Warriors - Burnt Skies

Chapter 6

Nightpaw turned around, instead looking at the Twoleg territories ahead of her. There was a small patch of grass in front of her but a Twoleg nest at the end of the grass completely blocked her view of anything beyond.

"Let's go!"Emberpaw meowed enthusiastically, preparing to jump down.

"Wait!" Dawnpaw said.

Emberpaw tried to stop, but he was already half tilting towards the ground, so instead resulted in landing as a heap of fur on the grass below.

"What is it?" He called up, getting to his paws and shaking his pelt.

"I smell herbs," Dawnpaw replied, opening her mouth slightly to let the scent wash over her scent glands.

"You made Emberpaw fall into a heap on the ground for that?" Blizzardpaw growled.

"Yes," Dawnpaw said cooly. "There shouldn't the smell of dock here: Twolegs only grow sweet smelling herbs."

Nightpaw had no idea what dock was, but she presumed it was a herb that wasn't very nice smelling.

"How do you know that?" Blizzardpaw growled, being difficult once again. "Have I been talking to a kittypet this entire time?"

"No, you haven't. If you must know, Nightfall told me," Dawnpaw replied, starting to get agitated.

Nightfall was the ThunderClan medicine cat, so would have been Dawnpaw's mentor. Nightpaw remembered seeing him briefly at gatherings but she had never talked to the tuxedo tom herself.

"Where do you think the smell is coming from then?" Nightpaw asked, swiftly diverting the conversation away from the argument it was about to turn into.

"Well, it smells like it is coming from ThunderClan territory-" Dawnpaw was cut off as Blizzardpaw spoke again.

"You mean used to be ThunderClan-" Blizzardpaw was cut off by Dawnpaw.

"Shut up!" She snapped.

Nightpaw had only known Dawnpaw for a short amount of time, but had pretty much figured that the tabby she cat didn't have much of a temper. It was probably Blizzardpaw mentioning Nightfall that contributed the most to her losing her patience; Dawnpaw would have had a close bond with her mentor. Like Nightpaw used to have...

Nightpaw shook her head, trying to push down any thoughts of Breezeflight that she might have, but her attempts were in vain. She was dragged into a memory as emotions and events that she had tried to shut away in an attempt to stay level headed flooded into her brain.

Nightpaw crouched next to her parents' bodies, her nose pushed into the tabby fur of Timberdash, her father. Wounds oozing blood crisscrossed the bodies, and Nightpaw had a thin layer of redness coating her paws from crouching next to them. She heard a cat approaching and pulled away. It was a dilute tortie, her yellow eyes glittering in concern.

"Nightpaw?" The tortie asked, stopping a tail length away from her.

"Leave me alone," Nightpaw choked before turning away.

The cat did leave her alone, until it was time for the vigil not long after. In that time, however, Nightpaw felt a tug of loneliness and half wished the cat had stayed, so that there was someone to share her grief with.

As other cats gathered around her, placing fresh lavender and licking the blood from the bodies, the tortoiseshell appeared again. She didn't say anything this time, but crouched next to Nightpaw silently. Nightpaw looked up to see the tortoiseshell looking at her.

"Sorry, Nightpaw. I'll stop staring at you - it probably looks quite creepy," the she cat said in a forced light tone.

"It's alright, Breezeflight," Nightpaw muttered, burying her nose into Timberdash's fur once more.

"You know, if you ever need to talk to anyone, I'm here," Breezeflight meowed, lightly brushing her tail along Nightpaw's back.

Nightpaw stared at her for a moment before saying a croaky 'ok' and turning back to Timberdash for what felt like the seven billionth time.

"Nightpaw? Nightpaw!" It wasn't Breezeflight this time, it was Emberpaw.

"Are you ok?" The Calico tom meowed, slightly titling his head and looking at her with wide, amber eyes.

"Yes, I'm fine," Nightpaw meowed shakily.

She glanced around, realising that for some reason she was now on the small patch of grass and Blizzardpaw and Dawnpaw were nowhere to be seen.

"Hold on - why am I on the ground and where in the name of StarClan have Blizzardpaw and Dawnpaw disappeared to?" She asked.

"You fell off the fence and the others have went to find the source of the herb smell," Emberpaw replied, looking concerned. "Don't you remember?"

"No," Nightpaw admitted. "Why did they leave us behind?"

"So that we could scout the area,"Emberpaw meowed. "We should go that way."

The Calico tom pointed his tail towards another fence on Nightpaw's left, with a strong smell of dog coming from the same direction.

"Yeah, I suppose," Nightpaw said, starting towards it.

"It's not like you to not be paying attention," Emberpaw said. "We definitely shouldn't go that way - it reeks of dog."

"You're smarter than you look," Nightpaw hesitantly replied; in truth, she was still wrapped up in thoughts about her old mentor.

Emberpaw at first looked like he was deciding whether to take it as a compliment or be offended by it. And then, he must have decided offended, because he looked slightly taken back. But he must have changed his mind because he stood up slightly straighter and raised his tail in the air, looking proud. The end result just made him look confused.

"I was thinking about my mentor," Nightpaw said quietly, deciding to just be honest with the tom. If she was going to spend possibly the rest of her life with him, then she was going to have to trust him.

"I miss Rustpelt as well, my brother, littermate and closest friend I ever had," Emberpaw replied, his mew thick with sympathy. "My mentor never really liked me, but Rustpelt was the cat I was closest to."

"Rustpelt?" Nightpaw asked. How was his littermate, who was obviously the same age as him, a warrior whilst he was an apprentice?

"I was held back from doing my warrior assessment by my mentor because he thought I wasn't ready. He used that as an excuse though, he just done it to spite me," Emberpaw explained, without even a hint of anger in his mew. Just sadness.

"You deserve to be a warrior," Nightpaw told him before turning towards the direction that Dawnpaw and Blizzardpaw must have went.

Nightpaw leapt up the smooth wood of the fence on her right, managing to scramble up slightly more gracefully than last time.

"Why are we going this way? Dawnpaw and Blizzardpaw already went this way," Emberpaw called before scrambling up the fence as well.

"It's the only way that isn't blocked, dangerous or that we haven't already went," Nightpaw said, sniffing the air for the other two apprentices' scent.

They headed off on the trail of Dawnpaw and Blizzardpaw, scrambling up numerous fences and luckily, not encountering any dogs. However, Nightpaw stopped abruptly at the top of one fence. In front of her was a large overgrown patch of grass, covered with many ferns and brambles. A broken Twoleg nest sat nearby. She could see a glimpse of two tabby pelts talking to a ginger she cat, who was lying down and looked skinny and frail. A small ginger tabby colour point tom kit sat nearby, with wide, scared eyes.

Nightpaw jumped down, Emberpaw just behind her, to hear "please take care of him for me" before the ginger she cat collapsed, unbreathing.