Cloverkit
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"Because they are," Jadestar sighed regretfully. "We haven't got any mentors to give them."

Crescentpaw tilted her head.

"Why don't both of you mentor one apiece?"

"Because we've got our paws full being acting mentors to our daughter, defending our camp, marking the borders-."

"Why not let their mother mentor Rainpaw? And then you would have time to mentor one of her kits." She couldn't help interrupting. The solution seemed simple, right there in front of them so  effortlessly that even a mouse could reach out and grab it. Sootface growled impatiently, but it wasn't him who spoke up.

"You're a Riverclan apprentice," Jadestar began condescendingly. "So don't start thinking you can advise me on my mentoring methods." Her meow was strained and testy.

"Nothing like that. It was just a suggestion." I was just trying to give the most obvious of advice. Great Starclan.

"Another one would be that you could assign them as apprentices anyways, with or without acting mentors. Then assign official ones before their assessments later on," she pushed.

Rainpaw was shaking her head with an alarmed gaze, but Crescentpaw didn't notice. The two kittens had stopped playing, and together they walked up with excited and hopeful gleaming eyes.

"I want to be an apprentice! Please, Jadestar?" Oatkit trilled strongly, his voice ringing out across camp. His small fluffy tail was stuck straight up behind him, while his sister stuck out her tongue and said, "Me too! I've waited AGES!"

"Stop that," Pepperpelt scolded. Jadestar's gaze grew exasperated as she whipped her head towards Crescentpaw and remarked, "You know nothing about matters like these." She was nearly hissing. The Riverclan apprentice flattened her ears, hackles rising uncomfortably.

"How am I supposed to preach about Starclan's will up on the flat-rock when no cat even knows if they still watch over us? I can't ask the clan ancestors to 'watch over these apprentices' when they might die the next day!" Ferns twitched in the breeze behind her lashing tail.

Jadestar's eyes narrowed and her chest heaved as she calmed herself down and then said, "They're safer staying as they are."

That's not fair to the kits. This is absurd..! Her jaws were itching to release the words and say it.

"Didn't you say we have to go somewhere, Jadestar?" Pepperpelt asked. The treetops rustled above them, branches gently creaking against one another. She moved closer to her kits and swept them near with her tail. They protested loudly, trying to jump beyond the confines of their mother's boundary.

"Yes, we're all going to the Riverclan camp for a deliberation with the other clans." Jadestar confirmed for her.

Or what's left of them, Crescentpaw thought rationally.

"I have to admit it isn't any safer over on that side of the lake than it is over here." She shuffled her paws and glanced up at the dropping sun.

"Right, we understand that." Sootface nodded and flexed his forelegs, glancing over at Jadestar. Crescentpaw scrunched her nose and looked away.

"After that we're going to send some cats to the Moonpool to communicate with Starclan. Sending one or two cats has never worked before. It's my understanding that Riverclan wants to send a whole patrol with all five clan cats, right?"

Crescentpaw nodded. Basically yeah. "Besides Shadowclan. Darkflower and Plumetail said they've... given up hope. Because Gravelstar fled to become a kittypet."

"Well, that's some news." Pepperpelt twitched her whiskers with amusement, then sat down to groom her paws.

"We've got to go now if we want to make Thunderclan territory by sunset," Crescentpaw meowed urgently. Her own paws were muddy and she had a layer of dust settled on her pelt, but she knew they had to keep moving.

"Let us fetch Hillflower first. She's in the medicine cat's underground cave, so she can't hear us." Jadestar then sat down and looked over at her daughter.

"Rainpaw, fetch Hillflower."

"What about my kits?" Pepperpelt mewed as Rainpaw moved away. Apprentices, Crescentpaw thought, but she didn't want to waste more time arguing.

"We'll protect them. We just have to pass by Thunderclan and Windclan on our way back to Riverclan."

The promise felt like an empty one. Her, protect what? With no front claws?

Pepperpelt looked skeptical, and glanced at her kits nervously before herding them closer.

Despite these thoughts she wasn't any less eager to get the journey over with. Crescentpaw truly believed that she was going to help save the clans... or at least play some sort of role in it. I'll finish this by myself if I have to.

It was odd, really. It wasn't that she felt invincible or that she couldnt't die; she was very much aware that that might happen.

The tabby-and-white apprentice simply realized that some cat had to do it. Before the clans died out. Before all the leaders fell. Before their ties to Starclan were cut off.

And if some cat had to do it then it might as well be her.

A clawless apprentice barred from a warrior name who was going to try and achieve the impossible.

🐈‍⬛

"Can we please stop to check their wounds now?" Hillflower fretted over at Crescentpaw. The medicine cat dropped her herb bundle to verbalize. She was small for a Skyclan cat, with broad but short legs; and a petite rounded head.

Crescentpaw faltered and gave an uncertain, "Uh, yeah. But quickly please." The tabby-and-white she-cat was too distracted to utter more. All of the cats behind her slowed to a stop.

They were almost encroaching upon Thunderclan territory. In fact, she thought they should've passed the border by now. Bramble thickets were almost everywhere, with thick clots of fern and wild-grown ryegrass stretching high above the cat's backs. In most places they had to maneuver around such foliage, which was adding more time to their travels.

Crescentpaw was frustrated by the fact that they couldn't just walk straight there. Some of the Skyclan cats were small and lithe enough to slip underneath or between the bramble thickets and hazel bushes; but Crescentpaw herself was too clumsy, large and inexperienced to make way like that.

Jadestar had been following behind Crescentpaw, but she now paused to look back at her clanmates.

"You should be asking me when we can stop, Hillflower." Jadestar sounded shrewd and cross at the same time.

"She's your leader," Sootface agreed with a grunt while Rainpaw stayed silent. Hillflower gazed impartially at the taller Jadestar, nodding. She then began peeling a layer of plastered cobweb off the wounds on Jadestar's tail.

"Yes, sorry. I only asked Crescentpaw because she's leading the way."

"She shouldn't be, though. She's only an apprentice." Sootface cut in again, his meows turning harsh and grating.

Crescentpaw's hackles began to rise, but clearly none of the other clan cats wanted to speak next. It stretched into a strained silence as she flicked her tail.

"I'm actually of warrior age. I just don't have a leader or deputy to appoint me as one; and no mentor to conduct an assesment."

'Only an apprentice.' I can't wait until the day that I can't be called that anymore! Why is it used as an insult? She kept her gaze bold and level with the other cats, shoulders stiff.

The kits that were previously gossiping behind Pepperpelt ran up to her, exchanging a glance at the random tension. Then Cloverkit opened her jaws and mewed "You have really cool eyes!" The black-and-white kit repeated what her brother had said earlier.

"Is your name Crescentpaw for that weird-shaped white mark on your face?" Oatkit asked.

She leaned down and began tugging out the bramble thorns that were stuck in her tail. "Yes."

"Cool! My name is Oatkit because I'm the color of oatgrass in late Greenleaf. At least that's what my mom told me. I haven't seen it turn a golden-yellow color yet." He blinked his large flaxen-colored eyes at her.

"I'm Cloverkit because I have green eyes and-... because I have a cute name, ummm and 'cause I'm popular and everyone searches me out because I'm lucky." Cloverkit puffed out her chest with importance.

Crescentpaw flicked her ears, feeling amused. She could tell that Cloverkit made that up on the spot. The tuxedo she-cat's eyes matched all of the forestry around her.

"Perfect names," Crescentpaw purred and waved her tail. "I can tell that both of you would make amazing Skyclan apprentices. Have you thought about your warrior names yet, though?"

The two kit's eyes widened as they turned to each other and then began shaking with excitement.

"Clovershine. Cloverleaf. Clovereyes. Clover-." Cloverkit raised a paw and began gossiping into her brother's ear.

Crescentpaw glanced over at the adult cats, who were no longer quarreling.

"Alright, make sure to try and keep this cobweb patch stuck on your eye." Hillflower was saying. "If it keeps falling off then the bleeding is going to persist."

"How much farther until the Thunderclan border?" The tabby-and-white apprentice asked.

"We already crossed it." Sootface mewed bluntly.

She frowned, lifting her tail and turning toward the heart of Thunderclan's deeper territory.

"They haven't marked their borders or sent out patrols for moons. Last we heard they had left for some other territory," he went on.

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Sootface