A New Beginning: The Lost Hope

Chapter 2

The next night, the full moon rose and talk stirred up about how cats in other clans were doing, and cats were getting prepared for the gathering. Ivykit loved to dash around and listen to the gossip. She could learn about all different types of false and true rumors and to her it was easy to tell when a cat was lying. But this night, Ivykit heard something she shouldn't have heard.

"Should we say anything about what we saw on patrol today?" A voice that Ivykit easily recognized as Snowpaw asked.

Applebelly replied, "no. All five of us need keep quiet about it until Shadowclan says something about it this gathering." Ivykit was confused to say the least. What did he mean by 'all five'?

Bramblebush added, "I know Fluffypaw won't say a thing."

"But the other apprentices should be aware this is happening," Fluffypaw responded.

"I'm pretty sure that all five of us know along with Riverclan, Squirrelstar, Finchwing, and Fruitpaw," explained Cloudfur. Ivykit could only sit back and try to imagine what they had seen at the Shadowclan border today.

Bramblebush asked, "so we're agreed? We keep quiet about this until Shadowclan speaks at the gathering tonight?"

"Not until Shadowclan speaks," agreed Cloudfur.

What did Ivykit just hear? What was wrong with Shadowclan? What did the afternoon patrol see? She had so many questions, but she couldn't answer any single one of them.

Sunbird exclaimed sarcastically, "must we wait a hundred moons before we can go to this gathering!?"

Just then Squirrelstar padded out from her den and announced, "alright! It's time to go to the gathering."

"Finally! I thought I'd be waiting until the day I died," Dawnflight scowled.

With that, the group started marching towards the island, leaving Ivykit to just stand in the middle of the camp, more confused than she ever had been.

Just then, Mossheart dashed out of the nursery and scowled at Ivykit, "I was so worried about you! You have to stop sneaking out of the nursery every full moon! You'll get your chance to go to the gathering one day."

Ivykit nodded and then asked her mother, "how much longer until I get to be an apprentice?"

"A little bit less than one more moon," Mossheart explained, making Ivykit nod and sigh. She's waited so many moons for her apprenticeship, but now one moon felt like worlds away from her.

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Thunderclan got to the log to cross to the island just before Windclan.

Squirrelstar smiled and exclaimed, "Cavestar! Thunderclan offers you our humblest of greetings!"

Cavestar hissed back, "shut up Squirrelstar. I don't need your stupid greetings."

Squirrelstar nodded and mewed, "Windclan can pass to the island first."

Cavestar scowled, "one day my prayers to Starclan will be answered and y'all suck-up cats will start realizing what it's really like to run a clan."

As Windclan started to get onto the log, one cat stood out to the elders.

Leafflutter exclaimed, "Shorttail!"

Shorttail, a brown tomcat with a short and stubby nub of a tail, dashed over to meet his friends in Thunderclan.

Some Thunderclan cats could swear they heard a warrior with black fur, Crowwing, hiss to some other Windclan cats, "that stupid cat is more Thunderclan than Windclan."