Bluefur's Choice

Apprenticeship

With her kits out of the nursery, Bluefur was finally able to move back to the warriors' den. She reclaimed her old nest the same day her kits became apprentices.

Although Bluefur loved her kits, she was overjoyed to be a warrior again. The patrols, the hunting, the togetherness with her Clan- they were things she had missed greatly.

Sometimes she thought about what could have been. If she had made a different choice, she would have been deputy. Instead she was taking orders from her enemy. Thistleclaw seemed to delight in that; he strode around the camp like it belonged to him, and Bluefur supposed that in a way, it did. She tried not to let Thistleclaw's arrogance bother her, and most of the time succeeded. Even though she knew she would never become ThunderClan's leader, she did have her kits. They knew Bluefur as their mother, not an enemy warrior, and she told herself that meant more than any feeling leadership could bring.

Mosspaw, Mistypaw, and Stonepaw's apprenticeships were uneventful for the most part. Although they no longer lived with her, Bluefur tried to involve herself in their training as much as she could without being overbearing, remembering how she had wished for her own mother's help as an apprentice. She kept track of them from a distance, hearing about their progress from their mentors or the kits themselves in the times that they spoke with her.

Mosspaw was the best of the three in terms of keeping Bluefur informed, although Stonepaw and Mistypaw were by no means detached.

One time early on in their training, she had gotten the chance to patrol with all three of her kits. They had padded along the stream, and Bluefur had picked up a faint prey scent. She ordered her kits to race ahead to flush them out.

"Quick, Stonepaw, that way! Mistypaw circle around back! Mosspaw, take the other side!"

"I don't smell anything," Stonepaw meowed, peering through the trees in confusion.

"There's a vole nest, Stonepaw, now go or you'll miss them!" With that, Stonepaw shot off and sure enough, he returned with a vole.

"How did you know that?" Stonepaw dropped the vole on the ground.

"Yeah, I couldn't tell anything was there until the vole started running away from us," Mosspaw added.

Bluefur shook her head. "The scent was in the breeze. You'll get better at tracking with more experience. Come on; let's try again further down. Mosspaw, why don't you try to make the catch this time."

They had caught three more voles and a squirrel that way. Her kits had been impressed; they hadn't scented the prey at all and thought Bluefur had a sixth sense.

That was one of the only times Bluefur had been able to patrol with her kits, and she knew that their wide-eyed wonder at the volume of prey they managed to catch would remain one of her favorite memories.

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One day several moons into her kits apprenticeships, Bluefur decided to take a walk in the forest. She had taken the dawn patrol, so she was done with her required warrior duties for the day.

Padding aimlessly, Bluefur passed the training hollow. "Good job, Mistypaw." Bluefur's ears twitched. That was Patchpelt. "Now, when you're using that move in battle you'll need to be quicker, but that's a fine start."

Bluefur heard the sound of rustling leaves. "Can I try against Stonepaw or Mosspaw?" asked Mistypaw.

"Once their mentors have finished teaching them, I don't see why not," Patchpelt told her. "But for now keep practicing. You want to beat them, don't you?"