Warrior cat fanfic : Whats Lurking In the Shadows

Chapter 4

(Before we start I just wanted to make a correction to Pinefrost's picture above.
I couldn't find a picture that had the right colour of eyes for Pinefrost, that's the best I could do. In reality he has vibrant deep green eyes. See you at the end of the chapter.)

(Bramblepaw's POV)

Honeysong approached the new apprentices.
"My kits, my sweet little kits are apprentices now. What will I do now that you've left the nursery?"
As soon as the words came out of Honeysong's mouth Bramblepaw was reminded of the night he unconsciously imagined the exact same thing while looking at his mother.
* how did I know she was feeling this way? Come on Bramblepaw it was probably just a coincidence.*
He tried convincing himself it was nothing out of the ordinary but he just couldn't get it out of his head.
As he snapped out of his thoughts he realized his face was giving away everything.
"Bramblepaw, you good? You seem a bit off." Tigerpaw was looking at him worriedly.
"Yea, don't worry about it sis." He quickly shut down Tigerpaw's suspicions and tried to act excited as he noticed Pinefrost and Emberheart padding toward them.
"Tigerpaw, Bramblepaw, get ready, Pinefrost and I are going to take you out on a tour of Stormclan's territory and maybe show you a few hunting techniques, sound good?"
Bramblepaw purred at the idea.
"Good? Sounds great!" Bramblepaw responded excitedly.
"Great, come along now." Emberheart and Pinefrost lead the two apprentices out of camp for the very first time.

(Tigerpaw's POV)

Emberheart and Pinefrost led the two apprentices out of camp and into a lush green forest.
*This is beautiful* Tigerpaw thought to herself as she was lead through the territory by the older cats.
Tigerpaw was overjoyed to finally be an apprentice. Suddenly the remaining clouds in the sky parted, and the sun shone its full glow down on the territory.
Tigerpaw was so busy looking around she didn't realize everyone else had stopped.
"Um, Tigerpaw we're over here." She heard Bramblepaw call out about two fox lengths away.
Tigerpaw looked over her shoulder and realized the other cats had stopped in a good sized clearing while she had unconsciously kept walking.
"Oops, haha." She chuckled nervously as she padded back to join the others gaining amused looks from both Emberheart and Pinefrost.
"This place is called Wolf Clearing, it is where we will do most of our battle training."
Pinefrost explained while Tigerpaw examined the clearing.
The clearing was medium sized, plenty of room for training apprentices. On one side of the clearing she noticed the trees went from oak to pine trees leading in another direction.
"In fact I think we'll be returning tomorrow to teach you some techniques with some of the other apprentices." Tigerpaw and Bramblepaw nodded at Pinefrost's words, eager to explore more of the territory.
They were lead into a deep pine forest that ended abruptly in front of a series of huge cliffs.
"This is Owl's Lookout." Pinefrost started explaining the area. "Believe it or not this used to be Streamclan's territory but long before you were born there was a fierce battle and we ended up gaining the territory in the end."
They were then lead to what Pinefrost called "Tiger Hollow" it was a grand clearing with the biggest tree Tigerpaw had ever seen right in the middle. The tree had big lines, that looked like stripes in its trunk, earning it's name, Tiger Tree.
They then came to a large river called Long Stream which was the border separating Stormclan territory from Streamclan's territory. The stream had beaches running along it with warm sand that Tigerpaw never wanted to take her paws off of.
Somehow they made their way around the whole Stormclan territory, and to their final stop; Tall Grasses.
"This is tall grasses, great for practicing hunting techniques, the area is lush with prey." Emberheart explained in a hushed tone.
"Pinefrost and I will teach you some hunting techniques and then you two can try to catch something on your own."
The two apprentices agreed and each trotted towards their mentor for the hunting lesson.
"Okay Tigerpaw, so show me what you know already, from instinct." Emberheart prompted her.
"Erm, okay." Tigerpaw was unsure of herself.
She crouched down, tail just above the warm grass.
"Okay that looks nice, only thing you want to adjust is try to spread you your weight out evenly on all four paws." Tigerpaw put Emberheart's advice in place and earned a praise from her mentor.
"Looks good Tigerpaw, let's try to catch something." Emberheart padded over to Pinefrost and Bramblepaw quickly joined in on the apprentices attempt at catching their first prey.
Tigerpaw opened her mouth and searched carefully for any scents.
Got one. She caught the scent of a mouse just a few fox lengths away.
She crouched, careful to make sure her tail wasn't dragging behind her and crept forward ever so carefully. 2 fox lengths away. 1 fox length. 1 tail length. The mouse was directly in front of her line of sight. She pounced on the mouse and with one killing bite, swiftly snapped its neck.
Triumph flowed through her as she realized she had just caught her first piece of fresh kill.
Tigerpaw caught 1 more mouse and a crow before heading back to her mentor.
There she saw Bramblepaw had already returned and had caught a rabbit and a small field mouse.
"Whoah, Bramblepaw, look at the size of that rabbit!" Tigerpaw praised her brother
"Thanks Tigerpaw, it was fast, but not fast enough." Bramblepaw looked down at his catch.
Tigerpaw tried to be nice on the outside but in the inside she was feeling emotions she didn't think she would ever feel towards her littermate.
She was jealous, jealous that Bramblepaw was better at hunting than her. Saying it to herself, it sounded stupid, but she truly was.
Clouds suddenly covered the sun's bright rays and rain started to pour down on the cats.
*I'll show him in battle training how good I can be.*

The apprentices took their prey back to camp with the help of their mentors.
"Tigerpaw, before you eat you can take some prey into the medicine cat den for Florafall and Vinepaw, they'll surely be hungry." Emberheart meowed while padding off to share tongues with his mate; Darlingdust.
Tigerpaw set down her prey in the fresh kill pile and took two mice to the medicine cat den.
She padded towards the den, the hanging moss parting as she entered.
Inside she saw Florafall chewing up a paste for a sick Greyfur and Vinepaw sorting through some herbs.
Vinepaw looked up from her work.
"Hello Tigerpaw! Aren't you excited that's you're finally an apprentice?" Vinepaw asked.
"Yea, it's really exciting! I'm just here to drop of some fresh kill for you and Florafall." Tigerpaw dropped the mice near the herbs Vinepaw was sorting through.
"Oh why thank you, I'm starving!" Vinepaw grabbed a mouse and started eating.
Tigerpaw realized Vinepaw wasn't much older than she was, she never got to know Vinepaw. When they were kits, Vinepaw was never into play fighting, she was usually in the medicine cat den, amazed by Florafall and Florafall's old mentor, Charmtail.
Florafall briefly greeted Tigerpaw before digging in to the other mouse.
Tigerpaw left them to eat and went to get some fresh kill of her own.
"Tigerpaw! Over here!" Tigerpaw heard her brothers voice calling her from beside the apprentices den.
Tigerpaw padded over to Bramblepaw.
"I got us a vole we can share!" Bramblepaw meowed.
"Oh thanks! I'm really hungry." Tigerpaw sat down beside her brother and they began eating.
"Who knew Stormclan territory was so big..." Bramblepaw seemed to be lost in thought as the words left his mouth.
"Have you been in the apprentice den yet?" Bramblepaw seemed to have snapped out of his thoughts to ask Tigerpaw.
"Not yet, have you?" Tigerpaw questioned her brother.
"Yea, I went in while you were in the medicine cat's den, some of the other apprentices
had already made nests for us." Bramblepaw spoke in between mouthfuls of the vole.
"Oh, that was nice of them!" Tigerpaw was glad that the other apprentices weren't hostile about her and Bramblepaw joining the den.
She looked up at the sky and saw that the rain had stopped and the sky was almost clear.
* weather seems to be matching my emotions today* she thought *thats funny*

( howdy Jcats <howdy? Really Jesse??> wowza this was a long one :\ Sorry I switched POV's in the chapter, thought I might experiment with that a bit. So what's going on with Tigerpaw being jealous of Bramblepaw?? Chill Tigerpaw, chill. What do you think is going on with Bramblepaw and Honeysong, weird that his mind imagined the exact things that came out of her mouth eh? I would love if you all commented and shared your thoughts on this chapter, again I love to hear different ideas and opinions of what might happen. Next chapter I'll try to do in either Dovekit or Moonkit's POV, I feel like they're being a bit neglected so let's fix that up ;) I also want to start introducing some of the other apprentices and maybe get some ships sailing eh? Well that's about it.
See you in the next chapter Jcats (>^_^)>