- ♛ -

Robinpaw stretched his back in a long arch, digging his claws into his soft nest. Yawning, he pricked his ears as a scuffle drew his attention towards the farthest end of the healers' den.

Magpiesnout, a sleek black healer was sorting through old dried herbs of all scents, stifled by time. "How are you feeling?" they asked.

Robinpaw took a moment to answer the non-binary healer. He stretched all of muscles out in turn and felt no difference in any of them. After bruising his shoulder while hunting that white robin, he had been stuck in the healers' den for a few days - though to him it felt like moons. "I feel fine," he replied truthfully. "Can I return to training now? It's been so long."

Magpiesnout studied his shoulder. "Alright, it looks fine to me but I'll check in with Quailstep before I let you go. She's more experienced than me."

Robinpaw pushed down a feeling of frustration. He had been waiting in this StarClan-forsaken den for so much longer than he could handle already. Who knew when Quailstep would come back! But he put on a stony mask of calmness and dismissively turned his head away from Magpiesnout.

He twisted his head around to groom his back, picking out bits of moss and fern from his pelt and smoothing it down neatly.

"Robinpaw, you're free to go," Quailstep's sleek voice floated towards him while he was occupied in cleaning his pelt, and he sighed in relief, pushing himself to his paws with ease. His snow lynx bengal coat was soft and gleamed with health, his claws itching for a patrol and he bounded out of the healers' den without offering any gratitude to the healers.

The camp clearing was bathed in rosy morning light. The sun hadn't penetrated the cloud cover yet and the air still had a gentle nip to it. His eyes darted around the clearing, looking for his mentor. He spotted Dippernose by the fresh-kill pile, choosing a piece of prey.

Robinpaw opened his jaws to call out to his mentor but the sudden burning sensation of eyes on his back made him stop and spin around.

"Robinpaw, come," Hemlockpaw hissed as soon as Robinpaw's eyes had met his. The tomcat's pelt was poorly groomed but his eyes were bright. He hurried away towards the back of the apprentices' den, flicking his tail to beckon his brother forward.

Robinpaw hesitated and glanced back at Dippernose, who was still occupied. But curiosity took ahold of him and he shook out his pelt as if it would dislodge his sudden uneasy feeling. I'm going soft, he scolded himself. He padded after Hemlockpaw without looking back this time.

Bubblepaw and Hemlockpaw were waiting for him behind the apprentices' den. It was a mossy little area, and his paws felt cool and cushioned on the ground. Lichen hung off the boulders that circled the camp and it smelled of damp earth and water.

"What do you want?" Robinpaw snapped as his paw landed in a deep crevice covered with moss. Water seemed to have collected down there and he winced as he yanked out his wet paw, droplets of water flying everywhere.

"It started," Hemlockpaw began. "After we were sent off to hunt alone that day you got hurt. I had gone deep into the forest and I somehow ran into Bubblepaw. We decided to hunt together because it was dark in that part of the forest and we came across some interesting things." He nodded at Bubblepaw to continue.

Bubblepaw's eyes went wide and her voice lowered. "We stumbled across bones. Cat bones. We didn't touch them because they were so creepy but they were most definitely cat. We heard you falling and we ran back, but we didn't tell our mentors about the bones. Only we know where they are."

Robinpaw flicked his tail-tip. "Your point?" he mewed impatiently. He unsheathed his claws and dug them into the springy moss underpaw, the feeling of utter
frustration clawing at his patience.

"We . . . dare you to go and . . . move the bones," Hemlockpaw whispered, his voice dramatically lowering to a breathy tone.

Robinpaw rolled his eyes. "Of course not," he stated flatly. His mind flashed with the stories the elders told him about disturbing bones and graves. Perhaps it was a lie - either way, better to stay on the safe side.

"Are you scared?" Hemlockpaw jeered, an ugly sneer creeping onto his face. Robinpaw bristled.

"I'm not scared!" Robinpaw spat. He lashed his tail.

"Then do it," growled Bubblepaw.

"Unless you're too scared," Hemlockpaw added scathingly.

Robinpaw stared at his brother and sister, scowling. This wasn't like them. He was usually like this. "Fine," he hissed, anger pulsing through his veins. They had bested him, and he wanted to claw their eyes out for it.

He turned and stalked away, fuming. I'll prove them wrong!

- - -

Robinpaw dragged himself through the day's training distractedly, listening absentmindedly to Dippernose. He was worried about the dare more than he had shown his siblings and he had no inkling why.

"Robinpaw, what's wrong with you?" Dippernose halted in the middle of battle training, staring at him. "A kit could have blocked that front-paw-swipe. Maybe we should go back to camp." His shoulders slumped and he looked at his paws, obviously distraught.

Robinpaw hardly heard him. "Yeah, okay," he muttered.

"Let's go back to camp," Dippernose meowed, his voice dead. "Or not. You can stay here." He turned away, and Robinpaw finally looked up, disconcerted by his mentor's odd attitude. Dippernose didn't give up that easily. But it was good for Robinpaw. He could get to the bones.

Something made his stomach swirl uneasily. It was just bones, so why did it feel so wrong? He pushed the stories away from his mind's front lobe and walked to the spot where the bones would be, from Hemlockpaw's detailed instructions. He hardly heard or felt anything around him.

The forest deepened as the sky got darker and ascended into twilight. Robinpaw had veered off the trails at Hemlockpaw's instruction and as he looked forward through the brush his pelt prickled. The long grass was already flattened where Hemlockpaw and Bubblepaw had walked and it was easy to pick his way past thorns to where the bones should be.

The ground became stone, slippery with moss, and Robinpaw slid out his claws to have a better grip on the moss. He inched closer to where the bones should be until he saw a gleam of ebony bone and stopped.

The bones were covered in ivy and moss, but still visible beneath the undergrowth. The whole skeleton was intact, which was curious because Robinpaw would have expected a fox or bear to have messed them up by now. They were tinted green and dirty, but there was one spot that gleamed white. It was being dripped on by little rivulets of water running off a stone jutting out from the earth behind and a little above it.

Robinpaw trembled slightly as he drew closer. Mouthing a silent prayer to StarClan, he grasped the bones that must have been the front right foreleg and tossed them over his shoulder. He took the skull and bounded away from the skeleton, curving to the right and into a copse of large trees a little ways away, setting down the skull with an air of disgust.

A sudden chill swept his body and he felt eyes on his pelt, cold and furious.

Robinpaw spun around, terrified. His paws slid on the ground and he fell onto his back legs, scampering backwards into a tree, the rotted bark sinking water into his fur and down to his skin.

A glowing white cat, transparent but still solid, loomed over him. "Who are you?!" the ghost screeched in thunderous tones, raising a faded paw with claws that didn't look so faded. "Why have you moved my bones?!"