Beefrost | Warrior Cats OC Story

CHAPTER FIVE

Beepaw stood belly-deep in the cold water, his teeth chattered and his ears burned. "I promise this won't happen every time you try to swim." Bumblenose purred, swimming up to him.
Beepaw noticed how graceful her movements were, her toes were clamped together tightly and her tail rested on the surface of the water. She looked like a floating stick.

"First of all, you need to be in deeper water." Bumblenose stood up beside Beepaw and grabbed him by his scruff and pulled him until he had to stretch up his head to keep his face out of the water.
"Churn your paws, like you're running." Bumblenose instructed.

Beepaw shifted uncomfortably under her grasp and moved his paws, making sure he could still feel the ground with his hindlegs.
"LowClan swim too." Bumblenose started in her story-telling voice. "Their ravine floods just as our camp does, and they lose more cats than any Clan." Beepaw churned his paws faster as Bumblenose pulled him away from the shore.

"When your father and I were apprentices, we stranded ourselves saving some LowClan kits." She purred at Beepaw after seeing him paddle, then she took his scruff from her mouth. "Rockstar and I were kept in LowClan's underground land for almost a moon. We were so happy to see the sun afterward. Although Nightfur and Badgertuft gave us a scolding we'll never forget!"

Beepaw blinked at Bumblenose and she guided him towards the center of the lake. "Nightfur sounded really harsh on Rockstar. Is he going to be that way with Cherrypaw?" Beepaw asked, his paws had managed not to slap each other under the cold lake.

"Nightfur isn't a bad cat, just strict." Bumblenose paused, looking for the right thing to say, "he'll do what he thinks is best for her."
A long cloud of silence hung over them until it made Beepaw's paws itch.

"What happened to the kits you saved?" The question made Bumblenose purr, her whiskers twitched and she swam away from him. "Their names were Sunkit and Bravekit. Now they're called Sunspark and Bravemoon, Sunspark's had kits recently."  Bumblenose then turned her attention back to Beepaw.

"Try circling the lake a few times." She told him, then Beepaw nodded, working his paws against the dragging of the water. Churning quicker he veered towards the center of the lake, into deeper water. Beepaw waved his paws under the water, surprised at how easy it was.

He swam in circles around the lake until his legs felt sore. "How much longer?" Beepaw whined, feeling the tug of the water pulling him down. Bumblenose's gaze softened and she steered him over to the shore.
"Do you think you can swim by yourself?" She mewed. Beepaw nodded, ready to curl up in the warmth of his nest.

"Remember to dry off before coming into camp, or your denmates will sneak burrs in your moss." Bumblenose warned, then she scraped her tongue between his ears, pushing his fur in the wrong direction.
"I can dry myself." Beepaw complained, pulling away from her.

"You haven't started." Bumblenose purred. Beepaw shuffled away from her tongue and licked his paw. "Should we hunt some more before going back to camp?" Bumblenose asked him, then quickly, she added, "I promise I'll tell you how to do it properly this time."

"No thanks, it's almost sundown, and I'm exhausted." Beepaw told her, leaning against her pelt. "Alright, let's go." Bumblenose mewed.
As they padded back to the camp, the orange of the sun cast long shadows over the ground.

No longer soaked, Beepaw slid into the fronds that surrounded the camp.

"Beepaw's back!" He heard Frostkit cheer, then his friends rushed at him, almost knocking him off balance.
"Cherrypaw's been back for ages!"
"What were you doing?"
"I thought you hurt your paw?"

Their words molded into one voice, and Beepaw couldn't make sense of what they were saying.
Scorchkit straightened and twitched his whiskers. "You look tired." He mewed.

"I feel it too." He mumbled. "You can take some prey for yourself, Cherrypaw already fed the elders." Bumblenose called from across the clearing.
Thank StarClan! He let out a sigh of relief and stumbled towards the apprentices' den.

"You aren't going to play with us?" Fallenkit asked, her ears lowering. Larchgaze appeared behind her.
"It's nighttime, you wouldn't be playing anyway."
Fallenkit frowned then turned back to Beepaw. "One moon." She mumbled, then pressed against Larchgaze.

Beepaw turned away and slumped into his nest and closed his eyes, almost at once, sleep engulfed him.

Beepaw cursed as his squirrel darted up a tree, he knew better than to chase it, so he would just have to return home empty-pawed. Grumbling, he took his eyes from the squirrel and froze.
He was in a forest, it confused him, there were no forests in TrailClan's territory and the air was hot, so hot that Beepaw thought he might melt. He glanced around, he didn't recognize the land. He began treading through the leaves and fallen branches.

Using his nose, he tried to find a scent that would lead him home, but he smelled nothing of TrailClan, only the heavy stench of the TideClan border. I must be in their territory. He decided, then looked around again.

"But we've rested already!" Beepaw heard the whine of a queen. "I wanna get moving!" The queen mewed. "No Thicket, it's too hot." Replied an older voice. "I could hunt while we wait here?" A young tom offered.

Itching for a better look, Beepaw dropped into a crouch and crept forward and peered beyond the branches and other vision-obscuring mess. The queen named Thicket was a tortie, there were four others, the older voice was a tortie queen and the tom who had offered to hunt was all white, his eyes were two different colors.
One tom was light brown, and the other was white.

The younger cats seemed to be at least half a moon older than Beepaw. "No Maelstrom, you and your littermates need to rest, this heat isn't good for you!"
Beepaw tilted his head. Such a weird name. He thought.

Maelstrom narrowed his eyes and pressed against the queen. "But Shade is sick! We need help, or food! We need something!" Beepaw watched as Maelstrom's fur spiked along his spine. The queen sighed, her breath sounded weak.

"Okay, go hunt." Maelstrom's tail raised. "But come back when you've caught enough, the cats here are ruthless." Maelstrom raced away from the camp, leaving the queen and her three other kits alone.

Beepaw tilted his head, then his eyes focused on a long gash in the queen's side, and the kit she was cradling, who Beepaw assumed was Shade, wheezed as he struggled to breath.
A bloody, infected slash snaked over his back. Thicket and the light brown tom starred in despair.