Chapter Seven
Lionpaw yawned, blinking his amber eyes open. The golden tabby tom sat up and surveyed the den. Cinderpaw, Honeypaw, his sister, Hollypaw, his brother, Jaypaw,... Whoa, he thought, taking a second look. Jaypaw wasn't supposed to be in here!
Determined to find out what Jaypaw was doing sleeping in the apprentice's den, he got up and stalked towards the back of the den, careful to avoid any paws or tails belonging to his denmates. Upon reaching his still sleeping brother, he prodded him in the side and hissed, "Jaypaw! Wake up!"
"What?" grumbled Jaypaw, his sightless blue eyes snapping open. Lionpaw suppressed a shiver as they glared up at him, and, swallowing, he strengthened his resolve.
"What am I doing? What are you doing? You're the one sleeping in the wrong den, not me. Aren't you supposed to sleep in the medicine cat's den? You know, where apprentice medicine cats are supposed to sleep." Lionpaw asked pointedly.
"No, I'm not," mumbled Jaypaw, closing his eyes again.
"What do you mean, you're not? Where've you been spending the past few nights then?"
"I mean, I'm no longer a medicine cat apprentice," explained Jaypaw warily and with waning patience. "Look, will you just leave me alone? It's not even sunrise yet and I'm very tired." With that he settled down and went back to sleep, leaving Lionpaw to ponder the meaning of his words.
Not a medicine cat apprentice anymore? How in the name of StarClan did that happen?
---
Alone in his dreams, Jaypaw was tracking a mouse. It was a very smart mouse. It's scent trail kept disappearing, and whenever Jaypaw picked it up again, it doubled back on itself and led him around in circles, so he always found himself back where he had begun, just using a different route to get there. The whole thing fustrated him, but what upset the gray apprentice the most was the realization that this entire dream was just a metaphor of his whole life. He knew it was a dream sent from StarClan, and the message was clear: No matter which way you go or which path you choose, it will always lead you back to the destiny laid out for you in the stars.
Stubbornly, Jaypaw raced on ahead, determined to catch the mouse and end the game. StarClan had no power over him. He would catch the mouse in a playing ground of his own choosing, and therefore choose the placement of his own destiny.
"That's all very well. But you as you are now have not yet developed the skills necessary to catch this particular mouse. For that, you will need tricks, tricks that I can teach you."
Jaypaw whirled around and found himself staring into two, ice blue eyes. "Hawkfrost!" he eclaimed, truely surprised. He had never encountered his uncle alone before. Usually Tigerstar was with them. Suddenly, he felt nervous. Those ice blue eyes, while friendly, held a piercing quality that made Jaypaw want to squirm. "W-Would you really teach me?" he asked, hating the sudden stutter in his voice.
"Of course," purred Hawkfrost, "but first, let's leave the mouse's clearing. It is of no use to us." The clearing melted away, to be replaced by a smaller clearing with a giant rock in the center. Jaypaw recognized it from his earlier training sessions with Tigerstar. "Watch," meowed Hawkfrost simply.
Far more silently than Jaypaw would have ever thought possible for a cat of his size, the large tabby slid smoothly into a crouch. His paws seemed as light as air as he stalked around the hollow. When he was done, he stood and meowed, "Now you do it. Be sure to keep your weight off your haunches. Remember, mice are sensitive to the vibrations of the earth, so you want to remain as light as possible."
Jaypaw flicked his ear to show that he had heard. Then, trying to copy exactly what he had seen Hawkfrost do, he slid into a crouch and attempted to keep all the weight off of his haunches. It was more difficult than he had anticipated, and he found himself struggling to maintain his balance while faring no better in his ultimate goal.
Hawkfrost paced around him, studying his crouch from all angles. Jaypaw nervously awaited any criticism. He knew he had the crouch wrong. If he were to move now, a mouse all the way on the other side of the lake would be able to feel him coming. And therefore he was genuinly surprised by what the dark tabby did say:
"Hmm. Nice crouch. Needs some work though. It looks as though if a gust of wind swept over us right now, you would topple over. Listen, the trick is not to concentrate too hard on what you're doing, just let it come naturally. For now, though, it may help to pretend that you're a kit sneaking out of camp, planning to go after a couple of fox-kits." Hawkfrost's whiskers twitched in amusement. Jaypaw gave no sign that he had heard the alludement to his and his siblings' own disasterous episode except for a flick of his tail.
"Now, try it again," meowed Hawkfrost, the humor gone. "And I expect to see some actual improvement this time." A hard glint came into the tabby's ice-blue eyes.
---
Lionpaw, meanwhile, stalked out of the apprentices' den and over to the fresh-kill pile. Once he got there, he sifted through it until he found what he wanted: a nice, plump mouse. Rather absent-mindedly, he began eating it, his thoughts all the while being dragged back to Jaypaw and his problems. If there was trouble in the Clan, he ought to know about it. Oh, great StarClan! I'm starting to think like Hollypaw! He shook his head vigourously and tried to concentrate on something else. He had enough problems of his own without piling on Jaypaw's as well. However, he couldn't help but wonder what had happened when exited her den and headed for the camp entrance. Apparently, this problem wasn't about to leave him alone until he figured it out.
Sighing heavily, the curious apprentice abandoned his half-eaten mouse and padded after her.
---
Leafpool padded out of camp and made her way towards the WindClan border. She had told Cloudtail, who had been on guard, that she was out gathering herbs. For some reason, she didn't want anyone to know where she was really going.
When she reached the stream, winding along peacefully, she felt a sense of calm wash over her, nd she had to take a deep breath keep herself from drifting along its' meandering course. She was on a mission.
Turning, the tabby-and-white she-cat followed the stream upwards to it's source. It wasn't long before she found herself there, at the banks of the Moonpool. Taking a deep breath, she touched the tip of her tongue to the water and curled up in a ball, feeling the familiar coldness take over her.
---
Lionpaw followed Leafpool's scent trail through the forest. His paws felt giddy with excitement as they led him ever onwards, through the exact pawsteps of the medicine cat.
Travelling smoothly through the undergrowth, it wasn't long before he, too, reached the stream. He, however, unlike Leafpool, did not have time to appreciate its' beauty. The way he figured it, Leafpool could be moving farther and farther away while he just stood there. Swiftly, he moved on, his nose pressed against the grass.
---
In her dream, Leafpool blinked open her amber eyes, and found herself being faced by what looked like all of StarClan, Bluestar, Spottedleaf, Yellowfang in the forefront. Scrambling to her paws, she bowed her head in deepest respect, planning how best to phrase her question.
"Leafpool," meowed Bluestar, "We know why you're here."
"Then what should I do?" asked the medicine cat, the distress evident in her voice. "You yourselves said that the path of a medicine cat was the right one for him to follow! How am I supposed to steer him back onto that path?"
"That isn't your problem!" snapped Yellowfang. "StarClan is working on that. You have a more immediate problem."
With that, the cats of StarClan faded away, like stars in the sunlight. Leafpool wanted to call out to them, to ask them what they meant, but when she next opened her eyes, she found herself back beside the Moonpool.
Sighing, she sat up and began grooming her flank, puzzling over what StarClan had told her. So they were taking care of Jaypaw's problem? She surely hoped so. The sooner he was her apprentice again, the better. She turned to flatten some of the fur on her shoulder, and found herself staring into the wide amber eyes of a rabid fox.
It lunged for her, and she found her mind blank. All of the warrior training Cinderpelt had imparted to her had deserted her, and she found herself huddled against the ground like a frightened kit. Suddenly there was a golden flash that momentarily blinded her as the sun caught it, and a horrible screech.
Leafpool blinked, then blinked again. What she saw surprised her. Lionpaw had attatched himself to the fox's face and was clawing valiently at it's eyes and snout. The fox whined and whimpered, but not in pain or fear, in rage. Flecks of foam escaped its mouth as it snarled and bit, trying in vain to bite into the cat attacking it's face.
Lionpaw disengaged and landed a few feet from the fox's snout, mere mouse-lengths in front of the frightened Leafpool. The golden tom snarled at the fox, warning it away, but it kept advancing, the blood from it's wounds dripping down it's snout and to the ground. It's eyes were rolled back in it's head, and foam dripped in excess from it's mouth.
Without a second thought for his own safety, Lionpaw leapt forward nd bit one of it's forelegs only hard enough to draw blood before leaping away. The fox, seeming hardly to notice, kept advancing forward. Lionpaw prepared to attack again, but it was just then that Leafpool found her voice.
"No! Lionpaw! Don't! That fox is infected with the crazy sickness! It won't stop fighting until it's dead, and if it bites you, you'll get infected as well."
Lionpaw looked back at her, a serious look in his amber eyes. Taking a step forward, he meowed, "Then you'd better run, Leafpool. You're too important to ThunderClan for me to let you die."
Leafpool was frozen with both fear and shock, and not just because of what Lionpaw had said. The fox was renewing it's attack.
Okay, a bit of a cliff-hanger for you guys there. You know, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, despite the fact that it's so short. I especially liked it when I made Lionpaw sound all serious and say: "Then you'd better run, Leafpool." Seriously, I cannot think of a single cat that would have fit that line more. Oh, and about the fox. I didn't just stick him in there because I wanted to punish Lionpaw, or because there has been a serious lack of fighting scenes, but mainly because I wanted to see how the cats would react to a creature infected with rabies, also, I thought it would be a rather exciting plot twist if I killed Leafpool. But of course, I didn't. I decided that I'd have to kill Squirrelflight first, but I wanna torture her, so, yeah. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!