Marked Sky: A Warriors Fanfiction

4.0 - Quietpaw ☉

Quietpaw crept out of the den into the broad daylight. It stung his eyes, and they had to blink to adjust to the sudden brightness. It had been a while since they'd had time to themself, even though it was reluctantly forced upon their shoulders.

Blue-tipped ears pricking, Quietpaw took in their surroundings. It was sunhigh, and warriors lazed about the camp, the scorching sun of New-leaf making the parched ground too hot to do much of anything, so the warriors spread out dried moss on the smooth rocks that are placed around the camp.

Thistletoe, a nervous-looking amber she-cat, and Birchfall, a silver-tabby she-cat, lay spread out on one rock. Thistletoe groomed Birchfall's long fur while she dozed, occasionally glancing towards the shade of the nursery brambles where Stonekit and Sootkit wrestled in the dirt, trying to grab each other's tails.

Tawnybellow and Kestrelfall, one large and tawny and the other a wirey pale ginger tabby, lay on their own large smooth rock with just enough moss for the two of them. A third blue-grey tabby tom, Heronswoop, was dragging his own dry moss bed towards the two, hopping as much as possible to not burn his paws while the other two cheered him on. He finally leaped up on the dark rock and placed his bedding down, but not before his paws had been placed on the burning surface. He howled and leaped off, flailing on the ground, and the other two roared with laughter.

Quietpaw, who was careful to stay in the shadows of the medicine cat den and nursery in order to not burn his pawpads, nearly tripped over the third kit rushing to join Sootkit and Stonekit's play; a dark ginger she-kit who tackled both her brothers out of the shadows.

They wrestled in the dirt for a bit before the heated ground begun to hurt them and they yelped. Quietpaw saw Thistletoe stand up sharply, but before she could react, a thin, grey she-cat emerged from the nursery. "Sootkit, Stonekit," Gullsong growled sternly as the kits dashed back inside, "I told you to come back in the den before you got hurt. And Stoatkit, I expect you to know better." The kits mumbled their sorrys as they bounded back to the shade, and Gullsong looked towards the blue-pointed apprentice, her narrowed green eyes softening a bit. "Sorry, Quietpaw, they've been acting up recently. Comes with the age I guess." With a curt nod to Thistletoe, who settled back down on her rock with a relieved sigh, Gullsong retreated back into the bramble nursery shade before Quietpaw could respond.

Quietpaw looked around the camp again, but saw none of the other apprentices, and decided that they must be near the Drytree.

The apprentices, like the warriors, had no den of their own. Instead they made bedding out of the yellowed tall grasses surrounding the camp, and slept under the Drytree; a tall, gnarled alder trunk with cracked, wide, windswept branches.

Newleaf after Newleaf the Drytree surprised every cat with small green leaves even after a scorching Greenleaf, a dry Leaf-fall and a freezing Leaf-bare. Every year the clan is sure that this would be the season when the Drytree finally kicks it, but every year it prevails, much to the clan's glee.

Quietpaw twisted around the nursery brambles, and dashed across the hot camp ground, each paw only touching the dirt for a heartbeat before he reached the edge of camp, and the start of a matted-down path winding between the tall plants. Quietpaw slinked through the grasses, which were so tall that only the tips of Quietpaw's ears were visible, just poking out of the top of the yellowed grass even as he stood at his full height.

Nearing the clearing, where the magnificent, half-dead Drytree towered over the hastily-made nests, Quietpaw's blue-tipped ears pricked, hearing his fellow apprentice's voices. He took a step forward before hearing another, more familiar voice, and he crouched with a smirk, deciding to surprise her.

"-No, really," Olivepaw continued, a hint of satire in her voice. "Birchfall nearly killed him when he got his warrior name. Apparently Kestrelfall requested 'fall as well, just to twist her fur."