Dark Skies- Book #2 in Sunrise

Chapter 9
The Gathering was loud, and the biggest group of cats Jadepaw had seen. Jadepaw followed Sparkpaw into the group of cats, worried that she may get lost if Sparkpaw's tail tip disappeared into the crowd. Jadepaw felt her heart beating hard in her chest. The Gathering was way more packed than she had expected it to be. Different colored pelts blurred around her, and she couldn't see a single cat with scales. Sparkpaw stopped, and Jadepaw recognized the white pelt of Splashpelt.

"Splashpelt!" She called, and the she-cat spun around, her expression relaxing as she recognized Jadepaw. "Hey, Jadepaw, you're an apprentice?" Jadepaw nodded. "Why don't you go see Foldpaw? He's my apprentice. The one with the dark red fur and yellow eyes." Jadepaw looked around the group, and she spotted Foldpaw with a group of other apprentices. "And I caught seven mice! In one-" "Excuse me, are you Foldpaw?" The second after Jadepaw let those words out of her mouth, she regretted it.

The other two apprentices turned to her, one with a cream colored pelt and milky brown eyes. The she-cat glared at her. "Sorry. Uh, I'll just go..." Jadepaw said awkwardly. She turned. Maybe WindClan. ShadowClan scares me. "Wait." Foldpaw called. "Um, er, stay." Jadepaw turned back around and looked at him. His eyes sparkled, and Jadepaw decided to stay. "What's your name? I'm Foldpaw." "I'm Jadepaw." The cream she-cat turned to face Jadepaw. "And I'm Cherrypaw." She grunted. "I wish I could be Jadepaw. It's a nice name."

"Thanks." Jadepaw smiled. A blue tom looked at her and blinked coolly. "I'm Streampaw." He meowed. "What Clan are you from?" "ThunderClan." "Wow, ThunderClan. Is it cool there?" Jadepaw nodded. It turns out that Streampaw and Foldpaw lived in RiverClan, and Cherrypaw was from ShadowClan. "Let the Gathering begin!" A dusty colored she-cat yowled. "WindClan will begin. Now that GreenLeaf has begun, prey is practically running into our paws. We have two new apprentices, Sorrelpaw and Stripepaw."

"Sorrelpaw is being trained as a medicine cat by Woolwhisp, and Stripepaw is being mentored by Swooptail. We did have an encounter with twolegs, but-" "We did, too!" Another one of the leaders exclaimed. "So did we!" Ravenstar and another leader said. "It looks like the twolegs think that they can intrude on our territory." Ravenstar growled. A murmur arose from the Clans. "Did you get to fight the twolegs?" Cherrypaw asked. "Yeah, twolegs are weird." "Aw, when I became an apprentice, it was delayed by half a moon or so....so I missed the battle with the twolegs." She shrank into her pelt.

"No, I think we scared him away," The WindClan leader said confidently, puffing out his chest. "We scared them pretty good." WindClan cheered proudly. The other Clans yowled how tough they had been, also. "Enough!" Ravenstar yowled. "Breezeclaw and Peckheart have had three beautiful kits, Trailkit, Creekkit, and Swirlkit." The Clans whooped and cheered for the new birth. Jadepaw flattened her ears against the noise. "Well, Ravenstar, would you like to go next?" The WindClan leader asked. Ravenstar dipped his head politely.

He cleared his throat and his voice rang throughout the clearing. "ThunderClan is doing well, and we have seven new apprentices." The Clans gasped in delight and surprise. "Jadepaw, Hawkpaw, Goldenpaw, Clearpaw, Cloudpaw, Deathpaw, and Sparkpaw were apprenticed in the past two moons." The Clans murmured. "Deathpaw?" Cats whispered to each other. When cats tried to be quiet, that's when they were the loudest. "Dewstorm passed soon after giving birth to Jadepaw, Deathpaw, and Cloudpaw." Sad sighs echoed in the clearing. "I'm so sorry," Streampaw murmured.

Jadepaw nodded solemnly, turning her attention back to Ravenstar. "Our medicine cats did the best that they-" "Where are your medicine cats, anyway?" Harewater, the WindClan medicine cat asked. "Um..They're tending to a sick cat." Ravenstar perfectly covered up the truth, that they were caring for a rouge with Greencough. "What's wrong?" A warrior called from the ShadowClan crowd. "Nothing severe. Just a phase of Whitecough. They'll recover quickly." Jadepaw immediately spotted holes in his explanation, and she was the only one.