//Un//marked

// chapter 10 //

The eerie silence of the forest surrounded Lightpaw as she slid forward, pushing past low-hanging pine branches and scratchy bramble bushes. The quiet pressed down on her from all sides, too heavy and much too encompassing. Every step she took seemed to send up a flurry of sound and made her fur stand on end.

How am I ever to be as silent as the forest? Not a bird chirped, not a mouse squeaked; even the wind was silent today.

She noticed the small twig seconds before placing her paw on it. Smugly, she reached a little further forward, narrowly avoiding discovery. Her weight shifted forward, then backwards again as she pulled her rear legs forward. One more step and –

Crack!

Lightpaw's right back leg hit the twig she had only just avoided.

Her cry of frustration turned into a yowl of surprise as a body hit her, flinging her into a bed of dead leaves. Brown and orange covered her vision, rising up in clouds above her and floating back down to rest on top of the ginger tom standing over her.

"Again." Flamestrike's amber eyes were narrowed with disapproval and Lightpaw felt her insides shrink.

"I don't understand what I'm doing wrong," she growled as he let her up, shaking out the foliage stuck in his fur.

"You're too conscious of your steps," he replied, running a paw over his ears.

"But if I'm not conscious I make too much noise!" she protested.

He cuffed her over the ears. "Then learn to walk the forest as if you are a part of it! Over-thinking it makes it unnatural and in order to be completely silent it needs to feel the opposite."

"Slinking through the forest like a rogue in my own territory is supposed to feel natural?" Lightpaw replied.

Flamestrike snorted. "It's a skill you need to learn. Rainpaw can do it, no one's found her yet. Beetlepaw and Stormpaw are doing well, they've only been caught twice. Even Yewpaw's doing better than you are!"

The tortoiseshell apprentice felt her fur burn. With a huff, she rushed back into the undergrowth, concentrating intensely. She wouldn't be beat. She was great at fighting and hunting, why was stealth such a problem?

But are you really that great?

Lightpaw shook her head, clearing the voice of doubt away. She took a deep breath, driving out the images that accompanied it: a small figure, standing on the edge while everyone else threw themselves inwards, claws and fangs flashing; a dappled pelt so saturated with red it hardly looked real; the dull hazel gaze of an innocent.

She stopped herself from grinding her fangs together, afraid of being caught once more. Six times already today, and their stealth drill was nowhere from being over. Rowanstorm would make them practice until dusk, if that's what it took.

The next cat to catch her was Oakshade after she had the misfortune of getting stuck in a bramble bush. The tabby looked apologetic and even stopped to pull some of the burrs out of her fur, but it was a seventh catch nonetheless. More determined than ever, Lightpaw pushed forward.

The one advantage she had over the others was her dappled pelt. The creams and blues and patches of white hid her well in the leaf-bare scenery; at least, much better than Beetlepaw's pitch black pelt or the greys and golds of Rainpaw, Stormpaw, and Yewpaw.

The one disadvantage were her apparently very clumsy paws and her habit of grinding her fangs in frustration.

"I can hear you, you know."