Warriors: Aquashade's Story

Chapter Seven

It was after the hunting session. Most cats, including Aquapaw, were at camp. Aquapaw couldn't really feel happy or cheerful. Her hopes of attending tomorrow's Gathering were drowned by the thought that she would never be able to hunt, that missing that one piece of prey was her path to failure. She was nibbling on a piece of squirrel, that someone else had caught. She sighed. There was no one else in the apprentices den. She wondered if she would always be alone like this.

Probably not. I'm just over-exaggerating. A voice in Aquapaw's head told her. She didn't really like squirrel, it was way too furry, but she hadn't caught anything, so it was only right to eat prey that she didn't like. She was even arguing with herself about if she deserved prey if she didn't catch any.

She decided to take a little nap, though the sun was just touching the far end of the sky. She had a little plan for tonight.

She sighed once more, and let her head sink into her soft mossy nest.

After several heartbeats, Aquapaw's eyelids started getting heavy, and she gave in to sleep.

+#+#+#+#+#+

Aquapaw's eyes opened. She blinked, then yawned, then padded outside.

The moon was high in the sky during a cloudless night. Perfect. Soft snores filtered through all of the dens weavings. Even more perfect.

Aquapaw padded out of the camp. Fortunately, there was no one on guard. Aquapaw remembered when Bumblestripe told her that ShadowClan was being edgy and could attack at any moment. She shook her head in frustration. What if ShadowClan attacked when the was no one on guard. Aquapaw looked on the bright side though. At least she would get to leave camp without getting caught.

She smiled inwardly, thinking about her hunters crouch. Yep, Aquapaw was going to go hunting. Out during the middle of the night. Aquapaw knew what everyone else would say if they knew what she was doing. "Aquapaw, why would you want to hunt during the middle of the night when you couldn't even catch anything when you were with your mentor earlier?
Well, and was determined to catch something and impress her mentor.

She tasted the air. Strange. Aquapaw didn't seem to smell anything, just the moonhigh breezes and the scents of the forest.
She trailed around like that for countless heartbeats, still failing to catch anything.

Soon enough, Aquapaw picked up the scent of... Aquapaw didn't really know what it was. It smelled good though.
She followed the good scent, nose to the ground.
"Mmm..." She murmured,
The scent led Aquapaw to the lake. She found a silver body flopping around on the shoreline. It looked like good food, and it smelled like the scent trail that she had followed.
So she bit down on the throat of the silvery creature, then, after she killed it, she picked it up and gave thanks to StarClan for giving her this chance of 'sorta catching' prey.
She was tempted to eat it, but she didn't want to break the warrior code.

Aquapaw hoped that her mentor would be proud.

She brought the dead creature back to camp and plopped it onto the tiny fresh-kill pile. ThunderClan needed to send out more hunting patrols..:

Then, Aquapaw yawned, glanced at the moon, then went to the apprentices den and curled up beside Blackpaw. He twitched an ear.

~~~

UNEDITED CHAPTER.