Waterpaw stood beside the lake, closing her eyes and relishing the feeling of the wind blowing in her fur. "Ahh," she sighed. "This is the life."
Foxfang had shown her the borders, and now they were at the lake, looking for fish swimming beneath the ice. Well, at least that was what Foxfang was doing. Waterpaw was just taking in the day and enjoying herself. She'd already caught enough prey the day before when she'd joined her very first hunting patrol. She'd performed better than any cat had expected, but Waterpaw didn't see how they could have expected any less from a cat as special as her.
"So, what did you say was on the other side of the lake there?" she asked once she had finished drinking in the air.
"That would be ThunderClan," Foxfang meowed. He looked somewhat surprised. "They're a very famous Clan; I wasn't expecting you to forget about them of all things."
Waterpaw felt like smacking herself. Of course! How could she have forgotten?! "Well," she purred nervously, "that just goes to show how loyal I am to RiverClan, right?"
"There is a difference between loyalty and forgetfulness," Foxfang muttered, but his voice was light and teasing. He licked her ear. "You'll learn all your territories soon enough."
Waterpaw hoped she would. If she was supposed to be part of a prophecy, she couldn't afford to be any less than perfect at everything. StarClan wouldn't choose anything less, would they? If she slipped up too much, maybe they'd just give her prophecy to some other cat. And Waterpaw couldn't have that, because what was she without her specialness?
A cold wind blew by from across the lake, ruffling Waterpaw's pelt. She squirmed with discomfort at the coolness of the breeze. Wait, was that her imagination, or was that a voice being carried by the wind?
It was a voice! Waterpaw glanced at Foxfang, alarmed. The wind was carrying the voice of a terrified cat across the lake- it sounded like just a kit! "Do you hear that?" she whispered. Foxfang shook his head.
"Hear what?" he asked.
"The voice in the…" Waterpaw trailed off, flexing her claws while she though. If her mentor couldn't hear it, maybe it was something that only she was meant to hear- like a prophecy about her! "Never mind," she said. "It's nothing."
She strained her ears, hoping to make out what the voice was saying. It sure did sound like a young cat- no maybe it was two young cats! One voice was quieter, while the other was louder and shriller.
The voices went quiet for a minute. The wind died down. Then the wind picked back up again, and now the first kit was shrieking. Were they crying for help?!
Waterpaw jumped to her paws, trying to locate the direction of the voice. It sounded like it was coming from… what had that grassy Clan been called? Well, whatever it was, Waterpaw knew she had to help. Paying no mind to Foxfang's protests, she took off, running along the water's edge in pursuit of the voice.
Skirting the horseplace and splashing through a marshy bed of reeds, Waterpaw began to hear the voice for real, not just in the distance. She pushed a clump of reeds aside and then she saw them, out on the lake.
"Hang on!" she cried. "I'm coming to help you!"
She could hear Foxfang coming up behind her, yowling angrily at her. But Waterpaw couldn't afford to listen. She ran out onto the ice, slipping and skidding a bit as she approached the crying kit. When she got close, she gawked- their fur was green! Well, maybe it wasn't totally green, but it was almost green…
The almost-green kit gazed at Waterpaw, his eyes- which definitely were green- wide with desperation. "My friend fell in!" he wailed.
Waterpaw peered into the wide crack in the ice. The water was too dark for her to see anything, but she could see how a cat could have easily fallen in through there- not a cat like her, of course, but one who wasn't so good at swimming. With alarm she noticed that there were no air bubbles coming up from below- either the kit was lying, or his friend was already dead.
She forced herself to push away those thoughts. Maybe they were still alive, and they were just really good at holding their breath. Besides, Waterpaw didn't want to think of what she was about to do as probably pointless anyway.
With a deep breath and without a moment's hesitation, Waterpaw jumped into the freezing lake, grimacing as the icy water closed around her. Now that she was in the water, she could just make out the faint glow of a pair of amber eyes- still open, but that didn't mean the cat was still alive. Don't think that! she cursed herself, but she couldn't help but wonder if maybe there wasn't anything she could do for the friend of that oddly coloured kit.
With a few powerful strokes, she propelled herself deep into the lake. A tail brushed up against her outstretched leg, and she pushed herself one stroke deeper to reach the slowly sinking cat. Pity flared in her chest when she realized how young he was. This could easily have been her sinking like a stone toward the bottom of the lake.
She shook the thought out of her head. Something like this would never happen to her. How could it? StarClan still had so much more in store for her.
Well, maybe they've still got more in store for this poor thing too, Waterpaw realized. Even if it is too late to save him, I've got to try anyway. She struck out with her legs one last time and then hooked her teeth gently into the scruff of the sinking cat, turning herself around and kicking her way back up to the surface.
Waterpaw was almost out of breath when she finally broke the surface and gasped in the cold leaf-bare air. It was a shock to her mouth to breath in such cold air. She scrambled onto the ice and dropped the no-longer-sinking (thanks to her) brown tom at her paws.
The greenish kit's eyes were watering. "Th-thank you!" he mewed. "Seedpaw and I were just playing around when I fell down and made a crack in the ice, and then it got wider, and then Seedpaw fell in it-!" He broke off momentarily into a sniveling heap before continuing on. "But now you've come along and saved him and I just can't thank you enough because Seedpaw's my best friend…"
Waterpaw raised her tail to signal to him to be quiet while she placed a paw on Seedpaw's throat to check for a pulse. She couldn't pick one up. Not only that, his chest was still- no rise and fall to indicate he was alive. "Don't thank me too much," she warned the kit. "Not yet at least. Your friend Seedpaw isn't breathing."
"What?!" the kit gasped, plainly devastated. "No! That can't be right!" He ran to his friend and began frantically shaking him. "Seedpaw! Wake up!"
Waterpaw wasn't sure whether to feel pity or exasperation. Shaking the body back and forth and yelling at it wasn't going to do anything. Didn't kits in the other Clans get taught how to restart a heart? She pushed the kit aside and began pumping on Seedpaw's chest, stopping every so often to open his jaws and breathe into them.
"What are you doing?!" the kit cried, his olive fur all fluffed up. "You're hurting him!"
Kit, your friend is already drowned. Pumping on his chest to try to bring him back to life isn't going to do him any worse than he is already. Waterpaw thought this, but she didn't say it out loud for fear that it would just make the fish-brained kit cry even more. Why couldn't every cat be as sensible as she had always been told she was?
Pump, pump- no heartbeat. Pump, pump- sweat trickled under Waterpaw's fur but- still no heartbeat. It was no use, she began to think. Just as she was about to stop, pull away, and explain to the greenish kit that there was nothing more she could do for his friend, the mass of soaked brown fur beneath her moved. It took Waterpaw sp by surprise that she actually jumped away, letting out a tiny hiss of surprise, before hope reignited when she saw Seedpaw coughing. Water poured out of his mouth- how much had he swallowed? It looked like a lot.
"You're alive!" the kit mewed, pressing his muzzle to his friend's soggy fur. "The she-cat said you'd stopped breathing."
"He had stopped breathing," Waterpaw informed him. "His pulse was gone too. But I brought it back. Pretty cool, huh? Every RiverClan cat knows how to do that."
The greenish-furred kit pouted. "Yeah, well, I bet RiverClan cats don't know how to run as fast as I can," he mewed sourly.
Waterpaw blinked at the odd little tomkit. What was his deal, anyway? His friend was alive! Why wasn't the fish-brain happy?
"Um, thanks a lot for saving me," Seedpaw meowed. Now that he wasn't dead, Waterpaw thought that he looked kind of handsome- not enough to risk breaking the Warrior Code for or anything, but if they'd been if the same Clan she'd have thought about it for sure.
"It's nothing," she purred, shaking out her wet fur. Seedpaw did the same, and they both sprayed the grumpy green kit with water. He mewled in protest, but even he was starting to look a bit perkier.
Grasskit had never been happier to see Seedpaw's crooked smile. That RiverClan she-cat had really saved him! Well, if Grasskit hadn't been sure before, he was sure now- other Clans were a whole lot better than his.
"Hey," he asked the cat, "what's your name, anyway? I'm Grasskit."
She snorted. "Wow, let me guess why they called you that. It's the eyes, right?" she mewed sarcastically. Then when she saw that Grasskit wasn't amused, she coughed. "Sorry. Um, I'm Waterpaw. I just got made an apprentice this week, but I'm already really good. Miststar says I'm gonna be part of this really cool prophecy and that I'm gonna grow up and save everyone from evil."
Grasskit couldn't help but be mildly impressed by that statement, but he wondered if she really was going to have a prophecy about her, or if Miststar had just made it up so she'd feel special- like Sandstar had once told him even though there was no way Grasskit would ever amount to anything useful. Maybe Seedpaw- or more likely, Barkpaw- one day, but not him. Not his littermates, either; their heads were filled with cotton fluff. In fact, maybe if any cat was going to have their own prophecy in WindClan right now, it would probably be Grasskit. He liked to think of himself as the sensible one, although Gorsewind referred to it as being "so young, and already a pessimist".
"Well, I've saved the day, so I guess I'd best be going now," Waterpaw purred. She flicked a few stray water droplets off her whiskers and they fell like rain onto the ice.
Grasskit had never seen rain- he'd been born in late leaf-fall, and hadn't been outside the nursery until it was already leaf-bare- but he'd heard about it. He'd heard that it was a pain and got cats wet and that nobody liked it. That sounded like just about everything right now, but he wouldn't dare tell an adult cat that or else he'd get scolded for sure. Don't be so negative, they'd say; there are still plenty of good things in the world; you'll see when you get older. Well, maybe Grasskit would see when he got older, but right now all he could see was a dying Clan.
"Thank you again for saving my life," said Seedpaw, dipping his head to Waterpaw. "I really appreciate it."
Grasskit dipped his head too. "Yeah, I'm really glad he didn't die. He's the only other tom in my age group."
"Wow, how horrible for you," Waterpaw mewed teasingly. She flicked her tail playfully across Grasskit's damp paws, but then she coughed and straightened up. "Well, like I said, I'd best be going. I can hear my mentor calling me. Goodbye, Grasskit; Seedpaw."
Waterpaw turned and slid gracefully across the frozen lake, skipping across the snow once she was back on the shore. A ginger tom was standing on the beach waiting for her, and he didn't look too pleased.
Seedpaw nudged Grasskit, turning his attention away from Waterpaw as she moved next to her mentor- that was her mentor, right?- back toward the RiverClan camp, wherever that was. "We should go home too," he mewed.
Grasskit nodded; they'd certainly have an interesting story to tell…
"Honestly, Waterpaw, I expected better of you!" Minnowleap's stern mew made Waterpaw flinch even as her mother licked her pelt vigorously. "Jumping into the lake to save a WindClan cat? You could have drowned!"
"But we're RiverClan, remember?" she protested. "Swimming is no problem for us! And besides, it wasn't even that deep."
"It's just too big a risk," Minnowleap insisted, "especially to save a WindClan apprentice. Every cat knows they've been on their way out for a while now."
Waterpaw glared at her mother. "What's that supposed to mean?!"
"You know perfectly well what it means," Minnowleap hissed. "It means that you shouldn't put your pelt on the line for one of them! If it had been a ThunderClan or a ShadowClan cat, then maybe you'd get some kind of reward for saving one of their young- kits and apprentices are the future of the Clans, after all, and those Clans are lucky enough to actually have a foreseeable future. But we all know that poor old Sandstar isn't going to be able to offer us anything!"
Waterpaw was taken aback by her mother's harsh words. It wasn't Sandstar's fault that he was old and frail, and it wasn't the fault of any WindClan cat that their Clan was suffering so much!
"I think it's just the other way around," she sniffed defiantly. "If one of the other Clans lost an apprentice, it would be pretty sad. But since WindClan's population has already dwindled so much, it'd be absolutely devastating for them to lose one of their apprentices!"
Minnowleap cuffed her around the ears. "Do not talk like that! Your life is far more important than that of one of them!" Her snarling voice softened into a sweet purr as she continued, "after all, Waterpaw, you are a very special cat, remember? And we couldn't have such a special cat lost, now could we?"
"Of course not, mother." Defeated, Waterpaw kept her muzzle shut while her mother finished grooming her.