Warriors: Starlight

Chapter 1

A/N 1: Recommended that you read the first arc of WARRIORS - ERIN HUNTER, before reading this;

A/N 2: This story's preceding chronology does not align with the story canon.
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The weather was abjectly miserable. Icy darts of drizzle cascaded down the rocky walls, carried by bone-chilling gusts of wind that bore down into the ravine.
"Brrr. Why do we have to go train now? It's so cold out." Cinderpaw complained.
Fireheart chuckled at that. "Cinderpaw, if we were to pause your training every time it got cold, you would be an apprentice till you became an elder." Cinderpaw rolled her eyes and yawned,
"Okay, okay, fine" she mewed through the yawn.
"Good. Now then, where's Gray-" Fireheart caught himself, knowing that there was no point in calling for Graystripe. He sighed in conceded irritation.
"Brackenpaw!" He called out instead
"Yes fireheart?" He came stumbling hurriedly over rocks scattered over the camp.
"Come. I'm taking you two out for training." Fireheart mewed, and quickly turned to exit the camp, not allowing himself to take the frustration out on the apprentice. It was not his fault that his mentor would rather moon over a Riverclan she-cat.
"Come along you two. We can practice some battle training, seeing as you two are so unmotivated to hunt." Fireheart remarked, making a turn for the training hollow.
"Yay!" Cinderpaw cheered and hurriedly took the lead. Funny kit.

"Come on Brackenpaw, you have to dive under her when she swipes, Not around. It leaves you way too open to attack. And there's no point in swiping if you're just gonna graze her fur."
Fireheart yelled from the other side of the hollow, watching the brawling apprentices with a vicarious battle rush. They were fast learners, but Cinderpaw was way too distracted by the smallest things. Brackenpaw is smaller than average, but he made up for it with his speed.
However, this would be a lot easier if Graystripe would actually train his apprentice, instead of leaving him to whatever fate might have planned. He was just lucky that he had Fireheart to cover for him. Why he felt so obligated to assist him in deliberately defying the warrior code was beyond him. Fireheart just wished that he would come to his senses, because one day he would get caught, and the repercussions would be severe.
"Alright, that's enough training for today" He called over to the apprentices. "I'm going to go check the border. You two head back to camp. Don't misbehave and don't get distracted on your way." they nodded agreement and scampered off.
Now. Time to go and see about a mouse-brain. Fireheart was pretty sure that he could guess where he'd find Graystripe.

As Fireheart neared the Riverclan border, he could hear hushed chatter, and pushing through a bramble bush, spotting a noisy heap of light and dark gray fur intertwined in its self. Upon close inspection, he was able to identify the fur patterns of his best friend Graystripe, and Silverstream. The two were chittering away like songbirds, laying together cooing at each other, not a care in the world. It hurt his eyes to see such blatant disloyalty. A gutting sensation wormed uneasily within him at seeing Graystripe with that fish-breath. He sighed, turned tail and stomped off back to camp, fuming.

Fireheart ducked, entering through the gorse tunnel entrance. StarClan please just let me sleep this off. Fireheart pleads silently.
"Ah there you are, Fireheart" Tigerclaw, Bluestar's deputy approached. I guess we have different definitions of sleep. Fireheart flattened his ears in distaste. This ought to be good.
"I want you to lead a patrol along the Riverclan border" there was a glint in his eye at the mention of Riverclan.
"Tigerclaw, I was just there, actually." He tried. The deputy glared at him briefly before shaking out his fur.
"Did you, per chance, mark the border while you were there?" He questioned, staring at the fiery warrior from the corner of his eye. His paws shifted uneasily.
"...No. okay, I'll go." He conceded. The RiverClan border was marked the day before, so it shouldn't need marking today, but Fireheart could see that this was not an argument worth having, nor one that he'd win if he had it. The uneasiness returned all the same, though. This patrol came out of nowhere. At least, I think it did. He eyed the deputy for moment, testing his eyes it for any information they might give away, but averted his own gaze so as to not give the tabby a similar opportunity.
Did he see something? Had he been tipped off that a Thunderclan warrior had been spending a little too much time at the border? He resigned himself.
Well even a mouse-brain would realize that Graystripe is hardly ever at camp anymore. And it was likely that every cat had noticed that Fireheart had been taking Brackenpaw out for training the past half moon. He returned his gaze to the deputy with a friendly nod.
"Sure. Who will be joining me?" Fireheart asked, keeping the hesitance from his voice.
"I'd like you to take Longtail and Darkstripe." He mewed passively.
"O-okay. No problem" Fireheart responded in a more hushed tone.
Longtail and Darkstripe? What is Tigerclaw trying to pull here?
"Come on Fireheart. No time to sit around like crowfood." Darkstripe mewed, nudging him toward the gorse tunnel.

They arrived at the outskirts of the border by sun high, and Longtail was somewhat pushing through the patrol, while darkstripe was ducking into bushes and behind trees, searching for... something.
"What are you looking for?" Meowed fireheart, worried for the answer.
"None of your business kittypet" he lashed out, coming nose to nose with me.
"Actually it is. I'm patrol leader, and I want to know what you are patrolling for. Tell me or I'm sending you back to camp." He hissed, raising his voice. Patience for Darkstripe was one thing he did not have. He was the only cat other than Tigerclaw that he could truly say he hated in his clan. Darkstripe arched his back threateningly.
"Kittypet got claws. Do you want to use our claws? If that's the case, I'm happy to oblige." He hissed.
"I've wanted to for a long time, snakebreath," retorted Fireheart, unsheathing his claws.
"Alright, break it up. None of us want to have to explain to this to Bluestar. Lets just finish the patrol" meowed Longtail almost pleadingly, and then stared hard, almost warningly at Darkstripe for another second before turning to carry on walking.

They arrived at the stop that fireheart was dreading. It still smelled faintly of Graystripe. As they padded along, he noticed Darkstripe grin slightly from the corner of his eye, trying to slink away quietly.
"Where are you going?" Fireheart called over to him.
"Just to go mark down by the river. That's all" he called back in a hasty tone, picking up his pace.
"Well then let's all go together" suggested Fireheart, trotting down with him.
"That won't be-"Darkstripe tried to interject but was cut off by fireheart.
"Nonsense. C'mon Lets go" meowed fireheart quickly and brushed past him down to the river, preparing to fake-yowl in shock at Graystripe sharing tongues with silverstream. He wasn't going down with him just because Graystripe wanted an inter-clan mate. Holding his breath, fireheart pushed past the brush.
Nothing.
The river was void of any animal activity.
Good. He must've heard us coming.
Darkstripe looked around, intent on finding something. It was pretty obvious to fireheart at this point that Tigerclaw got whiff of Graystripe's affair with Silverstream and decided to try and catch him in the act, and knowing Tigerclaw, probably hoping that Graystripe would rat him out with him to try and ease the heat, that way it'd be a much smaller leap to getting him out of the clan. Sounds just like something that a snake like Tigerclaw would do.

They finished the patrol swiftly after the river search. Suppose Darkstripe and Longtail realized that they weren't gonna get anything on Graystripe.

It was sundown by the time they reached the ravine.
As soon as they entered the the gorse tunnel, Darkstripe headed straight to Tigerclaw. Fireheart couldn't hear them, but Tigerclaw's face said it all. He looked like someone kicked dirt over his prey. Fireheart took a sidelong glance over to the warriors den, and there was Graystripe staring at me anxiously.
Yeah. Fireheart thought to himself. Graystripe, you're lucky that we didn't get there sooner. There would've been nothing that I could've done for you then.
Well, he could've attacked silverstream let Graystripe try to play it off as a border skirmish, but Graystripe would not have thanked him for it.

The sun was now setting on the horizon, and the shadows spread through the camp like water, filling it out with darkness, until the moon comes out at least.
So, he headed back to the warriors den to catch up on some well earned sleep, not even sparing Graystripe a glance.

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So that's it. Thank you for getting this far :) Anyways, have a nice day you beautiful people