𝚂𝚗𝚎𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚂𝚞𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 || 𝚂𝚑𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚂𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚜 #2

Chapter Fifteen [Silverpaw]

Silverpaw forces out a breath, trying to contort her features into something smile-adjacent but looking rather disgruntled instead.

Mortified, she quickly reverts her expression back to concerned neutrality and glances at Ravenpaw.

"I guess we can work on it," the black tom mews, chuckling lightly.

The silver tabby grimaces in reply, twitching an ear.

"Sometimes I wish I wasn't like this," she mutters thickly, immediately alerted by the sorrow in her voice.

"Not smiling a lot isn't the end of the world," Ravenpaw murmurs, his voice dropping low.

"That's not what I mean."

Silverpaw stares blankly out at the side of SkyClan territory that borders ShadowClan, letting out a sigh.

"Well, what do you mean, then?" the black tom mews, snapping the silver tabby out of her thoughts.

"My resemblance to Father, I suppose," Silverpaw mutters.

"...Mother and Hailwatcher tend to...react instinctively, if you follow me."

"They're scared?" mews Ravenpaw, twitching an ear.

"That's one way to put it."

Silverpaw fidgets absentmindedly with a scrap of bark pulled from the tree branch, fighting to push down the emotion welling up inside her.

"I can kind of understand your mom, but...why Hailwatcher?" Ravenpaw pipes up, breaking the silence.

Realizing that Ravenpaw isn't aware of the junior medicine cat's history, Silverpaw tilts her gaze to face her friend.

"Hailwatcher is a ShadowClan cat, Ravenpaw...he came to SkyClan with my mother and us when she left."

"He had...bad experiences with Father."

Ravenpaw's eyes widen.

"Really?"

Silverpaw gives a stiff nod, wanting to get on to a different subject.

Ravenpaw is silent for a few moments, looking a little angry.

"Hm...okay. I wanted to ask you..what are your aspirations? What do you wanna do when you become a warrior? Do you want a family...?"

Intrigued by the question, Silverpaw pauses to think.

"I'd like to be a Clan leader one day. By my own merits, and not because that's what Father promised me."

She glances down at her paws.

"I don't want romance for myself. I'm...not entirely sure I believe in it," she adds more quietly.

Ravenpaw nods slowly.

"I came here to make life better for my family," he mews, twitching an ear.

"Between the Clan cats and us, there's...so much hatred...fear. It doesn't have to be that way, though."

Silverpaw glances up, raising a brow.

"I remember," Ravenpaw continues, "-hearing the story of an old friend of my dad's."

"He went into Clan territory, for some herbs, something like that...and he didn't come back for days. My dad and uncle Monty went out looking for him, and they found him beaten to death. They hung his corpse over a tree as a warning to the rest of us."

Feeling her throat tighten, Silverpaw feebly grips the tree limb beneath her.

"He was my friend's father. He had just become a father. And his life...was gone."