Unsurprisingly, the next day, Clawpaw was reprimanded by his mentor for leaving camp without supervision. He kept his head down wordlessly as Frostblaze let out a sigh.

"You shouldn't leave camp without supervision, especially at night. I know you are not a kit anymore, but you are not ready to wander alone, even if it's our territory." He noticed that her tail was twitching, as if she was under stress, which only made him more guilty.

"I'm sorry."

Frostblaze closed her eyes and opened them after a moment of thought. "If you are, remember to apologise to Specklebreeze later. For now, follow me."

Clawpaw sped up to match her paw steps, ducking his head to avoid the thorns as they headed out of camp. "What are we doing today?" he asked, taking a deep breath of the fresh forest air.

"You'll see," was her short answer.

A frown found its way into his gloomy expression. Was invoking a sense of mystery really necessary? He was already tired of trying to figure out his own uncertainties, but he kept his jaws shut. Instead, the young tabby changed his focus to his sense of smell. The memory of that foul scent from the previous night was still fresh and he wanted to check whether he was imagining things.

Much to his disappointment, Frostblaze turned away from the Great Sycamore and towards the border with RiverClan. He tried to hide it by observing and sniffing their surroundings, pondering on how he was going to have to remember that route one day.

Clawpaw knew that they had reached their destination when he caught a whiff of fishiness. The river was the indicator of the border separating ThunderClan and RiverClan, as Frostblaze showed him previously.

His amber eyes fell on the set of stones in an open clearing. He imagined its lulling warmth that elders used for sunbathing for countless moons and his mouth watered at the rich scent of his favourite prey. It was no wonder Sunningrocks was constantly fought over in the past.

"Are you going to teach me how to hunt?" Clawpaw asked, as a newfound eagerness replaced his sour mood. He could almost taste the juiciness of those water voles...

"No," his mentor meowed. "We are here to collect moss. It grows well near damp areas like this place."

Yet again, reality was a letdown. A sign escaped from his jaws, though he did not voice his thoughts out.

"I know," Frostblaze began. "It's not a glorious task. I, myself, dislike having to do these chores, but as an apprentice, it is now one of your responsibilities. Blazestrike and I had to shoulder them for several moons because ThunderClan lacked apprentices."

"Does that mean I have to do them all on my own since I'm the only apprentice?" Clawpaw didn't want to sound like a whiny kit, but the thought of it was too much for him to keep his complaints in.

"Of course not," Frostblaze responded quickly. "I'll do them with you. Come, I'll show you the proper way to collect moss."

"Watch carefully," was all she meowed before getting to work. In a deft manner, she sliced off a chunk of moss and pressed onto it to squeeze out the excess water. Clawpaw blinked and a perfect - to him - piece of moss was set at his paws.

I didn't even catch it... he thought, awed.

"How about you try it now?" his mentor spoke.

"Actually..." he began, embarrassed, "... could you show me again?"

Frostblaze nodded. "We do it together this time."

Cut off moss, press onto it... I think.

He attempted to do what she did, slicing off a piece of damp moss with his claws. What came out was a size of moss not even comparable to the size of his paws.

Clawpaw looked to his side to see her moss, which was much better than his. Determined to make her proud, he tried again.

The result was better than the previous one. At the corner of his eye, he watched how Frostblaze pressed onto the moss and did the same the best he could.

"Did you get it?" she asked, looking over to see his work.

"Um..."

The apprentice stared at the flattened piece of moss he made and ducked his head. "I messed up..."

I didn't realise the moss was so fragile.

"It's okay, you can always try again," Frostblaze reassured him.

They went on like this for a while until a good portion of moss was collected. Clawpaw wasn't sure whether he did a good job, but he was certain that his mentor wasn't pleased with him.

"That should be enough for now," she meowed. "Let's bring this back to camp and we can get something to eat before we continue."

"Okay."

"I think we have enough time to start on basic hunting techniques," Frostblaze added, which perked him up.

"Okay!"

~~~~

Much to his surprise, Clawpaw managed to understand the basic hunting techniques quickly. Applying them, he started to realise, was not that easy.

"Keep your paw steps light," Frostblaze instructed him. "The mouse escaped because it sensed that you were approaching it with your heavy paw steps."

"Got it." He was focused, burning to get her approval as he tried to pick out the scent of more prey. There was none.

The dark tabby moved closer towards Sunningrocks, remembering the rich scent of prey he caught there. Frostblaze followed him, watching his every move.

When he was nearer, he found that he was right. There were prey everywhere; he just have to snuff them out.

Clawpaw spotted a vole by the river and immediately prepared to pounce. Letting his instincts kick in, he pounced straight for the vole excitedly.

Too late, he realised that he put too much strength into his jump, and missed his prey completely. Instead, the apprentice fell into the river with a yelp of shock.

Panicking, he thrashed in the river wildly, trying to call for help but water only entered his jaws. Frostblaze appeared in his blurred vision and pulled him out of the river.

"Clawpaw, are you okay?" she asked.

Clawpaw coughed out some water. "Yes..."

"What exactly happened?"

"I-I think I jumped too far..." he mewed, shivering slightly. "B-but at least I caught a fish!"

He gestured to the fish that was accidentally caught in his claws. Before she could respond, the fish slid out of his claws and plopped back into the water.

Oh.

"I think that's enough for the day," Frostblaze meowed. "You are too soaked to continue."

He nodded and went to one side to shake off most of the water from his fur. He tried not to sulk but it was hard. If I had caught something... maybe I could have given it to Specklebreeze as a sorry gift...

As they padded back to camp, Clawpaw caught a tiny whiff of that strange scent from last night and froze. His amber eyes darted around the forest and his nose pinpointed it in the direction of Snakerocks.

"What's wrong?" Frostblaze had stopped and went up to him.

"There's a weird scent from there," he muttered uncertainly.

"Snakerocks?" She lifted her nose to check it. "I don't smell anything. Maybe it's the scent of snakes you caught."

"Okay." The scent seemed to have faded anyway.

"And Clawpaw," she continued, "never go there. A snake's bite could kill a cat in heartbeats. Got it?"

Clawpaw nodded seriously and tried to ignore the weird feeling in his belly as he walked away.

Was he really just smelling things? He wanted to believe that, but if that was so...

Why did he feel so anxious?

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Updates will be very less frequent because of life stuff. The usual, unfortunately. ^-^"

I will try my best to finish this story. Thank you for your support!

Some foreshadowing is in place for future events, some very obvious, the rest less. Can you guess it?