Warrior Cats Fanfiction- Ripples of Fear

Chapter 27

  Silverpaw sighed, padding over to the fresh-kill pile. After a long day of using mouse-bile to clean Loudflame's fur of ticks and being forced to battle-train with Stormpaw, whose fighting skills were about as developed as a rotten piece of crow-food's, she was finally allowed a break. She picked up a vole from the top of the pile, before padding over to the rocks beside the Apprentices' Den to eat it.

She hesitated for a heartbeat, before leaning down to bite it. She didn't feel hungry, despite the fact that she hadn't eaten all day, and now the lukewarm meat crawled groggily down her throat, making her feel sick.

"Hey, Silverpaw." The silver and white apprentice lifted her gaze to see Foxpaw trotting toward her.

"Hi, Foxpaw." Silverpaw mewed in return, wrapping her tail nervously around her paws. "Do you want the rest of this vole? I'm not hungry."

Foxpaw sighed, sitting down beside her, barely far enough away that their pelts didn't brush. "Is this about Shadedpaw again?"

Shadedpaw sighed. "Well, it's not just Shadedpaw. GrassClan is angry at FireClan, FireClan is angry at CreviceClan, and CreviceClan is angry at... everyone! I just... I don't know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be worrying like this."

"It's okay. Everyone's nervous about what's happening. We don't even understand why any of this is going on. But everything will be okay, in the end." Foxpaw replied, shifting a little farther away from Silverpaw, as he shuffled his paws in embarrassment.

"Yeah, I guess." Silverpaw meowed, glancing at Foxpaw thankfully.

He only dipped his head slightly, and an excrutiatingly long and awkward silence ensued.

"Er... so do you want the rest of my vole? I really just can't eat anymore." Silverpaw asked, prodding her prey half-heartedly.

Foxpaw chuckled. "Oh, sure." He agreed, leaning down to eat the remainder of the prey.

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  Rosepaw padded into the Apprentice's Den, orange eyes blurry in exhaustion. She curled up in her nest beside Silverpaw, and closed her eyes.

She immediately plunged into a dream. She was padding through a forest, alone, at night. Everything around her was silent. As she walked along, she noticed with a start that a sharp pain shot up her front left leg. She winced, lifting her paw, and saw blood welling from the wound, like the time when the fish's fin sliced her paw while she was fishing. She blinked, confused, until a voice interrupted her thoughts.

  "Hello, Rosepaw. You're late." Rosepaw looked up abruptly to see Mistyswirl in front of her, indigo eyes clouded and mysterious as always.

  "Mistyswirl!" Rosepaw gasped, still startled by the misty she-cat every time she appeared in her dreams. "I'm sorry, I was just... just... eating." She stammered, feeling Mistyswirl's intense indigo gaze boring into her very soul.

  "Of course." Mistyswirl narrowed her eyes, then began padding off, gesturing with her tail for Rosepaw to follow. "Now, do you know what happened to your sister?"

  "Petalstar stole her." Rosepaw muttered through clenched teeth.

  "Do you have any idea why?" Petalstar continued, with a sly glance at the apprentice.

  Rosepaw paused, flicking one ear. "We don't know..." she lashed her tail in frustration.
"She didn't exactly say."

  The gray and white she-cat twitched her whiskers. "Well, you'll know soon enough. Be careful who you trust, Rosepaw." As soon as she mewed these words, her pelt began to fade.

  "Wait, what do you-" Rosepaw's words were cut off as she jolted awake.

  "Let all cats old enough to swim gather here beneath the High Tree for a Clan meeting!" Froststar's voice thundered from the Highrock.

  Rosepaw yawned, sitting up and glancing at her paw. It appeared uninjured, but it was still throbbing with pain. She winced, shaking her head to force the brief conversation with Mistyswirl out of her mind. She padded out into the open, limping slightly, through a fresh layer of snow, until she stood beneath the High Tree. Cats joined from all their different dens, exchanging annoyed and weary glances as they trudged through the snow. Stormpaw stalked out of the Apprentices' den, his eyes wide and oddly fearful. He glanced about him, tail-tip twitching nervously, before sitting beside Rosepaw, glancing warily at her every now and again as if he expected her to claw his pelt off without warning.

  "Today," Froststar rasped, his eyes sweeping over the Clan, "we have an apprentice who has proved her worth and is now ready to receive her full name. Moonpaw, please step forward."

  Every cat whirled around to stare at Moonpaw. The thick-furred, white and gray medicine cat apprentice sat at the back behind the others, her blue eyes flickering nervously about her. She took a deep breath and stood, and padded up to Froststar, her father, who blinked down at her proudly.

  "Moonpaw has trained with Tornshadow for many moons, and he believes that she is ready to become a full Medicine Cat."

Tornshadow dipped his head in approval, his eyes shining with uncharacteristic pride.

  "I call upon my ancestors to look upon this apprentice, and see that she has trained well, and is ready to become a full Medicine Cat in her turn. Moonpaw, from this moment forth, you shall be known as Moonglow!"

Moonglow's sky blue eyes glittered warily as she turned to face the crowd of cats that chanted her new name, and she cast a nervous glance at Tornshadow, who dipped his head encouragingly at her as cats raced forward to congratulate her.

  As the cheers faded around her, Rosepaw sighed and rose to her paws, and hobbled over to a frost-glazed rock, leaping onto it and landing slightly clumsily on the sleek, slippery surface. Once again she lifted her paw, which continued to throb, but still it was completely uninjured. She huffed, placing it gingerly onto the rock, and, glancing back at the concluding ceremony, she noticed Poppyshine bouncing over to her sister excitedly and meowing elated congratulations. Suddenly, the memory of Shadedpaw flashed in Rosepaw's wandering mind, and a queer, unexpected feeling of rage mingled with sheer sorrow began to bubble in her. She had never had the best relationship with Shadedpaw, and she had formerly considered her quite a pain in the tail sometimes, but somehow it didn't feel right that she was gone, and no cat really cared. It seemed to her that when something like this occurred, the world should simply stop, because it was abnormal and cruel for life to return to normal, for cats to forget so quickly everything that had happened. Somehow, some way, everything was suddenly wrong; the groundless tensions that suddenly sprang up between the clans, the unexplained thefts from one another, the apparent carelessness of the ReedClan cats in the shadow of their impending doom, and everything else was unnatural, and extraordinarily wrong, though no cat could figure why.

(*le gasp* WHAT?! STORM FINISHED ANOTHER CHAPTER?! YESSSSSSS IT'S TRUUUUEEEEEE!!!! Lol, sorry I haven't updated this story in literally forever!!! I feel like everyone that was actually reading this has probably forgotten that it exists by now, but... I dunno... also, sorry if it's boring and badly written, but I was listening to Panic! At the Disco while writing because DON'T JUDGE ME OKAY I LOVE THIS MUSIC, so I wasn't really focusing completely on writing, but I DO have plans for the future, and this time, I actually WILL update more frequently... or at least try... I dunno... but FRIENDS I'M SORRY THAT I'M SUCH A LAZY LLAMA!!! So ANYWAYS... have and awesome day or night or whatever! BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!)