Warriors: Rising Tide

Chapter 57: Puddlesplash

I followed closely behind a Bee as we trekked along, Rushfire behind me and Screechpaw behind him. We were right now in a dark pine forest. The ground was damp and thickly blanketed in nettles and pine cones. My paws were starting to hurt from the long trek but I ignored it. Screechpaw made her pain known unlike keeping it to herself like the rest of us.

"Ugh! My paws hurt! Can we please stop and rest I don't think I have walked this far before!"

"Screechpaw we heard you like the last twelve times you've complained!" Rushfire scolded.

"Please Screechpaw can you bare it like the rest of us?" I asked.

"Fine! But if I collapse it's gonna be all your faults for not stopping!"

"Is she always like this?" Bee asked gingerly.

"No... I think" I tried to remember.

"She is your apprentice, wouldn't you know if she was lazy?" Rushfire grumbled.

"She isn't lazy, she is opinionated" I defended.

"I have ears you guys!"

"Yeah, and ours hurt from your complaining!" Bee yelled back. That seemed to shut my apprentice up for now but we all knew it wasn't gonna last long. Bee slowed down and fell into stride with me.

"So... could you tell me more about clan life? I-if that's okay with you?" Seeing a way to distract myself from the pain in my paws I took the opportunity.

"Sure, what do you want to know?"

"Ok, so like how many clans are there? You have said Riverclan and Thunderclan so far but are there more?"

"Yeah, there is five in total" I started. "Riverclan inhabits the rivers and Windclan has the moors. Thunderclan has the forest area, with Skyclan right next to it. Than we have Shadowclan in that pine area clear on the other side of the lake from the Barns"

"Wow! That's a lot of cats!" Bee explained. "What's your clan like? Where do you live if you don't have a barn or a house folk den?"

"We live in dens we make out of bushes and bramble walls to protect us from foxes and badgers" I muttered.

"Our camp is in a place called Stone Hollow" Rushfire added.

"Yep! The apprentice den is in a small cave near the leaders den!"

"Apprentices?"

"Young cats in training" I answered. "A kit has to be at least six moons old to start training. They get a mentor like me and have the pre-fix of their name changed from -kit to -paw" I said pretty blankly.

"Yep! I was Screechkit when I was little but then we had a ceremony and I had my name changed to Screechpaw and I got Puddlesplash to teach me!"

"And you get another name change after? Cause Puddlesplash and Rushfire don't have paw in their name" Bee put together.

"Yes, it's called a warriors name. The naming ceremony for a medicine cat is much different" Rushfire informed.

"What's a medicine cat?"

"They are cats who learns how to heal other cats and talk to Starclan! My sister Plumpaw was going to be one but Maplestar made her a warrior apprentice!" Screechpaw spat in annoyance.

"Maplestar?"

"She is the leader of Thunderclan... for now..." Rushfire grumbled.

"You guys don't seem to like her" Bee easily picked up.

"She tried to kill Applestar!" Screechpaw yelled from the back. "But he is still alive so we are gonna go get him! He is at the stone twoleg place your leading us too!"