Have you ever tried controlling that temper of yours?

You're always so quick to accuse.

Calm down!

She's so volatile...

Won't stop to let her own sister explain...

Bet it was her mother... Never quite gave her equal attention.

She's just doing this for attention then...

Pay her no mind...

She's just an annoying apprentice.

Cool wisps of evening air milled about the roots of trees in whitish coils, a sort of unsettling mist fanned out across the forest floor in the more eerie of settings. The small remaining glow of the sun hovered just above the faraway hills, quickly descending into its nest behind the green mounds in order to let the moon take control of the darkening sky. The undergrowth shifted, the plant stalks parted, the leaves crunched, the twigs snapped.

A silent forest was out of the question.

She stood as a stark outline against the fog - a small bodied feline of ginger tabby fur.

With her mouth clamped shut in fury, teeth gnashing furiously behind closed lips, she breathed out heavily in short bursts through her pinkish nose, those nostrils flaring with every exhale.

A sort of bitter harshness burned in her liquid amber pools, melting even the densest of barriers with one long glare.

Her posture was tight. Her muscles tense. Her stub of a tail thrashed as much as it could until the continuous motions became too much to bear. In an expression of unbridled rage, her ears pinned flat against her cranium, while her walking stride remained brisk and unwavering.

Fury hazed her vision - what little she had in this lack of light - and her own warped thoughts blocked the sensory nerves turning scents into identities. She refused to smell the scent of a fresh mouse nest; she refused to acknowledge the tang of a day old fox scent lingering somewhere off up ahead; she refused to comprehend the smell of the border markings between ThunderClan and ShadowClan.

The clearing should have been her warning. However, in her state, it was nearly impossible for the young cat to focus on anything but her own bubbling hatred for the thoughts swirling in the depths of her hollowed mind.

Almost all of her senses were deprived until the twist of her paw snapped her thoughts to the flaring pain in her right appendage.

"Ow! StarClan, that hurt!"

The tabby toppled to her side, furiously trying to get weight off of the injured paw. Lips curled, she examined the ground around her only to discover the abandoned hole of a burrowing animal. Sparks of annoyance danced in her amber orbs, harshly glaring at her own, most likely sprained, paw. With a decent amount of struggle, the apprentice made it back on her paws sans one, opting to hold it above the ground until further inspection had been conducted. Hastily, she pressed it to the ground to assess the damage and seized up at the ripple of pain running from her paw up her leg.

She retreated back onto her hindquarters, propped up to look at the awkward bend her paw now possessed.

"Tsk," she growled distastefully. "Darn it! StarClan you're horrible!"

"As an elder apprentice, Wrenpaw, I'd hope you would have learned the difference between stealth missions and waking up every cat from here to the island."

The unfamiliar voice caused a jolt of panic to rush through the ginger tabby.

Where in StarClan's name was she? That voice was certainly not one of her clanmates'.

"Wrenpaw, answer me you- you're not Wrenpaw."

When the voice - pleasantly feminine - caught itself, the ginger apprentice whirled around on her hind paws, mindful of her injured one, in time to face the figure of a long legged white she-cat step out from the dark pine. Her body was well shaped for a female with a somewhat thicker coat that managed to catch some forest debris that currently lie within. The most noticeable feature however, was her eyes; dark and hooded they were, green like the moss on the forest floor.

With an audible sniff from the unknown female, the white warrior recoiled with a wrinkle of her muzzle. "ThunderClan. Should have guessed." Her disdain was put aside quickly, tone switching with an urgent, "You know you shouldn't be out here. There's been a fox in this area recently."

The small tabby with the bobtail sneered. "I can take care of myself."

The warrior scoffed, "Then surely you would have been more careful of your surroundings to notice that you've crossed the border and whatever you stepped on to bend your paw like that. Yes I know you've hurt your paw, there's no use trying to hide it by keeping it on the ground."

Swiftly, the apprentice pulled her inflamed appendage from the soil, leaving it barely hovering. She couldn't bite back the little sigh of relief the action granted.

"Now then," the white warrior began, sounding condescending and much like the ginger's own tired-eyed mentor. "I suggest you run along before your claws get caught up in something you don't want."

"Like your fur?" the 'paw, still not in a right state of mind, had the audacity to challenge, chest puffed out slightly in an expressive manner.

"I'm not going to pick a fight with a kit who's just out of the nursery," the green-eyed meowed patiently, her tone even.

"I'm eight moons old, excuse you!" the apprentice bit back harshly, snapping her teeth at nothing.

"And clearly, those extra two moons of training has done nothing to waver you from kit-like behavior. I suggest leaving before you lose your head and start something you don't want to. Like I said, there's a fox in this area and it's ShadowClan's job to take care of their own problems in their own territory. Don't make yourself become a problem to me."

With a battle cry, the ginger tabby thrust herself ahead, uncaring of the painful spark every time her injured paw touched the ground. Her teeth flashed, ready to bite the easily accessible neck fur of the ShadowClan cat.

There was no way to predict which way the larger female would go to side step so the apprentice flashed out her claws on both sides and stayed light on her feet in order to anticipate the sideswing. The tinier cat was in no ways predicting the graceful way the other she-cat leaped straight over her head, landing politely behind her with little noise scuffle.

Green Eyes twitched her whiskers when the apprentice whirled around, staggering on her useful side.

The tabby lunged again, roaring angrily.

Green Eyes smirked loosely, flashing out a paw in interception. The paw collided with the apprentice's head, knocking the attack to the ground in an ungraceful heap of fur, leaves, pine needles and moss.

"Seriously, kit. Calm down."

That nagging voice again.

It was irritating.

She got enough of that back at camp.

Now she was getting it from some stuck up ShadowClan cat?

Yeah, not acceptable.

Whirling around back on three good feet, the tabby rocketed in the direction of Green Eyes, hoping to flat out collide. "I'm not a kit! I'm Amberpaw!"

Unfortunately, hope was not with her when the white cat turned evasive with her swift motions, gliding with every flouncy leap to another spot in their small clearing of pine wood. Fighting was certainly becoming more tedious. Green Eyes bounced away one last time before taking the offense and surging forward, head bent down.

Equally ready to fight, Amberpaw's own ginger tabby crown bent down to match the warrior.

With a clack of skulls, their craniums crashed and resonated with an abrasive sound.

Both cried out in pain, though the 'paw's was much more pronounced and she was the only one who flew back from the impact. When she looked up with hazy amber eyes, Green Eyes remained taut and tensed in the same position when they hit heads.

"Didn't think you'd be that cock-eyed," the white warrior purred, an amused lilt in her tone as she raised her head. Amberpaw remained on her belly, defeated. "A young apprentice isn't going to best a seasoned warrior. You put up a decent fight, though, I'll give you that. Maybe some real training over the next four moons and you'll turn out to be a pretty good warrior."

The panting tabby leaning on her uninjured side stalled.

Was that a compliment?

Coming from a ShadowClan warrior?

"See? All that bloodlust in your eyes is just a facade," Green Eyes purred warmly, settling down to paw away the moss in her fur. "Someone just tied a knot in your tail." The warrior backtracked, noting the lack of the rear appendage. "Well, maybe you always had a knot there and a tail couldn't grow." The white warrior gave a little laugh, a bell-like sound in nature.

"Oh don't look so slack. Have a laugh, make fun of your situation."

"Aren't you going to scar me up? Yell at me to get my flea-bitten pelt out of your territory?" Amberpaw questioned, head tilted.

"Oh come now, you've been listening to too many stories," the larger white female sighed tastefully, pink nose twitching. "ShadowClan gets the short end of the stick. We're just misunderstood in the eyes of the other Clans. So what if we skulk about the shadows? We're no different than the rest of you."

Amberpaw frowned, looking deep in thought.

"Chin up, kit. I know why you picked a fight with me. That angry scowl on your face said enough. I was a 'paw once too you know. Stress eats at you from the inside. You get lost in your head space."

"Why -"

"Give you advice?" the warrior finished. "I told you. ShadowClan aren't callous. We're misunderstood. Same as you. But seriously, I would run along. You clanmates will be looking for you and I have a fox scent to hunt. Safe travels. May StarClan guide you back home."

Amberpaw blinked, nodded once and turned to run back toward the border.

Perhaps ShadowClan weren't all that despicable.

The last thing to reach her ears was the cry of,

"And stay off that paw!"

Challenge for TorrentClan

A/N: Fun fact, because I somehow enjoy connecting all of my characters. 'Green Eyes' is Icekit in 'Lost and Found'. Or at least the grown up Icenose. As in, the cat who had their paw twisted in a similar burrow somewhere in ShadowClan's pine forest.

- Thornlight