Malcontent Grumblings[Apprentices]

[shiningheart]

[/i] That pretty much seemed to Tawnypaw what each training session with Swallowstrike went like. It seemed that no matter what the apprentice did, her mentor still compared her to her father. Well, it could be worse. Swallowstrike could be comparing her to her brother, and StarClan knows she got enough of that!

The moon was rising. Tawnypaw could see outside the entrance to the apprentice's den from the way she was laying down. Every grain of sand, every blade of grass, was outlined in silver. The tortoiseshell apprentice huffed quietly and shifted in her nest, slamming her eyes shut and pleading with herself to go to sleep. Swallowstrike had sent her off to bed earlier, lest she be 'too tired' for a training session in the morning.

But energy thrummed through the she-cat. The training with the older she-cat wasn't nearly as tough as Tawnypaw would like it to be. It left her restless, that need to be up and doing something more. And it was ticking her off, that everyone else in the den was snoring away, keeping her even further away from sleep. Or maybe that was just Bramblepaw, the great lump...
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[shatter]

[/b]” Aspenpaw whispered, barely audible. “Are you still awake?”
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[shiningheart]

[/i][/u] Tawnypaw snorted quietly, opening her eyes so that the green of them glowed in the darkness. "Well, if I wasn't, I am now." she meowed dryly, but with no real bite in her mew. It wasn't like she'd been trying to fake sleeping.

Tawnypaw lifted her head to look at the other she-cat, a sigh being released without her permission. "Sorry. I can't seem to sleep. Too much energy in my paws, you know?" she asked softly, not wanting to wake her brother up.
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[/i][/u]?”

The apology was somewhat unexpected, but Aspenpaw paid no mind to it. She knew that Tawnypaw hadn’t meant any rudeness before, and even if she had, it wouldn’t have bothered her. The white and ginger she-cat turned her head so that she and Tawnypaw could talk face-to-face, at least until everyone else woke up. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen too soon; the younger she-cat enjoyed the company, even if she had to put up with the tortoiseshell’s sharp tongue.

“I know what you mean,” Aspenpaw mewed in response. Her voice was naturally soft, carrying just over the sound of the other apprentices’ deep breathing. “I’ve got the same feeling. I wish we could go hunting. The moonlight makes everything look so… mystical.” She realized after she said it how kit-like that last sentence sounded. But at a mere seven moons, she was just barely an apprentice herself: she could dream, right? “Foxheart hasn’t taken me yet though, at least not at night. I hope she does soon.”

A breeze managed to blow into the apprentice’s den,. Aspenpaw shivered, bunching up more tightly to conserve more body heat. With her short fur, any sort of chill proved to be the bane of her existence. She silently wished it could be leaf-green or leaf-fall all the time. Maybe that was what StarClan was like…?

Realizing that her thoughts were leading her astray, Aspenpaw shook her head. Her ears swiveled towards Tawnypaw to show that she was listening intently.

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[shiningheart]

[/i] we go hunt?"[/b]

She eased away from her brother slowly, fearing he'd wake, before crawling over to Aspenpaw and whispering conspiratorially, "It's not against the rules for apprentices to leave the camp at night, just without permission. We can tell the night guard we're going hunting because we can't sleep. It'd be true enough, right? And if not, well, there's always the secret exit behind the nursery, right?"
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[/i][/u]"

Aspenpaw's amber eyes widened with curiosity as she considered Tawnypaw's question. Everything the older apprentice had said was true, at least as far as she knew, but there were other factors to consider as well. What would Tigerstar think? The white and ginger she-cat didn't know their leader very personally, but Tawnypaw was his daughter. If she felt it was okay, then it must be. But there was still Foxheart, Aspenpaw's mentor, to consider. Despite the moon of training Aspenpaw had spent with the deputy, she felt that she never really got to know her except on a very formal level.

Aspenpaw tried to think about what Foxheart would do if she found out. The worst punishment she could dish out that the apprentice could imagine was cleaning out the elder's den, but that in itself wasn't horrid, just boring. Aspenpaw could easily imagine this night being just as boring if she didn't leave camp with Tawnypaw.

She looked up and her eyes met Tawnypaw's own bright green ones. "Okay, sounds like a plan." She mewed quietly, glancing through the nettles and ferns that made up the den. Not a soul stirred outside. "I don't know how Foxheart will react though. Do you think we should ask? Or just sneak out?" Whichever Tawnypaw decided, Aspenpaw was almost sure to follow; she was so easily swayed.

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[shiningheart]

[/u][/i] Tawnypaw's tail twitched in triumph. She'd been planning on going out even if Aspenpaw had refused, but was still quite happy for the company. ""I don't know how Foxheart will react though. Do you think we should ask? Or just sneak out?"

It was a good question. The sneaking out part, not how Foxheart would react. She'd just tell the older she-cat it had been her idea and that she'd just wanted to impress her father, braving the unknown darkness for the sake of her Clan. It was all a load of dung, but Foxheart was almost as big a Tigerstar fan as Swallowstrike. She'd buy it, if only because it was Tigerstar's only daughter.

Still pondering, she answered in a distracted whisper, eyes narrowed in thought. "It depends on who's the guard. Eagletalon won't let us out without a darn good explanation, and just wanting to hunt won't be good enough for him. Nettlestripe wouldn't even let us near the entrance. Swallowstrike should let us, if it's her. I'll just tell her the truth: that we couldn't sleep and wanted to burn the energy off of our paws."
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[shatter]

[/b]” she whispered, returning to her spot next to Tawnypaw. “But I don’t think we should take the chance that it might be Nettlestripe, or they’ll know that we snuck out if someone comes looking.” She flicked her dappled tail to the side. “Maybe we should head straight for the nursery. You said there was a secret exit back there?”

The younger apprentice glanced around the den at the other sleeping apprentices. Almost all of the mossy nests had a cat contently dozing on top of it. ‘They won’t miss if two more were empty for the night…’ She thought to herself, a gleam of mischief glowing in her eyes. Tawnypaw was already starting to rub off on her. ‘Besides, we won’t be gone the whole night.’ Her confidence in Tawnypaw’s plan was growing; there was no way this could go wrong.

She turned back to Tawnypaw. “You should probably lead the way,” she mewed quietly, before turning and padding around the others to the entrance of the den. “I don’t know exactly where it is.” Aspenpaw hadn't been the most troublesome kit in the nursery, and she wondered if Tawnypaw had discovered it before or after she became an apprentice.

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[shiningheart]

[/b] She listened for the pawsteps of whoever the night guard was. She could hear them pacing back and forth, either trying to get warm or trying to stay away. Again, it depended on who it was.

The paw steps halted on the other side of the clearing, and Tawnypaw gave a quiet hiss. "Okay, go!" She slid quickly yet silently from the entrance, darting without a sound to the darkness the rising moon created between the den and the barrier.
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[/u][/i]!”

Aspenpaw dropped into her stalking crouch, a very natural position for her, even for such a young apprentice. Stalking and tracking she had already found to be her specialty, and hopefully in this instance her skills would prove useful. Sneaking by cats, sneaking up on prey, it was the same difference, right? But it was too bad about her pelt; while the orange-ginger splotches weren’t so bad, the white fur reflected the moonlight streaming through the branches almost as brightly as the moon itself. The she-cat sank low and did her best to match Tawnypaw’s long steps, hiding in the older cat’s shadow. At the same time, her bright eyes scanned the ground to avoid stepping on sticks and leaves that would surely give the duo away.

When they reached the dark space between the den and the brambles that surrounded camp, she slowed and stopped. "I don’t think they noticed.” She whispered, doing her best not to wake the sleeping kits and queens. “We should be safe. Lead the way.” She flicked her tail in eagerness; willing to follow, but not so quick to lead.

ooc.
Should we close up this thread and start a new one in the ThunderClan territory sub-board?
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[shiningheart]

Yeah. We'll ask Tango to close/move this thread when she next comes on.

The two stopped once they were relatively safe and listened for a cry of alarm or the sound of pursuit. Nothing. Tawnypaw relaxed just as Aspenpaw repeated her own thoughts. "I don’t think they noticed.” Thank StarClan. Tawnypaw may have sounded confident before, she still didn't want to get caught and subsequently get into trouble. Aspenpaw might be let off with little more than a warning and a slap on the paw, since she had a decently clean record. Tawnypaw's, needless to say, wasn't as good. “We should be safe. Lead the way.”

Tawnypaw twitched an ear to acknowledge she heard before slowly and carefully crawling forward. She didn't want to step on a thorn and accidentally wake someone up by squeaking in pain. She found the hidden hole more by scent than sight. The faint smell of an ex-ThunderClan warrior, Graystripe, was still there from when he'd been sneaking out to meet a RiverClan she-cat. "Here." she breathed, sliding through the hidden exit with little difficulty.

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