(Book 1) Warriors: Separations - Six Stars

Chapter 11

Cherry opened her eyes. She got up from her nest of hay and arched her back in a long stretch and yawned. She looked around. Where was everyone?

"Taurus?" She called for the tom.

No response.

"Cinder? Misty?" she nervously called out to the rest of her friends.

Still no response.

Her worry began rising more and more as she ran around the barn in search of her companions.

No one was in the barn. Where had they all gone? She anxiously scraped the wood beneath her, trying to figure out where exactly the three cats could have gone.

Cherry shook her head. Just thinking wasn't gonna get her anywhere. She ran out of the barn and climbed up the two boxes that made a staircase to the top of the fence, and hopped into Windclan territory. She sniffed. She could smell Taurus, but also a faint trace of Cinder and Misty's scent. She stiffened. Had they gone out on some sort of adventure? She wasn't worried about them getting lost, because as long as it didn't rain she could still follow their scents. But she didn't want the three to encounter any danger while they were out on their random mission.

Well, Taurus is pretty strong. Or at least, he looks like he is. And Misty has been through countless battles herself, they'll surely protect themselves. She reassured herself. She followed their scent trails, under and around bushes and overhanging rocks. She came to a stop as she noticed a different scent in front of a bush.

Speckledstones? She sniffed again. It was definitely her former companion, Speckledstones. She noticed another scent, it was a Windclan scent from a cat she couldn't recognize. Cherry sighed. She wanted to investigate further, but she had to stay focused on her first objective, finding Cinder, Misty, and Taurus.

She kept following the scent trails, and noticed that Taurus' scent trail seemed much fresher than Cinder and Misty's. Had he been following them? And why had Cinder and Misty gone off on their own through Windclan territory? So many questions, and yet Cherry had not a single clue what the answers were.

She followed their scent trails through a tunnel under the Thunderpath next to Fourtrees, and Shadowclan scent hit her nose.

Why had they gone to Shadowclan?

Cherry kept following her companions' scents through Shadowclan's territory. The territory was covered only by tall, overbearing pine trees with little to no leaves on them, as if every single tree was stuck in leaf-bare. It was leaf-fall, so perhaps that was the reason. Maybe the trees in Shadowclan were much more brittle than the ones in Thunderclan or Riverclan.

Cherry still had no problem walking through the somewhat open space, as she was used to Windclan's territory.

However, due to the gradually increasing reek of Shadowclan interfering with Cherry's pursuit of her friends, Cherry eventually lost the scent trail leading her to her destination.

Cherry sighed irritably. "Those mouse-brains are gonna pay for this." she muttered. She flicked the tip of her tail and kept walking through Shadowclan's territory. Surely her friends had to be here somewhere, right? She hopped over a fallen tree, and waded through a muddy marsh surrounded by frogs. She shuddered. She never even wanted to look at a frog, with their slimy exteriors and pitch-black eyes, and those disgusting long tongues. She scrunched up her face at the frogs before continuing through the marsh. Once she finally got out, she shivered. It was getting colder outside, the leaf-fall winds blowing through her fur. She was covered in muddy water, and she was cold to the bone.