Four || Prophecy

Stripepaw stared after her. The beautiful she was being brought to the medicine den by Adderspots, Berrymark and Ashtree.

Stripepaw could barely see Adderspots small figure, as she was behind Ashtree, and the second smallest cat in the camp. Fox was the smallest. Other than the kits.

It was silent.

"Is she deed?" Turtlekit mewed.

"No, and it's 'dead' Turtlekit." Rainbowheart, his mother, mewed.

"Who is she?" Shadekit mewed. Shadekit was Turtlekit's sister. Along with Snakekit, his brother. They were the only kits in the nursery after Orangekit had died, about a moon ago, from an infection in her paw that had spread very quickly.

What happened? Stripepaw sighed. Did I hurt her?

The taste of her blood was still on his tongue, from when he had bitten her, accidentally, on the neck while trying to help.

He began grooming his fur, ruffled from the sudden event.

"I'm sure she's fine." Snowpaw purred.

"Other than the fact her brother's dead, and, by the sounds of it, her whole family." Shadowpaw said.

"Shadowpaw…" Stripepaw groaned.

"Oh, yes… I forgot…" Shadowpaw pretended to have forgotten something.

"What did you forget?" Stripepaw asked, confused. Was there a secret he had missed out on?

"Never mind." Shadowpaw said, obviously trying not to giggle.

Snowpaw sighed.

"Oh, fine, if you want to Snowpaw." Shadowpaw rolled her eyes.

"What? I never said anything. "

"I thought you did. "

Stripepaw looked at the two and then towards the medicine den.

"Just tell me." He said, tired of them arguing."

"Everybody thinks you like her." Snowpaw said.

"She's nice." Stripepaw looked back at her.

"No. Like, like-like." Shadowpaw giggled.

"Since when have you had trouble speaking, Shadowpaw?" Stripepaw asked her. I would know that by now, I would think.

"Ugh, Stripepaw, how do you not know what I mean?" Shadowpaw groaned.

"She means they think you have a crush on her." Snowpaw mewed flatly.

"I don't! I barely know her!" Stripepaw protested.

"Let's go back to the apprentices' den. I'm bored." Shadowpaw grumbled and began walking away.

Stripepaw and Snowpaw caught up to her and walked with her into the den.

Stripepaw hit his head on the low tree branch hanging down by the entrance, next to his nest.

Mouse dung!

"I thought you would've gotten used to that by now." Shadowpaw commented.

"I thought you would've learned not to be rude." Stripepaw shot back at her.

"I'm not rude!"

"Yeah… you kind of are rude." Snowpaw told her.

"I just tell the truth!"

"And you get in everyone's business…?" Stripepaw sighed.

"Yeah, but I don't mean to!" Shadowpaw protested.

Rainheart, a former Riverclan queen, who joined Thunderclan to be with her mate, Brownleaf, stuck her head into their den. "The elders say that 'some cats 'round here need sleep, mate.' so, I think they want you to be quiet. " She said, quoting Peter, an elder who chose to keep his kittypet name after he joined the clans.

Stripepaw thought Peter was funny. He talked weird and said twoleg words like "spill the beans' ' which he told Stripepaw meant to tell the truth and beans were a food that made twolegs make weird sounds and stink, which he called "farting". Stripepaw had laughed at it the first time he heard it.

"Sorry…" He and his littermates lowered their heads.

After Rainheart left Shadowpaw began talking. "The leaders were talking about us at the gathering."

Snowpaw sighed. "You really shouldn't be-"

Shadowpaw interrupted. "Before you hate me even more, listen."

Shadowpaw told them about how the leaders had been arguing about a prophecy about them.

"What is the prophecy?" Stripepaw asked her.

" I don't know."

"I think Fox would know." Stripepaw said, unsure why he said that.

"Why?" Snowpaw asked.

"She knows a lot of things, why shouldn't she know this?"

"Because she is a rouge." Shadowpaw mewed.

"So?"

"I say we go. It's worth a try, Shadowpaw." Snowpaw mewed.

"Fine."

They walked over to the medicine den, and saw Berrymark sorting her herbs inside of her den.

"Where's Fox?" Stripepaw asked.

"Right here, fluff-brain." Fox's voice came from behind. "Are you blind? Oh, wait, I forgot. I'm blind, not you.

They spun around to see Fox sitting behind them.

"Want us to show her around the camp, Berrymark?" Snowpaw asked.

"Sure. Maybe then she'll stop bugging me."

They began showing her around the camp, then took her into the apprentices' den.

"Here's where we sleep. That's the tree branch." Snowpaw mewed when Focx began staring at the tree.

"How do you get up?" Fox asked, sitting down.

"We don't, mostly, but there's a lower part over there we could jump on." Stripepaw pointed his tail, then remembering she was blind walked over to it.

"Cool."

The furball doesn't even know left to right I bet. Stripepaw thought.

" I know left from right!" Fox jumped up and glared at him.

"How? I didn't even say anything!"

Stripepaw saw her change suddenly.

"I-I'm sorry. Just after my brother died… I've been on edge. About a moon before he had been killed, Mother had stopped coming back, and Badger, my brother, and I were scared that she had been hurt. Badger went out looking for her and came back saying that he had found a group that would take us in. I immediately knew something was off and I told him that and he said to stop worrying so much. Then-" Stipepaw heard her voice break and she looked away, before continuing, words shaky, "Then they attacked him and I and he told me to run, but I didn't…It was as if I was frozen there, unable to move… and…" Her tear hit the ground and Stripepaw felt bad for her, knowing what was coming next.

"And those evil cats killed him, and tried to make me join them, but I wouldn't do it. I ran and as I ran, I saw them throw his body out into a hole, with my mother's dead body. I ran and finally passed out where you found me."

Shadowpaw moved closer and tried to comfort Fox, and Stripepaw saw her face, nose wet with tears, as she grieved for her lost brother and mother.

"If I join your clan I want to be like you guys, so I can kill those cats for what they did." Fox growled.

"There'll be no killing, please." Tigerstripes, Hopestar's mate, told them. "Also Hopestar wants to see you all."

The four walked over two Hopestar's den, and she told them to come in.

"You already know." Hopestar mewed.

"Yes." They answered.

Hopestar looked at Fox's sad, yet angry face as tears rolled down her fur and she stared at the ground.

"I expect you want to know more?" Hopestar asked.

" I guess so." Stripepaw mewed, as he looked over at Fox,

I wish she weren't so sad.

Fox growled something that he couldn't hear.

"What?" Hopestar asked her.

Fox said it yet again, louder this time. "There will be four cats in your camp. A murderous fox in the moonlight, a bold stripe in the daylight, a shadow that hears everything, and and a snow who understands better than any other. They will know what to do to save the clans."

"How do you know it already?" Hopestar asked her.

That's the prophecy? I have no idea what to do!

"I saw it. Or… I think I did. I remember seeing you and an orange cat and they said something like that. I was only four or five moons old."

"Huh…"

"I can see in other's memories and dreams, and thoughts, sometimes." Fox mewed.

"I was able to understand the foxes at the gathering." Snowpaw mewed.

"I can hear very well." Shadowpaw said.

"I don't think I can get hurt because at the gathering I didn't know any battle moves and they still couldn't hurt me." Stripepaw mewed, surprised at their powers.

"Leave me to think about this." Hopestar mewed. "Go get to sleep." It was almost sundown.

They left and Stripepaw turned to Fox. "Come on a walk with me."

"Am I allowed to?" She asked.

"If you are with me, I think it's fine." He mewed softly so the others wouldn't hear.

"Okay." The she nodded and walked out of the camp, and Stipepaw began showing her some places. They ended up sitting next to a rock where they could talk.

"Who are your parents?" Fox asked him.

"My mother, Berryheart died soon after kitting me and my littermates, and our father, Appleclaw, fell and the earth swallowed him alive." Stripepaw shuddered.

"My mother was fun. And so was Badger. My mother's name was bird. She got that name because she tried to fly as a kit and crippled her back legs." She smiled at the memory, and as she smiled a black and white tom with an orange paw appeared.

"Badger! I see you!" She ran to what Stripepaw guessed to be her brother.

"Trees of four… quarter moon… together…" His voice was distant.

"Badger!" Badger disappeared.

"You could see him?" Stripepaw was confused.

It was like she could see him.

"If Starclan wants me to see, I guess I can."

"Didn't the prophecy say we'd know what to do?" Stripepaw asked.

"Yeah…?"

"That's what we need to do! We'll let the others know tomorrow!"