Chapter 33: Sun on Ice

After our "training session," I can safely say that I felt much better. There wouldn't be any kits from it mostly because we didn't want them yet. We were still much too busy to settle down with kits yet. Speaking of kits, looking around camp, I'd realized I'd been slacking in my own duties. Foampaw and Sunpaw were definitely ready to become fully fledged members and pick their specializations. I took some time to speak to their mentors about this. Frecklewish was ecstatic while Snowtuft just looked relieved. I believe he thought I didn't trust him, but that is far from the truth. I just thought he'd function better autonomously, but I guess he works better with orders.

I leapt onto my boulder and called a meeting.

"It has come to my attention that we have two apprentices ready to become fully fledged warriors. Sunpaw, Foampaw, step forward."

The two cats' eyes shined with joy as they padded forward before my boulder. I raised a pillar beneath each of them until they were level with me.

"Today is a day where we celebrate what you two have learned. Before I bestow upon you your names, please let me know what you'd like your powers to be. Sunpaw."

A bridge of marble manifested between the pillar and my boulder, on which I walked to meet the apprentice.

"What do you desire?" I asked of the cat.

They stood confident yet kind. A smile lit up their face as she replied, "I'd like the power of light."

That was a concept I hadn't expected, but I won't fault them. I started to shape a ball of light with just the concept of light, but it had a strange reaction. I never realized light itself could be such an intense thing when I was blinded by the light I generated. All I could see was stark white as I passed the light ball to Sunpaw. The white faded out into only brightness and then normalcy as Sunpaw assimilated the ball. The flower she carried seemed to have been affected as well. The once slightly muted colored petals now faintly glowed. Their own pelt seemed speckled with lights as well.

I heard a faint thump from below and instantly knew it was Buzzardkit. His infatuation was adorable.

"Sunpaw, from this day on, you will be known as Sunflower."

I created a star for them and passed it over.

"Please cast your star into the sky for us to witness."

Their star light brightly in their paws and she cast it upward. When it stopped, it seemed to bloom with a faintly rainbow pattern. It certainly matched them. I padded back to by boulder with my marble bridge evaporating in the process. My attention turned to Foampaw.

"Foampaw."

This time I used a bridge of river rock. It just seemed thematic. I padded up to her and touched noses, proud of her growth.

"What do you desire?"

Foampaw excitedly wiggled as she gave her response. "I want power over water."

Now that I was more powerful, water was something I could conjure with ease. My own strength covered my lack of understanding which allowed me to brute force its existence. I conjured a ball of light based around the concept of water. It was, for lack of a better word, squishy. When I passed it towards Foampaw, it broke into a wave, cashing down and soaking into the apprentice. She absorbed the wave of light like a ball of moss. She must have picked up Snowtuft's flare for the dramatic as an almost collar of water appeared around her neck. Before settling into a thin blue line. Their fur also seemed a bit puffier like the foam of water after a wave.

"From this day onwards, you will be known as Foamriver."

I conjured a star and passed it to her.

"Please cast your star into the sky for us to witness."

When she touched it, it has a soft almost foamy haze to it and shined slightly blue. She tossed it into the sky to rest close to mine. I padded away letting my river rock disappear in the process. I turned to the two new warriors for their first test.

"Please descend by whatever means you can think of."

Sunflower must have taken inspiration from that blinding light because she made a ramp of pure white to walk down. That certainly caught my attention. It reminded me of Snowtuft's shadow mass that he cushioned his fall with. Foamriver had a different, but similar solution. She made a ramp of ice, catching me off guard. I hadn't realized that ice would be in her domain of control. It is water, but somehow that slipped by me. She didn't get to walk down though. It seemed she forgot ice was slick, so she slipped and ended up sliding down, much to her embarrassment, but Buzzardkit looked at her slide with awe.

I heard him cheer, "That looks fun! Can you make one for me?"

As I dissolved my pillars, I heard Foamriver's response. "Anything for you little brother."

Like that, Foamriver conjured a much more shallow ramp of ice. I faintly gave her an assist on her creation by creating an opposite ramp of dirt for Buzzardkit to scamper up. The kit flew up the dirt ramp and went skidding down the ice one squealing all the while. I must admit, it looked fun. The rest of the cats in camp must have agreed because Foamriver was forced to extend the ramp and make a few steeper slides as more cats came to play on the ice. She also made a flat area of ice for us to just slide and skid on. I of course assisted by making soft grass to line the edges and made ramps of dirt to scale up to her ramps' apexes. I watched on for a heartbeat as our camp celebrated their new warriors in their icy playground.

I was content to watch until Frecklewish bowled me over. "What are you doing just watching? Come play!"

I threw her off, directly onto one of the ramps, which sent her panic rolling, much to my amusement. I leapt after her, riding the slide down. Right before I reached the bottom, I pounced on her sending us sliding wildly causing me to giggle. Then another weight crashed into me. It could only be one cat with that four textured pelt. Splitpelt had pounced on me. I wasn't going to take that lying down. I threw him towards one of the ramps. I tried to jump after him but forgot I was on ice, so my back paws shot out from under me. Instead, Splitpelt hit the bottom of that ramp and came tumbling over top of me. I could hear his hearty laughter as we continued the game.

The camp really needed this. Despite how free our camp appears to be, sometimes sinking into routine can be stifling. I could feel that most cats here needed the break. Maybe in the future, whenever we get new full fledged members, we'd make a day of play.