Lighttail's Courage (A Warrior Cats fan fiction)

Prologue

Heart racing, Rosepaw looked at the starry figures around her. Am I dying? Is this Starclan? She thought wildly. Turning her head she fought panic as the figures prowled around her in a circle, never looking her straight in the eyes, but getting ever so closer, their pelts glowing in the fading sunlight. "Who are you!" Rosepaw cried, her eyes wild with distraught. "Tell me!" she screeched. 

A pain, sharper than thorns, jabbed in her side from a figure somewhere around her. She tried to spot who or what it was but she couldn't; whatever it was was gone. The ghosts (that's what she thought they were) seemed to be playing some sort of sick game with her, where they would jab her somewhere, prowl ever so close and then jump out of reach before she could make contact. Finally, after Rosepaw was trembling and shaking with pain, she couldn't take it any longer. She drew herself up, and pounced on the nearest ghost. At her touch the ghost let out a blood-curdling screech that made every hair on Rosepaw's pelt lift before turning to dust. 

Shivering, Rosepaw began to run from the ghosts. Where she was going she did not know; all she wanted to do was get away from this terrible place. Running harder than she had ever known she burst through the figures and tried not to freeze as their screeches echoed throughout the dying daylight. Eventually Rosepaw came across the edges of where she was running, which was just flat grass everywhere. As she saw the blurry walls in front of her she continued to run and run until she burst through the gray mist shrouding the "exit" from her prison. But to her horror the figures were still in front of her once she got through the mist, and they were now looking at her. Their eyes were wild with fear, and they let out their blood-chilling yowls until Rosepaw collapsed. "Please!" she sobbed.'

"Stop! Stop!" Suddenly the figures grew silent. Rosepaw, who was shaking so hard her paws hurt, looked up and saw that the figures had turned to stone, and the gray mist had returned and began to coil around the figures, hiding them from her view until Rosepaw was forced to close her eyes. When she opened them she found herself on soft grass, sunshine warming her pelt. A soft breeze blew her fur to the side, so warm and inviting that Rosepaw stopped shaking and began to relax. Finally I've escaped! Rosepaw thought. She realized she was drenched in sweat and she spotted a stream nearby. Might as well walk in, she mused. Rosepaw was about to jump in when a voice echoed from behind her. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." it said. Rosepaw, who was still jumpy from her figures incident, whirled around. "W-W-W-Who are you?" she mewed, trying to sound brave. 

The speaker in front of her was a tom with long dark brown fur and green eyes. "I am your father Rosepaw. You never met me, remember? I died before your mother gave birth to you." The cat mewed, his eyes glistening with grief. Rosepaw couldn't believe it was her father. She didn't even believe in StarClan! It was all nursery tales. When a cat died, they died. End of story. But when Rosepaw looked at this tom in front of her, she felt a strange connection to him. So, quietly and cautiously she took a step away from the river. "Good!" The tom mewed, his moment of grief gone. "My name is Oakwhisker." Rosepaw gasped. Oakwhisker was her fathers name... she suddenly got choked up. "Oakwhisker? My father?" she mewed. Her father nodded.

 "Yes Rosepaw. I am your father." he mewed. While he let this news sink into his daughter, Oakwhisker moved closer to her and looked in her eyes. "Rosepaw, I love you, but I am not happy with you." he mewed firmly, but not unkindly. At his words Rosepaw rolled her eyes. "I am fine!" she snapped, eyes glimmering with anger. Oakwhisker let out a sigh. "Rosepaw, I know your mother. Just because she has rejected you-" he began, but his daughter interrupted. "Not just once! After she saw I was the smallest of the litter she threw me away! Outside, to die! Thunderclan had to take me in! You have no idea how hard it is to grow up alone, without a littermate in a different clan, knowing your mother had rejected you." she mewed. Oakwhisker's heart sank. This was what he was afraid of. After his death his gentle mate had hardened, just what he had feared.

 "Rosepaw, I know this is hard for you. But I want you to remember your meeting with the figures. The pain, the running away, the mockery, it is all you have known and it is all you will ever know if you don't stop pushing everyone who cares about you away. Tomorrow you become a warrior... and I want you to become the daughter I know you are. That gentle Rosepaw on the inside. Prove your mother wrong, and make your clan proud." Oakwhisker meowed. At his words his daughter looked at him, eyes glimmering with slight hope. "Really?" she mewed quietly. Her father nodded and touched noses with her.

 "Really. Now I must go now. Goodbye sweet daughter." he mewed. Rosepaw's eyes grew wide. "No! Father don't go!" Oakwhisker's heart tightened. "I don't want to, but I must. Remember what I said." he mewed before disappearing. Suddenly Rosepaw found herself in the apprentices den, her denmates soft snores filling the cozy den. Soon she found herself drifting off into sleep; but before she did Rosepaw made a promise to herself:

I will keep my promise to my father; and I will never reject my kits like my mother did to me.