Shade

Chapter Thirty Five

"Come on, Marshpaw, keep up!" Shadepool called over her shoulder. For a cat with so much energy, her apprentice was remarkably slow to follow.

"I'm coming!" Marshpaw insisted, trying to balance as she crossed the stepping-stones out of camp.

"Just walk through the stream," Shadepool meowed. "It's not the end of the world if your paws get a little bit damp."

Marshpaw muttered something to herself, continuing across the steps.

"What was that?" Shadepool frowned.

"I don't like it when my paws are wet," Marshpaw grumbled, lashing her tail.

"Don't tell me you're a drypaw!" Shadepool twitched her whiskers with amusement. "There's nothing to be scared of. It's just water."

"I'm not scared," Marshpaw meowed. "I just don't like getting my paws wet. It feels uncomfortable."

"You get used to it," Shadepool encouraged, stepping into the stream and pushing through the water towards her apprentice. "Look, it barely covers my paws. Nothing to be scared of."

"I told you, I'm not scared," Marshpaw insisted. "I just don't like it when my paws are wet."

"Do you want me to carry you?" Shadepool twitched an ear, amusement bubbling up in her meow.

"I'm fine," Marshpaw meowed stubbornly, bounding over onto the next stepping-stone and pausing to get her balance. As she jumped to cross to the next one, Shadepool nudged her lightly with her flank, causing the young apprentice to lose her balance and topple into the water, screeching with surprise.

Shadepool purred. "Need some help?"

"It's so cold!" Marshpaw gasped, hauling herself out of the stream onto the other bank. "Why are you so mean?"

"I'm not doing it to be mean," Shadepool meowed, bending down to lick her apprentice dry. "I'm doing it to teach you. You'll have to swim one day. You can't just go your whole life avoiding it."

"I know!" Marshpaw wailed. "I just don't like it. I much prefer dry ground."

"That's okay," Shadepool meowed. "We'll work on that later."

"What do you mean, 'work on that later?'" Marshpaw demanded.

"Come on, RiverClan territory is bigger than it seems." Shadepool flicked her tail, purposefully not answering her apprentice's question. "We'll want to get moving if we want to cover all of it before dark."

Shadepool led Marshpaw across the territory, pointing out various landmarks to help her remember where she was, like the huge pine tree right at the centre, the tree branch had that fallen over the lake, the training ground, a rock shaped oddly like a fox, and a few others that Smoketail had shown her back when she was first apprenticed.

"And here is the ShadowClan border - but you've been here before." Shadepool turned to Marshpaw, whiskers twitching with amusement. This was the spot where Shadepool had found Marshpaw, then a kit, and received her scar.

Marshpaw looked around, recognition in her eyes. "Shadepool, can I ask you something?"

"Right now?" Shadepool flicked her ears with surprise. "I suppose so, if it's really bothering you."

"Do you really think I'll be a warrior one day?" Marshpaw blurted out.

Shadepool could only blink for a moment. "What makes you say that?"

"Do you?" Marshpaw pressed.

"Of course I do," Shadepool said. "You know, you actually remind me a lot of Shimmertail. More energy than your paws can handle. And you know, she's one of the cats I respect the most, and I think she's one of the best warriors in the Clan."

"You always talk about Shimmertail," Marshpaw mewed with a sigh. "Sometimes I wish Stonekit was here with me."

"Oh, Marshpaw." Shadepool rested her muzzle on the top of her apprentice's head. "Do you know what Smoketail told me just after he died?"

"What?" Marshpaw murmured.

"He said, 'this is the difficult part of being a warrior. You'll probably feel that way many more times, in battle and within the Clan. That's why we have leaders like Silverstar to guide us through hard times, and why we have StarClan to turn to when even the leader doesn't know what to do,'" Shadepool meowed, echoing her mentor's words from moons and moons ago. Suddenly she had a very real idea of what Smoketail had felt like, and why he always seemed to look at her with nothing but warmth in his eyes. There was a special sort of love that a mentor had for their apprentice.

"Thank you, Shadepool," Marshpaw murmured.

"It's okay. Hey, how about we bring some prey back to camp?"

"Really? Will you teach me how?" Marshpaw perked up considerably.

"Sure. Come on, let's go fishing out by the lake."

Shadepool raced ahead of her apprentice, glancing back to make sure Marshpaw kept up. The sun was beginning to sink beneath the trees and its dying rays glittered over the surface of the lake.

"It's beautiful!" Marshpaw gasped, skidding to a halt over the pebbly shore.

"It is," Shadepool agreed. "You should see it when the sun comes up. Silverstar showed me once on a dawn patrol."

"You went on a patrol with Silverstar?" Marshpaw looked up at Shadepool with wide eyes.

"Yeah, near the end of my apprenticeship. She's not that scary, you know," Shadepool added. "I've had some really nice, casual conversations with Silverstar. Just because she's Clan leader doesn't mean she's not also just a normal cat."

"Wow. Anyway! I want to learn how to fish!" Marshpaw bounded up to the lake shore and peered over. "I can't see any."

Shadepool purred. It was like she was a completely different cat to the one who had admitted to being uncertain of herself. "Well, you won't, not if you lean over like that and tell them all they're being hunted."

"So how do you catch them?" Marshpaw asked, her tail tip flicking from side to side. That was something Shadepool had noticed she often did as a way of channeling her seemingly limitless energy.

"You have to lean back," Shadepool explained. "Don't let your shadow fall on the water, or the fish will all swim away. Hunting fish is about patience. You have to wait for the right moment, when one gets too close, then you have to be fast so you don't give it a chance to swim away." Shadepool watched the lake closely, waiting for the right moment, then flashed out a paw and scooped a fish into the air, grabbing it in her jaws and killing it swiftly.

"That's so cool!" Marshpaw whispered. She started to lean over the water, then stopped herself, stepping back so her shadow didn't touch the lake. She waiting, unmoving except for her twitching tail tip, then dipped her paw into the water, barely managing to scoop out a smallish trout. "I got one!" she purred excitedly. "My first prey! Did you see that, Shadepool?"

"Well done," Shadepool purred. "Come on, let's take it back to camp. Maybe you could give it to one of the elders."