Sparks of a Fire

Chapter 2

I'm finally an apprentice, Bluepaw thought. And I'm starting to regret it. It had been almost two hours, and all she had done was collect moss for the elders.

She thought that because Larkstar had apprenticed her to Cloudsky, her sister, she would get fun tasks like hunting or fighting. But apparently everyone thought Cloudsky would go easy on her. So while her sister Palepaw went hunting and her friend Pinepaw went on border patrol, she got the "incredibly important" task of collecting dry bedding for the elders.

You see, Cloudsky was her older sister from a different litter. Dawnlight and Duskflower, Cloudsky's littermates and Bluepaw's ants, were the daughters of Aldertail, the first mate of Goldenflow, Bluepaw and Palepaw's mother.

Goldenflow was not able to produce milk for her kits, so she had kept her warrior duties. Cloudsky, Dawnlight, and Duskflower, at the request of their mother, had taken over raising their younger littermates.

And, if the young she-cat remembered correctly, her mother had had a sister too. Her name was Silvershore and she was stared at by lots of cats (mostly toms) but, to be honest, who wouldn't? From what her mother had told her, Silvershore was a very beautiful cat with glossy silver fur and bright blue eyes that sparkled like shimmering ice. Bluepaw would have loved to meet her, but sadly that would never happen. A few seasons ago, tragity struck the Clan when a raging fire nearly destroyed their camp. And in all of the chaos, Silvershore wound up trapped under some fallen rocks and was burned alive by the flames.

The loss of her sister had shaken up Goldenflow quite a bit, and both Bluepaw and Palepaw could tell that she wasn't fully or truly herself after the fire. Goldenflow still smiled, of course, but Bluepaw could tell that her smile never reached her eyes.

The blue-gray molly sighed and shook her head, trying to stay focused on her current task. A scowl crossed her muzzle at the thought of the huge bundle of moss sitting at her paws. I hate this, she hissed in her mind. Why on StarClan's green earth did Cloudsky give me this stupid job in the first place?

Hissing softly, the young she-cat unsheathed her claws and tore off more moss from the tree she was currently sitting in front of.

Cloudsky padded up to her carrying a pile of soft green moss, her blue gaze expectant. Bluepaw made a show of unenthusiastically pulling moss from a nearby oak tree, pulling it off with the scratchy bark still stuck to it. Cloudsky shook her head.

"No, Bluepaw, don't pull the bark off with it! Angle your claws like this," she said, unsheathing her sharp claws and angling them upwards. Cloudsky demonstrated by slashing a piece of moss cleanly off the old oak tree.

Bluepaw couldn't care less about which way her claws were, but she copied her sister anyway. It wasn't like she had a choice. Cloudsky nodded approvingly.

"Yes, like that! Good job Bluepaw!" Bluepaw rolled her frosty blue eyes.

Cloudsky either didn't see Bluepaw, or she ignored her. Her sister didn't seem to be getting the picture that Bluepaw was not having fun with this boring task.

"Then reach underneath the moss, and slash until it comes off!" Cloudsky exclaimed.

She slashed the moss, and it fell off the tree trunk neatly, coming off with no bark. She smiled at Bluepaw, who was grooming her paw. She heard her sister's voice, rolled her eyes again, and sat up, slouching.

"Now you try it!" Cloudsky meowed cheerfully, oblivious to her sister's refusal to cooperate.

Bluepaw lifted her paw, unsheathed her claws...then proceeded to shred the moss into a thousand tiny pieces.