So There

Striking Down the Shadows

Songpaw's POV

The next sunrise made me growl in frustration, wishing that the moon could hang over me and Volepaw forever. I almost wished that we could stay on this island forever.

I had been awake for some time now, enjoying the feeling of Volepaw's head resting on my shoulder. I didn't want to be the one to wake her up, not when I didn't want this to end.

Who was I kidding? Even if Pikestep doesn't like her, some other tom with good taste will. Less than a moon ago, I finally accepted that I was falling for Volepaw. It was pretty obvious why it took me so long to accept it: the fact like she'll never like me back. She'd never be interested in a she-cat, let alone her best friend.

For that reason, I suddenly wanted to wake her up so I no longer felt tortured by these thoughts, but I didn't move. The sun shined brightly over the entire forest, and Volepaw's eyes blinked open.

"Oh, the night went by pretty quickly." You said it Volepaw. "We should probably head back to camp."

Where that crazy tom Pikestep was. I held back a sigh as I got up and lead the way back to camp, the way back to reality.

We arrived back at camp and I approached my mentor Stormbright, more than happy to be distracted with something else to do.

"Can we go with the morning hunting patrol?" I asked. Stormbright shook her head.

"They already left. We can go on the next patrol though." Stormbright replied. "Why don't you hang out with your friends? I'd kill to have my friends back in ThunderClan to talk to."

I knew that my mentor was still bitter about being taken away from our former Clan, and I chose to walk away. While joining RiverClan was the best thing to ever happen to me, Stormbright was probably missing her sister and the rest of ThunderClan terribly.

When I turned around, I saw Volepaw with the rest of our friends. I noticed Flypaw avoiding eye contact with his sister, probably because of Volepaw's resentment towards their mother. I didn't have much else to do besides join them, my heart still aching.

"Hi." I squeaked nervously, approaching. "What're we talking about?"

"How much of a hard time the other warriors gave Pikestep for his mean behavior." Spiderpaw snickered. "Splotchstar isn't punishing him, but a lot of cats are insisting that she does."

Volepaw tried to hide her amusement at what Spiderpaw said, and I hoped that meant she was over Pikestep. I saw Sweetcloud and Brambleblaze coming to talk to Volepaw.

"We're going on a border patrol. Stormbright said you wanted to go on the next patrol as well Songpaw." Sweetcloud reminded me. I nodded with defeat, wishing I could tell her that I wanted to go on a patrol to stay away from Volepaw. At least until I can get my feelings together.

No such luck. Stormbright joined us and the five of us took off to mark the borders. Ever since ThunderClan and ShadowClan attacked, Splotchstar increased the border patrols to almost every day, telling us to keep a sharp eye out.

Stormbright seemed way too calm during this. Did she want RiverClan to suffer because they stole her from ThunderClan? That seemed to be the only answer. I broke away from the group to mark a few trees near the WindClan border when I heard faint sounds of laughter.

"That battle wasn't nearly as bloody in my opinion! No cat died!" I heard a young female whine.

"Maybe we could kill an apprentice or two. Or maybe steal some kits...oh, I think I like that idea a lot." A deeper male laughed darkly. No!