[the siege]

ii. chapter two

Larkflower hissed with exasperation. Her apprentice, Flickerpaw was getting on her last nerve. She had been trying to teach him some extra hunting tips before his last assessment, but he was acting up. She wondered if it was because of the younger apprentice, Shallowpaw. Flickerpaw had been observing the younger she-cat for moons and Larkflower was wondering if they were now distracting one another from their warrior duties.

She couldn't really blame him though. After all, she had fallen pretty quickly for her current mate, Snakeshine. The sandy brown tomcat had just been somehow . . . compelling. As if StarClan were daring her to be courageous. Maybe that's what was going on with Flickerpaw. But whatever the cause, he had to try and fix it soon or else her apprentice may stay an apprentice.

"Stop stumbling over your own paws and start using them to hunt!"

Larkflower's long-haired fur swung as she tossed her brown and white head in annoyance. She couldn't help but throw in, "If you like Shallowpaw so much, why can't you at least use her as a motivation!" As soon as the words tumbled out of her mouth, she realized that she had worded her suggestion wrong.

Flickerpaw's eyes gleamed with rage, but he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he whipped around and started stalking down the sandy hill, stomping back in the direction of the BayClan camp. Larkflower watched guiltily as the apprentice stumbled back to the camp, probably off to tell his friends what a bad mentor he had.

And Larkflower couldn't blame him. After all, she had been easily angered lately. Her temper had grown worse and she had no idea why. Maybe I should see Harewing . . . He'll know if something's off with me. And if there is, then he'll give me some bitter herbs for it. Larkflower had always grumbled about taking the tangy herbs whenever she was sick or under rare circumstances was travelling to the Moonpool with her leader.

After a while of staring off into the space where her apprentice had stalked off, thinking sulkily about Flickerpaw, she decided against going to the medicine cat's den. It was probably just the leaf-bare hunger getting to her. That would make sense-after all, Flickerpaw had missed the unusually plump rabbit that they had been chasing. They needed that prey to feed the clan, but Flickerpaw had lost it after he absent-mindedly lumbered through the field so loudly, that Larkflower figured cats all the way from JungleClan had heard him coming-and had probably thought that he was a noisy tiger at that. He must have scared off all the prey for a while after he had pitifully thrown himself to the ground in defeat after he had lost the large rabbit.

Larkflower felt like sitting down with a piece of fresh-kill and then go to sleep until tomorrow, but she knew that she had to feed her clan. Hunger pierced her belly like the claw of a warrior raking their sharp talons across her soft stomach. She hunched over with the pain of starvation-the last time she had tasted fresh-kill, she realized, had been the morning before today. She had gone almost two sunrises without food and felt like she was about to collapse.

After a while of excruciating pain, Larkflower gave in to the comforts of her camp and started walking back in the direction that Flickerpaw had recently run away in. As she made her way down a steep hill, one that she had traversed many times with ease, she slipped on one of her ankles and crashed to the ground. Even though no cat was watching, embarrassment scorched through her thick pelt like a wildfire spreading through the forest.

What was going on? Usually, Larkflower would've caught loads of fresh-kill and been on her way back out on her third patrol, even in leaf-bare, but these past few moons had been rough. She had the balance of a lopsided dung-beetle and felt as if she were about to break apart any second the wind blew.

No-she had to go to Harewing. At least Larkflower could find out what was going on with her. A couple of mouldy herbs would be worth that.

She slowly began to pad through the tall stalks of moor grass, her legs feeling unstable and her belly swinging from side to side. Larkflower frowned. If she had met any other cat, they would've thought that she had been eating every second of every day, but she hadn't eaten in two. Then, Larkflower stopped dead in her tracks. This was what Crowsong and Shroomflare had looked like in the moons before they had given birth. Witheringrose hadn't looked like this only because she had adopted young rogues that she had found in the middle of the freezing moor, but the expecting she-cats had. Did this mean that Larkflower, the headstrong warrior, was expecting kits?