The Place of No Stars

I claw and climb, but only get myself more lost. This forest isn't the home I've always known. I trip on tangled roots. There something wrong with the night I've grown so accustomed to. The sky is almost red as dawn, but it's then I realize there's no light source. Not just no moon, but not a single star. I feel eyes on me somewhere, but even with my good eye sight in the dark, I can't make out where. I take another sharp turn. Trying to get somewhere, anywhere. The trees are dead, and I hear no birds above. I run faster. Jumping the best I can from root to root. I stumble. I roll to the dirt. I land next to a bone. Distally cat like.

"Nightpaw will you stop shaking like a kit?" I feel myself startle awake. I have to blink as my eyes adjust to the sudden light of dawn. I take a breath, and sheath my claws once more. I smell pine, and earth. I can feel moss underneath my pads again. I sigh. I had always had dreams like this. Of places I had never been before, or places I couldn't describe. The best ones were around the lake territory. I always felt safe within the boarders. My mentor pokes her head into the apprentices den. I had been frozen. Lost in my own memories. Going over the dream again.

"Are you alright?" She asked gently.

"Yes. Yes, fine!" I shake off the lingering feelings of dread. I stand to my paws.

"Are you sure? If you need a moment we can talk-"

"Are you coming or not Nightpaw!" I can hear Foxpaw calling. His mentor gives me a disapproving look. I've never been an early riser.

"Come on." Featherpaw, his sister, says encouragingly to me. Having already crawled out of her nest. I don't want to keep them waiting.

"It's fine really. Just a nightmare." I has trashed in my sleep before, talked or screamed in my sleep, and once almost walked out of camp in my sleep.

"Maybe you should see Owleye." I'd seen him before. Cats with vivid dreams was not completely unheard of. Years ago there had been a cat who slept walk. That being said it was rare. He had immediately determined that my dreams were not that of a medicine cat. Nor had he had an omen about me. It was a relief really. Though the closeness to StarClan was something I admired, desired really, I had no real desire to be a healer. Though talking though my dreams sometimes helped. I never really felt like Owleye was really listening. He was a busy cat, as he hadn't gotten an apprentice yet. I think he had hoped that I would be at first before he realized my dreams were just normal dreams. He was always welcoming, his demeanor was always cool to others, but he always seemed to have other things on his mind. Not that I blamed him I could relate. I crawl out into the dim light of the dawn.

"Let's go." I say firmly. I fallow after the small group of Featherpaw, Foxpaw, and their mentors. My mentor keeps my pace. Featherpaw's mentor Shadowfade slows to talk to Snowdrift. Snowdrift is the only white cat in ShadowClan right now. Shadowfade is black almost dark grey. The two cats talk in hushed voices. I wonder if Snowdrift is talking about me. I know she's a confident warrior, but she sometimes seems unsure of how to mentor- well mentor me specifically. I start to run. Just to run. I race past the mentors, and apprentices. Foxpaw actually looks impressed. I can hear nothing else, but the whistling of the wind in my ears. I slow down when I'm about to reach the clearing. It's not silent, but it's nice and quiet. I can hear a finch overhead. A thrush somewhere below. I stop, and wait for the others. I hear the finch land. Shadowfade points to it with their tail. Foxpaw starts to stalk the thrush. Snowdrift walks over to me.

"Where supposed to be going over battle moves." She whispers to me impatiently. Still, she looks around for something for me to catch, but I already hear it.

"Wait." She stills having seen me do this before. I position myself behind a root. A rabbit runs past just after. I take off. It's fast, but I'm faster. Sleek and built more like a WindClan cat. I catch it killing it in one bite. I may be the smallest apprentice, but I've got the biggest prey. We bury them for now. I wish my battle training had gone as well. We ended up pairing up in a sort of sparring session. I had beat Foxpaw who was the better hunter, but was beat my Featherpaw who was the better fighter.

"You'll win next time." She says, but seems proud to have won again. I'm relieved my mentor doesn't look perturbed at all. Still I feel as if I'm making no real progress. Of course, my apprenticeship had just started. My mother would say I'm being too hard on myself.

"Don't be down. You're bringing home quite the catch." Yes but I want to really feel like I've improved, that I've accomplished something.

"I'm not the best at anything in particular like they are though." I speak aloud my thoughts. "I guess I just wanna be really good at something."

"You're good at running." She says.

"Which is of more use to a WindClan cat than to me." I say.

"Hmm, maybe but that's the thing with skills you gotta get creative on how you use the natural ones you have and always remember that you can always improve on most things in life." I thought about her wise words as we all took a piece of prey from the prey pile. Shadowfade shared tongues with Snowdrift. Featherpaw and Foxpaw ate together like they always did. Owleye sat with our Deputy Vineleap. I spotted my mother in the crowd of cats; Finchfall. She sat with our leader Branchstar like she sometimes did. She waved me over with her tail. I walked over to her. Branchstar padded away to talk to Vineleap.

"Why aren't you eating with the other apprentices?" Finchfall asks.

"They always eat together." I state.

"So?"

"Foxleap doesn't like me." I state.

"Featherpaw is nice." She says.

"She's nice to everyone." I go on. "I like her. We get along fine, but it's not like she asks me about myself or anything."

"Well maybe you should try." I sigh. Somehow, I've always felt excluded in my clan. I love my clan, but cats never seem rather interested in what I wanna talk about, or if they do they're pretending to to be polite. I find Featherpaw a bit like that. My mother and Snowdrift listen to me though. I get along with Shadowfade. Though that's mostly because of Snowdrift. I walk over to the other apprentices playing a game just inside of camp. Featherpaw jumps onto a rock.

"I want to be deputy!" She announces. "Do you want to be leader?" She asks Foxleap.

"No way I want to be a warrior, being leader is boring."

"But you get to set up patrols and make decisions-" She starts.

"Yeah boring. I want to hunt." He complains.

"We need a leader and a deputy." Featherpaw says. I jump onto a bigger rock.

"I'll be leader." I announce. Foxpaw looks skeptical I've only played games of pretend on occasion. Preferring other games.

"Ok!" Featherpaw says excited to start.

"Featherpaw dictate morning and dusk patrol. Foxpaw put together a hunting party."

"And what will you do?" Foxpaw asks.

"I've heard ThunderClan may attack our boarder. Featherpaw keep a look out. I will make a plan." Featherpaw walks away and then walk back limping.

"ThunderClan attacked our patrol." Featherpaw announces dramatically. An idea strikes. I walk up to one of the bigger kits. Briarkit had snuck into Owleye's den once. She had mixed up all the herbs, but since then had insisted she will become a medicine cat.

"Come play with us. You can be our medicine cat." She jumps excitedly to her paws. He mother fallows a distance aways. The're both brown and white tabby's.

"ShadowClan I have found our medicine cat." Foxpaw looks skeptical, but greets the kitten with kindness.

"Great." Featherpaw says.

"Her legs hurt- and this is" I pick up moss. "Um-"

"Cobwebs!" The kit says. I pick up other moss.

"Then this is-"

"Broom." She says.

"Sure. Tend to her leg." A few of the other kits wander over.

"My Clan." I announce from my rock to both Foxpaw, and the kits. "We will divide and conquer." A few of the smaller kids look confused. "Half of you will cross the river and go left the other right along the boarder. They will see us coming, but will have surrounded them by then. For ShadowClan."

"ShadowClan! ShadowClan!" The kits cheer. I divide them into groups making sure that there's an equal number of smaller and bigger kits. Then I put Foxpaw in charge of one group, and me in charge of the other. It's a success, of course. The two apprentices go off together, and the kits scatter. I feel eyes on me, and turn around. Owleye was watching us.

"Ambitious are we?" I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It takes me a moment to realize he's looking at the kit. I made a medicine cat. She's still playing with the moss, as her littermates go to nap. "Want to be leader someday?" I suppose I do like being in charge. Then I can make sure every cat feel included, and taken care of.

"Yes. I guess so." I say cheerfully. He nods like he expect me to answer this way, but doesn't look away from Brairkit.

"Do you think she'll make a good medicine cat?" He asks. It takes me a moment to realize he's still talking to me.

"Well she's passionate and eager. And she already knows the names of herbs." And at the same day you had found her in your den. I had dreamed it too. Though I knew it wasn't a prophecy or anything. I had gathered that it would've had to been at the same time it happened. So I'd probably just overheard the conversation while I was asleep. Sadly, I couldn't seem to see the future.

"Every warrior should know how to treat a wound." Owleye says with a bit of annoyance. I back away as he seems lost in thought again. As I turn I do over hear his conversation with the kit. "Do you have any strange dreams?" He asks her.

"I have all kinds of dreams!" She meows excitedly, seemingly unperturbed by his awkwardness at talking to a cat so young. "I had one about pine branches tanged in vines, and one about a bird falling from the sky, and one about Nightpaw becoming the night sky, one about a kittypet and a really, really big dog in shadows, and one about my friend Pebblenose and-"

"What was that last one?"

"The weird looking dog?"

"No."

"Oh Pebblenose? He's funny. I like him." The kit says.

"That was my mentor." I can see him thinking. "Go back to you mom now." He walks away. I pad over to my own mom.

"I had a weird dream you know." My mother listens carefully. She had been sitting alone outside camp as she often did. I describe the forest, and the dread. Her eyes widen.

"You can't go there again!" She says urgently.

"It's was just a dream, and it's not like I wanted to be there." I say matter-of-factly.

"You can't tell anyone about these dreams. Not Owleye, and not ever Branchstar." Not even Branchstar?

"Mom where did I go when I slept?" My mom takes a breath.

"The Dark Forest."