Warriors | A Prophecy Reborn: Book 1. (The Legacy)

~The Legacy: Chapter 1~

Spiralkit was asleep, peacefully snuggled at her mother's side.
She could hear the gathering voices outside the clearing, and felt a rustle at her side that she knew was Darkkit and Stripedkit.
"Shh," she said to her brother and sister as she climbed out of the nest.
When she looked, Whitekit and Ashkit were still asleep, Whitekit's dainty paw hanging over the side of the nest.
Tomorrow would be their naming ceremony, and they would finally be apprentices.
There were already two apprentices there, Irispaw and Reedpaw.
Irispaw and Whitekit were very good friends, and Spiralkit knew how excited they would be now that they were finally going to share a den as apprentices.
"Spiralkit," said a sleepy voice behind her as she was almost outside the Nursery.
"Yes, Specklefern?" she said, sitting down and facing the beautiful tortoiseshell queen.
Specklefern's bright yellow eyes gazed at Spiralkit with slight amusement. "Going somewhere?" she said.
"I was just... looking outside," Spiralkit said.
"It's all right, young kit," said Specklefern kindly. "I'll tell your mother where you've gone when she wakes."
Spiralkit smiled thankfully at the queen and padded outside towards the fresh-kill pile.
On her way there, she passed one of the senior warriors, Tigerfur.
Spiralkit could never understand everyone else's resentment toward the dark tom. Did they know something she and her littermates clearly didn't? Or was it because of something that had happened in the past?
She couldn't be sure, and she didn't want to ponder on these thoughts any longer.
She pulled a large vole from the fresh-kill pile. "Spiralkit!" she heard someone call.
She turned around and saw Fernfeather rushing towards her.
"Don't eat that vole," said the brown she-cat. "Crookedfire smelt something rotten in the pile earlier, and pointed out that vole."
Spiralkit dropped it on the ground. She was right. When she turned it over, she saw a few maggots crawling out of it.
"Ew!" said Reedpaw, who had trotted over at the sound of the deputy's voice.
"Is everything in the fresh-kill pile like this?" Spiralkit asked. 𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴, she thought,
𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘩-𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭, 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵?
"No, not everything," Fernfeather said reassuringly. "Just that vole, he thinks, is infested. And we aren't grabbing a bundle of warriors to tear apart the pile just to check, now, are we?"
Reedpaw sat beside Spiralkit, both of them utterly disgusted by the vole.
As Fernfeather padded away, the vole just dangling from her jaws, but far away enough to keep the maggots from entering, Reedpaw looked at Spiralkit.
"So," she said excitedly, as though forgetting the vole even existed. "It's going to be your first night in the apprentice's den!"
Reedpaw had always been more bubbly than Whitekit, which is probably why she and Spiralkit got along so well.
They had only been in the Nursery for two moons, but Irispaw and Reedpaw had quickly made friends with Grayfur's kits.
"Ashkit's going to be rather excited, don't you think?" Reedpaw went on, her long black tail lashing back and forth with a mocking expression of Spiralkit's brother.
"I bet he can't 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵 to be in the same den as Irispaw."
Spiralkit could recall the amount of times he had tried talking to Irispaw without stuttering, but he could never manage it. She really was a gorgeous cat, much like her mother, Voleroach.
Spiralkit had always thought it was a shame that her mother had been given a most unpleasant name compared to her daughter, but it was Stonestar's choice about whose name would be whose.
Her gray tail curled into a happy spiral as she thought about becoming a warrior.
"What are you doing today, Reedpaw?" she asked.
"I'm going hunting with Creamfur," she answered simply. "I just hope I don't catch anything rotten like that vole."
"What was the last Clan Gathering like when you went there?" she asked. She wanted to know everything so that when she became an apprentice, she would be the best of the lot!
"It was kind of boring, actually," she said. "Lots of weird cats."
Spiralkit tilted her head.
"Don't get me wrong, it's such an honour to be able to go there," she added quickly, "but there wasn't really anything interesting, and it ended really quickly."
"So no feud between any of the Clans?" Spiralkit asked with a hint of disappointment and relief.
Reedpaw shook her head.
"Then I guess it's time for a battle! Hrahrr!" she jumped on the black apprentice, who laughed and rolled around.
"Oh, no!" she mewed. "I've been defeated by KitClan! Spare me, great warrior!"
Reedpaw sighed dramatically and flopped down. "Victory!" Spiralkit yowled.
"I see you two are having fun," said Mossgaze, another senior warrior.
Reedpaw and Spiralkit sat up, straightening themselves.
The tom chuckled. "It's all right, you can play. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 not against the warrior code," he laughed.
Reedpaw and Spiralkit smiled and Ashkit and Whitekit suddenly bounded over from the nursery and tackled the tom.
"Sneak attack!" mewed Ashkit triumphantly.
"I am the greatest warrior who ever lived!" he called. Irispaw sat by the entrance to the apprentice den, chuckling at the gray tabby as he rolled around the clearing with his sister.
Mossgaze growled playfully and gently shook the two kits off, flicking his tail over their ears.
"Mossgaze," said Specklefern, who had apparently been watching the playful bundle rolling around the clearing, stifling a laugh.
Mossgaze shook himself and put on a serious face, even though his whiskers twitched in amusement, giving away the fact that he had been playing with the kits.
"Stonestar wishes to see you," she said, dipping her head to him and the kits and Reedpaw.
Mossgaze glanced over his shoulder at the kits and joined Specklefern as they made their way to Stonestar's den.
"How come we can't go with them?" Ashkit asked. "He's our father, for StarClan's sake!"
"Because, mouse-brain," Whitekit said, her identical fur matching her brothers. "We don't get special treatment just because our father is the leader."
"Unfair!" retorted Ashkit.
"Well," Irispaw said, sweeping over. "The naming ceremony is soon," she pointed out brightly.
"That's true," said Ashkit happily, his tail swaying.

As Irispaw had suspected, no sooner than sunhigh had the Clan meeting begun.
"Flamekit, Spiralkit, Whitekit and Ashkit," called Stonestar proudly.
The four kits stood and walked to the front of the crowd.
"All four of you have now reached six moons," he said, "and it is time you were all made apprentices."
Spiralkit's tail curled in excitement.
"From now on, you will be known as Ashpaw, Flamepaw, Whitepaw and Spiralpaw,"
he went on. "Your mentors will be Voleroach," he flicked his tail to the pretty brown she-cat in the center of the clearing, "Swiftflight," he pointed with his paw towards a tortoiseshell she-cat, "Mossgaze," he pointed at the tom they'd been playing with earlier, "and Tigerfur," he finished, nodding to the dark tom.
"Fernfeather will be organizing hunting parties and border patrols," he added before ending the meeting.
Crookedfire was watching Spiralpaw with an odd expression. Was he pleased, or suspicious?
Was he angry, or ecstatic?
Did he want a Medicine Cat apprentice?
"Tigerfur is your mentor?" said Irispaw in a worried voice.
"What's wrong with him?" Spiralpaw asked. "Others resent him, but he's never done anything, from what I've seen."
"He is the descendant of a murderer from long ago, in the Old Lands," Whitepaw pointed out.
"The Forest? How do you know?" Spiralpaw asked her sister. Rockhopper had never told them anything about that. He'd always come to the nursery to share old tales and adventures, even why they weren't in the forest and were here instead.
But never had he mentioned Tigerfur's bloodline.
"Irispaw told me, and she found out from Voleroach."
Irispaw nodded. "Well, Whiteshine wants me to go battle training," she said.
Irispaw padded away, accidentally running into Flamepaw.
"Ow!" said the ginger tom. "Watch where you're going, goosehead!"
Irispaw scoffed and ignored him, bounding after the black-blue she-cat who was her mentor.
Flamepaw quickly glanced sideways at Spiralpaw and walked to the apprentice's den.
"I'm going to find Creamfur," Reedpaw mewed, trotting away.
"Spiralpaw," said the dark tom who had been sitting behind her and her littermates.
"Yes, Tigerfur?" she mewed. "Come," he said calmly. "We're gathering moss for the elder's bedding."
She heard her brother and sister laugh, until their new mentors added "Don't worry, you two. You'll be doing the same."
Spiralpaw's whiskers twitched happily and her tail curled.

The six cats gathered the moss quickly and professionally, carrying back the load, half for the elders, Rockhopper and Beeflower, and half for the Medicine Cat, Crookedfire.
People were wary of Tigerfur, but Spiralpaw felt unsafe with Crookedfire's gaze following her whenever she looked behind her.
"Thank you, young one," said Beeflower kindly, settling down on the nest.
Rockhopper nodded and flopped down.
As Tigerfur and Spiralpaw went to give Crookedfire some moss, she felt a strange shiver run up her spine, even though this den was not any cooler than the others.
Crookedfire seemed to have been expecting them. He gave Tigerfur an angry look, and Tigerfur returned it.
"Here's the moss you wanted," said the dark tom, dropping it in front of the Medicine Cat.
The gray tom nodded thankfully and turned to look at Spiralpaw. "Congratulations on becoming an apprentice, Spiralpaw," he said. But as she and Tigerfur left, she thought she heard him mutter something like "A shame about your new mentor", but she shook her head and ignored it.
"Why does the rest of the Clan not like you?" she asked.
The tom didn't look offended, but he did seem lost.
"I am positively sure your sister has told you about it," he said.
Spiralpaw straightened her gaze forward.
"Do Stonestar and Fernfeather trust you?" she asked.
This, he did not look pleased about.
"Of course Fernfeather does," he said. "Stonestar, I am unsure of." Spiralpaw thought about it. What would it be like if nobody in her Clan trusted her because of her family?
Lonely.
Sad.
Being the daughter of the leader meant her Clanmates trusted her.
It meant she was more likely to become leader or deputy one day in the future, if she lived that long.
It meant other cats of ThunderClan would respect her.
But if she were descended from an ancient, evil leader, would all of that trust and respect vanish?
The thoughts bubbled around in her mind, flowing on and on, like a never-ending stream.
"I will show you the Clan boundaries in time," Tigerfur said.
And off they went, back inside the camp.