Shadows in the Night

Chapter Twenty-One

Yay, a new update! I updated pretty quickly this time :D

I hope you all enjoy!

-Alliehuang :3

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Tailfur panted as he raced through the moorland, bunching his muscles and driving himself forward as fast as possible. The rabbit squealed in terror as the brown tom shot forward, claws extended, and sank his fangs into the creature's fur. 

Satisfied, Tailfur carefully carried the warm body in the jaws, staggering a little as he made his way to Fourtrees. This will make a good meal for us before the journey... I'm pretty sure we're going to need it. 

Padding along, the moonlight turned his sleek, dark pelt silver, and Tailfur warily glanced over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't being followed, before continuing on. 

He spotted a clump of sheltered plants, encased in frost. Burnet! That's one of the travelling herbs that medicine cats use, isn't it? Tailfur set the rabbit down next to him, and bent down to nip a few stalks off, wincing as the bitter juices flooded his mouth. This could be useful on our journey to curb our hunger. But what if one of us gets hurt? What are we going to do then?

Leaf-bare's about to arrive- this a bad time to leave SwiftClan.

Suddenly, a silver shape shot through the undergrowth, and Tailfur unsheathed his claws, standing protectively over his prey. A snarl parted his lips, and he hissed in surprise and malice. "Who are you?"

A small head poked out of the bushes, and the cat was wearing a playful smile on her face. "Hey Tailfur!" Riverleap purred, bounding over to him. She sniffed at the burnet stems on the ground, and nodded. "Burnet. Good thinking, we might need that on the journey."

Tailfur tried to pretend he knew that it was Riverleap all along, and wasn't intimidated at all. "Hi... uh.. you know that I knew you were there, right?" He mewed awkwardly, shuffling his paws in the earth.

Riverleap let out a mmrow of amusement, and picked up the burnet stems in her teeth and bounded away without saying a word. "You can't catch me!" She paused to meow, before sprinting off again.

Stupid she-cats! Tailfur thought, before picking the rabbit up and racing after Riverleap, adrenaline surging through his veins. He wished that it could always be like this- just him and Riverleap, having fun together. The brown tom furrowed his brow and sighed. We have a difficult task ahead of us- but I know that StarClan chose us for a reason. We must not give up before the journey even begins!

"I bet I can!" Tailfur yowled, dashing into the canopy of the forest.

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"Where are they?" Hawkfeather mumbled, pricking his ears for any noise of pawsteps.

"I don't know," Nutpaw replied, sharing tongues with Stormpaw. "All I know is that they better get here soon, or we'll have no time to hunt before dawn!" The calico apprentice's stomach rumbled, as if to prove her point.

"I'll go hunt now," Stormpaw mewed, getting up and bouncing off into the woods. Hawkfeather parted his jaws to argue, but Stormpaw quickly added, "-Don't worry, I'll stay in LightningClan territory."

Satisfied, the golden tom dipped his head, and the small gray-and-white shape soon disappeared into the woods. 

As fast as you could say "mouse", Riverleap and Tailfur padded into the clearing, their jaws stuffed full of prey and herbs. Hawkfeather felt a purr rumble in his chest. They'd be perfect together- if only they were part of the same clan. 

"You finally arrived!" Nutpaw mewed, pausing to sniff at Tailfur's rabbit. "That's huge! Especially since it's almost leaf-bare. How are you going to eat that yourself?" She commented, her eyes as huge as moons.

Tailfur purred. "Of course i'm not going to eat it alone! It's to share, of course!" 

"Thanks Tailfur!" The apprentice meowed, swiping her tongue over her jaws.

Riverleap padded up to Hawkfeather. "Where's Stormpaw?"

"Hunting," Hawkfeather replied. "Great catch, Tailfur!" The golden tom crouched over the piece of prey, and began to divide it into five equal parts. Just then, Stormpaw emerged from the bushes, two mice swinging from her jaws.

The small she-cat dropped them down in the clearing. "Sorry it's not much, it's all I could find," she admitted. "Great StarClan, who caught that rabbit?"

"Tailfur did," Riverleap purred. "Let's eat before it's time to leave!" The blue-gray she cat pushed a haunch towards the apprentice, and Stormpaw bent her head and began to eat it.

"I was wondering-" Tailfur paused in between bites and meowed- "If one of us gets hurt, what will we do? Will we have to come back so that a medicince cat can help?"

"That's mouse-brained!" Hawkfeather hissed. "Who knows how far away Leaf's camp is?"

"I know about some herbs," Riverleap chimed in. "Icewhisker taught me a few things when we were both apprentices. I'm not sure how much I can remember though!" 

"Me too," Nutpaw squeaked. "When I was a kit, Frecklefoot was always trying to teach me about herbs." The small she-cat wrinkled her nose. "I think she wanted me to be her apprentice, but I want to become a warrior!"

Lapping at an icy pool of water, Riverleap got up. "It's time to go. Patrols will be out soon- we don't want them to know where they're going!"

"Why not?" Nutpaw asked. The older warriors had all told her not to say anything, even to Brightpaw, Emberfoot or Duskfoot- and she had kept her promise, but she wanted to know why.

"Because then our clanmates would follow us, thinking we need their help- but this is for the five of us to do alone. If it was impossible, then why would StarClan send us? Why not send the message to the clan leaders so everyone could fight together? Only the five of us received the dream, so that means that StarClan knows that we can do it, and knows that we don't need help from our clanmates. We wouldn't want to put them in danger, would we?" Hawkfeather meowed, his eyes darkened in thought. 

Tailfur nodded, swallowing his share of burnet, and gagging almost immediately afterwards.

"It's time for us to go," Riverleap meowed, looking up at the starry band of Silverpelt. "StarClan help us!"

Thank you all for reading! Please vote for this chapter if you enjoyed it :3

A bit of TailfurxRiverleap fluff in this chapter- Sorry vectorsigma , I couldn't resist XD

Hopefully I can get the next chapter up soon, time to do homework now!

<3 Alliehuang