Stones to Ashes - Warriors Fanfiction

Chapter Five

Swiftpaw saw cats coming to gather around the Great Birch, he ran and decided to sit by the apprentices.

"Hopefully you won't come, Swift." Growled Quickpaw in his ear. Swiftpaw rolled his eyes and kept looking up at Crowstar proudly. He noticed Hillfrost was on the boulders from below the birch.

"I want to bring some of my warriors," Began Crowstar, "I want to bring Runningwinter, Skullheart, Stormtooth, and Nightthorn."
"Then my apprentices," Crowstar glared at them, which made Swiftpaw gulp, "I want to bring Swiftpaw and Quickpaw."

Nightthorn, Stormtooth and Quickpaw? Thought Swiftpaw and sighed, Great.

"I wanna come! I wanna come!" Swiftpaw turned to see a white kit coming, it was Snowkit, the kit's mother was following behind, "No, Snowkit! You're a kitten! You can't go."

"Awww." Groaned Snowkit and turned around to follow his mother back to the nursery.

Swiftpaw yawned slowly. "The elder will stay here and I will take Liondawn to the gathering." Meowed Crowedstar.

"Now, let's go to the gathering." Crowstar then began to stand and jumped off of the tree, followed behind Hillfrost. Cats made way for Crowstar and Hillfrost.

All the cats that didn't get picked went back to their dens, while the rest stayed in a single-file line outside of the tunnel.

Swiftpaw stayed in the middle of Quickpaw and Skullheart. Skullheart was in front of him while Quickpaw was at the back, trailing along the queen from behind Quickpaw.

Swiftpaw couldn't tell what other cats were in front of Skullheart. But he just kept going.

The moon was rising now and the trees felt dark. It was the first time Swiftpaw was in a gathering, at least Quickpaw knows what a gathering is like.
He has only known that you can chat to other cat's in your ranks when you're inside of a gathering.

They began to jump on stones because a river ran around the gathering.

Swiftpaw's blue eyes glittered once he saw all of the cats. He saw warriors, queens, elders, and apprentices all gathered in groups around the place.

He saw leader's up top of a willow while the deputies were gathered under it.

He noticed his clan-members went to their groups, "Come on, slow poke!" Sneered Quickpaw, racing down into the pit with the clan-cats.

Swiftpaw ran down and followed Quickpaw towards the group of apprentices.

"Yeah, and Skyfoot was all like, 'Hollypaw, you can't do that! That's against the warrior code!' and he was like, lecturing me or something!" Mocked a black tabby she-cat once Swiftpaw and Quickpaw sat down.

"Haha! Sounds like Skyfoot had a fun time lecturing you, Hollypaw!" Laughed a blue-ish gray she, which almost looked like Riverpaw.

"Hello, are you new here?" He heard a quiet voice in his ear, he looked beside him and saw a black tom.

"I'm Fallingpaw." Meowed the black tom simply. "I'm Swiftpaw." Said Swiftpaw awkwardly.

"Aren't you from CloudClan?" Asked Swiftpaw, "I heard you got a crooked back leg."

"Ah, yes." Smiled Fallingpaw and showed his left leg to be crooked, it was almost like a twoleg had bent it. "It's alright, though when I put pressure on it, it hurts."

The other cat's kept chatting about the ElkClan deputy, Skyfoot, while Fallingpaw and Swiftpaw talked and made good friends.

Then the gathering started, it was WillowClan's leader to speak first, "WillowClan is doing well now that fresh-kill is here. But a few kits passed into StarClan from a fox. I do say that these predators is getting worse then usual, they are skinner and something is making them skinny." Lightningstar dipped his head, "That is all."

Now it is ElkClan's leader, Oakstar, she said, "ElkClan is doing kindly and a new warrior has awakened, his name is Gorsewing, and there are three new apprentices, Hollypaw, Firepaw, and Treepaw."

Then Swiftpaw's leader, Crowstar, stood up and meowed, "MoorClan is doing fine, though a badger had come upon our territory and killed one of our senior warriors, Sunsetberry."
Everyone in the gathering had gasped, even Fallingpaw from beside him. "But our Clan is okay, kits got born a moon ago, and our prey is well." Crowstar reassured the gathering cats.

And the last was CloudClan's leader, flea-brained Applestar. "Ah, well. . .'' Applestar paused, everyone knew that Applestar has a memory loss, where he can't remember anything. "Uhm. . . CloudClan is doing just the same with WillowClan, uh, Vinecloud was just made an elder but we have scented, uh, ElkClan warriors on our land." He saw Applestar flinch once several warriors jumped up and yowled in protest.

"If we do smell ElkClan warriors again, then we will set war on them." Applestar suddenly growled and placed a paw down to quiet the yowls.

Swiftpaw didn't like this. Applestar was going to set a war with ElkClan because of their scent! He lashed his tail from side to side. His fur was bristling, and he wanted to pounce up to the tree and slash Applestar until the leader was gone.

But Fallingpaw stopped him, "Swiftpaw, it's alright. Applestar is my leader. I have scented before."

Just then the gathering was done and everyone began to find their Clan and get back. Swiftpaw just remembered to see if Brightdusk was there. He peered up and got on his back legs to see.

He saw the elder chatting with a clan-member.

Swiftpaw ran up to the elder and called, "Brightdusk!"

The elder turned towards him then grunted, "How do you know my name?"

Swiftpaw ignored the question, "Brightdusk, can you help me?"

"Of course I can, apprentice!" Smiled Brightdusk and the elder's eyes lit up, "What do you need?"

"It's secret." Swiftpaw leaned in close to the elder, "I'll tell you until after tomorrow when your Clan is fully asleep."

"Alright." Purred the elder.

Then Swiftpaw went with his Clan and walked in a single-file line across the boulders, and to the valleys.

He looked up and saw the moon was shone full and was high in the black blanket of the night. The stars twinkled and glowed as if saying it was peaceful and quiet. While the crickets chirped it's song, just like the songbirds that sang in the sun.

The ground was moist and soggy and nothing but chirping rang in Swiftpaw's ears.

A couple of crossing and walking later, Swiftpaw found himself in a comfortable moss-bed inside of the apprentice's den.

Swiftpaw had purred softly in a deep sleep. In his dream, he was thinking of being a leader, fully in-charge and was on alert for signs of danger in his Clan.

Until he awoke, the sound of bushes awoke his dream. He was startled. "Wha- Huh?" He meowed, his eyes droopy, he yawned and blinked a couple of times then got up and searched for the sound.

It was coming from outside of the camp. He remembered a cat named Crookedwatcher had gotten outside of the camp at night and fallen into a fox trap, though he wasn't sure if Crookedwatcher is real because it was just an old elder's tale.

He slowly got outside and saw a track of paw prints inside of the ground, printed in the moist dirt. It also made Swiftpaw's heart skip a beat. It was fresh, just a couple heartbeats ago.

He gulped nervously and began to track down the prints, just then, the prints joined another set of cat prints.

Then, he began to smell a mixture of Nightthorn and Stormtooth smell.

What are Nightthorn and Stormtooth doing in the middle of midnight? Thought Swiftpaw, now keeping a low pace as he was coming across long ferns.

A few heartbeats later, Swiftpaw saw that the paws smelled like the warriors were getting near Swiftpaw's location and the ferns began to lie down.

He began to crouch once he heard another bush rustle, he peered out of the ferns to see Nightthorn, hiding behind a willow log and what Swiftpaw's eyes saw, was the barn.