Fading Light

Chapter 1

Dawnripple ran across the river bank of sky falls on the opposite side Skyrunner, her best friend since kit hood. They ran almost in sync until Skyrunner pulled ahead and sild to a stop as the river dropped off in to an almost vertical drop off into the pool below. Dawnripple leaped over to Skyrunner gracefully, "You win this time." she smirked at him. He swished his tail happily.

"You always say that." Dawnripple rolled her eyes at him and brushed past him.

"Come on Honeycrumble with be mad if we return with no prey." Skyrunner and Dawnripple laughed as they set off into the forest to find some prey. 

With prey swinging from their jaws they entered camp. The smell of the salty water still lingered around them as they placed their prey down. 

"You sure did take your time." The two warriors looked over their should to find Honeycrumble walking up to the pile, "Have a race by the falls again didn't you?" The two nodded silently embarrassment burning their pelts. "Don't look at the ground like that, I didn't mean to sound harsh. It's just leaf fall is coming and your know how hard it'll be to find prey, and even after that leaf bare will force us to hunt fish." Dawnripple nodded.

"We're sorry. We'll try to be quicker next time." Honeycrumble flicked he tail.

"Now take sparrow and a thrush to Jumblestep and Songfall." Dawnripple bent down and grabbed the sparrow and started heading to the elders den.

"She wasn't that mad at us." Skyrunner said his voice muffled by the prey dangling from his jaws.

"But she's still the deputy. We need to start focusing more." Skyrunner's tail dropped as they set the prey down.

"Thank you Dawnripple and Skyrunner." Jumblestep said pushing the prey towards his and his den mate Songfall, who curtly dipped her head to the warriors. Dawnrippple looked at Skyrunner.

"Sorry if I sounded harsh it's just I don't want to be known as the warrior that disobeys her deputy." Skyrunner ran his tail along her side.

"It's ok." the two headed to their den for some rest before evening patrol. A paw touching Dawnripples side made her jolt and left her head. Emeraldtuft's bright green eyes meet her gaze. 

"Patrol time?" she asked, she responded with a nod. Dawnripple stood and stretched her back legs and followed the warrior to the rest of the patrol. She saw Skyrunner, Gingertooth and Owlpebble. Her stomach squirmed when she meet Owlpebbles gaze.

"Are you ok?" He asked as the left camp. 

"Yeah. I think I just had some bad prey." she avoided his gaze. The rest of the patrol was already pretty far ahead of the two warriors so the sprinted forward to catch up.

"Come this way, Sagestar said to patrol the ThunderClan border, he thinks some of their apprentices have been purposely crossing the border to take prey." The four warriors leapt across Skyfalls one by one and continued on the path. Going further down the trail the heard talking. Emeraldtuft raised his tail to halt. He lifted his head and opened his jaws. "Defiantly ThunderClan." he hissed they warriors pushed their way through the brush on the other side were two ThunderClan apprentices pressed to the ground their backs facing the patrol. Another sound reached Dawnripples ear. 

"Do you hear that?" she asked Skyrunner. 

"Hear what?"

They finally saw what the apprentices  were looking at, "Bear." Dawnripple breathed.