Warriors: What Is There To Do?

Chapter 21- That Poor Frog

It took a while to calm down.

And when she said a while, she meant she had enough time to catch three frogs and a squirrel before she stopped heaving curses at Riverclan in her mind.

She was in a part of the territory she hadn't been in before; it was pretty steep, with very small, thin pine trees closely packed together. The sun, now on the other side of the sky, was beginning to set as she went back to the camp with her anger-fueled catches.

The sky was orange with the setting sun, clouds rippling shades of purple. The full moon that signaled the Gathering was already shining brightly against the surrounding sky. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for finding out if she was going or not. The odds were that she was; the last two, while she was in Shadowclan, had gone by while she grew stronger — albeit slowly — and she was probably just physically strong enough to return to those four huge oaks now.

Her neck aching, she pushed through the bracken only pausing when one of the frogs that had been hanging half out of her mouth caught on a thorn and made a pretty big mess.

Make that two frogs and a squirrel.

"Splitpaw! Where were you?!"

Mouse-dung! She forgot that she had basically skipped the day. At least Sharpstar had given them the day off for their recovery from the journey, but it was still new to her that cats actually cared where she was.

"Sorry, Coalfoot, I lost track of time."

The smoky grey she-cat looked skeptical, "Of the whole day?"

"...Yeah. I caught some prey, though. I'll go bring it to the elders now."

Slipping past her mentor with a quiet sigh, she padded rather quickly over to the small bracken-protected den where the two elders, Barkfall and Briarscratch resided.

The two elders, mates for countless seasons, were both very kind. Barkfall was a skinny grey tom, whose fur was missing in places and revealed the soft pink flesh below. Briarscratch was skinny as well, but her joints ached so much she barely ever got up anymore, except to go to the dirtplace.

Splitpaw had no idea why they were so skinny; they ate more than she did half of the time.

Pushing through the trundles of bracken she greeted the old mates and placed the prey beside their nests.

"Thank you, dear, I was just craving some frog something fierce!"

Letting out the shadow of a purr, Briarscratch licked Splitpaw's ear and began to tear apart the poor green piece of prey.

"What she said," muttered Barkfall around a mouthful of squirrel. After another nod Splitpaw backed out of the elder's den and bumped Bravepaw on the way.

"Oh, um... I'm sorry for earlier, Splitpaw. For calling you—"

"AHEM..."

Bravepaw flinched when Driftpaw's voice from the edge of the clearing interrupted him. The bossy grey apprentice's hazel eyes glared into the ginger's back, and he shifted uncomfortably and struggled to recover from almost offending her even more.

"What I meant to say was..."

Chuckling a bit, Splitpaw decided to free him from the torment.

"It's okay, Bravepaw. I was just... really tired this morning."

"Oh. Okay then! Oh, and Sharpstar said that she wants to talk to you, by the way."

"Thanks," she muttered.

"No problem!"

Oh, great Starclan, she was in trouble for running off, wasn't she?!

Nerves shaking her paws, she made her way to the fern-shrouded leader's den, heart beating a fast paced run in her chest.

The russet leader was hunched over a huge leaf, one of countless many that littered the whole area, along with the black, dull rocks that made her nose wrinkle involuntary.

"Ah. Come in, Splitpaw," ordered the leader, looking up from the leaf, "You're not in any sort of trouble."

The weight that seemed to be looming over her had lifted and floated away, along with a breath that she had been holding.

"What do you need from me, then?"

"Well, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to the Gathering? It's just because Riverclan will be there, and... well, I don't blame you for not going if you don't want to..."

Heat burned inside her at the mention of the fish-eating clan, "No, I'll go, Sharpstar... I just might not be the happiest cat there, that's all."

"Well, in that case, go grab a piece of prey and get ready to go... can you also tell Bonepaw that he's going to be your Partner for the Gathering? I'd like someone to keep an eye on you, just in case."

"Yes, Sharpstar."