Warriors: Solemn Wishes (Warrior Cats Fan Story)

Chapter 20

Acorntail had an ear-to-ear grin on her face as she watched Metallicstar dismiss the meeting. Clanmates around her were disgruntled and irritated, but Acorntail was happy as a clam. Because this would be the first Gathering she would ever attend legally.

Metallicstar had just announced Acorntail's name among the names of other Clanmates who would attend the Gathering. A development that was actually logical, and subliminally expected by most cats in the Clan, but still not at all welcome. After all, no one could deny that after the squirrel warrior's existence had been revealed by RiverClan's fox warrior, there was no use hiding her anymore except to prove their shame. Not many Clanmates felt good about letting Acorntail come along; it was just that they didn't have a lot of choices now.

Acorntail immediately strutted up to her deputy. "So, guess I'm one of the cool kids now!"

Blisterfur deadpanned at her. "No you're not. You never will be."

"Stay mad. Your tears are delicious."

Blisterfur bared his teeth and walked away, and Acorntail watched him go with a smile. The Gathering would be a tremendous opportunity for her, and not just because it'd be the first one she would ever openly attend. Her smile dropped as she remembered that the other reason was Redwhisker's absence for the last few days. He had not shown up to a single one of their meetings. No matter if the squirrel waited at the border in the day or the night, for hours on end, she remained completely alone, and the fox remained away. Had she said something wrong when apologizing to him? Was he preoccupied with another Clan matter?

Whatever; at tonight's Gathering, he won't be able to avoid giving me all the details. A grin spread on her face. I'll even be able to surprise his sorry jumpy ass with my presence. What an entrance!

She zoomed over to Metallicstar, who was doing a head count of the Clanmates who were currently assembling at the entrance. "Heyo, when're we heading out?" the squirrel puffed.

"Soon," Metallicstar mumbled, narrowing her eyes at the crowd as she tried to continue her count.

"How soo-?"

"Acorntail, you're gonna make me lose count!" the leader hissed.

"Oh yeah. Get back to me when you're done doing math," Acorntail laughed, spinning on her heel and leaning her back against the cat in a bipedal manner. Metallicstar grunted, but said nothing.

It didn't take the leader long before she was done. "...11, 12, 13, 14, 15-" she pointed at Acorntail, "-16, and I'm 17. We're good to go."

"Hmm. If I'm 16, what superpowers do I get?" Acorntail asked, beginning to bound beside the leader as she started walking forward.

"Elaborate," Metallicstar muttered.

"Like, if I'm 16, and you're 17, do I get some kind of 16-specific power? 16 is a perfect square, and its perfect square is a perfect square. Maybe that means I can clone myself."

"Seems like you're the one doing math now," Metallicstar lightly chuckled. "Also, I was just counting. Not assigning numbers. How would numbers have superpowers, anyway?"

"Can you have at least a little bit of creativity in that brain of yours?- Oh right, you're 17, and 17 is a stupid dumb idiot prime number. Never mind."

Metallicstar rolled her eyes, and shoved past the crowd, going to the outside of the entrance and turning around. "All right, WindClan, we're going now! Off to the Gathering!"

Cats began streaming out of camp like a river, following their leader like ducklings. Though the entrance of camp was narrow, it also was not very constrictive. At most, it was a slightly shallower portion of the sloped "wall" surrounding camp. That meant that many of the more hyper cats could slink around ahead of others via the slopes of the entrance, or even run over the nearby walls to get out, resulting in a rather fast and uncontrolled exit of WindClan while other Clans had to exit in a slow, single-file line.