Legacy: Timeless (Book 2)

Chapter 13: Just Once

Chapter 13: Just Once

Scorch hummed happily as she trotted back to the den. I'm going to be trained as a warrior! Leafpaw's going to train me how to hunt and fight, and how to follow the warrior-code! She wasn't sure why, but this felt very important to her. As if this small bit of training would affect the rest of her life.

She recalled what Leafpaw had said, "Every day, starting tomorrow, I want you right here at the border at the break of dawn. I'll train you as long as I can until I have to go back to my duties." Scorch's paws tingled in excitement, what would she learn?

Her bubbling energy subsided as she remembered her mother. She knew her mother had passed by the Clans, since that was how her mother had met her father. But for such a young cat to know of her, Leafpaw must have just been a kit when her mother was here, if not younger, just what exactly had her mother been doing here?

Scorch stopped, she'd never even wondered about that. If her mother wasn't from the Clans, why had she been hanging around the Clans? They sure didn't seem terribly friendly to strangers, Scorch was sure it was only because she'd helped Moonkit that the select few ThunderClan cats were willing to help her.

I'd kind of thought she'd been here because she fell in love with my father... But how did she even meet my father? Chance? Coincidence? It must have been one of those things. There's no way she could have met him any other way.

Scorch continued on, jaws clamped on the herbs as she crossed the river, leaping across it with a hung up breath in her chest. Her paws hit the ground and she continued on her way, still deep in her thoughts.

She nearly jumped out of her skin as a flash of orange rushed by her. She expected to feel fur brush against her, but she felt nothing. Then she realized that while she'd been sinking into her thoughts, the colors had been fading the gray and the sounds had been rushing away from her. My mirages.

But she hadn't been focusing her mind on the world, she'd just been thinking. Am I losing control of my mirages? The fact that the mirages existed was scary in itself, to think that they might start popping up around her was terrifying.

She shivered and tried to bring herself out of the mirage. The orange cat that had rushed past her started to fade in her vision and the colors melted back into place while she began to hear the chirp of birds and rustle of the trees again.

She released a long sigh. She needed to take care of this problem sooner than later, but who could help her? Mira? No, she's injured and she would just think it was a joke. Painted? I have no idea how she'd react. Jump would just think I was insane... She wished she could ask her mother and father, her heart started to ache with longing.

They'd know what to do... She felt the tears rise to her eyes, but then she stiffened. No! I can't cry, that would mean I gave up hope. And I haven't! I'll keep fighting, and I will find them! I will see them again!

Scorch lifted her head defiantly and strode forward beneath the dark pines. She jumped and dove for cover a second later as she heard voices coming from the nearby ShadowClan border. "Why do I have to hunt here? I'm RiverClan, not ShadowClan!" a high-pitched whining, annoyed voice filled her ears.

She flattened her ears as the voice rang painfully in her ears, how could any cat stand that sound? "Shut up and hunt!" a cat snarled in reply to the first cat. Scorch knew what she should do; she did in fact have the common sense to know that she should just leave as quietly as she could. But the emotions she heard spiked her curiosity and she had to see who it was.

Looking around, she darted out of the holly bush she'd hid in, pressing up against a tree near the border. Looking up, she saw the low-hanging branches, a perfect spying place. But I've never climbed a tree before... She shrugged, she'd seen her mirages climbing trees, she knew how to.