Warrior Cats SERIES 1: North and South (Book 1)

Chapter 15

Cottonpaw's eyes flew open, the light seeming fluorescent for a heartbeat. She flinched at the strong, unfamiliar scent flaring her nostrils and the grey shecat sat up, inspecting her surroundings. Her pixie-blue eyes spotted movement from the hay stacks in the corner of the wooden box-like den.
          "Ah, she's awake, guys." Voices suddenly spoke.
          "Oi, lemme see." Another replied.
          "Who are you?" Cottonpaw snarled, making the three cats in front of her go wide-eyed, their hackles raising in fear. "Tell me where I am."
          "In answer to your first question: I'm Foxie. This here is Roria and Mars." The ginger tomcat with a white tip of the tail spoke, gesturing to a cream shecat next to him with ginger marbled markings, then to a dark brown tomcat with white legs. Foxie's green eyes were bright and energetic, as though he were a bundle of kit-like energy.
          "And to answer the second, unlike Foxie here," the shecat rolled her eyes at her friend, facial expressions seemingly blank. "you are in our barn. A group of cats took you here so you wouldn't be found during the battle. Any idea what that's about?" Roria plucked a matted piece of fur out her shoulder.
          Cottonpaw nodded, but didn't speak. These cats must be kittypets, and lived in the Horseplace Twoleg Nest.
          She quickly padded past them, before wriggling under the wooden block, with strange plank-like holes in the middle. She knew that they were made and used by Twolegs, as the stench that made her nostrils flare was similar to the misty smell around the Twoleg Greenleaf Place.
          "Well, we have food, if you need to stay." One of the cats offered, and Cottonpaw spun on them to see who had spoken. It was the dark brown tom, who was supposedly named Mars. "That is, only if you need to stay. It's a bit low recently, because of leaf-bare, and our nofurs haven't been coming as often."
          She snorted. "What are nofurs? Prey is always low, but I'd like that, thanks. Is it okay if I stay until sunrise? I didn't realise it was moonhigh already." Cottonpaw fluffed out her body, so she felt a bit warmer - small speckles of snow were falling outside.
          "Yes, of course!" Roria stepped forward, before hooking a fat mouse up with her claw, flinging it so it landed directly in front of Cottonpaw. "And a nofur is one of those big, two-legged creatures that don't have any hair." She purred in slight disbelief at Cottonpaw's ignorance.
          "Oh. Well, I call them two-legs." Cottonpaw smiled with her pixie-blue eyes, tail flicking in gratitude. These loners seemed nice, and willing to let her stay. Maybe she should wait until the battle was over - no matter how bad she might have wanted to fight for her clan if RiverClan went to war with WindClan.
          Cottonpaw crunched into a bone, glad to finally eat something worthwhile. She nudged the remains aside after she finished, then continuing to wriggle under the wooden box. Her light grey pelt was flecked with scarlett from when South was taken. Then she wondered - if she was taken to safety, where was he? Was he, too, in the same barn? But the last time she saw him, he was laying- No, don't think about it. She growled to herself.
          Wanting warmth, Cottonpaw coiled tightly up in a ball, tail wrapped around her body so it cradled her face, as she dozed off, still weak from starvation and running with a still-unhealed leg.

***

          A furry limb brushed across her nose, and she sneezed herself awake, before glaring over at the same orange tomcat sitting beside her, whispering to Roria as his white-tipped tail unconsciously swept side to side by Cottonpaw's face. Her eyes darted to his scintillating vine-green ones, before her mouth opened and spread up into a hiss.
          "Would you mind? I'm trying to sleep." She snorted the words, growing slightly surprised at the amount of attitude she had slithered into the sentences. When Foxie scampered away to hide behind the shecat, Cottonpaw huffed and climbed to her paws, sitting herself down as she licked out her unkempt fur. It had been tousled from the harsh breeze across WindClan's former territory.
          "Where are you going? If you're hunting, you don't need to. The nofurs that come here feed us everyday." Roria's sharp, though calm, voice distracted Cottonpaw from her thoughts as she walked toward the barn door to leave.
          "I'm not going to let some two-leg... nofur feed me - I'm capable of hunting. Besides, I need to make dirt." She explained, receiving a slightly dirtied look from the cream shecat at the passive-aggressiveness heavy in her words. "You're just like a kittypet," Cottonpaw continued, stretching out her thin body as her tail quivered from the effort. "all you do is wait for two-legs. They kill so many of us within a moon, did you know that? On that thunderpath, their monsters crush us. They're not helping you - they'll kill you." She sneered, taking her annoyance out on the poor shecat before her.
          "How dare you?" Roria bared her teeth, standing up as her tail tickled the floor, her thin shoulders sticking out as she moved her head backward a little. "Our nofurs are nice! They don't kill us with the food they give. Much unlike you, we don't eat crowfood." She hissed, ginger tail flicking about before it settled by cradling her hind thigh.
          "I don't dare anything, but it's true. Your two-legs, or nofurs, are just trying to fatten you up, a bit like a mouse when it hibernates." Cottonpaw sighed in a personal attempt to calm herself, her ears perked up a little as she could smell Roria's fear-scent, but also her slight hostility. "And I hunt on my own. Don't follow me with your kit-claws." She gave a last remark before turning tail and trotting out of the barn, feeling suddenly placid as her pads were cooled on the damp concrete beneath her paws. Maybe that was what was bothering her so much - the temperature.
          Cottonpaw let out a short growl that had formed inside of her throat before pouncing and slamming her sharp claws on the mouse that scurried in front of her stupidly, smiling with bright blue eyes at her kill. She had forgotten the eagerness she possessed while training in RiverClan, always having enjoyed spending time with Runningpaw, Starlingwing and Brokenbranch, and sometimes Northpaw and Meltedfur, when being taught how to hunt properly. She purred and coiled her tail up a little at the memory. Leaving the mouse by a mound of dirt, she swiftly fell into the hunter's crouch again, sliding her paws against the damp grass and layer of moss as she eyed the squirrel that was eating a nut, sitting upright on its hind legs. It was in a vulnerable position. She struck it quickly, the squirrel squealing in fear before the call got silenced halfway through, Cottonpaw's sharp fangs digging into its neck. She lightly dipped her head afterward to thank StarClan for the prey.
          After she had collected two mice, the squirrel and a thrush, Cottonpaw carried them back to the barn in two trips, dropping them into a pile before speaking loudly, sitting behind the prey with innocent, gentle, pixie-blue eyes. "I got prey for all of us!" She forced the enthusiasm into her voice as much as possible, and knew she had succeeded when Roria perked up and padded cautiously over.
          "You didn't poison it or something, did you?" She let out a playful mew, hooking up the thrush with her claw. "Well, thanks anyway, clan-cat." Roria smiled at Cottonpaw, and dipped her head with gratitude. Honestly, it was the first time Cottonpaw had heard the shecat speak with such a civil tone since Cottonpaw woke up. She nodded quietly, though couldn't help from purring lightly as Roria layed back in her straw bed, starting to eat the prey - she was clearly hungry.
          "Wow! Thanks!" The skinny brown tomcat exclaimed. Cottonpaw vaguely remembered his name as Mars. She flicked her ear cockily, her claws tucked neatly into her fluffy paws, tail sweeping the floor behind her as he looked at him with narrowed eyes, smiling at him. Foxie let out a breathy laugh before taking the other mouse.
          "We haven't had fresh-kill in ages." The ginger, fox-patterned cat spoke with an intrigued voice, though his body language showed he was thankful for Cottonpaw's offer.
          "I always do. I mean, I can teach you to hunt if you'd like." She stood up, head lifted higher than usual as she looked at them with interest, her ambition growing without her knowing. "The name's Cottonpaw, by the way." Cottonpaw shook her grey fur, walking past with slight sass in her shoulders, her ears curled backward to hear any conversation that might be about her as she padded over to the wooden block in the corner of the barn. She held her tail high as she leapt up onto it, stabilising herself before spinning around and sitting down, her long, short-haired tail hanging off the block a little.
          She lifted her nose into the air and scented familiar cats - was that... RiverClan? Cottonpaw opened her eyes wider, glancing to the entrance of the barn, hoping silently that some cat she knew would be stood there. Instead, she saw nobody was there apart from Roria, Mars and Foxie. She desperately wanted to run out and find them, but she was so tired and felt helpless as she knew her leg would immediately cramp up. Get up. Go find them.. Cottonpaw commanded to herself. No.. I promised I'd take South with me. She argued with herself. I'd be safe and happy! But South... She fell into another short daze as she thought about the tortoiseshell tomcat, before snapping out of it.
          She hopped down off of the wood, pacing past the others with her squirrel still in her mouth, eagerly exiting the barn doors and searching the horizon in the direction of Riverclan with a glimmer of hope lit in her chest. Cottonpaw yowled something she couldn't even make out herself when she saw two silhouettes bounding about by the bars of the horse's home. She looked at the two cats pouncing each other with slight regret and jealousy, sitting on the haybale outside the barn, swallowing the block of sadness that weighed down in her body. Cottonpaw had immediately thought of Northpaw and Runningpaw, though knew it probably wasn't them, apart from the fact one of them was quite fluffy, and Northpaw was known to have a lot of fur compared to usual RiverClan cats. She glanced over at WindClan. South, I'm sorry... She thought one last time before leaping off the haybale and slipping under the brown bars and raced across the field.
          "Hey!" She screeched before her leg cramped up and she fell face-first into the long grass. Cottonpaw heard loud, but inaudible voices back that seemed to be lost as the blood roared in her ears. She stood herself back up, ignoring the mud smudged across her muzzle, and the way she struggled to breathe as she limped forward, slowly growing dizzier by the second. The two cats were confused, and were now sitting on top of the wooden bars, trying to scout the area. One of them had spotted Cottonpaw, but they didn't seem to be saying anything. "They don't recognise me..?" She gasped to herself, breath growing shaky from panic and regret as she started to trot faster toward them, her leg still feeling torn as she tried to catch her breath.
          "Who are you?" The cat pounced her and pinned her to the ground as she got closer, and Cottonpaw hissed in surprise, staring up at the familiar cat. The shecat widened her eyes and stood with her mouth open in shock, ears still pinned.
          "Runningpaw!" She mewed with a shaky voice.
          "Cottonpaw?" Runningpaw curiously gazed Cottonpaw, releasing her and sitting back on her haunches. "I thought you were dead?" She sniffed at Cottonpaw's wounds that were unhealed and probably infected after speaking, fussing over her friend that she hadn't seen for nearly a moon.
          "No! I was taken to WindClan camp and stayed there for half a moon, where I met Disk, South, Xavierpaw and Briarkit! They all helped me escape, but.." Cottonpaw spoke quickly, still uncertain as her blue eyes flickered about, wary and alert of the things around her.
          Runningpaw watched her actions before nodding, understanding what she had meant. "Come back to camp with us. I'll get Meltedfur to check those for you." She gestured to the cuts on Cottonpaw's dirty pelt, slipping under the wooden bars and walking in the direction of camp. "Northpaw?"
          "I'm here. Sorry." A different voice spoke, and Cottonpaw looked over to the tomcat sitting on the bars. He didn't say anything else, only hopped down and walked seemingly solemnly behind the two shecats. Runningpaw kinked her tail over her back to ask for Cottonpaw to follow her without having to talk, so she did. She was excited to finally be back with her clan and to have some deep sleep and peaceful rest. Sooner or later, South was forgotten from her mind, and she only thought about what she would do when she would be back in camp and in her own warm nest, instead of an uncomfortable one in an unknown territory.