Warriors: What A Nightmare

Chapter three-Flowerpaw

The next half a moon passed quickly, and Flowerpaw's scars from Nightpaw had healed over easily, leaving a bit of fur missing from her tail. Nightpaw had barely said a single word to her, which was the way she liked it. There was still a bit of fur missing from his cheek where she had clawed him, but none of the mentors blamed her, which was a relief to her and a hindrance to Nightpaw, who got in trouble for the incident. He was still doing extra apprentice duties. Flowerpaw could still remember the argument between Dawnmist and Nightpaw.

"Why do I have to do extra duties?" Nightpaw had complained when Dawnmist had given him his punishment.

"Because you unsheathed your claws during training! That's strictly forbidden!" Dawnmist had growled. "Don't you remember the story of Fawnpaw and Harepaw?"

Fawnpaw was an apprentice that was killed during training by another apprentice named Harepaw, who unsheathed his claws when he was too invested in the mock battle. It had happened a while ago, before Flowerpaw was even born, but every apprentice was told the story.

Nightpaw had hung his head when the two apprentices were mentioned. After that, he was assigned to doing double the number of apprentice duties until he became a warrior. Flowerpaw smirked just thinking about it.

"Hey, Flowerpaw!"

Flowerpaw turned around to see Leafkit bounding over to her with his litter-mates padding behind him.

"Hi, Leafkit!" she called to the kit. 

"You promised you, Cherrypaw and Pigeonpaw would teach us some fighting moves!" Leafkit mewed, reminding Flowerpaw of her promise. His litter-mates caught up to him and started to say the same thing as their brother.

"I'm sorry, Cherrypaw's on a patrol right now, and Pigeonpaw is hunting with his mentor," Flowerpaw told the kits, whose faces fell with disappointment.

"Can't you teach us some moves anyway?" Specklekit asked, widening her blue eyes. Her litter-mates all crowded around her and widened their eyes, making them look adorable and innocent. Flowerpaw couldn't reject them again.

"Okay then," she sighed, giving up trying to reason with the kits. "But remember, I'm not your mentor, so don't think that all of this is perfect."

The kits all nodded eagerly and watched Flowerpaw intently. She crouched down, ready to lunge into an attack. The kits all copied her immediately, pressing their bellies to the ground. Shellkit lashed her tail from side to side.

"Keep your tail still, Shellkit," Flowerpaw told the kit. "It will alert your enemies if they hear you stirring the grass or leaves."

Shellkit nodded and stopped moving her tail, keeping it as still as she could.

"Now, imagine an enemy is in front of you. If you push off from your legs hard enough, you can leap onto your enemy's back and dig your claws in," Flowerpaw instructed. "Show me your highest jump possible. Smokekit, you go first."

The black tom-kit smirked, waggled his hind quarters and pushed off his hind legs. He sailed through the air for a moment, then fell to the ground, landing clumsily on his paws and toppling over.

"You're bad at this!" Specklekit mewed with a laugh.

"Shut up!" Smokekit snapped. "I'll be a better fighter than all of you when I'm a warrior!"

"Okay, be nice. You go next, Shellkit," Flowerpaw meowed, trying to calm the arguing litter-mates. Shellkit stood still for a moment, crouched lower to the ground, and then sprang into the air. She didn't go quite as far as Smokekit, but landed neatly on her paws.