Nightpaw pelted after Dawnpaw, catching up with her with ease. They had buried their catch next to a birch tree and we're now running full speed to where Dawnpaw said she has found the place to communicate with StarClan. The sky was slowly turning dark and, if it was anything like the Moonstone, a cat would have to wait until moonhigh to speak to the stars.
"It's in the middle of the swamp," Dawnpaw was explaining breathlessly. "The river loops around it."
They skidded to a halt at the edge of the birch tree forest. There was still birch trees in the swamp, but fewer, and the ground was far soggier.
"Over there," Dawnpaw pointed her tail to a giant tree directly in the centre of the swamp. It was ancient, and by far the largest tree Nightpaw had ever seen.
Blizzardpaw narrowed his eyes. "How do you actually know we communicate with StarClan there?"
"I can sense it," Dawnpaw meowed.
"Ohhh you can sense it," Blizzardpaw replied, clearly not believing it.
Nightpaw also didn't know how Dawnpaw just managed to sense it but she assumed Dawnpaw knew what she was talking about - she was the medicine cat after all.
"I can!" Dawnpaw meowed. "I have communicated with StarClan loads of times, remember?"
"Well, instead of standing around here arguing, why don't we go and check it out?" Blizzardpaw grumbled, despite the fact that he had started it in the first place.
"Yeah! We might even see actual StarClan cats," Emberpaw meowed, wading into the swamp without hesitation.
Nightpaw stepped in gingerly after him, the thick, slimy water coming up to the half way point on her foreleg. She shuddered as her paws squelched in the mud.
"This is horrible," Dawnpaw meowed through gritted teeth.
"You wanted to come here," Blizzardpaw reminded her, wading after Emberpaw. "Also, don't think that I am enjoying this either - river water is way different from this."
"It gets deeper over here!" Emberpaw called back, sounding like he was actually enjoying himself.
"Great," Nightpaw muttered sarcastically as water began to rise to her belly fur.
She set her gaze on the tree they were heading for. All she needed to do was to keep her eyes on the tree, and nothing could go wrong.
Nightpaw yelped as her paws came down on something slippery and small, and a frog kept out from her claws into her chest fur. This caused her to slip in the mud and fall into the swamp water. All she could see was murky darkness that had a slight tingle of green to it, and when she tried to take a breath, she sucked in a mouthful of water.
She started panicking, trying to stand back up again, but kept slipping on the mud beneath her paws. She then felt teeth gruffly grip her scruff and pull her up to the surface into a standing position.
Blizzardpaw peeled the frog from her chest.
"Frogs. I swear they originated from the Dark Forest," Blizzardpaw growled, chucking the frog back into the water.
Nightpaw coughed up some swamp water before muttering a weak "thanks" to Blizzardpaw. Dawnpaw came wading over, making sure that she had coughed up most of the swamp water.
"Nightpaw! Are you ok?" Emberpaw asked, coming back over from where he was far ahead of everyone else.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You should have warned us about the frogs though," Nightpaw meowed, shaking her pelt out and causing water droplets to fly everywhere.
YOU ARE READING
Warriors - Burnt Skies
FanfictionA fire. Caused by twolegs. And suddenly Nightpaw's entire life as she knows it has changed. The four clans that had ruled the territories for centuries have been wiped out. Now the future for any sort of clan rests in the paws of four apprentices. T...
