The ginger cat with the bushy tail faced Hawkeye. "Hi, I'm Foxpaw! I'm a ThunderClan apprentice, too!" He looked especially proud of the last statement. "I'm going to give you a tour of the camp!"
He bounded off and Rabbitpaw trotted after him. Hawkeye followed, chuckling softly at the young apprentice's enthusiasm.
They came to stand at the base of the rock from which Graystar had spoken to the Clan. "This is the Highrock," Foxpaw began. "As you saw, Graystar stands on top to address the Clan. His den is in the side of it." He indicated a layer of lichen growing on the side. "You can go through that and it's his den."
Before the group could move on, a dark brown tabby walked over to us. "Foxpaw, you're coming with me on the evening patrol."
"Great!" he bounced once in his excitement. "Wait, I'll be able to finish the tour, right?"
The brown cat glanced at Hawkeye before answering, "If you don't waste time." He turned his head to Hawkeye again and said, "I'm Tigerstripe. Welcome to the Clan."
Hawkeye watched him turn and walk away. His tone had been formal, so Hawkeye couldn't tell whether he genuinely welcomed him, or whether he was on the side of Flamepelt and Flowershine.
"That's my mentor," Foxpaw stated, taking Hawkeye's mind off whether Tigerstripe had accepted him or not. "And those are our parents, Mudpelt and Shadowleaf."
He gestured to a dark brown tom lounging in the sun with a small black she-cat with orange patches. "Wait, our parents?" Hawkeye asked, wondering who the other cat he was referring to.
"Yes," Foxpaw answered. "Rabbitpaw's and mine. We're brothers."
Hawkeye suddenly noticed the similarity in shape of the two cats, small and skinny. Their different colors and temperaments hadn't made the resemblance obvious. The thought of family made Hawkeye remember his father back in Maine.
"Anyway, enough talk!" Foxpaw interrupted Hawkeye's thoughts. "Let's go to the warriors' den!"
The two brothers led Hawkeye to a low, spreading bush. "The warriors sleep in here," Rabbitpaw explained.
"One day, we will," Foxpaw added, nearly bursting with pride and excitement at the thought.
Flamepelt approached them. "Move, apprentices! You shouldn't be hanging so close to here anyway. What do you think you are, warriors?" He pushed past them into the den.
"As you know, that's Flamepelt," Rabbitpaw said sullenly.
Flamepelt hadn't dampened Foxpaw's humor. "Aw, don't worry about him! We'll be warriors soon enough, then he won't be able to pick on us! Actually, he'll probably find something, but we won't care. Right?"
Rabbitpaw brightened a little. "Yeah. Let's show Hawkeye his new den."
They continued to a tree stump surrounded by tall ferns. "We sleep under the ferns," Foxpaw said. "There are not many apprentices right now, so it's pretty roomy in there right now."
"Why aren't there many apprentices?" Hawkeye felt apprehension well up inside him as he noticed that even Foxpaw's bright eyes became sober.
"Well," the ginger apprentice started. "There were five apprentices and three litters of kits at the beginning of leaf-bare. Then the greencough came."
The two were silent for a moment before Rabbitpaw continued. "We were kits at the time. It was a bitter leaf-bare and this was the worst case of greencough the Clans had seen in seasons. Many cats got sick. Elders and kits are always the most vulnerable, but this time, the sickness hit apprentices just as hard. Every apprentice died. Two elders died. Foxpaw and I lost our sister. One litter lost three out of four kits; the only one remaining is now the medicine cat apprentice. And, see that small black she-cat over there?"
He nodded towards a group of cats eating by the warriors' den. "That's Ravenwing. Both her kits died."
Hawkeye nearly wailed aloud at the wave of raw grief this story brought. He never knew any of these people –er, cats- but he couldn't help but feel for them.
Feelings of grief over young life I never knew lost? Damn it, these feelings are supposed to be gone with the war!
Rabbitpaw continued heavily, "It was a dark time for our Clan. A few cats were sure it was the end."
A few moments went past when the only sounds were birdsong, insects buzzing in the trees, and the murmur of the other Clan cats talking. Hawkeye felt the all too familiar emotions of grief and sympathy, for the cats he never had a chance to meet, for Foxpaw and Rabbitpaw who lost their sister, for Mudpelt and Shadowleaf who lost their daughter, for Smokepaw who lost almost everything, for Ravenwing who lost every child she had, for the rest of the Clan as they awaited their doom, for the medicine cat who must have felt helpless as the deaths piled up. Disease is as bad as war, isn't it? Hawkeye realized that, after that story, these cats seemed as real as any person. They had history, family, hierarchy, everything. And he was about to become one of them.
Foxpaw shook himself. "Well, it wasn't the end, was it? Let's keep going."
Next, they came to a thickly tangled bramble bush with a narrow gap for the entrance. A white cat with blue eyes crouched with her front paws tucked under chest, watching two kits tumble playfully in front of her.
"This is the nursery," Rabbitpaw informed him. "Queens nursing or expecting kits live here, along with all the kits under six moons who are too young to be apprentices."
The two kits bundled over to Hawkeye. One was a tabby tom, the other a white she-cat.
"You're the new cat!" the little she-cat said excitedly.
"Where did you come from?" the tabby asked, in awe. "The mountains?"
"I bet he came from so far away he was as small as us when he left and it's taken him all that time to get here!" the she-cat squeaked.
They both stared in amazement. Then, the brown tom started as if he had just remembered something. "I'm Barkkit, and this is my sister, Blizzardkit."
The white cat, who Hawkeye assumed was their mother, padded over. "Are you two remembering your manners?" she scolded gently.
"Yes, Icefur ," they chorused.
Icefur purred and turned her attention to the three apprentices. "Hello, you three." She faced the two brothers. "Are you showing Hawkeye around?"
They nodded. Icefur turned to Hawkeye. "I heard Flamepelt and Flowershine found you. I hope they didn't give the rest of us Clan cats a bad reputation."
"Oh, Foxpaw and Rabbitpaw are proving otherwise."
The brothers looked pleased. Icefur turned back to her kits and the tour continued.
They came to a tunnel overarched with ferns. They went through it and came to a small clearing with a clear pool of water on one side and a rock wall on the other. The rock had a cleft in it that a cat was emerging from. Hawkeye was taken by surprise at this cat's exotic appearance. He was a creamy color with a dark face, ears, paws, and tail.
He looks like a Siamese cat. What is one of those doing in a forest?
"Is something wrong?" the small tom asked as he turned his light blue eyes on the three. Despite his exotic appearance, the cat's voice was just the same as any.
"No," Foxpaw answered. "We're just showing Hawkeye around."
"Ah, I see. Well, I'm Ravenfrost, the ThunderClan medicine cat."
Hawkeye dipped his head respectfully, remembering the importance of the role this cat played.
"No one has given you a hard time, have they?"
Hawkeye remembered Flamepelt and Flowershine, not to mention the two cats in the crowd during his introduction. "Well-," he started.
Ravenfrost sighed. "They will. Prejudice against non-Clanborn cats runs rampant in the Clans. But not to worry. In this very Clan, there are two outside-born cats who reached a high status."
"Really, who?"
"Me and my brother, Graystar." The medicine cat purred at Hawkeye's look of surprise. "Yes, despite some of the Clan's disapproval, the leader before Graystar looked favorably on us."
Hawkeye wasn't surprised by the fact that the unusual looking Ravenfrost wasn't Clanborn, nor Graystar once he remembered how the leader reacted to the cats' hints at a non-Clanborn cat being inferior; although he wondered if many of the Clan cats knew that. He was more surprised that the extraordinary looking medicine cat was related to the plain gray tabby.
The ferns rustled behind them and a small gray tom entered, dragging a rabbit with him.
"Is that for me, Smokepaw?" Ravenfrost asked.
The tom dropped the rabbit and nodded.
"Well, I won't be able to finish it; you'll have to have some, too."
He nodded again. He had brooding, thoughtful eyes. Hawkeye remembered, with a pang of pity, that Smokepaw was the medicine cat apprentice who had lost all his siblings.
"Hi, Smokepaw!" Foxpaw mewed cheerfully. "Meet Hawkeye."
Smokepaw nodded, once again.
"Well, come on, Hawkeye," Foxpaw started for the tunnel of ferns. "You'll meet the elders next."
When they emerged from the medicine cat's clearing, Rabbitpaw turned to Hawkeye. "Smokepaw gets like that sometimes, all quiet and distant. He talks sometimes, it's just that… I think he never quite got over losing all his littermates."
Hawkeye nodded. "Yeah, I figured." Poor scrap.
They came to a fallen tree trunk, covered with moss and grasses. "The elders live in the roots," Rabbitpaw explained. There were two elders sprawled out in front of the trunk. With a jolt, Hawkeye recognized the golden colored cat who had protested his being accepted into the Clan. The old tom narrowed his eyes.
"It's the loner. I hope you're not corrupting these two apprentices? Should have known a kittypet leader would make such decisions," he hissed.
"That's Lionpelt," Foxpaw said. "And don't worry too much about what he says. He criticizes everything."
The other elder was a skinny black she-cat. "Oh, hush, Lionpelt. Give the cat a chance."
"That's Crowwing," Rabbitpaw said.
Foxpaw took a step closer to the elders. "Would you like to meet Hawkeye?"
Lionpelt pointedly got up and went into his den. Crowwing sighed and then turned her face to Hawkeye. "I'm sorry about him. He and his daughter are the most prejudiced cats in the Clan. Besides those two, you really shouldn't have a problem."
Hawkeye dipped his head. "Yes, I've met quite a few cats, and they all seem great."
Lionpelt stalked back out of his den. "What, no fresh-kill? Should have known."
Rabbitpaw blinked apologetically. "Sorry, Lionpelt. I'll get you some right away."
He trotted to a dip in the ground where several dead rodents and birds lay. With a shudder of horror, Hawkeye realized that was the food.
Rabbitpaw returned, carrying several pieces of "fresh-kill." He dropped it in front of the elders and then turned away. Foxpaw and Hawkeye followed. Rabbitpaw and Foxpaw each took fresh-kill. Hawkeye hesitated, trying to get the nerve to touch one. He realized the two brothers were staring at him quizzically.
"What are you waiting for?" Foxpaw asked. "Apprentices aren't supposed to eat until the elders are fed, it's in the warrior code, but the elders are fed. It's our turn."
Hawkeye closed his eyes and let the instincts he had been worried about earlier take over. The apprentices took their meal to the tree stump by the apprentices den and ate. Hawkeye tried not to focus on what he had just done.
I'm losing my humanity! Is that what I wanted?
Hawkeye became uncomfortably aware of eyes boring into him. He looked around uneasily and saw the light gray cat who had protested with Lionpelt. Their eyes met briefly and she bared her teeth in a snarl.
"Who's that?" Hawkeye murmured to Rabbitpaw.
"That's Snowcloud. She's Lionpelt's daughter, the one Crowwing mentioned."
"Aw, who cares about them?" Foxpaw said, ever cheerful. "How do you like the Clan, Hawkeye?"
Hawkeye thought about Snowcloud's and Lionpelt's hostility. He thought about Flamepelt's and Flowershine's obnoxiousness resemblance to Frank and Margaret. He thought about dead rodents and devastating diseases. He thought about Clan prejudice. But he also remembered war, blood, Korea, long surgery sessions, nights spent in not-so-sobriety. He thought of the red tape of the Army and of the real Frank and Margaret.
But he also remembered Belle, Trapper, Klinger, Henry, and Radar. He remembered his father back in Maine. He remembered beds and houses. But he couldn't forget Rabbitpaw's and Foxpaw's friendliness, Barkkit's and Blizzardkit's excitement at his arrival. Nor could he forget the sound of birdsong and wind in the leaves, making quite a contrast to bombs and overcomes announcing incoming wounded.
With all this in mind, Hawkeye answered with complete honesty, "I don't know."