The five Warrior Clans are going extinct. Gatherings and Moonpool visits are inacessable, with leaders falling left and right. The lake territories are being wiped out to the brink of extinction by new, large predators that have migrated into their...
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"Because they are," Jadestar sighed regretfully. "We haven't got any mentors to give them."
Crescentpaw tilted her head.
"Why don't both of you mentor one apiece?"
"Because we've got our paws full being acting mentors to our daughter, defending our camp, marking the borders-."
"Why not let their mother mentor Rainpaw? And then you would have time to mentor one of her kits." She couldn't help interrupting. The solution seemed simple, right there in front of them so effortlessly that even a mouse could reach out and grab it. Sootface growled impatiently, but it wasn't him who spoke up.
"You're a Riverclan apprentice," Jadestar began condescendingly. "So don't start thinking you can advise me on my mentoring methods." Her meow was strained and testy.
"Nothing like that. It was just a suggestion." I was just trying to give the most obvious of advice. Great Starclan.
"Another one would be that you could assign them as apprentices anyways, with or without acting mentors. Then assign official ones before their assessments later on," she pushed.
Rainpaw was shaking her head with an alarmed gaze, but Crescentpaw didn't notice. The two kittens had stopped playing, and together they walked up with excited and hopeful gleaming eyes.
"I want to be an apprentice! Please, Jadestar?" Oatkit trilled strongly, his voice ringing out across camp. His small fluffy tail was stuck straight up behind him, while his sister stuck out her tongue and said, "Me too! I've waited AGES!"
"Stop that," Pepperpelt scolded. Jadestar's gaze grew exasperated as she whipped her head towards Crescentpaw and remarked, "You know nothing about matters like these." She was nearly hissing. The Riverclan apprentice flattened her ears, hackles rising uncomfortably.
"How am I supposed to preach about Starclan's will up on the flat-rock when no cat even knows if they still watch over us? I can't ask the clan ancestors to 'watch over these apprentices' when they might die the next day!" Ferns twitched in the breeze behind her lashing tail.
Jadestar's eyes narrowed and her chest heaved as she calmed herself down and then said, "They're safer staying as they are."
That's not fair to the kits. This is absurd..! Her jaws were itching to release the words and say it.
"Didn't you say we have to go somewhere, Jadestar?" Pepperpelt asked. The treetops rustled above them, branches gently creaking against one another. She moved closer to her kits and swept them near with her tail. They protested loudly, trying to jump beyond the confines of their mother's boundary.
