skyclan's surprise

~~~

OBEDIENTLY, the two turned and padded out of the clearing, a stiff silence lingering between them. Wordlessly, Violetpaw parted her jaws, tasting the air. "I don't smell anything."

Ravenpaw scoffed. "I'm not surprised. Your nose has never been a strong suit." He ignored her seething glare, and instead flicked his tail to a patch of nearby bushes. "There's a vole under there. You go around and chase it to me."

"Why don't you go around and chase it to me?" Violetpaw hissed. "You said I can't stalk, remember? Plus, you're the one that always misses the catches."

"I never miss my catches!" Ravenpaw growled. "Listen, my Warrior Assessment is coming up first, plus Icedust is my mentor, so I'm in charge. Go chase it."

The white apprentice huffed, but eventually obliged, moving around the bush, ready to scare the vole. However, her head was spinning with anger from her argument with Ravenpaw, and so wasn't particularly careful when creeping around; thus, she shifted onto a twig, which cracked easily in its brittle state.

"You mousebrain!" Ravenpaw mewed, lashing his tail as they heard the mouse's paws scuttling. "You scared it!"

"Yeah, well"- Violetpaw tried playing off her mistake, though her pelt was burning with embarrassment -"scaring it was my job, isn't it?"

Ravenpaw's fur bristled with annoyance, but he didn't have the chance to bite anything back before the brown pelt of the vole streaked out from beneath the bush. He jumped, but - perhaps also unfocused - missed by a mouse tail, his claws snagging a tuft of the vole's fur and nothing else.

"You missed!" Violetpaw narrowed her eyes. "Who's the mousebrain now?"

"Shut it," Ravenpaw hissed, leaping onto his paws and bounding after the vole. 

The poor vole, with it being leafbare after all, found no shelter. The leafbare ground was bare, and as it scurried on, Violetpaw and Ravenpaw darted after it. Prey was hard to come across, and there was no way they'd let this one get away. Plus, both were determined to catch it because of their pride; they had to prove the other one wrong.

The vole put up a good fight, but finally, Ravenpaw - who'd always been faster than Violetpaw - jumped forward with a mighty leap. His claws caught the creature's tail, and Violetpaw quickly finished the job with a nip to the vole's spine. Finally, it lay there, limp and dead.

"All that," she panted, her ears flicking back and forth in annoyance, "for a skinny piece of prey that can barely feed a kit."

Ravenpaw shrugged, looking much more relaxed now that he'd been the one to trap the vole. "We should be thankful for any prey StarClan gives us."

"All I'm saying is, it shouldn't have taken that much effort," Violetpaw grumbled. "And it wouldn't have, if you hadn't insisted that I chase it to you."

He rolled his eyes. "We got it at the end, that's all that matters. We should get this back to Icedust." 

"Hey, why should you be the one who gets to carry the prey?" Violetpaw mewed as Ravenpaw crouched down to pick up the vole. "It'll look like you did most of the work."

"Because I did do most of the work," he answered easily.

Tired of arguing, the white apprentice shook out her pelt. "Fine, whatever. But I'm not waiting for you." True to her word, she stood up and trotted off, padding past the trees that her and Ravenpaw had been standing by.

However, as she went, it suddenly occurred to her now near she and Ravenpaw were to SkyClan's border. The clearing Icedust was at was already close, but the vole chase had brought them right up to it.

"Violetpaw." This was Ravenpaw's voice, muffled from the vole, coming from behind her. "Where'd you go? Icedust will be mad if we return separately."

The white apprentice opened her mouth to call out her location, but as she did so, a sudden new scent flooded her tongue. Tangy. Metallic. Impossible to miss in the barren landscape of ThunderClan's leafbare territory. 

Blood.

Ravenpaw's voice felt like it was getting further and further now as Violetpaw focused in on this blood. Paws trembling, she started towards it, feeling a heavy, heavy weight in her with each step she took. As she neared, speckles of red dotted the frosted ground. 

When she finally pushed past the bristled bushes to get a full view of the scene, her blood ran cold. She had no memory of this, but she must've shrieked, for Ravenpaw was soon at her side, meowing, "What? What is it?" until he caught sight of it himself.

It was Featherpool, their medicine cat who embodied nothing but peace and kindness, laying unmoving in a pool of crimson.

~~~

LILYSTAR'S ATTEMPTS AT PEACE BROKE. As soon as Nightspirit, WindClan's medicine cat, finished his work on Featherpool (by some miracle, she was still alive when Icedust, Violetpaw, and Ravenpaw got her back to camp), Lilystar called a Clan meeting.

"We have to attack!" 

"We can't let them do this to our medicine cat!"

"Featherpool had every right to collect catmint off their land!"

"Those mangepelts!"

"I agree, with all of you." Lilystar's voice rose above the rest as she tried calming her cats. "But we need a sensible plan. We can't just march to their camp."

But despite her words, her eyes were flaming with anger. Featherpool was a close, longtime friend of hers, and it wasn't long before Lilystar dismissed everyone and gathered the senior warriors into her den so that they could come up with a strategy.

Throughout all this chaos, Violetpaw had barely been able to see her friends. In fact, it was Ravenpaw who stood next to her when they brought Featherpool into camp, her blood seeping into Violetpaw's fur. 

Spirits, that feeling.

Featherpool's blood had long been washed off from Violetpaw and Ravenpaw's pelts, but the sticky, oozing sensation could never be licked away. 

The white apprentice shivered. She wanted to scrub herself from top to bottom, dunk herself into the lake though the thought of getting wet made her want to puke - anything to get the feeling of Featherpool's blood off her.

It was Ravenpaw who shot her an understanding look back then, and Ravenpaw who did the same thing now. Ravenpaw who also had Clanmates attack him with questions, and Ravenpaw who also had thyme forced down his throat. It was Ravenpaw who was still by her side now, both sitting a little numbly as they watched Lilystar call, run, then dismiss the Clan meeting.

Finally, Violetpaw inhaled deeply, and flicked her tail. "Crazy, isn't it?"

Beside her, she felt the black tom puff out a breath. "Yeah-"

"Great StarClan, what happened?"

Violetpaw couldn't take another What happened? question, but this one came from Brightpaw. The calico bounded towards them as soon as the Clan meeting was over, her blue eyes rounded with worry.

"We found Featherpool at SkyClan's border," Ravenpaw answered, before Violetpaw had the chance to even open her mouth. "They attacked her when she was searching for catmint, then dumped her body by our border. They're foxhearts."

Brightpaw nodded, twitching her pelt. "Yeah," she breathed. "Are you-" She broke off, glancing over at Violetpaw. "Are you two okay?"

"We're fine," the white she-cat mewed. "It's Featherpool that's hurt."

"Right. But seeing something like that must've been awful, wasn't it?"

As Ravenpaw started to reply, Violetpaw suddenly felt a wave of fatigue rush over her. The last thing she wanted to do right now was go into all these details again. "I'm going to go to sleep. Do you know where Sweetpaw is?"

Brightpaw shrugged. "Waiting for you in the apprentices den, I think."

Violetpaw nodded, and as she started to make her way over, she realized that Brightpaw didn't seem to be following. Stopping, she glanced over her shoulder to give the calico a questioning look.

"Oh, I'll be there in a second," Brightpaw meowed. "I just want to hear more about what happened."

Violetpaw glanced over at Ravenpaw. He seemed quite tired himself, but didn't protest to the idea of staying out longer to answer the same questions for the umpteenth time for Brightpaw. 

The white she-cat frowned, but didn't say anything as she turned and padded over to the apprentices den. Brightpaw and Ravenpaw had always been friends, but never had the calico chosen his company over Violetpaw's.

Hmm, odd.