Sunrise

Chapter 2

Mudpaw yawned. Today was going to be big. He trotted out of the apprentices' den lazily, stretching. Sunshatter was grooming himself near the wetrock, and Mudpaw padded over to him. "When are we training?" He asked, prodding his friend to get his attention. The long snouted calico Tom looked up. "Right now, if it suits us." He mewed, and stood up, racing to the camp entrance and leaping over the small stream bordering their camp. Mudpaw quickly followed suite. Soon enough, he was bounding through lush green fields and feeling the gentle brush of willow leaves as they loomed above him. He'd been outside before, of course. Sunshatter had taken him. But this was different, this time he could really interact.

He thought of his sister. Would she have played like this? Felt so awed? Before... he bristled unconsciously, and his calico mentor looked back over to him questionably. "Sunshatter,  do you think, when our loved ones die, that they're watching us form starclan? That they're not really gone?" The tall Tom snorted, laughing a bit. "Starclan? I don't believe in starclan." He shrugged. "A bunch of dead cats in the sky? Sounds like mouse bile to me." Mudpaw was taken aback by this declaration, but decided it must be true. After all, is Sunshatter didn't believe in something, it couldn't be true. 

"Tuck your paws in!" Sunshatter ordered him, and Mudpaw complied obediently. He was crouched in the tall grass, trying to perfect a hunting crouch. It wasn't helping, with Sunshatter constantly shout8 contradicting statements left and right, but he tried to do his best. "That's better Mudpaw, but don't have your tail sticking up! Rigid'gaze told me it was better to keep it flat against the ground, but don't swish it! That'll alert the prey your there!" The Tom chattered. What prey?  Mudpaw thought wonderingly as he tried to keep his tail from swishing in the ferns. 

"Alright, what can you smell?" His mentor and him were perched on a rock deep in windclan territory, and he was taking in the sights. And smells. "I think I can smell rabbit, and maybe some cats, they smell kind of yucky though, must be foxes." He wrinkled his nose. Sunshatter winked at him. "Those are windclan, foxes are only almost as yucky as them. Try for that rabbit, will you?" He said abruptly, pointing to some rustling heather stalks. "Hunt it? But- " he stopped, thinking hard. "But what?" His mentor asked, confused. But shouldn't we not hunt in windclan territory? He wondered. "Nothing." He lied, focusing on the rabbit. As soon as he got close, the rabbit perked up its ears. He froze, but his tail brushed against a fallen tree branch and the rabbit gave a shrill squeal and darted away. His tail drooped in disappointment.

"Don't worry about it, you'll get one next time." Sunshatter said dismissively. "Now let's head back, we wouldn't find more prey here." Mudpaw and him trotted back to camp, and the large Tom stopped by a clump of ferns. "Hey, uh, roll in these would you? Yknow, no reason, just for me..." Mudpaw stopped, confused, but rolled in them nevertheless. He looked back and saw his mentor doing the same, with an, I-did-something-I-wasn't-supposed-to-do-and-I-don't-wanna-get-in-trouble expression on his face. When they arrived, each smelled of damp ferns, and no one wanted to go near him. Not like there were any other apprentices, anyway. Besides Stormpaw, the medicine apprentice, he and leafkit were supposed to be the only ones. But it was just him now. What I did was justified. He told himself furiously. He deserved it. It's his fault leafkit isn't here, training beside me. He tore up a patch of grass with a grim look on his face, earning some reproachful glances from the warriors. He didn't care, all he wanted was to retreat into his den and let the fury override him, but he simply sat there and waited. Waited for his mentor, waited for Cherryblossom, even waiting for Owlbranch and Stormpaw. But none of them came, and so he sat there for the length of the night.