Smoketail's Fate

Chapter 3

"Smokekit, wake up!" Palestripe meowed, giving her son a nudge. Smokekit grunted.
"What?"
"It's your apprentice ceremony today!" She told her the gray tom, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
"Oh!" Smokekit exclaimed, scrambling up. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the dim light of dawn. He looked around the den, and noticed Tigertail sleeping with her tail curled around her three kits, who had been born about a quarter-moon ago, a little earlier than when they were supposed to have come.
"We have a little while before your ceremony, so don't be going getting dirty after I clean you!" Palestripe scolded him gently. Smokekit groaned, but didn't struggle as his mother washed him.

A while later, almost sunhigh, Smokekit was sitting in the nursery, where Tigertail was taking care of her kits, while Palestripe was sharing tongues with Rosefeather in the clearing.
"Are you excited for your apprentice ceremony?" Tigertail asked him as she went to pick up her ginger tom-kit and put him back with his siblings.
"Yeah," he said, staring at her three kits- Finchkit, a ginger and white tabby she-kit; Nightkit, a black tom; and Firekit, a ginger tom.
"That's good," she purred, before returning to her kits.
Smokekit padded out of the nursery and into the main clearing, observing his clanmates from the bottom of the pile of rocks near the elders' den. He seen Eaglepelt and Rainpaw taking some herbs into the medicine den, a few cats coming back from a patrol... and then he saw Honeystar. She leapt onto the Smoothrock.
"Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather beneath the Smoothrock!"
Smokekit watched as the cats around him all filed into the main clearing. He joined them, and found a space between some warriors.
"Smokekit," the golden leader meowed. "You have reached the age of six moons, and so it is time for you to become apprenticed. From this day on, until you have received your warrior name, you shall be known as Smokepaw. Your mentor will be Shrewfang. Shrewfang, you may be young, but you have shown great courage and quick-thinking, and I hope that you will pass down what you know to Smokepaw."
"Smokepaw! Smokepaw! Smokepaw!" The clan chanted.
Honeystar dismissed the meeting, and everyone slowly returned to their duties. Shrewfang approached his new apprentice.
"What are we going to do first?" Smokepaw asked him enthusiastically.
"First, I'll be showing you around the territory. It'll take a while, so we won't be doing any training until tomorrow," was his mentor's response.
"Ok!" The gray apprentice said, eager to start.

The two toms treaded out of camp together. "Wow," Smokepaw gasped. "It's so huge!"
"I was as surprised as you when I first went out of camp," Shrewfang commented.
Shrewfang first showed him the borders, they shared one with MistClan, and one with CloudClan. Between all of the borders the clans had, there was an isolated area for gatherings; the Great Stones. It was an amazing place; four huge stones for the leaders to sit on at Gatherings and announce what had been happening in their Clan.
They also had two borders that led outside of the forest. After that, Shrewfang showed his apprentice around the rest of the territory; focusing mostly on the best hunting spots and the training pit- a large dip in the ground used for battle training.

By the time Shrewfang and Smokepaw had returned to camp, it was nearly moonhigh. "Go get some rest now," Shrefang told his apprentice. "And feel free to take some fresh-kill. I would recommend it, we'll be training early tomorrow."
Smokepaw padded drowsily to the fresh-kill pile, taking two mice from the top. He got to the apprentices' den, both mice in his jaw, when he realised... he didn't exactly have a nest, since he hadn't been in there before. Not all of the nests would be occupied, since one or two of the apprentices would still be out. Mousepaw was sitting in her nest grooming herself when she noticed Smokepaw.
"Hi Smokepaw," she mewed, dragging a paw across her ear. She suddenly stopped as she was about to lick her paw again. "That's right! You don't have a nest!"
Smokepaw shook his head, the two mice's tails still firmly clamped in his mouth.
"Well, that nest's free," she said, gesturing to a nest near the edge of the den. "Feel free to move it closer to the centre," she added, before returning to grooming herself.
Smokepaw settled down in his bed of moss, and ate the mice to himself. He curled up and fell asleep almost instantly.