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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"I do train my daughter! If you had eyes in your skull for even your own clan, then you'd know that!"
Rainpaw hunched her blue-grey shoulders at being talked about again. Cheetah frowned and started to say something to the she-cat, but was interrupted.
Lagoonstripe was rolling her eyes, seemingly unbothered now. "Oh please. I'm talking about Oatkit as well. The poor thing lies around all depressed because he knows he hasn't got any future."
"Wrong. It's because his littermate Cloverkit just died." Jadestar snarled. Her eyes were wild now, and she reared up as if she wanted to leap over Alpinefog, who kept blocking her way.
"Calm down, you guys. Aren't we warriors after all? Can't we settle this over a nice trout?" His voice was cool and unaffiliated.
"That's not the only reason and you know it." Lagoonstripe's pale green eyes narrowed.
"That young tom would've shed some of his grief already, if he had anything other to do than just sit there and wallow in it."
Jadestar's tail flicked to and fro, her mouth set in an ugly grimace. She repugnantly eyed Lagoonstripe, then turned on her heels.
"Fine. I'll have my daughter teach him some battle moves in camp tomorrow." She called over her shoulder, heading out into Riverclan's wetland forest again.
"So both of them can ultimately stay stuck in camp or on their mother's hip?" Lagoonstripe muttered with a baleful glare at the spot where Jadestar had left.
Then the she-cat raised her voice.
"Hey, be back before sunset! Unless you want to lose a life to the wolves!" She left Alpinefog standing alone in the sunlit clearing, grumbling.
Seeing that the argument was over now, Crescentsky gripped the soiled moss-wad in her jaws and dragged it all the way out of camp, to the foot of a ditch beside an area where the patrolling cats hardly ever trod.
Tinyflame and Cheetah followed her and did the same with the remainder of their bedding. Their fur shone as they passed underneath dappled pools of sun descending between the trees. They waited for Cheetah to claw off the cleanest moss they could find, then hauled it back to camp.
"That's the last of it, right?" Alpinefog asked. "And fresh bracken was already placed in all the other dens?"
Crescentsky nodded. Alpinefog gave them an approving purr, his meow warm and husky.
"Alright then, your punishment is finished. It'll be sundown soon, so help yourself to some prey before the vigil. Cheetah, I'm sorry, but you won't be attending it."
Cheetah nodded in understanding. She actually didn't look interested. Instead her eyes searched camp as if she were looking for someone.
"Take Pepperpelt and Oatkit some prey before you go to sleep. They're in the nursery." He addressed Cheetah in a congenial manner, and the she-cat dipped her head.
