Chapter V
Stonepaw's realization had proven true. Cherrypaw gasped audibly, and Icepaw gawked. Stonepaw dipped her head. Cherrypaw soon followed, and Icepaw finally realized she should do so, too.
Bluetail continued. "StarClan, I sure hope I've got this right..." it seemed more like a comment to herself than something to tell the Clan. She blinked. "Do you, Stonepaw, Icepaw, Cherrypaw, agree to uphold the Warrior Code in order to defend your Clan, perform this treacherous journey, and battle the unknown?"
Cherrypaw and Stonepaw nodded; Icepaw whispered, "sounds like fun."
The Medicine Cat looked at the sky. "StarClan, please accept these three apprentices as your champions. We will do all we can to prepare them for the journey ahead. They are late in their training so are as good as most Warriors." She looked at them. "You three do your best. Please plan on leaving these few sunrises left in the moon."
She left. Falconstar gave then a confident look. Frost-tail came over and licked Icepaw's ear. "I know you'll do your best. We'll go in for extra training later this sunrise." Icepaw gave her a devastated look. "I thought they'd treat us better, not worse!" she wailed. Spottedmask and Badgertail came over and congratulated their apprentices, too. The tried not too look at the other apprentices; Larchtail was talking to a stiff-looking Pepperpaw, and Waxpelt comforted Saltpaw, the two younger sibling apprentices. Starpaw, Fanpaw and some other scattered den-mates sat in the sidelines either feeling happy for them or miserable for themselves.
The apprentices retreated to their nests to think. They didn't see how they could save the Clan, especially Icepaw, the unstable, sleepwalking, rude and almost intolerable small extremely easy to see while hiding little she-cat (who, of course, was quite sure of herself). The slept with dreams of amazing things and woke up knowing that they could never do things. Great things and impossible things. All the cats in the Clan gave them more respect, although the apprentices still acted extremely jealous. And most of all, they didn't have to go on all the missions. They got to hunt when they liked, and they completely avoided border patrols. And dawn patrols. But mostly Icepaw. However, nearly every missed patrol was replaced by a training session. Frost-tail's was by far the worst, and Icepaw was dead tired at the end of each day, and soon she even stopped sleep-walking.
When the day finally came, they packed up travelling herbs and said their good-byes. They went over their battle moves one final time and set off to who knows where.