Wait For It | ▪︎ Tigerclaw

chapter 29

⊰᯽⊱┈──╌❊❊╌──┈⊰᯽⊱

WHITEROSE WOKE UP early that morning, excited to teach her first apprentice everything she knew. Fireheart and Graystripe woke soon after, the grey warrior was still upset about Whiteclaw's death but put on a happy façade.

It was very cold that morning, and Whiterose had to huddle up with Midnightpaw at the fresh-kill pile until her brother and Graystripe came out to train their apprentices.

Fireheart padded out of the warriors' den, a gleam in his green gaze, "Whiterose, do you want to come with me to show the apprentices the territory?"

"Of course," the she-cat stood on her paws and said goodbye to Midnightpaw, who flicked her tail in response. Whiterose glanced around, "Where's Graystripe?"
"He wanted to show Brackenpaw around alone today," Fireheart replied, there was some solemnness in his tone, but he then beamed at her. "But I have you, don't I?"

Whiterose nodded and they trotted over to the apprentices' den. Cinderpaw and Shinypaw were fast asleep inside, curled around each other, their pelts falling and rising as they breathed. Whiterose almost didn't want to wake them, they looked so peaceful.

"Cinderpaw, Shinypaw," Fireheart called quietly, and the two cats lifted their heads at once. The two warriors backed out and a moment later, Cinderpaw bounded from the den, wide-awake and enthusiastic. Her sister followed after her, her green eyes nervous.
"What are we doing today?" Cinderpaw mewed, looking up at Fireheart with her ears pricked.

"We thought we'd take you both on a tour of ThunderClan territory," he replied.

"Will we see the Thunderpath?"

"Er, yes, we will," Fireheart stammered and Whiterose looked at the two apprentices softly. "Are you hungry?" she asked and Cinderpaw shook her head while Shinypaw hesitated before speaking, "No."

"We'll eat later," Fireheart meowed. "Well, follow me."

Whiterose and the two apprentices followed the tom out of the camp entrance. Cinderpaw raced past them and charged through the gorse tunnel. They all had to break into a run to catch up, and Whiterose sped past the fast apprentice and stood in front of the grey bundle of fur, causing the she-cat to stop with a stumble.
"You're so fast!" Cinderpaw exclaimed with wide awed eyes. Whiterose purred at the compliment, "You are too. But remember, we're the ones leading you."

"I just wanted to see the view from the top," Cinderpaw protested.

"In time," Whiterose let her tail rest on the apprentices' shoulder for a moment. They let the other two catch up and they quickly climbed to the top. By the time they reached the top of the camp ravine, they were all panting, but Cinderpaw was no less enthusiastic. "Look at the trees! They look like they're made from moonstone," she mewed breathlessly.

"How do you know what moonstone looks like?" Shinypaw asked and Cinderpaw shrugged. Fireheart shook out his pelt, "You all should try and save your energy," he meowed. "We have a long way to go today."

"Oh, yes. Which way now?" Cinderpaw kneaded the ground with impatient paws, ready to dart away into the woods.

"Follow me," meowed Fireheart. He narrowed his eyes playfully. "And this time I do mean follow!" Shinypaw and Whiterose purred in amusement as they padded a trail along the edge of the ravine, into a sandy hollow where both warriors had learned how to fight.

"This is where most of our training sessions will take place," Whiterose explained. During Greenleaf, the trees that circled the clearing filtered the sunshine into a warm dappled light. Now cold daylight streamed down onto the frozen red earth.

"A river ran here many moons ago," Fireheart meowed. "A stream still flows beyond the rise there. It's dry most of the Greenleaf. That's where I caught my first prey."

Cinderpaw asked a question but didn't wait for an answer and charged toward the stream to see if it was frozen.
"You'll see it another time!" Fireheart called. But Cinderpaw kept running, and Fireheart raced after her. Whiterose looked at her apprentice who was sniffing around.

"What can you smell?" Whiterose asked and Shinypaw looked at her. "I think it's a mouse."

Whiterose scented the air and nodded, "Good job."

"Can we catch it?"

"Another time," Whiterose replied softly. "Let's go find them."

They made their way to the top of the rise and saw Fireheart and Cinderpaw staring down to the stream. Fireheart seemed to give her a warning before Cinderpaw stood on her paws, padding restlessly around. "What now?"

"The Owl Tree!" Fireheart bounded away, calling from his shoulder. The three cats charged after him, their furs glinting in the cold light.
They crossed the stream over a fallen tree Whiterose had used many times before. "There are steppingstones farther down, but this is a quicker route. Be careful though!" The pale white trunk was stripped of its bark. "It gets slippery when it's wet or icy."

They let Cinderpaw cross first, Fireheart keeping close in case she lost her hold. The stream wasn't particularly deep, but it would be cold as ice, and Cinderpaw was still too small to cope with a soaking.

Shinypaw came next and crossed easily, Whiterose right behind her. "Well done," Fireheart praised the apprentices with a purr.
"Thanks!" Shinypaw spoke up, her eyes twinkling with pride. "Now, where's this Owl Tree?"

"This way!" Whiterose bounded away through the undergrowth. The ferns had turned brown since Greenleaf. By the end of Leaf-fall, they would be flattened by rain and wind, but now they still stood tall and crisp. The four cats wove their way beneath the arching fronds.

Ahead, a massive oak towered above the surrounding trees. Cinderpaw tipped her head back, looking for the top. "Does an owl really live up there?" she mewed.
"Yes," Fireheart replied. "Can you see the hole in the trunk up there?"

Both Cinderpaw and Shinypaw narrowed their eyes to peer through the branches. "How do you know it's not a squirrel hole?" Cinderpaw asked.
"Smell!" Fireheart told her.

They both sniffed but shook their heads, eyes curious as they looked at both mentors.
"We'll show you what a squirrel smells like another time," Whiterose mewed gently. "You won't smell any around here. No squirrel would dare make its nest so near an owl hole. Look at the ground, what do you see?"

"Leaves?" Cinderpaw asked, puzzled.

Shinypaw sniffed around and pulled out something the shape of a pinecone in her mouth. "It smells like crow-food!" she spat. Fireheart purred in amusement.
"You knew it was there didn't you?"

"Bluestar played the same truck on me when I was an apprentice. You'll never forget the stench."

"What is it?" Cinderpaw asked.

"An owl pod," Fireheart explained. "Owls eat the same prey as us, but they can't digest the bones and fur, so their bellies roll the leftovers into pods and they spit them out. If you find out of those under a tree, it means you've found an owl."

"Why would you want to find an owl?" squeaked Shinypaw alarmed. Whiterose assumed Frostfur must have told them the elders' tale of how owls carried off young kits who strayed from their mother's side. Nutmeg had taunted Whiterose with similar things as a kit. Like how the Twolegs would throw her in the river, or how the hawks in the sky will come down and eat her.

Whiterose snapped out of her thoughts when Fireheart led them through the woods as the sun rose into the pale blue sky, crossing a twoleg path and another tiny stream. Eventually they arrived at the Great Sycamore tree.
"It's huge!" Cinderpaw mewed.

"Mind you, when Smallear was an apprentice, this tree was probably a sapling!" Fireheart joked. Whiterose playfully prodded him with her paw and then suddenly, their was a rustling sound from behind them, which told them that Cinderpaw had rushed off again.

Fireheart suddenly sped up his speed as he chased after her and when they emerged from the trees, their eyes widened when they saw the small grey apprentice standing on a boulder at the bottom of a steep, rocky slope. "Come on; I'll race you all to the top!" she mewed.

Whiterose froze, horror-struck, as Cinderpaw crouched, ready to spring onto the next boulder. "Cinderpaw! Get down from there!" Fireheart yowled.

Whiterose felt Shinypaw tremble beside her, and she washed the small cats' ears to comfort her. Cinderpaw turned and scrambled down again, her eyes wide and fur on end. Fireheart rushed over to her, "This place is called Snakerocks," he puffed.

Cinderpaw looked up at him, eyes huge. "Snakerocks?"

"Adders live up there," Whiterose came over with concerned eyes. "A bite from one of those would kill a cat like you!" She gave Cinderpaw a quick lick on the top of her head. "Come on. Let's have a look at the Thunderpath."

"The Thunderpath?" Shinypaw spoke up, stopping her trembling.

"Yep," meowed Fireheart. "Follow me!" He led them through the ferns, along a trail that skirted Snakerocks and took them to the part of the forest where the Thunderpath cut through like a hard, grey river of stone.

Whiterose kept an eye on both apprentices as they peered out from the edge of the forest. She could see Cinderpaw was desperate to creep forward and sniff the Thunderpath ahead of them. A familiar roar was beginning to ruffle her ear fur, and she could feel the ground trembling beneath her paws. "Stay where you are!" Fireheart warned. "There's a monster coming."

Shinypaw opened her mouth a little. "Yuck!" she mewed, screwing up her nose and flattening her ears. The rumbling noise was coming closer, and a shape appeared on the horizon.

"Is that a car?" Shinypaw mewed and Fireheart gave her an odd look. "Car?"

"That's what Redstream calls them," Cinderpaw insisted and Fireheart had a flash of recognition in his eyes. "Oh, right. Then yes."

As the 'car' roared closer, Cinderpaw and Shinypaw unsheathed their claws to grip the earth. They shut their eyes tight as it charged past, stirring the air around them into a storm of wind and thunder. They kept their eyes shut until the noise faded into the distance.

Fireheart then spoke, "Sniff the air, can you smell anything apart from the Thunderpath stench?"
"I remember that scent from when Brokenstar attacked our camp," Cinderpaw mewed after some moments. "And it was on us for a while since we're the kits he took. It's ShadowClan! Is that their territory, beyond the Thunderpath?"

"Yes," Whiterose nodded. "We'd better get out of here."
Whiterose decided to take the apprentices the long way home past Twolegplace, so the two could see Tallpines and the Treecut place.

As they padded beneath the tall pine trees, the scents of Twolegplace made Whiterose and Fireheart uneasy, even though they'd lived in a place not far from there as kits. "Stay alert," she warned the apprentices as they crept along behind them. "Twolegs sometimes walk here with dogs."

The four cats crouched under the trees to look at the fences that bordered the Twoleg territory. The crisp air carried a scent to Whiterose's nose that stirred an odd feeling of warmth inside her, although she didn't know why.
"Look!" Shinypaw pointed with her nose at a she-cat padding across the forest floor. The light brown tabby had a distinctive white chest and white front paws. Her belly was swollen, heavy with unborn kits.

"Kittypet!" sneered Cinderpaw, her fur fluffed out. "Let's chase her out!"

Whiterose didn't want to attack the queen, though. She would have no problem trying to reason with her to leave, or attack her if she wasn't expecting kits, but this seemed wrong. She wasn't a threat, she didn't seem to be hunting.

Fireheart brushed against a stalk of crunchy bracken. The she-cat looked up, disturbed by the crackling noise. Her amber eyes widened in alarm, then she whipped around and set off at a lumbering pace, out of the trees. Within moments, she was heaving herself over one of the Twoleg fences.

"Rats!" Cinderpaw complained. "I wanted to chase her! I bet Brackenpaw will have chased a hundred things today."

"Yeah, but he probably wouldn't have got bitten by an adder or scared a pregnant queen," replied Shinypaw, which made her sister deflate slightly.
Whiterose cuffed her ear with sheathed claws gently, "Come on, we're all getting hungry."

Cinderpaw and Shinypaw followed Whiterose and Fireheart through Tallpines, the grey apprentice grumbling about the pine needles pricking her paws. Fireheart warned her to keep quiet, since there was no undergrowth here to hide in and they all felt every Clan cat's discomfort at being in the open. They followed one of the stinking tracks gouged out by the Treecut monster and stopped at the edge of the Treecut place. It was silent, as Whiterose knew it would be until next Greenleaf. Until then, only the track marks—deep and wide and frozen into the soil—would remind ThunderClan of the monster that lived in their forest.

By the time they arrived back at camp, Whiterose was exhausted; her muscles were still weary from the long journey with WindClan. Shinypaw looked tired too. She stifled a yawn and padded away with her sister to find Brackenpaw.

Whiterose felt a presence behind her, and she turned to see Tigerclaw padding close to her, his amber eyes warm, a rabbit in his jaws. "Come eat with me," he meowed, and they stalked off to a patch of shade beside the warriors' den.

As they ate, Tigerclaw licked his jaws, "How did it go?"

"I enjoyed it very much," Whiterose purred. "Shinypaw hesitates, but she is eager to learn."

Tigerclaw nodded and took another bite as she did. They shared tongues until the moon rose and the coldness of the night drove them to their den. Tigerclaw padded to his nest while she went in her own, but she felt strangely awake. The image of the pregnant she-cat kept returning to her mind, and even though she was surrounded by the familiar smells of ThunderClan, her soft Kittypet scent lingered in her nostrils.

She fell asleep soon enough.