"I do."

Cranepaw, Martenpaw, and Leapingpaw spoke in unison, and a hush fell over the camp. Time itself seemed to stop as the echo of their words settled on the clearing.

Dewstar, more than satisfied with their answers, bowed his head as he looked to the three eager apprentices. "Then by the power invested in me by the stars above, I give you your warrior names. Cranepaw, for your diligence and skill, I name you Cranewing. Martenpaw, for your compassion and strength, I name you Martentuft. Leapingpaw, for your energy and agility, I name you Leapingbranch. Now, rise as full warriors of ShallowClan!"

"Cranewing! Martentuft! Leapingbranch!" The camp erupted into a crescendo of glorious noise, and the three apprentices spun around to face their clanmates. Martentuft looked across the sea of cats who had loved him just as tenderly as the parents he never had, and a warmth swelled inside of him. The soft scents of river and cat intermingled as they walked through their new clanmates, who parted to let the new warriors through.

Almondscratch, who was just smaller than Martentuft by an earlength, stood beneath his former apprentice with an immense satisfaction. "You did a great job. I couldn't have asked for a better apprentice, and I can't wait to stand by your side as a fellow warrior and friend."

He wasn't much older than Martentuft, and had been a new warrior himself when he was made a mentor. Still, the experience had aged them both. Martentuft could only purr and nuzzle Almondscratch. "I'll be sure to make you proud."

"You have already."

Both of them departed, Martentuft towards the edge of camp and Almondscratch back into the fray of cats. The other two new warriors were already there. Cranewing's tail lashed in agitation as he looked towards the foreboding forest beyond.

"We're going to be late," he mewed.

"Late for what, vigil? I don't even think that's possible." Leapingbranch said, rolling her eyes.

"No, but nonetheless I believe Cranewing has a point." Ottersoul said, approaching from not far off. "You know where you're to keep watch, correct?"

"The vantage point on the hill just before the bluff, near the fallen log." recited Cranewing from memory.

Ottersoul nodded. "Good. Well, the rest of us will be getting to sleep. You'll have warrior duties off tomorrow, but after that, be prepared to work harder than you've ever worked before."
"I severely doubt that," muttered Cranewing just below his breath.

Ottersoul's green eyes caught the young tom's with a playful indignance. "Oh no? We're moving the camp, mousebrain, and you'll be doing a good share of the work. We won't be going easy on you just because you're new warriors. Now, go on, get out of here."

Cranewing reacted as if he'd been slapped, even though there was no venom in the response. Leapingbranch and Martentuft exchanged a look as the trio left the camp behind, passing through shadowed trees as the ombre of the sky turned from a violently colorful sunset to an array of saturated azures and dark purples. The first stars began to peek out from behind clouds, and Martentuft was sure that their ancestors were watching them ascend the hill.

Leapingbranch found the log first, and strode atop it with her chest puffed out. "I feel as if I could stay up the whole night."

"Good, because we have to." Martentuft purred, amused.

The she-cat tripped off the branch and fell almost right on top of him, and soon both of them were cracking up. "First act as a warrior." Leapingbranch looked up into Martentuft's face, tapping his nose with her paw. "Falling for you."

"You stop that." he warned.

"Are you two going to be twittering like birds all night?" Cranewing asked, his gaze not leaving the distant river, just visible through the trees.

"We can find a better conversation topic, if it'd be less obnoxious." Martentuft tilted his head, concerned.

"No, I- argh! We shouldn't be talking." Cranewing's fur spiked as he tried to explain, his fur puffed out and his eyes wide with annoyance.

"Does anyone ever not talk on their vigil? It's a rite of passage. You stay up all night, gossip, watch the camp..." Leapingbranch mewed, eyes with with excitement.

"Excuse me for not being interested then, but I think I'll go watch from somewhere else." Cranewing got to his paws and padded off down the hill, towards the less elevated area near the river, where he sat down again, just a distant, skulking silhouette in the distance.

Leapingbranch got to her paws, but Martentuft placed his tail on her back, gesturing for her to sit back down. "I'll go after him."

Her eyes gleamed with worry and defiance, but after another glance at her brother, she whispered, "Maybe that would be best."

Martentuft nodded and started down the hill, the steep terrain far less of a challenge than during his apprentice days. His mentor had to teach him how to splay his paws to prevent himself from falling, and even then he still had an alarming tendency to tumble down the slopes at random times. Leapingbranch had once suggested he be called "Martenleaf" because of all of the foliage he picked up during his tumbles.

Martentuft suppressed a soft purr. Was it possible those days were already behind him? It had all gone by far too fast.

"Cranewing?" asked Martentuft as he neared the tom, whose fur looked ghastly pale in the moonlight. The tom shot him a look, but gave him no response, so he decided to start with a question instead. "How did your assessment go?"

"It happened. I did alright. Why do you ask?" The three sentences were snapped back to back, and now Cranewing was staring Martentuft down.

"You were so wet when you came into camp. You looked upset." he noted, thinking of nothing else to say.

The tom's tail puffed out in panic, and he stammered out the next three words: "I was fishing."

"Yes, but you were drenched in water. I don't think I've seen you soaked to the ears before- paws to the water, back to the sky, right? You er, mentioned that once. While you were trying to teach Leapingpaw and I how to fish." You said we were both hopeless.

This was going badly.

"Stars... did anyone else notice? They're not going to mark me down, are they? They can't. I did a good job. I had to." Cranewing stammered.

"Mark you down on what? We're already warriors."

"I dove for a pike, alright? That's why I was wet. I threw a minnow into the river as bait and dove for it, but then I didn't quite make it, and I almost drowned, and-"

"You almost caught a pike?"

"I can't let Creekrush down. We'd trained so hard for this and I- and I-"

"Of course you trained hard. That's why you did so well."

"She would have caught the pike, though. 'Good' isn't good enough. It's not what she wanted from me..."

Frustrated, Martentuft asked, "What do you want, Cranewing?"

Cranewing's eyes, wide with fear, widened and then slowly, the shivering tom took a long breath. "I want some time to think. Alone."

Martentuft sighed. "That's fair. Just know we're here for you. Your sister and I want to be your friends again, Cranewing."

Cranewing's eyes followed him all the way up the side of the hill. Martentuft's tail swung, last year's leaves crunching beneath his paws. They were just falling when he had been made an apprentice, though his apprenticeship had been longer than most. Leapingbranch was watching him from afar, curled up on the log. He slumped down against it to sit next to her, and the white she-cat scooted over so that they were just even, sitting side by side in the dark.

"So?" asked Leapingbranch.
"I think I got through to him." Martentuft said, though he still wasn't quite sure he'd managed to do anything at all.

"Good."

Silence filled the clearing. Leapingbranch, whose burst of excitement had been short-lived, leaned into Martentuft's fur.

Martentuft looked out and down across the forest, to where the water gnawed away at the land. The river in the distance was dark as the night itself, its black surface unknowable and strange to them both. The only light on it was a few wayward stars and the moon, which stared at them from the sky and water both.

"What do you think it's like?" she asked. "Over there, I mean. Do you think they do vigils? Do you think they're thinking about us?"

"I think cats are about the same everywhere," Martentuft replied evenly.

"Bah, I'm sure they're thinking about feasting on our prey. Rabbit-chasing fuzzbrains."

Martentuft stared upwards, towards the night above. Their ancestors were in full shine now, with Silverpelt strung wide everywhere not covered by trees. Even then, starlight gleamed through the leaves and around the edges of branches. "We're all going to end up in the same sky, Leapingbranch." he breathed.

"Not all of us. Your mentor never told you stories, did he?"

"Not often, no. Did yours?"

"Nevermind."

Okay then, thought Martentuft, relegating himself back to the silence. A bat soared overhead, and Martentuft wondered if any of his clanmates had ever caught one. Would bat meat be closer to mouse or bird, seeing as it was a mouse with wings? Would it be edible at all? What would the wings taste like?

"You kind of look like a RyeClan warrior. Thick fur. Serious expression. Red coloring." Leapingbranch idly batted his ear.

"What are you even trying to imply anymore?" asked Martentuft uneasily.
"Nothing. I'm just tired."

By the morning, they were so weary they couldn't form words and even Leapingbranch's idle, nonsensical chatter had stopped. Only Cranewing retained any kind of composure as the new warriors entered the camp that morning, eager more than ever just to sleep.

In the warrior den, three new nests were already prepared. They were brand-new and exquisitely soft, lined with feathers and several layers of moss. As they entered the den, several warriors clustered around, and Almondscratch beamed with pride. Martentuft could scent his former mentor's smell on the feathers, and guessed that he had plucked all the feathers out himself. He felt an intense gratitude as he lowered himself into the bed and sleep took him like the river, dragging him downstream into a sea of strange and vivid dreams.

Martentuft looked on at two silver cats not unlike the two eager apprentices he saw each day, but these two cats were much older, and their eyes shone like stars... They were arguing, and their every word split the heavens and the earth beneath his feet.

Don't go, he thought, but one of them was already running.

The dream shifted without warning, and now he was inside a nursery, staring out with his eyes open for the first time in his life. A dusty-furred she cat was close by his side, staring out with dangerous curiosity in her eyes.

"This is ours," she whispered.

The land past them glowed in radiant shades of gold.

(a/n: i relate to leapingbranch because i, too, say stupid things late at night. anyways sorry for how slow this book starts up. the plot's kind of a slow burn as well but already... i'm planting the seeds... i swear... anyways as usual your support is appreciated- i read all my comments and treasure all my readers, and will keep working to produce the best product possible (thumbs up my friends). also since this story is a little looser outline wise i was thinkin' if anyone wants to suggest POVs i'll take one popular request at the milestone reads: 1k, 2k, 5k, etc. 

cats we've already seen are fine because yes there will be repeat povs. a lot of them.)