our territory met the ThunderClan border. He pointed out things about the terrain around us, where hunting grounds were and which were best for certain types of prey. Every once in a while, he would halt and point with his tail where a mouse or vole would be hiding under a root or leaves. Eventually, he promised, we would learn how to detect prey just as easily.

We eventually reached a piece of land that held very few trees and a wide range of bushes and soft grass. Lilyfur quickly began to instruct us in the basic hunting crouch which Blossompaw demonstrated for us. Dustypelt and Ravenfeather instructed us to copy the hunting crouch and hold slowly pad forwards, just as we had practiced back at camp. Wolfpaw was in deep concentration as he lowered himself slowly and took short paw steps with his tail hovering just above the forest floor. Dustypelt nodded in approval.

I did the same, holding myself carefully and slowly taking short paw steps forwards with the ends of my fur barley touching the grass below me. Ravenfeather nodded and let out a soft purr of approval. "Very good, both of you, you two have been practicing very well," Dustypelt commented. Wolfpaw grinned at his mentor's praise.

"Now we should try it on real prey." We both looked at Lilyfur in surprise; we had thought we were training, not hunting. One glance at Wolfpaw and I knew we were thinking the same thing, we could do this.

I really like how this chapter turned out, you can tell that Wolfpaw and Mistpaw get along rather well and Blossompaw is a very close friend to Mistpaw. These come into play later. Like the StarClan cat said, she has cats who will help her save her clan from destruction.

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Ouka-noir