Legacy Rising: Dark Secrets

3

Rewritten ✔
Edited ✘

Pebblepaw tripped over herself as she sprinted back to where Sparrowpaw and Beesting were training, falling over and stubbing her nose on a rock.

"Ouch...," she mumbled, getting back up with a quick lick on her nose, running off again.

I did not just witness Troutfrost murdering Goldenglow, she thought. It must have been a fox...

Once she got over a little hill, she spotted two blurred figures jumping at each other. She gasped for breath as her vision went a bit blurrier than before. Black dots danced in front of her eyes as she stumbled down the hill, falling onto her haunches once she reached her brother and his mentor.

"Pebblepaw?" Beesting meowed, walking over worriedly. "Are you okay?"

I think I just witnessed a murder, Pebblepaw thought as she gasped for air, unable to make any coherent sentences. Sparrowpaw rubbed up against her side, licking her comfortingly on the ear.

"You seem out of breath," Sparrowpaw said, master of stating the obvious. "Did you run all the way back? Did Troutfrost really get stolen by green twolegs?"

Pebblepaw shook her head quickly, finally gaining her breath back enough to talk.

"Goldenglow- dead! Troutfrost!" she managed to say, though not even she understood what she meant by it.

"What?" Beesting murmured, stumbling back. "Who's dead? I think we should get back to camp." Pebblepaw nodded before getting up and trailing behind her friends. They moved quickly. A little way away from camp, they stumbled upon Troutfrost dragging the dead body of Goldenglow.

Beesting gasped, pinning his ears.

"Troutfrost? Wha- what happened?" he meowed faintly. Troutfrost pinned his ears and looked down with a saddened look glossing over his eyes.

"The foxes came back... I was trying to find her, and a couple Clanmates directed me towards the Beech Copse, but when I got there, it was already too late," he mewed, sounding devastated.

That makes sense, Pebblepaw thought. But she couldn't get the image of Troutfrost standing over the only medicine cat, paws and mouth stained with blood, out of her head. She took a small step back from the white-and-brown tabby, closer to Sparrowpaw.

"The foxes...," Beesting muttered. "I was barely a warrior then, wasn't I? I wasn't allowed to fight them." Troutfrost nodded at the younger tom's words.

"The ones that killed Hailstorm?" Sparrowpaw asked. "Can I fight them? They won't get away with killing my father and medicine cat!" he yelled, seemingly unafraid, but Pebblepaw could tell by the way the fur on his back was spiked up that he was very scared.

Her own tail was puffed up to twice its size. Beesting's tail was puffed up to twice its size. The older cat didn't usually look or sound scared, so Pebblepaw found that scary as well. Troutfrost's story did not line up with what Pebblepaw saw, but he was her deputy. He wouldn't murder their medicine cat, especially since Goldenglow didn't have an apprentice yet.

She let out a muffled yelp as Beesting's tail trailed across her side. "It's time to go," he meowed. "We have to tell the rest of the Clan." Pebblepaw nodded and started trailing behind the other three cats. Troutfrost was leaving bloody footprints behind him. Beesting's head hung low, and his tail drooped into the muddy ground. Sparrowpaw looked confident and held his head high, but he was visibly trembling.

Pebblepaw felt as if her senses were multiplied. She could hear every twig snap under her Clanmate's paws, every bird flutter in the trees, and every leaf crunch as the were trampled. She could now smell the leaf-rot that she never noticed before, and smell the scent of death she had never smelled once. She could smell the scent of snow on the wind.