Foxgaze's Haunting

Chapter 29

(Cat above is Cherrypaw)
(Wolfpaw's POV)
Wolfpaw's ears twitched as he crouched low to the ground. The mouse he was stalking was less than a tail-length away from his whiskers. The mouse was nibbling on a blade of grass near the base of a boulder. The apprentice tensed his muscles before springing forward.

The mouse tried to dart away but Wolfpaw brought his paw down on it's head, killing it swiftly and painlessly. Before he picked it up, Wolfpaw murmured a quick prayer to StarClan.

A little less than half a moon had passed. This was Wolfpaw's first hunt alone. Foxgaze had told him to hunt near the Wolf Tree. Wolfpaw looked up at the shadow at the giant beech tree. He remembered the story that Grassblade had once told him about how he had climbed the tree as an apprentice. That tree was probably a sapling when Grassblade was an apprentice anyway.

Wolfpaw padded over to the base of the tree and began to dig up the vole he had caught earlier. To his surprise, the ground gave way below his front paws and Wolfpaw fell forward. What the? Wolfpaw let out a squeak of surprise as he jumped back. Where his paws had been, there was a gaping hole.

What if that's a badger set? Wolfpaw thought to himself as he inched closer. The thought was dismissed when he realized the den only smelled of earth and dead leaves, not the smelly reek of badger. Wolfpaw poked some leaves around and moved the unearthed vole away in his jaws.

He looked around and saw he had fallen through the entrance of the den that was covered in fallen leaves and branches.

Just as he was about to enter the den to see what else he could find, a voice spoke from behind him "I wouldn't do that".

Stumbling backwards, Wolfpaw turned around, claws unsheathed to face whoever had come up on him.

He was suprised to see a small she-cat standing there, completely oblivious to the fact that she was in clan territory. She looked like she was around his age, and she smelled like MountainClan. Her fur was white with patches of dark ginger.

Wolfpaw hissed "What are you doing here! This is IceClan territory!".

"I know, I just wanted to walk around, not steal prey or anything" the she-cat mewed.

Wolfpaw straightened up a little bit. I could overpower her anyway "What do you want?"

The she-cat didn't say anything for a moment and stared off into the pine trees behind him before looking Wolfpaw straight in the eyes "Something inside of me wanted for me to come here, so I came".

"Are you some sort of medicine cat apprentice or something?" Wolfpaw narrowed his eyes. Something about the she-cat didn't seem normal. It appeared she followed her heart more than her brain, even when Clans got in the way.

"No" she shook her ginger and white head "Fawnfur already has an apprentice. The feeling wasn't from StarClan, I can tell" she put her paw on her white chest "It was more of a heart feeling".

Wolfpaw stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what she meant by that and shook his head "Err...you never told me your name...my name is Wolfpaw-"

"Cherrypaw" she dipped her head "my name is Cherrypaw".

"Hi Cherrypaw" Wolfpaw felt her intense amber eyes burn through him like beams of sunlight. For some reason, his ears burned despite it being a cloudy day.

For a moment, Cherrypaw and Wolfpaw stared at each other for what felt like moons. Wolfpaw felt his heart rate quicken as her burning glare seemingly pierced straight through him. Finally, she got to her paws and looked nervously at the forest behind her "I should go. Galaxystar might think I got lost if I'm out for too long".

"Of course" Wolfpaw got to his paws as well "please try to stay off our territory from now on".

Cherrypaw scurried off into the bushes and shouted behind her "Okay Wolfpaw. Nice meeting you".

The IceClan apprentice watched her leave. Wolfpaw stared at the place she was standing just a moment before. Part of him was different. Something about Cherrypaw was special, even he didn't know why.

***
(Foxgaze's POV)
"Wolfpaw!" Foxgaze called out into the bushes. She sighed and looked back at the rest to the hunting patrol. They all were waiting for her apprentice.

Foxgaze groaned and looked back at the annoyed cats "I don't know what's taking him so long".

"He's probably just making dirt or something" Tigerpaw meowed "he was like that as a kit"

There was a rustle from the bushes down the trail a little bit and the grey and white tom appeared with a dirt covered vole and mouse in his jaws. Wolfpaw had his tail kinked high in the air.

Foxgaze marched up to him "Wolfpaw! Where in StarClan have you been?"

Wolfpaw stammered behind his vole and his mouse "Um... I just got distracted by something. I'm sorry".

Well, at least he apologized Foxgaze thought to herself. Chest fur purred up, Foxgaze nodded "Alright. Next time focus only on hunting".

Wolfpaw nodded slowly, his gaze seemed to be unfocused as he padded with her to join the rest of the patrol. He appeared to be thinking about someone or something really pleasant. Foxgaze's eyes widened as she realized the weirdest thing about her apprentice. Behind his forest scent, was the faint smell of MountainClan!

Sorry this took so long to publish, I was having a major writers block. Cherrypaw was literally the first name that came to mind when I was typing this at like 1 am last night. I was too tired to publish it so I'm doing that today. Anywho, school starts tomorrow for me so I'll be publishing a lot less on my stuff you'll probably notice...

Thank You for actually reading this far- EvilKittypet