A new chapter SparrowxShade

[RiiRii]

Sitting at the entrance to the camp, tail wrapped neatly around her forepaws and her lean, agile, forepaws and tilted her head to the side, twitching an ear slightly and tore the grass softly up with her needle claws.

Where was her apprentice? After being newly appointed to Shadepaw, she wasn't sure how to act around him.
He is old enough to leave his foster mother, so he wouldn't be able to do much. This meant Sparrowclaw would have to show him around all the territory.

Shadepaw... She remembered it like it was no other, back when he was a kit and had got stuck between brambles. She had to walk into the bramble bush, cutting her fur and retrieve him. When she had met his parents, the hatred for rogues bubbled inside her and she had to hold back to warn them.

Now, she was here waiting. "Where is he?" She lashed her tail impatiently. She wanted to get the showing him around over with and get straight to the business of training and teaching.

[megasaffe]

Shadepaw was sitting in the clearing, licking his front paw in a gentle rhythm of purring, when he heard a yowl coming from the other side of the camp: His mentor, Sparrowclaw! Knowing the firey-tempered she-cat didn't like to be kept waiting, he hastily finished his wash and pelted over to join her, making sure he looked smart and presentable for his deputy. He was so excited, he nearly fell over his tail! Then he thought 'Oh yeah, look great that will. First training session and i'm already late'. His short but sturdy legs carried him onwards to where his deputy impatiently waited. "Sparrowclaw, I'm so sorry I'm late... I was focused more on my thoughts, and I allowed them to take my mind off my session. Shall we begin?" He sat on his hind legs as he waited for her reply.

[RiiRii]

She couldn't stay mad for long, the cute and small apprentice looked up at he with a worried look in his eyes.
The clan deputy rolled her eyes, the anger softening into love.
Quickly, she masked it.

"We'll be showing you around the clan territory..." She purred softly, licking her paw and cuffing her ear. "You want to go anywhere in particular?" She turned to walk out the exit of the clan camp, making sure he was following her.

[megasaffe]

"I want to go everywhere, Sparrowclaw! Borders, all the little nooks and crannies prey can be found in, everywhere! Where do you suggest first?" He hurried after her retreating form, quickly catching up. There was no sign of his earlier thoughts, his mind was entirely taken up with what he would be learning today. "Who was your mentor, Sparrowclaw?"

[RiiRii]

The she-cat paused, her paw held in mid air and then she thought silently. Walking onwards, lashing her tail as they headed towards the borders.
As they reached the marshy wetlands, the scent of fish began to linger with the scent of crispy grass.

"This is the Meadowclan border..." The young deputy meowed, sitting down and wrapping her tail around her forepaws. "My mentor was Hawkfur, before I was an apprentice I was a kittypet called Oak." She turned her head to look at the water, listening to the water push over the rocks and cover it with slime.
"Be careful where you tread." She warned, pointing to the lake with her paw. "The ground near has been eroded by water so it's basically clay and mud, in other words, the ground is weak here."

She turned to head up the border line, her paws leaving marks on the ground as she kept her ears perked. "A disease left the Streamclan recently, but you'll have to make sure to wash your paws up stream where it leads to the territory." Looking back at her apprentice, she brushed her paws over the grass, letting the mud rub off her pads.

[megasaffe]

"A disease?!" Here Shadepaw looked worried. "What kind of a disease... Did cats die?" He followed her carefully toward the border of the water, making sure to keep his weight low on his haunches so that he didn't sink in the clay. It felt sticky beneath his paws, and he didn't like the way it made a squelching noise. He followed his mentor's action, wiping his paws on the grass, before looking up at her in wonder. "So this is the Meadowclan/Streamclan border? It smells like fish!" Shadepaw here let out a purr of laughter.

[RiiRii]

Listening to the apprentice laugh, she smiled and nodded. "Many cats died." She purred, walking onwards, looking up at the meadow as it began to appear vast and over the place. "It would smell like fish, they fish for fish." She leaped over a small rock.

"Be careful where to put your paws, there is snakes and adders on the floor." She flicked her tail. "Since the sun is slowly coming out, things will get hotter. They should run away though."

[megasaffe]

Shadepaw's purr of laughter quickly died in his throat at this news. Snakes! He'd never seen one, but he'd heard of the calamity they could bring to a clan. It seemed like only yesterday he'd heard the screams of pain and loss coming from one of the clan, her only kit poisoned and killed where he lay. Still, he reflected to himself, at least it was quick and relatively painless. Being careful where to place his paws again, he picked his way gingerly towards her. "Sparrowclaw, is...is that a snake?" His eyes fell to the creature that was slowly advancing towards them.

[RiiRii]

She was casually walking happily, thinking and waiting for his next curious question when suddenly the question seeped through her brown tawny ears.
"Is this a snake?" She turned around, quickly and walked towards him.

There it was, the long brown diamond marked adder, the green tinges to its scaled skin and its cat eye never ending open and the snake curling into an S as it slithered towards the kit.
She learnt that the cats have to stand still and hope the snake slides past casually. Quickly and briefly, without thinking she dashed towards her apprentice, her body being at an advantage and being bigger than both snake and cat. As her long brown, grey and white flecked paws kicking the earth up and then her paws met the snakes body.

"Don't try this" the deputy hissed, unsheathing her claws she instantly stood on the snakes head. Claws digging into her head and breaking through the skull and penetrating the bone. Soon the snake stopped squirming and its tail lied still, she moved her paw and swiped at the snake, sending it hurtling into a tree and making it smack at the trunk.
"Of course, sometimes we might have to risk things for other clan cats."

She turned to walk onwards, this time being sure to walk beside her apprentice. Her tail against the cats shoulders. "Next we'll head to Pineclan's border, sound good?"

[megasaffe]

He was slightly shaken by the whole thing, but impressed despite this.

"That was amazing! But yes, the Pineclan border... Is there anything worse awaiting us there?"

He began to walk beside his mentor, taking comfort in the fact she was there to protect him. He'd certainly never underestimate anything again!

[RiiRii]

"The only thing you need to worry about, Shadepaw, is the pine cones and pine needles." She meowed, amused and walked up towards the area where the pine trees are.

As she pushed through some fern bushes, she looked towards her apprentice and suddenly paused. "Smell the air, tell me what you can smell?" She inhaled the air herself, scenting the pine leaves and the ragged bark, the smell of rabbits, faint fox and badger and then the smell of a patrol seeped through her nose.
Five cats, best to stay hidden but be able to see him. It was best that the apprentice knew what cats he could smell looked like.

[megasaffe]

"oh, erm... I can smell Pine, because we're walking through it, and I think that's a rabbit... And..."

Suddenly, Shadepaw became alert to a new smell, and he looked around in horror...

"T-that's not prey! Is that... Pineclan?" His voice was small

[RiiRii]

The older she-cat licked her paw and cuffed her ear. "Yes, that is Pineclan." She meowed, moving forward a little and then she turned to face him. "The cats over there are Silverpaw, Hawkstorm, Elmpaw and Loonstep."

As she said each name, she indicated her paw to each of the cats, being sure to stay low and hidden. "Remember their scents, Pineclan cats are non-believers in starclan so they may not also follow the code. They're not to be trusted."

She made sure to lower down when Silverpaw's light grey ears perked and the she-cat had started to look around, her blue eyes flashed with confusion before the patrol walked onwards, Elmpaw budging playfully into her side and Hawkstorm warning them.

As the patrol had disappeared into the foliage once again, Sparrowclaw turned to her apprentice. "Never steal prey from them, they'll go at any advantage to kill. Shall we go to FogClan's area next? You can tell when we're near because fog slowly comes over the border, but that's a bad thing for us since we can't tell where the patrol is." As she walked onwards.

[megasaffe]

"Sparrowclaw.... That silver cat... She was beautiful! Was she an apprentice like me? I guess she is, she had the name -paw..." Shadepaw tailed off.

He began to follow his mentor over the springy pine needles, being careful to be silent, but he needn't have bothered; the patrol had quickly left in the direction of the Meadowclan Border. 'Still,' he reasoned, 'it was a good thing we found those bushes to hide under; I don't think Sparrowclaw would have been able to protect me from ALL of them...'

The young cat suddenly realised he could not see his mentor, for there was a dense patch of fog blocking his way. Undeterred, he pushed on into the fog, and quickly found her.

"Sorry, Sparrowclaw... So this is the Fogclan border?"

[RiiRii]

"Falling for another clan cat is bad." She quickly meowed, "A cat from another clan, that is." the young she-cat turned her gaze towards the fogclan border and stopped.

"This..."She purred softly. "Even though it unseen to the cat eye, this is the border." She pointed with her paw to the borderline and flicked her tail, brushing the fog slowly into a swirl, or a small amount of it. "It's nothing to be taken lightly, either. Fogclan cats aren't trustworthy at all, most of the other clan cats are not." Her green eyes sparkled with grief, thinking of her family and how she wishes they were clan cats too.

Quickly, as it came, that grief faded and she turned to face her apprentice. "When the sun reaches the peak, it will help clear the fog a bit. This only happens sometimes, so don't take that lightly."
She turned to walk away, looking back to see if he was coming. "You hungry?" She finally asked. "I can quickly teach you how to hunt and whatnot."

This was easy, this apprentice training. Surely there was more to it than that? She shrugged the thought of training becoming harder off and then stretched. He was taught about the warrior code already, so she didn't need to go over that and he believed in Starclan too.. If all was all, he would indeed make a fine asset to the clan and a great warrior, even if he's not clan blood he will be and so will his kin...

Letting these thoughts flood through her mind, Sparrowclaw had paused mid stride and when she finally snapped back to what was reality, she realized how she was standing.
Quickly licking her pad and cuffing her ear and then licking her chest fur with quick embarrassed licks, she turned to await her apprentices answer... Or had he already replied?