~It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.~
-Aristotle Onassis
Emberstep padded slowly toward the rat, keeping crouched down low to the ground with her belly touching it. She squinted; it was a new moon, the light very little. When the warrior was a few inches away she pounced, but her leg faltered and she tripped, scaring the prey.
"Fox dung!" the she-cat hissed. "Stupid!" she added, looking at her left back leg.
It was rust-colored like the rest of her body, but it was badly deformed and twisted from a birth defect.
"Just… ugh! I can't take this anymore! I have to get this stupid thing fixed!" she yowled with great anger. "Fox-dung, fox-dung, fox-dung!"
She limped away to the left, the direction of the medicine den, all of her dignity gone.
"Why does it have to be me with the stupid leg?" Emberstep growled to herself.
After what seemed like an entire moon of dragging her leg with the rest of her limbs, the she-cat finally reached Magentapelt.
"Hey!" the warrior yowled.
"Your leg again?" The medicine cat read her mind.
Emberstep sighed. "Yes."
"Follow me."
The cats padded into the medicine den together.
"It's bothered you enough, hasn't it?" Magentapelt meowed.
"Yes," the warrior growled, looking at her faulty leg.
"Tell me what happened."
"I was hunting," she began, "and when I pounced, my leg slipped out from under me and I fell on it. The rat ran away in the midst of it." She again looked at her leg, frowning and sighing.
"This is the last straw," Magentapelt meowed, "you're gonna have to stay in the elders' den."
"No!" Emberstep yowled, "I'm a warrior! Nothing can change that, not even this stupid thing!" She stormed out of the den.
"Wait!" the medicine cat yowled, "come back!"
"So I figured I would tell you," the warrior meowed depressedly.
"How terrible! All because of a leg," the kit responded.
"But I told you not because I felt like it but because I have a good feeling about you. Because I feel like, even though you're pretty strange, you can relate to me."
Destiny smiled. "Thanks," she mumbled.
I'm strange? Why me? She's an outcast?
"I just feel it about you," Emberstep continued, "you're a lot like me."
Destiny shivered, suddenly remembering the prophecy. Does she know or suspect?
"Why are you shivering?"
"I'm cold," the kit mewed. She looked at the warrior's leg and shivered again at the horendous sight it was.
"Aww," the she-cat meowed sympathetically. "Let's get you to the nursery."
The two cats looked up at the light rain that was pouring down for a heartbeat and padded to the right toward the nursery. Within a few moments they were there. Cheetahpelt and all of the kits were waiting.
"Hi guys!" Treekit mewed. "Guess what? Three days until our apprentice ceremonies!" he added with excitement. Flowerkit gave a shy smile and Grasskit grinned and jumped up and down.
Destiny copied Flowerkit's expression while her brothers and Blackflower's kits ran into the den and Treekit told them the same news.
Cricketkit and Beetlekit, now about a moon old, looked up and mewed, "What about us?"
"You have to wait five moons," Grasskit snarled.
"Quiet!" Cheetahpelt scolded. "Wait, what is Emberstep doing here?"
Everyone in the nursery suddenly silenced and turned to look at the warrior.
"Um, hi," the she-cat meowed, embarrassed. "I just brought Destiny to the nursery because it's cold outside."
The kits all looked back at each other with confused expressions. The queens kept peering at the warrior.
Emberstep sighed. "I was talking to her and she shivered from the chilly air outside. So I took her to the nursery."
The kits gave an oohh of reassurance. Destiny chuckled to herself. Flowerkit heard this and began to laugh hysterically, which caused a chain reaction that had the entire nursery cracking up.
"Welcome," Titanstar mrrowed, "to the apprentice ceremony of RainClan." The leader looked back and shuffled his paws. "These six kits have come of age well, and we will soon recognize them as apprentices."
The crowd of the gathered cats cheered. The plant trio, standing on the right of Titanstar with the used-to-be-rogues on the left, were the only ones without a smile on their face.
"What's wrong?" Orca whispered to the siblings.
"I'm worries about Blackflower and her kits," Flowerkit responded quietly.
"They're okay," Orca reassured her.
"We will begin with the firstborn of these six. Treekit, please come up next to me," the RainClan leader continued.
The frown on the kit's face turned upside down as fast as lightning. He padded up to the tom and stood regally and proudly.
"Treekit," he meowed, looking down at the young tom, "do you promise to be taught the ways of a warrior and StarClan?"
His eyes lit up. "I do."
"So from now on until you receive your warrior name you will be known as Treepaw. Your mentor is Thunderclaw."
The new mentor peered around with a smile on his face while his apprentice mewed to Titanstar, "Thank you."
"Now," the leader carried on, "Grasskit. Come."
The brother came running up excitedly. His pupils were wide and his mouth was hanging slightly open.
"Do you pledge to learn the ways of a warrior and StarClan?"
"I do," the kit mewed without hesitation.
"So from now on until you receive your warrior name you will be known as Grasspaw. Your mentor will be Skyclaw."
Grasspaw looked at his mentor and came running toward her. She shared tongues with him for a moment, and he went back up next to Flowerkit and Treepaw.
"Flowerkit," Titanstar went on, "please come up here."
The kit overlooked the crowd behind her and gave a shy smile. She padded up to the leader.
"Do you vow to learn the ways of a warrior and of StarClan?"
Flowerkit mewed, "No. I vow to be a medicine cat."
A blanket of whispers covered the gathered cats.
"Okay," Titanstar meowed, "from now on until you receive your medicine cat name you will be known as Flowerpaw. Your mentor will be Wintermist."
Wintermist smiled at Flowerpaw. "Yes!" she meowed, "I got an apprentice!"
The new apprentice gave a tiny grin back.
"Now we move on to another group of siblings only a quarter-moon younger. Destiny, please come."
Shark and Orca whispered to her, "You can do it!" and pushed her up next to the RainClan leader.
"Do you swear to learn the ways of a warrior and of StarClan?"
Before the kit had a chance to say, "I do," a riot of cats lead by a pure white one ran up to the area where the cats had gathered and began to attack every cat in their sight. Yowls of pain and panic quickly surged through the group. The leader, kits and apprentices at the front stood in shock at the invading SnowClan.
Instinctively, Titanstar leapt down at the invaders and began to fight. "Stop!" His yowl rose over all other noises, but the horde of bodies ignored him. "Stay!" he meowed, turning back to the kits up where he was. "Stay there!"
The plant trio disobeyed. They jumped into the crowd on top of a cat that looked familiar to Destiny with his light gray fur, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
But suddenly it hit her.
Dustpaw!
Feeling betrayed by a friend, the kit followed the trio into the cluster of bodies. "Wait!" her brothers screeched, hounding after her.
Mouse-brained fox-dung! Stupid Dustpaw! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!
The apprentice shook the siblings off and looked at the approaching Destiny with a scowl on his face. Just as the kit was within striking range, Emberstep appeared out of nowhere and knocked the tom over with a blow to the shoulder. The she-cat warrior tripped and tumbled over him, landing right on her bad leg. She let out a shriek of excruciating pain when Skyclaw ran over to her.
After watching this unfold amidst the battling, Destiny turned to face the traitor, now leaping at her with his claws outstretched. She barely dodged a hit to the face, whipping to her left and knocking him over with a slash at his side. He yowled from the pain of the fall but still defended himself when the tiny she-cat pawed at him.
Again she suddenly remembered the dream she had; how Scourge took away the lives of Tigerstar with one blow. Improvising, she leapt at his stomach with her claws outstretched. Realizing what was happening, Dustpaw shifted just enough so that the apprentice scratched his leg instead. Only thinking about the dream, Destiny jumped onto his side.
And, with a single talon out, she cut him open.
He let out a shriek of intolerable pain as all of the battling cats stopped and stared at Dustpaw and Destiny. Both Clans looked uncomfortable, and the pure white one who lead the invasion bared her teeth and growled, "You're dead, Destiny."
Half of the cats in the riot stared at the she-cat and began to mob her. A calico ran over to the bleeding young tom just nearly killed by Destiny and rubbed a leaf of some sort on his wound. The rest of the cats glared at the apprentice and back at the kit in disbelief. Shark and Orca stepped up from the crowd and turned to face RainClan.
"Stop," Orca mewed. "A traitor is a traitor. He made the wrong choice."
"He's just an apprentice!" one cat yowled.
"He got lost in SnowClan!" another cat blared.
"Shush! Be quiet and let us talk!" the other brother squealed.
"Why do we have to follow orders from you when you're just a kit?" Another cat asked.
Shouts of agreement rose up above the cats. SnowClan seemed to ignore the siblings but did not attack Destiny. Dustpaw had his eyes closed, napping while the calico stood over him. His gash, now closed up most of the way, was not very big and shed little blood compared to what killed Tigerstar.
Mouse-dung!
Destiny padded through the now listening attentively SnowClan. She got up in between her brothers and mewed with the most innocence she could muster, "I'm sorry. I truly am. I thought that since he was in the back of the group of invaders, he had joined SnowClan. I will do anything to make it up to you." During the latter words of her speech she turned to Dustpaw.
He opened his eyes and meowed, "Do you know what you could do? Suffer this same injury. Go through what you put me through."
The same sounds of agreement rippled through the cats. Destiny shivered.
"Wait," she suddenly thought out loud, "if Dustpaw is not part of SnowClan, why is SnowClan taking care of him?"
All of RainClan stopped and thought about it. The other Clan, meanwhile, looked surprised and worried at the same time, perhaps from the intellect of the kit or from possibly being given away. The tiny she-cat could not tell for sure.
The calico backed away from the healed apprentice. "Thanks a lot," she heard him mumble. "Now I'm almost certainly facing the death penalty."
"Destiny!" Titanstar shouted, "I don't care about this stupid ceremony! You are now Destinypaw and your mentor is Emberstep! Same with Sharkpaw and Orcapaw! Your mentors are Riverclaw and Windclaw!"
RainClan cheered at both the new apprentices and at the fleeing SnowClan. The pure white one, however, stayed and padded up to the leader. "Blizzardstar," she meowed. "Long time no see."
"Go away," Titanstar hissed. "You just invaded us!"
"I don't need to be told that I just invaded you," the other leader growled.
The six new apprentices stood in conflict with mixed feeling about the situation. Applefoot sat tense and ready to pounce. Dustpaw just laid blankly on his side in the moist, mossy ground.
"I don't give a fox-dung about what you need to be told and don't! Just go away!"
"There is a rule, you know- an honorable warrior does not need to kill to win his battles. But what did this Destiny just do? She attempted to kill one of her own." Blizzardstar peered over at Dustpaw and at the new apprentice, then back to Titanstar. "That is why we invaded."
Titanstar meowed, "First of all, it's Destinypaw, and second-"
"I thought that he had joined SnowClan because I saw him in the riot of invaders," Destinypaw cut the tom off. "So I attacked him."
"Yeah!" her brothers mewed simultaneously. "Stop bullying her!"
Blizzardstar sighed. "But she should have recognized Dustpaw as a member of RainClan. Her selfish and mouse-brained mind is flawed, however."
"You calling her a mouse-brain?" Shark growled.
"You barely know her! You have no right to judge her, or anybody!" Orca added.
"Oh, I know her all too well," the SnowClan leader mrrowed, glaring at Destinypaw.
She knows!
After a few tense moments of cats glaring in untrust, the last invader remaining had finally left hesitantly. Her last words to RainClan were, "I'm watching you."
At least that's what they told Destinypaw, who was just waking up from a state of unconsciousness due to a bite at the throat from Blizzardstar. She found herself in a nest in the medicine den filled with blood. Blackflower was lying a couple fox-lengths away. Pumaflight was sitting next to Flowerpaw at the back of the den, smiling for the first time since he caught Greencough, which only meant one thing- he was cured.
"I've got you taken care of," Magentapelt meowed. "Wintermist is collecting the herbs necessary for you to heal."
The apprentice was more interested about why the cat who was attacked by SnowClan before the ceremony was lying still while Destinypaw's nest was filled with blood. "What happened to Blackflower?"
The medicine cat looked at Pumaflight uncomfortably, then peered back at the curious apprentice. "She joined StarClan."
Wintermist padded into the den without warning. "Hey-oh! Got the stuff."
Magentapelt frowned. "Hello."
The other medicine cat ignored and continued walking to her apprentice. "Do you know what to do with these?"
The answer was a shy and almost embarrassed no.
"It's okay, watch and learn." The mentor stepped up to Destinypaw and rubbed some leaf on her wound. She then proceeded to feed her another one.
"What are those?" Flowerpaw asked.
"I'll tell you eventually, but I can't in the company of these guys." Wintermist's eyes scanned the den.
"Why?"
"Only medicine cats can know what certain herbs are. At least, that's a new rule made. Don't ask me who made it, I don't know." The she-cat then grabbed another green thing and rubbed it on Destinypaw's throat.
"Wow," the apprentice responded shyly.
"Just to let you know," Magentapelt broke in, "I'm retiring to an elder after Flowerpaw becomes a medicine cat."
"Uh, okay," Wintermist responded.
"Ah, mouse-dung!" Pumaflight shouted abruptly. "I try to get up once, and I slip and fall."
Only now did Destinypaw notice that Emberstep was in the medicine den. "I know how you feel."
"What about Dustpaw? Who's his mentor now?" the warrior meowed.
"I honestly don't know what happens when a mentor dies in the middle of one's apprenticeship. It never happened to me."
A grim silence suddenly gripped the den. Wintermist's eyes widened, and Destinypaw could feel and hear the she-cat's heart pounding from tail-lengths away. "What's the matter?" she asked the older cat.
"I- I've gotta go," she stammered, and rushed out of the den. Magentapelt soon followed in the same trance, Flowerpaw next.
"I wonder where they're going," the only remaining apprentice in the den thought out loud.
"Maybe to the Moonpool. They probably got a message from StarClan." Emberstep sighed, curled up into a tight ball, and continued, "I hope it's a good one."
Destinypaw shivered at the idea of a message of death from her wise ancestors when she remembered the prophecy- could the entire Clan uncover her deepest, darkest secret?
I have received a sign from StarClan. They never really do that unless the cat is a medicine cat. Does that mean I'm destined to be one?
Destinypaw padded out of the apprentices' den to meet all of the new apprentices to play. It was the day before her training begun. It meant that she had one more day to change her mind.
"I've been thinking," Flowerpaw meowed, "I don't think I'm cut out to be a medicine cat. I honestly think that I'm better off as a warrior."
"Why?" Grasspaw mewed, cocking his head to one side. "You're so shy, you'd probably die from fear before you die from injury."
"I don't know if you realize this, but lately I've had a dream from StarClan," Destinypaw broke in roughly. "They said I should be the medicine cat." The apprentice knew she was lying, but receiving a dream from StarClan at all was a signal of who should be what.
"Should we ask Titanstar if we could trade mentors?" Flowerpaw looked more and more intrigued with every heartbeat.
"Yeah!" the entire group mewed in unison. "Let's do it!"
"I'll ask," Flowerpaw responded. "Hopefully he agrees. Your dream is pretty much a sentence to that, don't you think?"
"Let's do this!" Destinypaw mewed excitedly.