My days seemed to roll into one, with my apprenticeship training. I pushed myself hard under Dawningflame, earning her praise, “Keep this up and you might just equal Cloudcreams achievement!”
“That is my plan,” I grinned at her, earning her smile of satisfaction.
“I will support your endeavour then,” she mewed, "I want to be wished for like DappledCoat now is. Although, truth be told, you are my first student, and Cloudcream was DappledCoats 5th student.”
Dawningflame paused then and thought before continuing on, "You know JaguarStar was one of her pupil’s too, so she has quite a reputation now.”
“I did not know that,” I mewed, "But I think it is up to the kit to want to learn…the teacher is only successful if the student wants to learn.”
She looked at me for a second thoughtfully then grinned, “Well this is true. You definitely are a smart paw! Ok on with the lesson, we’ll do something harder now as you have the basics down pat!” And she taught me higher levelled skills to fight with.
It was about half a moon later from when Cloudcream became a warrior that I saw FreckledPaw leaving the clan leaders den, all upset. She had torn straight to the medical den, so I followed her and sat down beside her and asked,
"Hey, are you okay?" gently nudging her shoulder with my nose.
I never expected her to come out with what she said next, tears falling down her face, wetting her fur, "I- I just witnessed my own brother... Murdering my mentor..."
I sat there shocked initially wondering how my brother and sister would cope with the news, since it is their idol that had committed murder.
Once I stopped thinking about my brother and sister, I comforted FreckledPaw, knowing that she had loved her mentor enormously. We stayed in the den until JaguarStar called a meeting, and we exited the den to attend it.
JaguarStar mewed loudly through the dens, as he walked to Tall rock, "Let all cats old enough to catch prey gather beneath Tall rock for a Clan meeting."
As all the cats gathered around, Freckledpaw saw her brother and moved to be as far away from him as possible and I followed worrying for her. I could not imagine how I would feel if Cloudcream had done that to me.
JaguarStar meowed, "I have called you here today to make a sad announcement - MapleStripe, the medicine cat...is dead," the clan gasped and some bowed their heads for the fallen clanmate.
"There was a witness to her death." He said looking at FreckledPaw, "Come on up," he whispered to her, as we ended up close to him.
FreckledPaw stood up and went onto the rock, "I am... a witness to MapleStripes death. It is worse than that, however, as I also knew it was going to happen a few days prior... as I received a prophecy from starclan..."
FreckledPaw continued on, ignoring the glares and whispers of her clan mates who were now whispering, "If she knew, why didn't she say anything?"
"The prophecy said; -
'A cat of your kin,
Betrays the code,
Murders the one you call mentor,
Exile them fast before they kill more...'" she said reciting the verse.
The whispers changed again to one of understanding, "Well, I would not have understood that either!"
"I only understood what it meant when I saw MapleStripe missing, and I went to find her, as I was worried because of what the prophecy had said. So, I ran to find-" she choked on her last few words... "Cloudcream, murdering her..."
She got off the rock and headed towards me, where she proceeded to cry into my shoulder.
I overheard Jaguarstar whisper to his deputy, "I think this gives us enough reason to, Exile Cloudcream," before announcing his decision to the clan, "By the words of Starclan prophesy, we hereby Exile you from windclan, for murder. If we ever see you on our territory again, we will kill you!"
Cloudcream nodded and left immediately heading towards the skyclan lands, a few warriors chased him ensuring he was off the territory.
After he left, most of the cats were still milling around in confusion, when an even more surprising announcement was made,
"Because our medicine cat has died, FreckledPaw as you were Maplestripes apprentice and there are no others, you will be promoted to be the new Medicine cat of Windclan. As of now, your new name shall be Freckledwish. I give you this name as you experienced your mentor’s death by your own brothers’ paws, you would certainly would of wished to unsee that, thus the name, Freckledwish!"
The remaining clan cheered then on Freckledwish's name. Freckledwish gave a watery smile and nodded her head before burying it again in my shoulder.
