“We would like to discuss your training,” Millie began once Lilypaw
and Seedpaw faced their mentors.
Anxiously
Lilypaw’s ogle flashed from she-cat to she-cat. She and Seedpaw were Millie and
Brightheart’s first apprentices, although they both had gray flecks in their
furry coats. Lilypaw knew just why Brightheart and Millie were first-time
trainers: Millie was a former kittypet, and Brightheart had lost an eye in a
fight with a dog long ago. Nevertheless, Lilypaw still respected her mentor
Millie with all her might despite her kittypet origins, as she knew that the
now dead leader Firestar, who was killed by a falling tree when she was less
than a moon old, used to be a kittypet.
Lilypaw felt her
stomach twist into a tangled, leafy bush branch as Millie continued to meow.
“Brightheart and
I feel that- well, not to be mean- one of you is doing really good, but the
other… not so much,” Millie said.
Suddenly, Lilypaw
received sick emotions from her tummy. What if she was the failing one? Lilypaw
could just picture it all in her head:
“I name you Seedawesome. StarClan approves
your awesomeness and being better than Lilykit. I welcome you as a full warrior
of ThunderClan,” Bramblestar would say.
Seedawesome
would smile and look at Lilypaw, who would be renamed Lilykit and sitting in
front of the nursery with her annoyed mother, Sorreltail, who thought she was
done with the nursery.
“Sorry
you have an extra six moons to go,” Seedawesome would then laugh and prance
away, Amberpaw, Dewpaw, and Snowpaw clinging to her side as if they were
feeding bugs off her pelt.
However, another better thought
soon hit Lilypaw’s mind- what if she was
the succeeding one? Recently Seedpaw had been much too arrogant and ornery to
Lilypaw- she’d deserve to fail after all her nasty behavior.
“Lilystar? Already?” Seedpaw, or, Seedkit, would
ask in disbelief.
“That’s
right, failure,” Lilystar’d say. “And I’m going to make sure that you’ll stay
as a kit for another twelve moons.”
Seedkit
would flatten her ears and sadly cry out, “You promised I’d be your deputy,
Lilystar! Please let me be your deputy!”
Lilystar
would shake her head and smile happily. “Not after twelve moons of being a kit,
twelve moons of apprentice training, twelve moons of being a warrior, twelve
moons of being a senior warrior. Then my current deputy will have to die, but I
doubt he will.”
“But
why, Lilystar?”
“You
want to know why? It’s the way you’ve been treating me.”
Treating
me… Treating me…
Lilypaw snapped
back to the present and dove into the conversation again.
Now Brightheart
was speaking, and Lilypaw listened to the ginger-and-white she-cat’s words
carefully: “This evening we will find the failing apprentice and ask of them
better. More practices will be added to each day for them. You are dismissed-
happy day off!”
Lilypaw didn’t
know which she felt more- relief or dread.
A little later,
Lilypaw was scanning the camp with eyes still blurry from her early night nap.
Her eyes fell on
the nursery, which at this time almost three moons ago she was still sleeping
in with Seedkit and Sorreltail. Brackenfur, their father, would check in on
them every chance he got, between patrols and such. Lilykit and Seedkit’s older
sisters, Cinderheart and Poppyfrost, would sometimes come for a visit too. When
they did come, Poppyfrost and Cinderheart told wonderful stories of their
deceased littermates, Molepaw and Honeyfern. They were all a big happy family.
Now, in their
place were Hazeltail and her kits. The expecting queen Icecloud lived there
too.
Lilypaw watched
as Hazeltail herded her two sons, Smokykit and Larchkit, into the nursery. The
gray-and-white queen eyed the gray, overcast sky nervously.
Icecloud heaved
her heavily-weighted body up and purred as Larchkit tripped over his brother.
“They’re always so lively,” she said with a whisk of her tail. “I can’t wait
for mine to arrive!” She seemed to pay no mind to the approaching weather.
Hazeltail
shrugged. “You get sick of them after a while,” she replied. “Two is enough for
me- I hope you don’t have more than I did. I still can’t believe how Daisy
handled Berrynose, Mousewhisker, and I.” Hazeltail sniffed sadly, and Lilypaw
recalled her horseplace mother’s death the previous moon.
Icecloud smiled
and trudged into the nursery, ears pricked as Hazeltail started on a new
subject: “Now tell me, who is the father…”
Lilypaw’s ears
swiveled toward another conversation between two warriors. Eavesdropping had
become a bad habit of hers ever since she listened in on a discussion just
after Amberpaw, Snowpaw, and Dewpaw were born.
“Cinderheart,
what did you have to tell me?” Lionblaze questioned, his handsome golden fur
swishing around as he walked up to his mate.
Ooh, this looks interesting, Lilypaw
thought, and she settled next to the fresh-kill pile, offering to share a
sparrow with Amberpaw. When she declined, Lilypaw jumped back into the serious
chat.
Her older sister
was smiling secretly, and Cinderheart’s fluffy gray tail descended on
Lionblaze’s shoulders to calm him. “I’m expecting kits,” she whispered
joyfully.
Lilypaw felt a
jolt of happiness for her sibling. This was great! But I can’t act like I heard until it fully spreads around the Clan, she
added to herself glumly. That was the hard thing about eavesdropping- you
couldn’t tell anyone else until quite a few cats already knew.
Lionblaze
smiled shakily. “That’s… that’s wonderful, Cinderheart,” he said with a
half-cold purr.
Instantly
Cinderheart’s face fell. “Is something wrong?” she asked, removing her tail
from her mate’s broad frame.
The golden tabby
glanced at the ground, then looked back up again. “It’s nothing,” he responded.
“You know… just first-time father jitters,” Lionblaze contributed with a forced
smile.
“Oh, oh,”
Cinderheart murmured soothingly, stepping closer to him. “This is always what I
wanted…” she hesitated, then continued. “… and always what Cinderpelt wanted
too.”
Lilypaw
remembered the surprise she felt when Sorreltail told her that Cinderheart had
been the recreation of Cinderpelt. Cinderpelt, a medicine cat with a crippled
foot, was killed at Cinderheart’s birth, and right away cats noticed the
striking resemblance between the two cats. Cinderpelt’s spirit had lived inside
Cinderheart until Cinderheart admitted her true feelings, and that she wanted
to be a warrior and have a mate and kits, just as Cinderpelt had wanted until
her injury kept her permanently crippled for life.
The
dark tabby stopped listening when she realized that a chunk of sparrow she had
been sucking on while thinking was now dry and had the taste of her own mouth.
Lilypaw swallowed it in a hurry and took another juicy bite from her
fresh-kill.
