Warriors: A New Beginning #2: Midnight Rising

Chapter 30

"Tallpines," Midnightsky answered.

"Are we going to meet any ShadowClan cats?"

"Hopefully not." If ShadowClan also was starting to be a problem Midnightsky would feel like she was about to explode.

"It would be cool to meet a ShadowClan cat." Riverpaw's eyes gleamed. "I'd tear it to shreds."

"Maybe, if it was blind!" Midnightsky teased.

Riverpaw shrugged. "Can I hunt?"

Can this cat ever stop talking? "Weren't you just hunting with Emberpaw?" Midnightsky asked.

Riverpaw nodded. "But I'm hungry."

"Well then, catch something quickly," Midnightsky told him.

Riverpaw swiped his tongue over his jaws, stopping to crouch. A few heartbeats later, he pounced, bringing up a mouse.

After eating it in a few quick bites, he ran to catch up to Midnightsky.

"Do medicine cats every hunt?" he asked. "Or fight?"

"They do learn some basic hunting and fighting skills," Midnightsky answered. "I trained as a warrior for a moon before switching to a medicine cat apprentice, so I know a little more fighting moves than a standard medicine cat."

"So you're a medicine cat that can fight?" Riverpaw sounded surprised.

"Well, I've beaten you in sparring, remember? Both you and Emberpaw at the same time."

"I guess you have," Riverpaw admitted reluctantly.

"We're almost there," Midnightsky mewed all of a sudden. She could see Tallpines in the distance.

"What does horsetail look like?" Riverpaw asked.

"It's a wide, dark green leaf with jagged edges."

They didn't say anything else for the rest of the way there.

As soon as they reached Tallpines Midnightsky spotted a patch of horsetail.

"Right there." She indicated it with her tail. "We'll gather it by the leaf, we don't want to pull the roots out."

She started to swiftly gather the plant. Riverpaw watched her for a few heartbeats, then started taking some as well.

It wasn't long before they both had a huge bundle of horsetail.

"I think this is enough," Midnightsky declared, her voice muffled by the horsetail. "Let's go back to camp."

Riverpaw nodded.

They started to head back to the ThunderClan camp. They didn't really talk because they had bundles of horsetail in their mouth. Midnightsky took this as a chance to think.

My faith in my family and friends will be tested...

How would it be tested? It also wasn't just her. Wavepelt had had the same message.

Midnightsky sighed inwardly. StarClan's messages are always so vague. Why couldn't StarClan just warn them straight out about something instead of saying some strange message? Midnightsky didn't get that.

"Have you ever fought in a battle?"

Riverpaw's muffled voice entered her thoughts. Midnightsky glanced at him and paused before replying.

"Not intentionally," she meowed finally. That was true. She had been in way more battles than a medicine cat should have but that was mostly because of the rogues.