Chapter 2

"Up! Get up, you lazy little furball!"

Mosspaw groaned and rolled over on her thin pile of cloth scraps. Pulling her eyes open, she saw the blurry figure of her mentor standing over her. Rubyheart. Of all the cats in the Clan, she just had to have Rubyheart assigned to her. The marbled tabby with fire for a pelt and a short fuse to boot.

Mosspaw rose and shook herself off. "I'm sorry."

"You should be. You're the last to wake up. Everyone else is already out making themselves useful." She batted her apprentice with her tail when she turned to leave. "Hurry up and make yourself presentable. We've got work to do."

The younger cat made quick work of tidying her messy pelt and hurried into the camp's main room. There was a small collection of prey near the Rubble Pile. Gathered around it were the elders, gossiping. Staticstone and Rattail were standing guard by the entrance. Graveltail was kitsitting, her frazzled whiskers portraying a level of stress one would expect when left in charge of two litters. Darkwood, the Clan's leader, sat like a statue, eyes closed but ears perked.

Mosspaw trotted over to her mentor and tried to keep pace with her. Rubyheart lead the way through the hole in the stone and across the yard to the mangled fence. It was already hot. The clouds were but a thin veil which could do nothing to shield them from the sun's aura. Needless to say, she wasn't looking forward to battle practice.

The two had a quick stop at a fountain for a drink. Humans ignored them for the most part as they came and went from their towering stone den. They had their fill of water and finished the trip to the Clan's training grounds.

It was a little stretch of trees and overgrown grass in a place long forgotten. What once was home to a whole Clan's worth of humans found itself nothing but a few rows of empty houses. In a well-hidden clearing surrounded with sickly plants, they found Rainstep, Steelclaw, and Threadwhisker along with their students. Gray and black blurs tussled in the center and tufts of fur were rolling along the ground. Mosspaw took a spot next to Nightpaw and watched it all play out through bleary eyes.

"You alright?" asked the small, black-furred apprentice.

"I'm fine," Mosspaw said unconvincingly, licking her paw and scrubbing at her eyes. "I just haven't eaten in a few days is all."

"Nothing at all? You have to eat something, flea-brain, or you'll be too out of it to do anything."

"Prey's been short; you know that. Someone else always needs it more than I do. Besides," she said with a touch of humor, "you know Rubyheart would rip my tail off if she found me eating before the queens and elders were fed."

Ironpaw pinned Mosspaw's sister with a foot on her neck. Glasspaw coughed, making no move to wrench herself free. Steelclaw berated his student for giving up, but there wasn't much that she could do in her position. Ironpaw was bulkier than her by a lot, and she'd never been much of a fighter anyway. Mosspaw suppressed a heavy sigh, lest she become the target of his ire instead.

Even if Glasspaw were the strongest apprentice in the Clan, he'd still find a way to put her down.

Ironpaw was after all, the gray warrior's only surviving kit. Stormstep had perished with the other two in her litter after a difficult pregnancy. Favoring the only living family he had left was natural, Mosspaw supposed. It would have been nice if he'd chosen a different scratching post, however. Mosspaw worried for her sister. She stared at her paws, buried in the weeds, and wished there was something she could do.

"Call it already, would you? The fight's over and done with," said Rainstep, a Siamese she-cat who'd escaped her human's den. "You're not the only one with a cat to train."

"She'll never get through training if she doesn't learn to fight back properly," Steelclaw shot back with a hiss. "Get up, you useless pile of roach dirt! What do you have claws for?"

"I-I can't," Glasspaw managed to choke out, "I can't breathe."

"You think Pharaoh and his group are gonna care?"

Mosspaw sank her claws into the dirt. Rubyheart looked on with an expression she couldn't quite read. Much as she loathed to admit it, those words carried a solid point. Aside from the Clan, one other colony of felines held power in the City: Pharaoh the Egyptian Mau and his band of bloodthirsty underlings.

Glasspaw gathered her strength and bucked Ironpaw off of her. She scrambled free, gasping, and dodged his charge. She sprinted around the clearing twice. She jumped and landed on his back. She swiped at him clumsily, coughing. He shoved her off and knocked her to the side with a strong blow to the face. Droplets of blood went flying. Before she could retaliate, her opponent had pinned her again.

"Alright, that'll do it," said Threadwhisker with a sigh. "Arena's yours, you two."

Glasspaw and Ironpaw went to sit with their mentors and Mosspaw and Nightpaw took over. The dark tabby stared down the smaller black cat, fluffing up her fur to rile his instincts. She waited like a spring ready to snap, until Rubyheart's call to action set her off.

She tackled Nightpaw and they dropped in a flurry of flailing limbs. He sank his teeth into a foreleg and she let out a screech. She gave him a solid kick to the nose and jumped away. She turned the instant she landed and the two grappled on a patch of bare dirt. Fur went flying and blood hit the ground.

Mosspaw pushed him to the side and tore his ear. He headbutted her in the gut. She tumbled backwards and rolled to a stand. Her ears drawn back, her blood pumping hard, she gave Nightpaw a harsh blow to the muzzle. His yellow gaze alight in the sun, he leaped at her. She barely moved in time.

Her throat burned with each breath. They circled each other and panted until Nightpaw went for a leg. It was a trick. She was on the ground with throbbing ribs. She got her hind legs beneath him and threw him as far as she could. They met in the middle and traded hits until at last Mosspaw stood victor.

Her muscles screamed and shook. She could hardly breathe. She kept Nightpaw beneath her weight until she received the order to let him go. Mosspaw walked over to her teacher and laid down on the grass.

#

Evening was setting in. The sun was falling below an unreachable horizon to give the City a merciful break. It was only the start of summer, and Mosspaw didn't want to think about how harsh the later months would be.

Voices trickled through the air. The felines of the Clan were sharing tongues and gossip and making the most out of the day's final minutes. Mosspaw crouched in a corner, too exhausted to join in. Occasionally her attention would wander to the apprentice room, where Glasspaw rested under their mother's close supervision.

She slowly closed her eyes…

Something plopped on the dirty stone floor before her and at once tempted her stomach to growl. Mosspaw looked up to see her mentor's perpetual glare staring down at her. She remained frozen to the spot.

"Eat," said Rubyheart, gesturing to the bird. "Take it outside, get some fresh air, and eat. You're no good to the Clan sick and starved."

Mosspaw opened her mouth to speak, but Rubyheart was already walking away. She blinked, wondering if there was someone else around who may need it more. Her stomach twisted at the thought as though it would gnaw its way out of her.

Tentatively, she picked up the little robin and walked towards the exit.

She settled down and tore into her meal. Her insides gurgled with the sudden onset of food. She paid no attention to the beautiful evening sky. She didn't care in the slightest about the nighttime chill which crept into her bones right after sundown. She didn't notice her approaching Clanmate either, until he was looming over her with all the fury of a rabid dog.

"And just what do you think you're doing?"

Mosspaw looked up at the seasoned warrior with her fur standing on end. Hawktalon was a monster of a cat who stood twice as big as Darkwood and always kept his claws partially unsheathed. His yellow eyes glowed in the light of the claw moon, and beside his paws was a squirrel the size of Mosspaw herself.

"I, um… I was uh…"

His muzzle was nearly touching hers. "You wouldn't happen to be stealing prey from your Clanmates, would you, Mosspaw?"

"No! No, I wasn't doing anything like that!" She scrambled backwards. "Rubyheart gave it to me; you can- you can ask her!"

"Maybe I will. In the meantime," he said, gesturing to the opening in the fence, "I brought home some leftover chicken as well. Bring it in."

With that, Hawktalon vanished into the camp. Mosspaw's stomach turned as she hurried to follow his orders. She'd make this quick. Just a little trip to the prey pile to drop off his contribution, and then she'd finish her dinner. Rubyheart would tell him the truth, Glasspaw would make a swift recovery, and…

There was no chicken out here. Mosspaw's heart pounded. She would have thought Hawktalon was just lying to give her a scare if not for the scent of cooked bird and human spices… intermingled with the scent of a stranger far too close to her home.

#

Moonbreeze: It's possible I can put a short AU story together sometime in the future, but IDK when. Glad you're enjoying the story!