Warriors - Northstar's Reckoning - Book 1

Chapter 02 | New Allies

''The best people all have some kind of scar.''
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The next day Northpaw woke up to a paw roughly poking him in the side, he growled in annoyance and flicked the prodding nuisance away with his own paw. "Hey! Don't attack the messenger, I'm only doing this because your mentor told me to wake you!" The apprentice's bright yellow eyes fluttered open at the sound of a voice similar to that of a waterfall cascading fluidly down the rocks of a mountain. The first thing he saw was fluffy black and grey fur and viridescent green eyes that reminded him of the leaves in the forest. H-how have I never seen them before?

"Sorry I-I wasn't thinking, I thought you were someone else, haha." Northpaw quickly rose to his paws and dipped his head in apology to the older apprentice.

"Stop kissing up to him, Northpaw, his ego's bad enough already." He hadn't realized anyone else was in the den, even with his super senses. When he tried, the white feline could hear things from miles away but when the black-grey cat looked at him it was as if he was his old self again.

The dappled tom dropped his jaw in mock offence and batted the white-grey feline over her ears. "Don't go giving him the wrong idea about me Frozenpaw!"

The apprentice named Frozenpaw, pounced on her brother, whiskers twitching in amusement. "How is it the wrong idea if it's the truth, Gazellepaw?"

Gazellepaw...he's that apprentice who caught a giant fish the first time he went diving! This tom is a prodigy and even some of the senior warriors think he'll be made a warrior early. How could someone like that ever talk to a monster like me? "It's nice to meet you both! D-do you think we could be friends? I don't have many within the clan." It was true, most of the older warriors and some apprentices avoided him, but these two seemed unphased by whatever was keeping everyone else away from him. The white apprentice wondered if this could be the beginning of something new.

"Of course! What's the point of being in a clan if you don't have any friends?" Frozenpaw said, and aggressively nudged her younger littermate. "Gazellepaw?"

"O-oh yeah! Of course." The black and grey apprentice had seemed distracted by something, his viridian visionaries had been clouded over with some emotion Northpaw didn't recognize. I wonder what he was thinking...does he not want to be friends? Oh no...does he know about me?! Thoughts akin to this created a violent wave of emotions throughout his mind and he wondered if he really should have accepted the Dark Forest cat's help, he didn't want to risk ever hurting them. But when Northpaw's golden gaze swept over his two new allies, he knew.

He would never hurt them, even if it cost him his life.
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"Today we're going to work on your pitiful land-hunting skills, let me see your hunter's crouch!" After making friends with Gazellepaw and Frozenpaw they went out into the clearing and shared some prey together, but of course Northpaw had to throw it up in the dirtplace afterwards. They talked for a little while before his mentor, Nightowl, told him to, "stop fooling around," and that they were going out to get some training done. The white tom did as he was told, fluidly falling into it as his father had shown him. He grew nervous as his mentor remained silent for a heartbeat too long and sat, raking over his form with pale blue eyes. "Lower your tail and move your hind legs farther a part."

Huh? I was sure I was doing it just the way Ebonyflame showed it to me! He said it was perfect...Northpaw lowered his tail and moved his hind legs to the sides a bit, which gave him much more balance while he was crouching. "Oh wow! That actually worked."