Caɾղaցe Ɱօօղ ~𝙰 𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚛𝚜 𝙵𝚊𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚌

3 🌙

7.5 Moons Later

🐾 💥Apprentice 💥🐾

🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑🌒🌓🌔11.5 moons

Crescentpaw watched Goldenheart and Eveningstar talking beside the fresh-kill pile. Her dual-colored eyes slitted with focus as she leaned towards her littermates.

"I mean, she could technically do it now. We're almost twelve moons old anyways... why wait?" She almost got up to go and ask her, but was stopped by Tinypaw's outstretched foreleg.

"Wait! It isn't much longer anyways, Crescentpaw." The she-cat's black pelt twitched along her spine nervously.

"And you can't go interrupting the leader like that," Rowanpaw stated, much harsher in her tones.

Crescentpaw shot her a look but her sister was already stalking towards the fresh-kill pile.

"I'm going to find out what they're talking about." Rowanpaw threw her words behind her without looking back.

Less confident Crescentpaw followed. She raised her tail and tried to look nocholont beneath the cloudy sky. As Tinypaw trailed behind, she earned no more than a glance from the other cats in camp.

Tidepaw was already at the fresh-kill pile. He met her gaze as she bent down to seek out a small fish, and Crescentpaw was unusually caught off guard.

I don't know what to say about his mentor... Feeling uncharacteristically awkward, she avoided eye contact but sat nearby so she didn't seem like she was avoiding the black-and-white tom.

Tidepaw's mentor Chaosclaw had died to a wolf attack three nights ago. He'd been one of their last remaining senior warriors. And pitying herself for it, Crescentpaw was ashamed to admit that she'd hardly knew him. She stepped back from the pile with a trout seized in her jaws, which reeked of fish in a tantalizing way.

Some of the cats had fled the clans to be rogues, loners, or kittypets. A few had even tried switching clans in favor of the territory least plagued by wolves, but it'd proved to be futile. They were all over the lake.

The different-colored irises of her eyes glinted beneath the morning sun while Crescentpaw settled next to Tinypaw. She began eating her prey and decided to follow Tinypaw's lead, who was not partaking in Rowanpaw's tilted head-turn towards the whispering she-cats. While picking flesh from the fish spine, the apprentice thought about her kithood, and her mother's abrupt absence.

Vixeneye had left them after they'd been named apprentices. The seasoned warrior had flitted off to the kittypet life. She hadn't even told them that she was doing it.

There used to be just the threat of occasional badgers, foxes, and Twolegs. But now it was mostly wolves. Oddly enough, the wolves never seemed to approach the Twolegs; and their scent trails never overlapped one another's. So clearly the wolves had no desire to hunt Twolegs, or foxes, or whatever else they could find more of beyond Clan boundaries.

They preferred their current food source of the cats themselves. And so Vixeneye had become so terrified that she'd run off to a Twoleg.

Either way, she could've taken us with her. She could've asked if we had wanted that. If we- If I-... Her whiskers stiffened. She knew what it was. We should've been given the choice.