Warrior Cats: In the Shadows

Chapter 2

     Shadepaw stalked through the undergrowth stealthily as he kept his eyes on a mouse. His tail only slightly moving left to right. Yang watched from afar, tossing out quiet advice as his apprentice worked on his pounce. Shadepaw's eyes narrowed as he bunched up his hindquarters. Then he gave great power to his back legs and jumped high in the air, but perhaps too high. The mouse had spotted the cat mid-air, and before Shadepaw could bring his paws down to his prey, the mouse scurried into a little hole in the ground.

     "Mouse-dung!" Shadepaw yelled as he landed.

     Yang walked up to Shadepaw with a calm look on his face,"Next time, don't jump so high. The amount of power you gave to your hind legs, could've made noises on the leaves below you, let alone jumping that high allows the prey to spot you. It's okay, only your 5th time of practice, hunting can take moons to perfect."

     Shadepaw gave his chest fur a few embarrassed licks. He felt bad that he wasn't able to catch anything for his Clan yet, but he was only 2 quarter-moons in on being an apprentice. I'm sure no other apprentice had perfected it their first time, Shadepaw thought as he licked his paw and brought it over his head.

     "Let's get back to camp, maybe later we could practice some battle skills?" Yang broke through the silence and started walking back to camp, his tail twitched, signaling that Shadepaw should follow him. Shadepaw reluctantly followed, he wanted to keep practicing, but both he and his mentor knew that Shadepaw would get frustrated even more.

     Woodfeather greeted Yang and Shadepaw as they walked through the entrance, due to a recent fox attack, a few moons before the apprentices' were born, they had at least one guard outside the camp entrance for a couple of hours. Yang dipped his head as his Clanmates greeted he and Shadepaw back.

     Yang  gave a solemn nod, showing that Shadepaw could go run off to his friends. As soon as Shadepaw walked away, Yang got into grooming himself.

     Mudpaw and Blossompaw were back from training, for they went out earlier than Shadepaw. They both greeted him as he came over to share the plump vole that they had just started eating.

     Mudpaw took a bite, then looked at Shadepaw,"So how has training gone?"

     "It went okay, still haven't caught anything yet," Shadepaw groaned in embarrassment.

     Blossompaw looked at him with a surprised expression,"Really? Both Mudpaw and I caught some prey.  I caught this vole, and Mudpaw caught a wimpy mouse!" She grinned teasingly at him.

     "That mouse was plump!  Not wimpy! I know what's wimpy... you!" Mudpaw growled with a smile.

     Shadepaw just sat there, watching as they argued about who and what was wimpy. He sighed and started to groom his fur. 

     Shadepaw's ear twitched at the sound of a rustle at the entrance, and the greetings of Woodfeather. He turned his head towards the front of camp to see Mosspaw and Sandcloud walking through the entrance. Mosspaw carried a blackbird proudly as he stalked through camp. Shadepaw growled under his breath, I'm a terrible hunter! All the other apprentices have caught something, and Mosspaw caught a blackbird! Shadepaw took a couple bites of the vole next to the quarreling apprentices, and walked away into the apprentice's den. He hated it when other cats appeared better than him, he  wanted to be the one who had something to show-off, something to be proud of. He sighed and lay his head on his paws, and slowly drifted off into sleep.

     Shadepaw woke to the sound of wails of depression outside the den. More specifically, the wails of Hollyherb, Spottedleaf, and Blossompaw. He got up, arched his back, and quickly padded over to the elders den (where the sound was coming from), and found out exactly why, they had been wailing. Silverpelt's body laid there, not breathing, no rise of her flanks, just... limp. Shadepaw stared in horror.

     "She's dead," Blossompaw staggered on her paws, the bedding dropped from her jaws and onto the floor,"Our only elder! She's dead! Now there's no one to tell me miraculous stories, or, or, to scold me when I forget to do her ticks!" The apprentice fell to the ground next to Silverpelt and whimpered.

     Hollyherb looked at the ground, depression showed in her body posture. "She was a good elder, a good one at advice for all. But it was her time to leave, she has done good service, to her Clan... and to me." The medicine cat sighed and dragged Silverpelt out of the den and into the middle of camp, where more wails rang in Shadepaw's ears.

     Stormfur emerged from the warriors den, his torn ear twitched towards the sounds of the wails,"What's happening?!"

     "You're drowning, stupid furball," Shadepaw muttered aloud.  When Stormfur gave him a contorted look, Shadepaw explained properly,"Silverpelt died of age."

     "Oh," the deputy said.

     The cats went into their dens under the midnight moon, Longpelt volunteered to keep watch for the night, admitting that she had slept the entire day. Shadepaw sighed as he walked into a den full of sleeping apprentices. Then, he too, curled up in his nest, and fell asleep.