Creamfluff's Hope

*/\* Chapter Fourteen */\*

Creampaw stared up the pine tree at Thrushwing as he balanced on one of its branches. Creampaw was told to follow him but couldn't bring herself to do so. She didn't want to climb the tree. What if she fell? What if she forgot Thrushwing's plan? 'What ifs' filled her head.

"Creampaw!" Thrushwing hissed in a low voice. "Do you want to get back to MistClan or not?" Creampaw hesitated before nodding and pressing against the side of the pine. She extended her claws and dug them into the bark of the tree. She started to climb the tree and slid onto the branch Thrushwing was on.

"Now what?" She whispered.

"See that branch over there?" He pointed to a branch in front of them that stuck out from a pine tree in front of them. "We'll climb onto that and make our way through the trees until we get to our territory."

Creampaw nodded. "But what if the ShadeClan cats see us in the trees?"

"Don't be mouse brained," her mentor mewed. "They'll be too busy marking the border and walking on Moss Rocks to notice us. Now, let's go." Thrushwing started crawling on the branch over to the next one. The tip of the branch bent slightly from his weight, but he made it to the other branch safely. "Come on, Creampaw," he looked over his shoulder at her.

"I'm coming," she mewed, stretching her paws out in front of her as she crawled to the next branch. The branch she was currently on didn't bend as much as it had for Thrushwing, and she crawled onto the branch Thrushwing sat on.

"Good," he whispered. "The next part of the plan is to simply follow me," he mewed before quickly crawling onto the next branch. Creampaw stared at him as he crawled from branch to branch without stopping. She told herself she had to do this and followed in her mentor's paw steps. They carefully crawled from one branch to the next.

Creampaw kept her eyes away from the ground as she hurried after Thrushwing. Her eyes widened as she misplaced a paw and almost fell off the branch. She saw Nightholly's ear twitch in the corner of her eye, but she focused on herself and balanced on her branch as she put her paw back in place and crawled after Thrushwing who was a little way in front of her now.

Thrushwing suddenly stopped, almost causing Creampaw to collide with his hindquarters. "What are you doing?" She whispered angerly. 

"We're in our territory now; no need to whisper," Thrushwing mewed, looking over his shoulder at Creampaw. "Didn't you notice how we're in oaks now?"

Creampaw looked at the leaves and branches of the tree she was in. The wood smelled like maple and sap, and the leaves weren't prickly needles like the pine trees. MistClan's territory was a mix of oak, maple, and pine trees, but there were more oak and maple trees than pine trees.

"Oh yeah," she muttered, looking back at her mentor. "Should we get down out of the tree now?"

Thrushwing shook his head. "Not just yet. We'll get farther into the territory before we get to the ground so then the ShadeClan cats won't be wondering where we've come from."

Creampaw nodded and started following Thrushwing through the branches again. She couldn't think of a better reason to stay in the trees for a little longer, so she followed in silence. She'd gotten used to the feeling of the wood chipping away beneath her paws, and the grass would feel a little strange once she climbed down an oak tree once farther into MistClan's land.

"Come on, Creampaw," Thrushwing said from where he stood on the ground, watching as Creampaw nosed her way down the tree trunk.

She placed her front paws on a branch in front of her, but it was lower than the current branch she stood on. After hopping down to that branch, she repeated that pattern of climbing down the tree until she stood on firm ground.

"Good job!" Thrushwing praised her. Creampaw shuffled her paws in the dirt in embarressment. "We might've already covered your training of climbing trees."

"I still need to learn a bit more about that though, don't I?" Creampaw asked, looking up at Thrushwing.

The tan tabby tom nodded. "I guess so. You still need to learn to catch prey that has run into the treetops, and you need to learn to run along the branches, but we'll save that for when you're eight moons old."

Creampaw nodded. That seemed fair. She'd be bigger by then, and she'd have a better understanding of climbing and running in the trees. Thrushwing had started running back to the MistClan camp, so Creampaw trotted over to his side and picked up her pace to match his.

"Shouldn't we hunt before we reach the camp?" She asked as she ran alongside Thrushwing.

Her mentor shook his head. "There's no need. We've gone to the Starpool, not out on a hunting patrol. If you'd like some hunting training before we go back to camp, I wouldn't disagree."

Creampaw thought about it as she heard her belly rumble with hunger. She hadn't eaten since last night before she went to sleep, and Thrushwing had said she wasn't allowed to eat before going to the Starpool, which left her hungry since she'd woken.

"That's okay," she panted. "I'm a bit hungry, and I'd like to eat before doing anything else."

Thrushwing nodded and slowed as they approached the camp. Creampaw followed him beneath the fallen log laid over the gap in between the two stone walls and into the camp. Thrushwing broke away from Creampaw to go and see Blizzardspots where Creampaw looked around for Softkit and Butterflykit. After looking around the camp, Creampaw spotted Softkit sitting outside of the nursery, batting the pinecone Creampaw had given to him when he was a day old in between his paws.

Creampaw remembered doing that when she was a couple moons younger. She'd been lonely and Aloeheart had given her that pinecone. She'd batted it from one paw to the other more times than she could count. Now Softkit was doing the exact same thing, making Creampaw guess that he was alone.

"Softkit!" Creampaw called, forgetting about her hunger and running over to the kit. Softkit looked over at her and his face brightened.

"Creampaw! You're back from the Starpool!" He jumped up and ran over to her, purring. "What was it like? What did it look like? What did you do there? Did StarClan speak to you?"

"The Starpool was in something like a cave, and it was a pool that gets hit by the moonlight," Creampaw described what the Starpool looked like to her friend, remembering what she could from her visit. "The stars reflected off the surface of the water, and it kind of looked like stars were floating around in the water itself."

"Cool!" Softkit bounced on his paws. "Did you see anything there?"

Creampaw hesitated, remembering what she'd been shone. Those memories that weren't really memories, and that one memory with her mother and father and siblings.... "I did, but Thrushwing said I can't tell anyone what I saw except myself."

"Oh," Softkit's tail drooped. 

"Why were you sitting out here alone?" Creampaw asked.

Softkit shrugged. "Butterflykit is in the medicine den again. She doesn't care if I'm lonely."

Creampaw frowned. "Of course she cares. But she might become a medicine cat apprentice in two moons, and she might be trying to learn what she can before then," she meowed, trying to comfort Softkit. 

Softkit nodded. "I know. But I'm still lonely. Can you play with me?"

Creampaw didn't reply. She looked around for Thrushwing in case he was calling for her, and then looked at the fresh kill pile. Her belly rumbled with hunger a second time, but she looked down at Softkit again. He was staring up at her expectantly, so she looked around again for Thrushwing. He was talking to the deputy, so he wouldn't mind. 

Turning back to Softkit, she saw two cats out of the corner of her eye. Aloeheart and Rainspeck. They were staring at her as they ate a starling with big, bright eyes. Creampaw let out a growl. She didn't want to talk to them ever again after they lied to her about her mother and family for so long.

"Alright, Softkit," Creampaw made sure she sounded friendlier. "I'll play a game with you."