Falconstar's Hope

Chapter 8

Falconstar called out to the clan "All warriors old and young come to the tall rock for a clan meeting!"

Falconstar watched as Littlewind steered Lightningkit and Sweetkit away from the nursery. It was Clearpaw's warrior ceremony. It seemed like everyone gathered around. Falconstar could remember Clearpaw's, black and silver mother Sapphire. That day was the day that the prophecy started. The prophecy that was supposed to stop destruction.

"All Warriors old and young come to tall rock for a Clan meeting." Falconstar called this was just to get everyone who was not here yet, to come.

"Could Clearpaw come up?" Falconstar said as she leaped down and the Clan parted as Clearpaw padded through. "Clearpaw from this time on you shall be known as Clearhop. MoonClan congratulates you on your improvements."

The clan basically went wild as they called Clearhop's name.

"Clearhop! Clearhop! Clearhop! Welcome! Clearhop!" The clan chanted.

Then Honeywind padded forward and called "Clearhop, I will show you the den and then the areas that the warriors can go to that you could not go as an apprentice."

Falconstar had never thought that apprentices could only go so far into the territory except for in battles. The only thing that she would change about the Clan was that other than that nothing would be changed. The only time rules could be changed was if MoonClan approved of it. Also there were other things that was more important to worry about. Like figuring out what had happened to her mother or guarding camp. No-leaf was coming soon and then the prey would be harder to hunt and it would mean hunting closer to the cliffs, where the hawks and mountain sheep were. The only reason for using the training cliffs for training was that it was a small cavern that had cliffs. The cavern only had two entryways. Sometimes during no-leaf they would store prey in a small hole at the bottom of the cavern that way a small amount of water that is cold would keep it fresh. Falconstar was sure that nowhere else was like the mountains or the abandoned orchard that AppleClan cats lived in or the pine forest that StormClan cats lived in or even the meadow that the MouseClan cats lived in. All these places were by a lake and that lake had the gathering island and the Moon Rock and the Sun Pool. Falconstar could remember when she went to the Moon Rock and the Sun Pool to get her eight lives. Now some could complain that she actually had nine lives because she has a life when she gets her other eight lives, but never mind that she only got eight lives. Sighing she padded over to where the fern tunnel had been.

"Snowfall! Bluepaw!" Falconstar called

"Yes!" They called back and hurried over.

"Could you fix this? Maybe with some brambles from lower on the mountain so that we can keep the kits from falling of the training cliffs."

"Okay"

As Snowfall and her nearly brand new apprentice raced of for their most of the day adventure, Falconstar started to pad down the narrow pathway which the Clan used to train apprentices to hunt before letting them out to where the actual cliffs where hawks, eagles, and other strong birds could pick them up. As she padded down the path she saw a flash of brown and tan fur falling from above and a flash of cream and white fur grabbing the what Falconstar thought was a Mountain ram landing on an even smaller ledge and turning a sharp turn and leaping to the ledge farther up on the path.

"Was that Honeypaw?" Falconstar called up

"Yes!" Moonsong said padded down the path, "We've been training so hard because she is the smallest apprentice so we have to train higher up where there is less of a gap."

Falconstar sighed, it was true. Honeypaw was the smallest apprentice of the three.

"I was just heading to dripping stones." Falconstar mewed.

Dripping stones was where the clan would store food in the winter but it was a soothing place during the summer. Some place were Moonclan could talk to you with out haveing to head all the way out to the moon rock. Slowly she padded down gazing at the bueaful rock architecture wondering, Why me? Why now?

Why not with Moonstar? She was so busy thinking and wondering that she had not realized that she had made it to the bottom of Training Cliffs. Streching she padded to the right following a small stream trying to avoied the sharpest rocks.

Soon she made it to a tunnel of furns. Quietly she padded past the bones of a fox that Clearhop had chased of the edge when he was Clear. That was why she had to go to the Dripping stones. When she got there she lapped up some whater and two words came to her mind. Help. Stormclan.