Warriors - The Rising Sun (old draft)

Chapter 21

"What are you doing?"
She let out a startled yelp as a cat stood before her. Shaking her head, she looked at the cat.
Oh!
It was the kittypet, Fang, she thought. She looked around and realized she strayed into the two-leg place.
"Ah um. I was just playing tricks on my clanmate." She replied flicking her tail. He inhaled and she realized she still had a small trace of musky mouse smell.
"A trick? What kind?" He asked, tilting his head.
As she explained, she saw his eyes get more amused by the second. As she finished her story, he was laughing. A smile broke out across her face and she licked her paw, smoothing her pelt with regal grace, proud of herself.
She flicked her tail. "I better go. My clan mates will think I've fallen in the river as well." She said.
"Wait. Don't walk across the river again. Since she cracked it, it made the ice around it more thin. Cross on a log that has fallen down there." He tipped his nose in one direction.
She nodded her thanks and went in the direction he told her to go, quickly finding the fallen log. But the thing was, it was on the other side of the border. In cavern-clan territory. But it was only a few tail lengths from her border. So she checked any scents, and raced across the log, racing back to her side of the border and taking a big breath of relief. Then realization hit her. She wasn't in her territory at all! She was deep in Cavern-clan territory! She had been it all this time!
Re-tracing her steps, she found that she had just crossed the border when she met Fang. Surprisingly, he was still there. He lifted his head to look at her.
"Something wrong?" He asked, flicking his tail into view to clean it.
"I crossed the border." She said. Watching him, his pelt was dirty. Weren't kittypets supposed to be groomed and sleek? Looking closer, he looked a lot thinner.
"What happened to you? I thought Kittypet's were supposed to be sleek and well fed." She said.
"I left my twolegs. They tried to take me to the vet, so I had to run away. I live in the twoleg place now, scavenging the alleys for food." At the word food, his belly rumbled, and he awkwardly shifted his paws.
"Vet?" She asked. "The Cutter?"
"I guess so." He replied.
Thinking, she turned back to the log.

When she returned, she dropped her package. It was the mouse from earlier, and she decided he needed it more than she did.
He sniffed at it. "Are you sure this isn't poisoned or something?" He asked.
She snorted. "My clan eats it all the time," she said dismissively.
With a few moments of hesitation, the black and white Kittypet gulped down the mouse. Finished, he licked his whiskers.
"Wow! I ought to eat mice more often. Thank you, Blackfoot or whatever it was." He said grandly, his eyes lighting up with happiness that he got real food.
"It's Blackpaw," she said, turning away.
As she trekked through the forest, realization pulses through her veins. She broke the warrior code! And for a kittypet. She shook her head and climbed down the steep cliff to the river. She had to punish herself. She couldn't keep breaking it everywhere she went.
With a breath of fear, she leapt onto the ice. With a loud crack, she fell into freezing water.
Barely managing not to cry out, she climbed out, shaking fiercely.
But that wasn't the punishment.
She had to hunt more in this condition.
Pricking her ears as she cross to her border, she heard scuffling and saw a vole pole out its head near the broken ice.
Crouching, she watched as it took another sniff, then came out and started to the river.
With a screech, she shot forward and blocked its hole from where it came from.
The prey squealed as she pressed her claws in its back and killed it.
Carrying it a little way from the river, she buried it.
After a few moments of burying, she heard another sound and saw a squirrel leaping down from a tree for a whole load of nuts.
A cold gust blew through the trees and she shivered violently, but waited until the squirrel started eating.
She leapt out of the underbrush, aiming for the squirrel.
It dropped the acorns and climbed the tree in less than a second, and she landed with her face in dirt.
She spat it out and growled.
I give up!
Digging up her prey from earlier, she slowly dragged her cold bones to the camp.
By the time she reached camp, it felt as if one of her legs had been frozen.
"Blackpaw!" A voice called. "Why are you freezing to death? Go warm up in the medicine cats den!" Her mentor scolded her, raising his voice as he walked around her and looking at her condition. "That is, if your leg hasn't froze off already! I see the ice there, go!"
She winced as her mother cantered toward her and scolded her.
"The Clan had to be fed." She said, raising her head.
"I know you were trying your best, but freezing yourself for a piece of prey doesn't help the clan." Mulberrylight said, resting his tail on her back.
"I'll take this to the prey pile, and tell everyone you nearly froze yourself for it!" Dawnpelt said.
"But mom I didn-" but she was pushed in the medicine cats den.
The medicine cat turned her eye on her and narrowed her eyes. "Is every apprentice getting frozen today? What did you do, jump in the lake and took a stroll?" She snapped.
In front of the cat was another cat, Moonshine, a grey and white short hair. She was eating some herb, yarrow, she thought.
A few moments later the cat vomited and crushed red berries spilled out.
"Be careful next time! Try not to catch prey near a bushel of Death Berries!" The medicine cat said, walking past her and leading Blackpaw to a corner where Saplingpaw lay and another nest next to it.
"Keep each other warm." The cat said, shoving her next to Saplingpaw.
She tried to pull away but Maplepatch cuffed her ears sharply. "Don't argue!"
She flicked her tail, annoyed.
As she started to relax and the cold in her bones started to thaw.
After a while she fell asleep, but woke up to a cat prodding her and pushing a mouse towards her.
She blinked again and saw Moonshine standing over her and Saplingpaw. Then she remembered. Moonshine is Saplingpaw and Starlingpaw's mother!
"Hello Blackpaw. It seems good that Saplingpaw has more friends than just her sister." Moonshine said, gazing at the wall for a moment.
We're not friends! She thought bitterly, but keep her jaws clamped shut and nodded slowly.
Moonshine prodded her daughter once more, and left.
Stirring beside her told her that Saplingpaw was awake.
Blackpaw quickly shoved her face forward to get the first bite of the mouse, but Saplingpaw was doing the same and they collided snouts.
"Ah, sorry." She said quickly, recoiling.
After a moment of silence, "It's o-okay." Saplingpaw said, taking the first bite of the mouse.
She sounds... shy..?
Is there another cat under there? Is her sister keeping her in place?