Ashleap's Fall

Vigil

 They say that silence was once required during the vigil, and while the rule isn't enforced anymore, any warrior we wake will have the sympathy of a rabid badger. In that way, the spirit of the silent vigil lives on.

As I take my place with the others, the silence between us lingers. No one had spoken up earlier, and Thistleheart had declined to say anything on what he had seen, so all of us remained in the dark. Shadows slowly roll across the land like a stretching cat, arching its back before smoothing all the way out as it pushes the sun across the edge of the sky and out of sight.

The warriors of StarClan take their dawn patrols, appearing one by one from the darkness, and Novablaze, the last of us to arrive, takes a seat far away from me on a rock on the northern border. While nothing can really attack from above the stone ledge (except for birds), it gives us a great aerial view of camp in case something was to attack.

"Nice to see you." I say quietly.

"Indeed." he mews, too disoriented by the day to say much more. I decide to leave well enough alone for the time being, instead turning my head skywards and watching the rest of the stars emerge one by one. Their presence is comforting. I feel less isolated knowing that if something was to attack camp, the stars would see us.

I suppose they wouldn't help very much (that's a job for the living), but I'd give anything to see Brownkit again. It's been a quarter of a moon since my last old DragonClan dream.

"It's odd." Sparrowsong starts, "Why would Knottedstar choose us to take the tunnel challenge?"

"She's testing us." I reply. "She does that sometimes."

"Why?" Sharpfoot asks. "If you were behind this, I swear..."

"What's the problem?" I ask, my voice sharp. "You all seemed to think it would be easy. Surely if you've spent so much of your valuable apprenticehood besting someone weak as me, you would have learned the proper skills?" She'll get no sympathy from me.

"I barely talked to you." she snaps. "A-and if I struggled with the test, that's none of your business. We all passed."

"Barely." sighs Crowpaw. "I had no idea the tunnels were like that..."

All eyes turn to her again. She might be the one to spill.

"You know what? We can have a little storytime. If I share, so do all of you." she bluffs.
"Fair enough." Novablaze agrees.

"Who goes first?" Goldenfire asks.

"I suppose I do." she sighs. "I had planned to do the entire assessment with Thistleheart. He's the best tracker I know, and for some reason he wanted me along, though I didn't ask. However, when we got into the tunnels, I turned around and he was gone. I felt breathing on me in the dark, but I couldn't identify it. The entire time was pure torture. I would hear voices. See eyes in the shadows. No matter what I did, there was always that constant breath. When I saw the sunlight, I resolved never to go down there again." she finishes, than looks to her left, at Thistleheart, who grunts.

"Fine. Same thing. Lost Crowfeather pretty early in. At one point there was this ugly bald cat, but it had way too many limbs. It was grabbing me and I was scared, soo... I killed it. As it died, it kept calling for someone named... "Lunarshine"."

My fur stands up on end.

"That was weird too. After that, I kept hearing barking, so I looked around and there was a shadowy fox standing in a passage between two of the larger rooms. I lept at him, but this time it was more of a fair fight. I noticed that he had blood on his lips and was already bleeding. He was a terrifyingly good fighter for being injured. However, his injury got the better of him and he stumbled. Before I could attack him too, he had disappeared." He licks some old wounds. "Next?"