Frostkit slowly padded back into camp. It was nightfall by then, and every cat was asleep. She settled into her little nest just outside the nursery, hoping with all of her heart that that night, StarClan would send clear skies and no rain. If it rained, she'd either get drenched or be forced to enter the nursery, and that would be a dreadful disaster. None of the kits would be accepting, since the only two were her totally not-brothers. They didn't bat an eye when she came back, poked her head into the nursery and found them wide awake. There was no welcoming greeting, only a cold, emotionless stare saved just for her, and Frostkit sighed disappointedly, wondering what on earth she had been hoping for from her stupid siblings, and went outside again to sleep. No warrior had objected to her sleeping outside, so she supposed that was awfully normal for rebellious kits like her. She just wished two moons would pass quicker. Once she was an apprentice, she would finally be with Stormpaw again after two long moons. Then she'd have her sister back and they could train together! Well, obviously Stormpaw would be miles ahead. Frostkit gave a slight purr of amusement, then remembered she'd promised Stormpaw she'd join her on the territory tour, and she'd never made it in the end. She wondered if her sworn sister had been constantly glancing over her shoulder, expecting a little ball of white fluff to pop out and say hello.
The next two moons were awfully uneventful for Frostkit and her not-brothers, as kits were generally ignored in the Clan, plus they didn't have parents, so no one was attracting anybody to come to the nursery. They didn't starve, obviously, because the apprentices brought them prey. Frostkit always savored that moment when Stormpaw came, bringing a juicy mouse in her jaws. They'd share prey if Stormpaw was freer, and Frostkit could see how Stormpaw actually cherished their friendship. Ever since Dewfrost, Squirreltail, Mousewhisker and Shininglight had become warriors, Stormpaw's sister Brightpaw had been mooning over Dewfrost and Ashpaw was mooning over Shininglight.
"We're too young for love!" Stormpaw meowed in annoyance as she saw Brightpaw padding behind Dewfrost as he trotted to the fresh-kill pile. "And what does Brightpaw see in that arrogant furball? Do you know how long she boasts about him, and he boasts about himself?" Stormpaw flicked her tail in irritation, expecting Frostkit to understand the woes of being an apprentice and having moony siblings.
"Dewfrost certainly has an ego," Frostkit agreed. That was all she deemed safe to say. Anything nice about Dewfrost would probably lead to Stormpaw being angry at her for a while. Stormpaw was kind, but she wasn't the most levelheaded cat around. She lost her temper easily, and could be angry for long periods of time, though not against Frostkit. Stormpaw could never stay angry against her sworn sister, but she also pored out her worries and anger against other cats to Frostkit a lot of the time, leaving Frostkit's head buzzing with all the stuff for grown cats.
"Isn't today your apprentice ceremony?" Stormpaw asked suddenly, her annoyed expression replaced by pure happiness and excitement.
"Oh, right, it is!" Frostkit jumped to her paws and ran down to the High Rock, feeling Stormpaw running behind her, the breeze ruffling through their fur. They stopped right below the High Rock and saw Sunstar leaping onto it. The yellow-furred leader purred in amusement when she saw Frostkit all posh and ready for her apprentice ceremony.
"You're so eager, aren't you! Where are your brothers?" Sunstar asked. She was always asking things like that, where's your brothers, where's your siblings, as if she expected that to make Frostkit suddenly reconcile with Windkit and Cloudkit.
Frostkit looked innocently back. "I don't have any brothers," she meowed breezily, and Stormpaw tapped her lightly with her tail. Stormpaw had warned Frostkit not to mention that too much around grown cats, but she couldn't help it. It seemed nice to keep on saying she didn't have any brothers.
Sunstar sighed in disappointment, before seeing Windkit and Cloudkit running at full-speed, which wasn't very fast, to the High Rock, their chins high. Her brow furrowed when the two of them crashed into the bottom of the High Rock. "Are you alright?" she asked, sounding mildly concerned.
"My chin," Cloudkit groaned, getting up weakly from where he'd fallen. He helped Windkit up, both of them looking dazed. Frostkit rolled her eyes and smirked slightly. Those stupid kits.
"Why did we have to run like that?" Windkit grumbled, and Cloudkit glared at him and fired back, "It was your idea, not mine! Don't blame me like you always do!" Like you always do? Frostkit wondered. Was Cloudkit abused by Windkit? Perhaps she should admit that she had one brother, if that would make him happy. As far as she was concerned, Cloudkit had never done anything bad to her except to choose Windkit over her. He was probably regretting that now.
"Hush, kits, groom your fur, quick!" Sunstar meowed in a hurry. Stormpaw had already groomed Frostkit's fur for her. Usually, the mothers did that, but since Hopeheart was dead, as well as Shadowflight, there was no cat to groom their fur for them. I'll get you, foxy, because it's your fault my parents are gone! Frostkit screeched inwardly.
The Clan was already filing in under the High Rock, looking proudly down at the three kits whom they had done nothing to help raise. Frostkit flattened her ears, almost baring her teeth when she saw Silverlight come over. Silverlight gave Stormpaw a small wave, and even Stormpaw looked indifferent to her mother. She lifted her chin high and stared into the distance. She had been doing that lately, avoiding Silverlight at all costs. Even Silverlight's other kits were avoiding their mother. Skyfeather was extremely nervous about it, skirting at the side every time Silverlight passed, and Riverfall could literally walk straight past her mother with an indignant expression on her face. Silverlight had the nerve to look hurt by this. She'd literally killed a medicine cat, and she didn't think her Clanmates would be wary of her?
"We have come here to celebrate that three of our kits have reached the age of six moons, and are ready to be apprenticed," Sunstar meowed warmly. "Windkit, Cloudkit and Frostkit, step forward." The three of them obliged, Windkit and Cloudkit huddling close together. Frostkit fixed her gaze on Stormpaw's smiling face and smiled back. "Windkit, Cloudkit and Frostkit, from this moment onwards you will be known as Windpaw, Cloudpaw, and Frostpaw. Windpaw, your mentor will be Riverfall. Yellowtail trained you well, although he is no longer with us." A distant expression crossed Sunstar's face, but it was gone in an instant. "I trust you will pass down all the skills you have learnt to Windpaw. Cloudpaw, you will be mentored by Lightpelt. Lightpelt, you received excellent training from Oatfoot, who is sadly no longer with us, and I trust you will pass down the same skills to Cloudpaw. Frostpaw, your mentor will be Silverlight. Despite the recent disagreements, Silverlight is a good warrior and I believe I have trained her well. She has also trained Amberfrost and Hopeheart, who is sadly no longer with us, and I trust she will pass down the same skills to Frostpaw."
Silverlight bent down to touch noses with Frostpaw, but Frostpaw instinctively cringed away and unsheathed her claws, raising them to the exact location of the scars crisscrossing across her upper face, the place where Frostpaw had scarred her before. Silverlight moved backwards, her eyes narrowing to slits. Frostpaw could tell: Silverlight wasn't any happier about this arrangement than she was. Frostpaw didn't want to be mentored by a murderer, and Silverlight didn't want to mentor the cat who had scarred her and ruined her beauty for life.
"I refuse to be mentored by a murderer!" Frostpaw snarled, her unsheathed claws scraping the earth. The entire Clan gasped, the sound radiating through Frostpaw's ears. However, she did not back down. She was not going to be mentored by Silverlight and that was that. "Please change my mentor," she meowed to Sunstar. Even the leader was looking revolted by the very idea and annoyed that Frostpaw had spoken up.
"Frostpaw, I have been lenient with you in the past but you cannot choose your own mentor!" Sunstar snarled, her own claws starting to unsheathe. She probably wouldn't attack, but that was a sign of anger, and Sunstar didn't usually get angry. Still, Frostpaw faced her with a defiant expression on her face.
"I don't want to choose my own mentor. I just want you to pick a mentor for me who isn't a murderer!" Frostpaw snarled, her voice echoing around. "Will you?" she added, her voice softening to more of a plea, hoping that would seem more polite. "Will you please pick a new mentor for me? I don't feel safe with Silverlight. I can't even turn my back on her because I'm so scared." She faced Sunstar with pleading eyes.
"I don't really want to mentor her either, Sunstar," Silverlight meowed, her voice heavy. "I am grateful that you are presenting me with such an honor, but she scarred me beyond healing, as a kit. What might she do with the right training?"
"Be a great asset for the Clan?" Frostpaw asked hopefully. She looked to both Sunstar and Silverlight, but neither of them were looking at her.
"You have to mentor her. I asked you to. I chose you for the job, when everyone wants me to exile you!" Sunstar hissed. Her eyes were slits now, and she looked really angry for the first time ever. This was obviously an old argument and they probably hadn't gotten along very well even as apprentice and mentor. The malice in Silverlight's eyes showed that they'd never liked each other, not ever.
"Then exile me. No one likes me anymore," Silverlight hissed, glowering at Sunstar. "All I did was protect my daughter and my other children hate me now. Lightningstrike won't speak to me. Just exile me or kill me. It's all for the better, Sunstar. You have to understand. I don't care if you need your warriors. You have this new batch, don't you?" She gestured wildly to Frostpaw, Cloudpaw and Windpaw. "Look at them all, so ready-made. Don't tarnish her reputation by putting me as her mentor. Although, her reputation is already bad. Attacking a Clanmate?" A smirk slid onto her face and she ruffled her paw past her scar. "See this? That one is a monster. She needs a innocent cat to train her, not me. Not the one she hates." Silverlight stared out at the crowd of cats watching their conversation in awe. "Sunstar has spoken! Frostpaw's new mentor will be Squirreltail."
Sunstar didn't even disagree, for one. She nodded and let Squirreltail approach and touch noses delicately with Frostpaw, eyes eager. Frostpaw didn't know that much about Squirreltail, but at least she wasn't evil. Still, that evil gleam in Silverlight's eyes seemed to say something - that she'd chosen Squirreltail for a reason, and it probably wasn't a good reason for Frostpaw.
Still, the next few days were relatively peaceful, with Squirreltail teaching Frostpaw how to stalk and hunt prey. Hunting wasn't exactly her specialty - she missed all three of the mice Squirreltail had set her to catch. But the moment she was deemed 'okay' and they moved on to battle training, Frostpaw swept the floors with Squirreltail, practically destroying her mentor in the fight. Squirreltail was literally struggling against her brand new apprentice and annoyance was shining in her eyes.
"Your technique is all wrong," Squirreltail spat. "Were you even listening when I thought you? You have to fluff out your fur, and bunch your hind legs before you jump!"
"However," Frostpaw meowed, a malicious gleam in her eyes, "I still won, and that's what matters. You can inconvenience yourself by fluffing out your fur and making yourself seem bigger than you are, but it's better if you flatten your fur to your body and seem small. You wouldn't want to catch your super fluffed-out fur on a tree or something, would you?" Frostpaw asked, sticking out her tongue. She didn't care if she was being disrespectful. Squirreltail was a horrid teacher, she was worse at fighting than Frostpaw herself! How on earth? Frostpaw narrowed her eyes at her mentor. Was Squirreltail a new apprentice in disguise? Or were all the warriors about her standard, pathetic little wimps that she could wipe the floors with?
"I'm not impressed with your attitude!" Squirreltail snarled hotheadedly.
"I'm not impressed with your teaching capabilities," Frostpaw meowed with an enormous yawn. "Who taught you?"
"Thrushwing," Squirreltail growled. "He was a good mentor! And he was absolutely shaken by loss from the battle against AutumnClan shortly before your birth! Frostpaw, he lost his mother and his sister, Moonflower and Swallowtail, and he was a brand new warrior. He was grieving, and he still did his best, and I'm still a good warrior!"
"I'm not sure about that last bit," Frostpaw meowed with a snort. "You're clearly pathetic when it comes to fighting."
Squirreltail was seething by now, and apparently she was done with small talk. "You're doing the elders' ticks for the rest of your apprenticeship," she growled, her voice low and threatening. Frostpaw merely raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
"Really? That's all? So I can insult you whenever I like and just get apprentice chores back?" she demanded. "Why don't we fight with unsheathed claws and you can hurt me."
Squirreltail had already given in to too much goading and she wasn't about to stop now. "Fine!" she snarled. "But when you die to my claws, you aren't going to say anything about it, wimp!" She unsheathed her claws and held them to Frostpaw's face.
Frostpaw unsheathed her own claws and dodged around. She could give Squirreltail the exact same scar she'd given to Silverlight, crisscrossed in three lines across her face, where it was visible to everybody. She leapt, her body arcing through the air, and scarred her mentor like she'd done Silverlight. It didn't come at no cost, obviously. Squirreltail wasn't awful at every part of fighting, and her claws lightly swished across Frostpaw left hind leg, and left a small cut. Frostpaw winced as she landed, quickly licking her leg gently. Squirreltail howled in pain, blood gushing from the wounds on her face.
"You've scarred me the same way," she hissed, her voice hollow. "Why would you? What did I do to you?"
"You were a pathetic mentor and ruined my training," Frostpaw growled, modeling her voice to be as low and threatening as Squirreltail's had been earlier. "But thank you for the voice training. Ha. The only thing I've learnt from this session, other than that my mentor is pathetic." Frostpaw left the bleeding Squirreltail behind for the foxes and badgers, but as soon as that thought occurred to her, she remembered - the fox. The fox who had killed her father and mother who was still roaming the forest like it was his home! Well, that ended today. Frostpaw changed direction, no longer headed for camp. Although still angry, Squirreltail called after her, "Where are you going? Camp is that way." Frostpaw ignored her mentor, moving on into the deeper parts of the forest, where Hopeheart and Shadowflight's patrol had gone.
"Oh, foxy!" she crowed, her voice shrill and high-pitched. "Foooooooxyyyy, come out wherever you are!" She carefully shifted her claws so they were hidden but didn't snag on the undergrowth. She tried to form a plan in her head. Her parents' patrol of six cats had failed to defeat this particular foxy, but she, a brand-new apprentice, was going to single-handedly destroy him? She really hadn't thought this plan through, but she didn't care. Either she would kill this fox once and for all, or she would die the same noble way as her parents.
Finally, it emerged. The fox, yellow-fanged with matted fur, it was exactly as the only survivor from that patrol, Grassfeather, had described it. It had haunted eyes and a drooling mouth, with many scars across its body. Scars made from cats' claws. They did land hits, Frostpaw thought. Grassfeather had said they'd done nothing to it. Then she realized what had happened. Grassfeather had deserted his patrol. With seven cats, surely they could have killed it. But if two chased after Grassfeather, trying to call him back, and four tried to fight it alone, maybe they had perished and the two who returned had been caught in its mouth. Then... it was Grassfeather's fault they were all dead, wasn't it? Grassfeather's, as well as the fox's. Well, I know who else has to pay, she thought menacingly.
The fox lunged and she ducked to the side, raking her claws across its eyes as it passed. She finally noticed something. The fox was limping heavily and almost fell with every step. It was weakened by that patrol, and judging by how scrawny it was, that had affected its hunting. So, the patrol had indeed landed good hits on this scrap of matted fur. It didn't take long for her to kill it. It couldn't fight anyway. But somehow, that wasn't satisfying, killing a wounded creature. It wasn't a fight. It was just slaughter.
"You weren't even a good fight!" Frostpaw bellowed, kicking the fox's body. "I wanted something to train me. Give me scars. You didn't land a single hit on me." Naturally, the dead creature remained limp and could not move. But her anger... had it shivered? "And I'm hallucinating," Frostpaw grumbled.
She got up and headed back to camp. Would there be a party waiting for her? Killing the fox might have cancelled out scarring Squirreltail... or would it? She'd scarred way too many cats. Well, only two, but two too many, since they were from her own Clan. The next battle, I'll scar AutumnClan cats and they will regret even hearing my name, Frostpaw thought. I'll kill them all, scar the survivors so badly that they will quiver upon hearing my name. She lifted her head high and strutted back into camp.
"Frostpaw! There you are! What did you do to Squirreltail?" Sunstar demanded, racing down to meet Frostpaw.
"What did I do to Squirreltail? Oh, we trained with unsheathed claws, and turns out, I'm a stronger fighter than my so-called fully-trained warrior mentor," Frostpaw meowed with an eyeroll. "Don't we have anyone better? She's pathetic, and I didn't even think Thrushwing was that bad. Maybe he was, huh." She rolled her eyes again.
"Frostpaw. I tried my best to assign you a mentor," Sunstar meowed, her eyes pleading.
"It wasn't you. You know who assigned me that mentor? It was Silverlight." Frostpaw growled. "She's not leader, but you let her speak for you, assigning me that lump for a mentor. And you stood there and watched! What kind of leader are you?"
Sunstar seemed to shrink before her. "I always wanted to be leader," she whispered. "But this Clan is broken. And... you don't know what happened at the Moonstone, Frostpaw. You can't understand Silverlight's hatred."
Frostpaw narrowed her eyes at Sunstar. "What happened at the Moonstone?"
Sunstar shook her head. "I can't tell you. StarClan business."
"FIGHT! FIGHT! ATTACK!"
Frostpaw whipped around. "AutumnClan attacking?!"
"No," Sunstar meowed, her voice hollow. "The Clan is in a civil war."
Word count: 3224
AH, sorry for the cliffhanger! I'm going to try and write the next chapter right after this!