Hey guysssss! School started today, so I thought I'd get a chapter in before the chaos starts. I'm a freshman this year, what about you (you don't have to tell me)? This chapter is a bit boring and short but it leads up to something one of my readers requested (you'll find out what it was later). Enjoy!
When Glosspaw envisioned coming home from a Gathering, she thought she would feel victorious. Instead, she felt somewhat defeated.
"Can you believe what happened?" Ashpaw whispered to Glosspaw as they entered the camp.
"I know! How on earth does Poppystar know about Birchsong?" Glosspaw hissed back. Goldmist, who was a newly made warrior, overheard them. She hadn't been invited to the Gathering, instead, she was waiting around the camp entrance to figure out what happened at the Gathering before anyone else.
"What did Poppystar know?" she asked innocently, just appearing in front of Glosspaw's face out of nowhere. Okay, Glosspaw was a lot shorter than her, so she just saw Goldmist's neck.
"Oh, you'll find out," Ashpaw said mysteriously. Glosspaw stifled a purr.
The other cats who didn't go to the Gathering, like Moonshine, Leopardpelt, and Mistfur, were crowding around the star apprentice Stormpaw for him to tell them exactly what happened.
"Poppystar was causing a havoc at the Gathering, spreading rumors about RiverClan," he said hotly. "But thank StarClan Rosestar was so professional. I would've ripped her throat out!" All the she-cats sighed dreamily.
"Honestly, he should have a fan club or something!" Glosspaw hissed to Ashpaw. She purred.
"Don't worry, Glosspaw. Soon, they'll all come around," Ashpaw assured her.
"Glosspaw!" Silverstripe called. "Ashpaw! Come right here this instant!"
Ashpaw was in midsentence about how the herbs in Finchtail's den comforted her, but stopped at Silverstripe's call and bounded over to her. Glosspaw quickly followed, not wanting to deal with the wrath of an angry mother. They didn't have to worry about waking up the whole Clan; everyone was awake, trying to get details about the Gathering.
Silverstripe was standing behind a drooping branch of a willow tree. Stormpaw was not with her.
"Okay, so you must understand why I called you here," she meowed quietly.
"Uh, no, we don't," Glosspaw said.
"Well, I called you here to tell you about Birchsong," Silverstripe said.
"We already know," Ashpaw blurted. Glosspaw swiftly kicked her from saying too much. The last thing they needed in their lives was to get involved in the Silverstripe-Palefoot-Birchsong "love" triangle.
"That's good. At least I don't have to explain to you," Silverstripe meowed. "Honestly, the whole Clan adores him and Palefoot! Is there at least one cat in the Clan who doesn't like them?"
"Me, Ashpaw, and Stormpaw," Glosspaw offered.
"And me," Silverstripe said, drawing herself up. "So I need you two to enlist Stormpaw and do me a favor."
"What?" Ashpaw asked, confused.
"Okay, here's what I want you to do for me…"
The next morning was peaceful. Rosestar explained what had happened last night, and there had been cries to attack WindClan and ask Poppystar to justify her actions. In the end, Rosestar sent Ravenpelt, Petalheart, and Goldmist to WindClan to have Poppystar explain herself at dawn. Glosspaw couldn't help wincing at the bad choice of cats. Ravenpelt was an elder, but Rosestar justified herself by saying that WindClan wouldn't dare attack a medicine cat. Goldmist was a newly made warrior fresh out of apprentice training. The only reasonable cat going to WindClan was Petalheart.
All the apprentices were confined to the camp in case WindClan decided to launch a surprise attack on RiverClan.
But the problem was that there were six apprentices cramped in the same den. With Quailflight's kits becoming apprentices, the den was hot and stuffy in the late Greenleaf season. Worst of all, Firepaw and Blackpaw (Quailflight's kits) were wreaking havoc and blaming their sister, Poppypaw, for it because she shared the same namesake as Poppystar. Glosspaw couldn't help but feel sorry for her, but she had bigger problems in her mind.
For one, Silverstripe had asked her, Ashpaw, and Stormpaw to disrupt Palefoot's peaceful pregnancy as much as possible. But that was sort of impossible because of Birchsong, who seemed to know everything his kits did. When Glosspaw tried to bring Palefoot a trout from the freshkill pile filled with yarrow, he confiscated the fish before Glosspaw entered the nursery. When Ashpaw tried to sneak a foxglove seed into a special mixture Finchtail mixed for Palefoot (it was supposed to help with Palefoot's belly cramps), Birchsong sniffed it out of the pile and ordered Finchtail to throw out all her foxglove seeds. And when Stormpaw brought Palefoot a squirrel stuffed with a combination of herbs including burdock root, catmint, and mouse bile (Ashpaw guaranteed them that the mixture would cause a tremendous bellyache followed by bouts of vomiting), Applefur somehow caught him and gave him elder's duty for two weeks.
"What are we supposed to do?" Ashpaw moaned. "I've tried everything! Heck, I've even asked Finchtail if she could poison Palefoot, but she said no."
"And Birchsong seems to know our every move," Stormpaw meowed.
"Well, there is something we could do," Glosspaw meowed slowly.
"And what's that?" Ashpaw asked skeptically.
"You know how Birchsong cheated on Silverstripe? Well, Goldeneyes—she's his mother, you know—caught him with numerous other she-cats in the past, even from different Clans! If we told Palefoot, maybe she'd stop being so arrogant," Glosspaw explained.
"But would she even believe us? Last I saw, she was head over heels for him!" Stormpaw argued.
"We'd have to make it in a way that is so convincing she can't NOT believe it!" Glosspaw exclaimed.
Hmm, Glosspaw, ya sure about that? :P Anyway, please review, fave, follow, etc. I have 56 reviews! Yay! This might be a bit of a long shot, but can we hit 65 by the next chapter? Maybe? No?
~Glossssssssss