A New Form || A Warrior Cat Fanfiction Series \\

+|Chapters 26|+

                                The stars twinkled high above, and the silver glow filtered the sleeping forest. Snow lightly fell, covering the ground with white specks. A certain tabby trudged her way along, feeling exhausted. She almost left a quarter of her kills on the way, she huffed, hunting early meant she could rest early too, but she doubted that thought, especially after that 'talk' with Kestrelpelt.

 It was a few hours before sunrise, it was cold, as always had been. Northpaw ducked through the tunnel that led inside the camp, she made her paw steps light, crunching snow lightly under her paws.

Dropping her kills on the vacant fresh kill pile, she sat down, exhaling sourly. The pile hasn't even reached full capacity, let alone half of it. For your information, she has her kill pile to put her fresh kills, just beside the elders' den, made by her mentor himself.

Northpaw got up and sloppily returned to the camp exit, her steps drowned out by the soft snoring of her Clanmates. But then, Whistlepaw had never been this early, he must have awoken by her careless loud walking through the camp and back.

"Northpaw?" He called out to her, "What are you doing this early? And in the start of Leaf-bare?" He padded up to her, making Northpaw cringe a bit. "It's nothing, you probably already know about that incident I made with our visitors." 

"Oh, that. Yeah, you know I'm always there with you!" Whistlepaw cheered, not so loud. "I appreciate you." She said. "I can help you with hunting if you like," He offered, but Northpaw turned down the request. "I can't, I'm supposed to be hunting all on my own." He frowned, "Then I can keep you company?" The tom implied, "Sure, I'd like that." Quiet cheers! escaped from Whistlepaw.

Northpaw could see the pink outline glowing from him, it's been moons since she saw these strange outlines from each cat. They've become brighter since, and they appear less frequently, but she doesn't mind, even if she's the only one who can see them.

"Northpaw, you think we'd be able to catch any nocturnal prey in Caiquecrest's Tree?" Whistlepaw asked, startling the younger apprentice. 

"Caiquecrest's Tree? You know that that place is sacred because of our Clan and VireoClan's tension over it before!" She said carefully, studying her Clanmate's expression as he briefly looked away in embarrassment before turning back to her with a grin. "Right, then let's go to Reed Hollow instead, we're near it anyway." He trotted to the path of the landmark, flicking his tail to Northpaw for her to follow him.

                               "I don't know about you Northpaw, but don't you think it's unusual that there's more of those silverwebs lying around here?" The dark-coloured tom probed the she-cat. "You're right, I've seen one that time when we were assigned in groups, you know, then we split up, I just happen to come across one, faint scent of two-legs too."

 Whistlepaw glanced at her, "Then why didn't you report that to the older warriors? They know what to do." The apprentice sighed, "The thing is, I kinda forgot about that." He just replied with an 'oh.' They gathered up the limp prey, they'd guess it would be enough to have Northpaw's pile full.

Sunrise was soon, then the Dawn patrol would start their route around the territory. "Whistlepaw, I'm tired." She mewed, "We're almost near camp, just hold on a bit longer, yeah? Lack of sleep catching up to you, haha." Northpaw nudged him playfully, a little too hard, making him trip. "Oops, sorry." She mewed sarcastically.

Whistlepaw turned his head to her, getting up before tackling her to the snowy ground, "Oops, pardon me!" He mocked her spryly. "Hey!" Northpaw exclaimed, using a bit of her last energy pushing him off of her. "I was joking! I was joking!" Whistlepaw blurted out, and the smell of cats filled their nostrils. They were already near the entrance.

Vines dangled from the upper part of the camp's doorway, they pushed through, and both of the apprentices' eyes glinted in the tunnel's darkness.