Ravenpaw awoke the next morning by the noises of the older apprentices. By their longer time of being apprentices and becoming used to waking early morning just for training and patrols, they could easily roll out of their beddings and walk straight out of the den in a matter of seconds.
Ravenpaw had it harder. His paws and legs still ached like he hadn't rested a blink for the entire night and he had no urge to get up.

The first out of the three of them to sit up was Beetlepaw, who hung his head like he was half asleep. Ravenpaw did his best to stand up on four paws and padded slowly out of the den, stretching and yawning. Birds began to chirp as the sun had just found a way to shine some of its light into camp, but judging by the dark clouds in the distance, it wouldn't be a sunny day for long.

Some patrols were already out of camp and their mentors were waiting in the darkness of the warriors' den.
Ravenpaw ran over as quick as he could and tried to look as awake as possible, even though he was sure he could fall asleep in a second by just blinking.
"Good. You're awake early." meowed Mumblenose. "How are you feeling?"

"My paws ache a bit, but I can still walk." said Ravenpaw softly.
"Understandable. If it gets worse, check with Jaggedeye." said Mumblenose. "I saw how excited you were of hunting that vole yesterday, so I want to see some of your hunting abilities today, as well as exploring the inside of our territory more."
Ravenpaw suddenly became awake with excitement and nodded.

Mumblenose and Ravenpaw started heading out of camp, but he couldn't leave without looking over his shoulder and waving his tail in goodbye at Halfpaw and Beetlepaw, who were talking with their own mentors.

The forest was still dark, but Mumblenose moved forward with confidence. The two black cats only appeared to be mere shadows in the ambient forest.
Going into a clearing quite a bit away from camp, Mumblenose stopped and sat down on the cool ground.

"So, do you know any hunting crouches?" she asked, watching the black tom.
"Oh, yes!" smiled Ravenpaw. "Me, Halfpaw and Beetlepaw have practised that the most during our time in the nursery."
"Well, let's see it." meowed Mumblenose.

Ravenpaw was still very tired and when he crouched to show off his hunting crouch, his body just wanted him to lay down again, but Ravenpaw stayed in his position, awaiting Mumblenose's response to it.
"Good, but it can do some work," said Mumblenose. "Your haunches dosen't carry enough strength for you to leap onto your prey. That would only make you land half way and fresh-kill dosen't land in your paws willingly after that."
Ravenpaw nodded and added more strength his haunches, which only made his body remind him of his aching legs and paws again. Relizing that he shouldn't have too much strength either to his jump, which would make him jump over his prey instead, Ravenpaw loosened his haunches. He saw a pine cone nearby, making the perfect practise.
Leaping from his solitary spot and releasing the strength gathered in his haunches, he sunk his claws into the lifeless pine cone and tossed it a few tail lengths away.

"That's good. You just had enough strength to carry you too your desired prey, but remember to do a proper killing bite," mewed Mumblenose. "Are you willing to try to catch something for real?"
Ravenpaw blinked at his mentor in suprise. Was she really thinking that he was ready after just a simple practise?
"Of course, its not neccasary that you have too catch something, but its worth seeing your techniques in action." added Mumblenose. "When you feel done, return here. You should find your way back by scent."
Ravenpaw gulped and he softly nodded.

Padding away from the clearing, he disappeared from Mumblenose's sight. Now that he was alone, Ravenpaw took a deep breath. It was obvious Mumblenose had caught onto his excitement for hunting, but now that it was in action, Ravenpaw couldn't help but feel a bit worried. Yet it was also neccasary for him to hunt for his Clan early, since that was all part of the warrior code. It was not something he could delay much longer.

Ravenpaw tasted the air. The big pine forest carried many scents and Ravenpaw spent a few seconds trying to single out one scent that would be fresh-kill. His black fur would make him camoflague in the early sunrise shadows, so Ravenpaw was thankful he had woken up early after all.
He padded in wide circles around every nearby tree several times before he caught onto something. His ears also picked up the sound of it moving among the leaves.
Taking a stealthy, hunting crouch, he made his way slowly closer. He stopped when he caught his first sight of the prey, a squirrel.

The squirrel was moving around with the many leaves around it. It had a small gathered pile of food next to it. This squrriel was busy storing food for Leafbare, making this an easy catch.
Ravenpaw started gathering strength in his haunches and just when he was gonna leap—

"Stupid thing!"
It took the squrriel less than a second to drop everything it was doing and spurt up the closest tree. The voice was nearby and Ravenpaw felt irretated and angry for whoever was responsible. This cat had ruined his first perfect fresh-kill.
Ravenpaw needed to get to the bottom of this mousebrain's actions and with quick steps made his way toward the voice.

The scent told him it was a ShadowClan cat. He heard the rustling of leaves behind a bush, who had to be the culprit.
The black tom growled and took confident steps out from behind the bush to face the cat. And he immedietly regretted it.

Hollowpaw suddenly shot his whole body around to face the sudden approcher. These two were not anywhere near close, not even since Ravenpaw was in the nursery. There was just so something very special about Hollowpaw, as long as he could remember, but he could never make out what it was. Even though the cream tabby was much older than Ravenpaw, he didn't act more mature or braver.
"Oh, h-hello, Ravenpaw," mewed Hollowpaw, taking a more straight pose. "Sorry, you scared me."

Ravenpaw didn't know what too say. The last cat he ever wanted to confront was Hollowpaw. It was already so awkward between them. Hollowpaw was also the medicine cat apprentice.
"Were it you that yelled?" asked Ravenpaw, his tail whipping lightly.

"O-Oh! Yes, sorry about that," chuckled Hollowpaw awkwardly. "I'm fine, don't worry."
On the ground, bundles of herbs were laid out in small piles. Oddly enough, it didn't look like Hollowpaw was gathering them, he was just in the middle of nowhere with them. Ravenpaw wanted to tell him what he did, but now he was only curious of what Hollowpaw was doing.

"What are you doing?" asked Ravenpaw, looking at the herbs.
Hollowpaw seemed to grow anxious. He looked at the herbs before resuming his eye contact with Ravenpaw.
"I'm just-...I'm just practising my knowledge of herbs. Jaggedeye wants me to get better at it," mewed Hollowpaw. "I'm just having it a bit hard with these certain herbs. It'll be best that I learn more about them before Leafbare."
Ravenpaw didn't doubt that Hollowpaw was lying. He already knew that Hollowpaw wasn't the best medicine cat and he was certainly a slow learner because he constantly paranoid. For him to sneak out of camp to just learn more about herbs before his mentor could lecture him again was something he would certainly do. He had no idea how long Hollowpaw had been sitting there, it was already very early.
Ravenpaw could almost smell the awkward tension between them the longer the silence dragged on. He wanted to tell him about the squrriel with every being of his body, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Well, good luck..." Ravenpaw couldn't take it anymore and made a quick turn to leave the tom to his own business. He didn't hear Hollowpaw's response, making him unsure if Hollowpaw had said anything at all.

Ravenpaw had wasted more than enough time talking with Hollowpaw that he was sure Mumblenose would start worrying about him. If she would think it would take him this long just to catch one peice of fresh-kill, he would be in trouble.
With his head down, he returned to the clearing where Mumblenose waited. Before he could tell Mumblenose about his misfortune in hunting, the smell around her told him that Beetlepaw and Halfpaw had already been there with their mentors and were now somewhere else in the territory.
Ravenpaw didn't want to tell her about Hollowpaw. It would only be more tension between them than it already was. If he told her, maybe she would take the blame on Hollowpaw and he would be yelled at. Ravenpaw didn't want to be the one responsible for that and only told his mentor that he messed up hunting.

"Just bad luck. More practise will do it." meowed Mumblenose. "You will be able to hunt more later, but for now, let's head back to camp."
Ravenpaw sighed and followed obediently back to camp with no fresh-kill. He felt disappointed, but he also felt somewhat satisfied he didn't get Hollowpaw in trouble by telling his mentor what really happened. He were already deep in trouble as it was.

• • •

Returning back to camp, Ravenpaw faced the bad side of being an apprentice. When they're not training, they do duties in camp, like taking care of the elders and getting fresh bedding for the nursery. Mumblenose immedietly set him to take care of the elders: getting them their fresh-kill, fresh bedding and remove ticks if they had any.
He carefully padded into the elders' den, where most of the elders were already awake or had just woken up. Poppycloud, Barkclaw's father looked up from his grooming.
"Finally, I was gonna starve in here!" growled Poppycloud. The morning patrols had just returned with warm fresh-kill and Ravenpaw dropped a reasonable bundle of it in the middle of the den enough for all the elders.
"Thank you, Ravenpaw." purred Voleleaf, taking a mouse from the pile. "Have you caught any fresh-kill today?"

"No, not yet. Mumblenose said I needed more training." meowed Ravenpaw.
"You'll get there, young one. Don't you worry." smiled Flamefoot.

After removing the old beddings, Ravenpaw got fresh moss and made new beddings for them. When Fleetfur told him about her ticks, Ravenpaw was dead tired from everything else, but he had no choice but to drag himself to the medicine den and ask for mouse bile.
When he was half way across camp, he heard: "Ravenpaw!"
Ravenpaw looked up and saw that Halfpaw had returned. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach when he saw she had caught a big mouse dangling from her mouth.

Ravenpaw hid his own disappointment the best he could. "Wow, did you catch that?" he purred.
"Yep! Marshpool even said I did a good job," meowed Halfpaw, then she leaned in and whispered. "I thought I was dreaming."
Ravenpaw laughed. "Did you see Beetlepaw?"

"A little bit. He told me Fernbush wanted to see his hunting crouches and maybe even some battle moves of he was lucky!" meowed Halfpaw.
"Halfpaw!" yowled Marshpool from the other side of camp.

"I gotta go. Marshpool said I can't waste time not training if I want to be a great warrior," said Halfpaw. "I better not make him angry. See ya!" Halfpaw ran toward the fresh-kill pile and dropped her mouse before she made her way back to Marshpool.
Ravenpaw said goodbye and continued his walk of shame toward the medicine den.

Once inside, he only saw Jaggedeye sitting amongst her herbs. He guessed Hollowpaw was still out there training his herb knowledge.
"What can I do for you, Ravenpaw?" asked Jaggedeye, turning her one amber eye toward him.
"Fleetfur has ticks. Could I get some mouse bile?" mewed Ravenpaw.

Jaggedeye nodded and made her way into her herb storage. Awaiting her return, Ravenpaw took time too look around the medicine den. As a kit, he was never allowed in the medicine den if he wasn't hurt or sick, since everyone said he would be in the way. But he only avoided the medicine den because Hollowpaw was there. Ravenpaw wasn't sure if he was afraid of him when he was younger, but now it was just tension between them.
Once Jaggedeye had gotten the mouse bile, Ravenpaw got it handed over to him and he quickly headed out. The mouse bile was gathered in a moss ball, but Ravenpaw held it away from him by a stick to not get it on his fur or mouth. It stank worse than crow food and he wanted to hurry across camp to get it away from him as fast as possible.
Just when he was out of the medicine den, he almost ran straight into Hollowpaw. They made a seconds eye contact before Ravenpaw quickly moved on.

He only got time to think of what had happened when he was inside the elders den and started working on Fleetfur's ticks. Ravenpaw was so exhausted at this point that he didn't have the urge to think about much, but Hollowpaw was constantly a picture in his head. His wide green eyes always seemed to stare right into his soul.
Whatever it was, there was something wrong between them. But Ravenpaw could never figure out what it was.