MoonClan's ambitious story/(1): The First Four Leaders/2/10

### Chapter 10: SnowClan?

Birchpaw went into the small forest with Peonyclaw, and waited to hear what she had to say.

"Alright, now, listen to me, Birchpaw. First, you have to learn pouncing," meowed Peonyclaw. "Sure, you might already know as a kit, but this time, you need to learn how to do it in hunting duties."

She braced herself for a pounce, and leaped a rabbit-hop into the air. "Of course, you just need to go high & far enough to pounce on the prey. You also need to aim correctly. Jump too far, the prey will see you. Jump too short, the prey might have heard you. Either way, the prey would have a good chance of getting away. Practice this first."

Birchpaw nodded, and did the same thing she did. He pounced on a rock, then on a leaf. He kept his aim straight, and managed to land perfectly. He did this a few times, until Peonyclaw mewed, "Okay, you can stop now. Let's move onto real prey.

"So, if you want to find some prey, you have to try to walk silently. Luckily, us cats have pads, but it's best if our footsteps are deadly silent. Like this." She demonstrated, walking stealthily.

"You also need to keep your eyes & ears open to spot any prey," Peonyclaw said. "Try it."

Birchpaw nodded, and did what she did. He was focused, and heard something chewing. Peonyclaw seemed to hear it, too, and swiftly pounced on whatever was making that noise. Then she killed it with a single blow.

It was a mouse. "That's how you hunt. Now, this scrawny mouse along with another one is probably able to feed one grown kit. That isn't enough for the Clan. So we need to bring back much more.

"Now we have to bury the prey well enough so no predators can get to it. Remember where you buried it," instructed Peonyclaw. "Now, listen & look again for more prey."

Birchpaw nodded, and they kept moving. They spotted something else moving. It was a bigger mouse.

Birchpaw crouched, aimed, and leaped. He almost landed on it, but then it squeaked. Birchpaw aimed a blow, but it just turned the mouse over, not exactly killed it. The mouse tried to get back up on its feet, but Birchpaw took it into his mouth & bit hard. Peonyclaw was watching him curiously, and replied, "Good work. But maybe pick up the speed just a tiny bit? It's going to alert the other prey to hide, so we can't exactly find much more prey here."

*Pick up the speed,* thought Birchpaw uneasily. He remembered Primrosekit. *Oh no, Primrosekit wouldn't be able to do this.*

"Okay, Peonyclaw. I'm going to be faster. What about our prey?" he asked.

"Bring it back to camp, and I'll accompany you-" Peonyclaw replied, but then a rustling interrupted her. Then a white cat popped out.

"*Whitelight!*" Peonyclaw exclaimed furiously. "*You're in MoonClan territory! If another cat saw you you'd be total crowfood!*" Birchpaw was confused. Who was this Whitelight? And how did Peonyclaw know this cat?

Then Whitelight said, "I'm just here to tell you Briarstar is handling the Clan in... a not very good way. She's causing a mess of *everything!* Please tell your leader. The deputy, Honeywhisker, had sent me, Peonyclaw." Whitelight sounded like a she-cat.

"Ugh, fine, just get back to your territory, quick. I have an apprentice who just begun today, and I have to train him," Peonyclaw snapped. "And don't let another cat catch you in MoonClan, especially if you're from SnowClan."

Whitelight just nodded, took a slight glance at Birchpaw and slinked back into the bushes.

Then Peonyclaw turned to Birchpaw and growled, "Don't tell anybody about this. You only know about this because you just happened to be *here.* Got it?"

Birchpaw sheepishly nodded. He had so many questions, but he felt like Peonyclaw would claw him up if he asked even one word of them.

They went home with their prey in silence, and Peonyclaw told Snowstar what Whitelight told her, excluding anything about Birchpaw.

Then all of a sudden, his three kit friends ran up to him eagerly. Primrosekit just walked all the way here.

"Oh, hi... Birchpaw! You're back! How... was your... training with Peony...claw?" asked Primrosekit excitedly.

"Yeah, yeah, I want to be an apprentice, but I can't yet, so how was it?!" yowled Mountainkit delightfully. Swankit nodded, too. Birchpaw saw the excitement on their faces but remembered what Peonyclaw had told him, and what had happened.

So he just replied, "Peonyclaw taught me how to catch a mouse."

"Okay," mewed Mountainkit a little less excitedly. Primrosekit & Swankit's smiles dwindled a bit, but they nodded in reply.

Birchpaw felt so exhausted all of a sudden, as he usually was when he was a kit. He left them where they were, moved his bedding to the apprentices' den, and slept.

#### Two days later

Birchpaw was looking around for Rainkit, must be now Rainpaw. Then he saw Lilypool & Rainpaw.

"*Birchpaw! Birchpaw! I'm an apprentice now! I'm Rainpaw, Lilypool's apprentice now!"* screamed Rainpaw in delight.

"Congratulations," Birchpaw mewed calmly. "I think you'll be a fantastic medicine cat someday."

*"Thank you, thank you! You're the best brother I can ever have!"* she meowed again with excitement.

Quailpaw seemed to overhear, and he came up and simply said, "Congrats."

"Where's our friends?" Rainpaw asked Birchpaw & Quailpaw.

"Mountainkit & Swankit are sleeping right now. Primrosekit is with Quailpaw," answered Birchpaw.

"I was simply training her to try to overcome her slowness," meowed Quailpaw.

"What about Shadowpaw, Icepaw & Zebrapaw?" Rainpaw asked.

"Shadowpaw's hunting for the elders, Icepaw is with Zebrapaw. They're doing double training with their mentors," answered Quailpaw. Birchpaw remembered that Sandleap was Forestcreek's niece. They were related because of Snowstar, and so were Quailpaw, Rainpaw & Birchpaw himself.

Primrosekit walked up to Rainpaw and mewed, "Rain...paw, you are... now a med..icine cat? Congratu...lations."

"Yeah, thanks, everyone. Now I'm go to go get trained by Lilypool. Bye!" responded Rainpaw to everyone. Quailpaw and Primrosepaw nodded and continued playing, or training.

Birchpaw thought about his training so far. He had two hunting trainings, and one fighting training, all so far. It was going to be fighting training soon. His last one was pretty much about basic fighting rules. Then they did hunting.

Then he remembered Whitelight and how he shouldn't tell anybody about her.

When it was time for fighting training, Peonyclaw seemed to forget about the whole Whitelight thing.

Birchpaw attempted to pounce on Peonyclaw, but he spent too much time bracing himself, and Peonyclaw easily dodged.

"Be quicker," instructed Peonyclaw. *Quicker... quicker... quicker,* the words echoed in Birchpaw's head. It reminded him of Primrosekit's disability, where her reflexes were slow. It was an awful reminder of her. It made him feel very uncomfortable.

Birchpaw attempted to pounce quicker, but because of going too fast to properly brace himself, he stumbled while trying to pounce, and fell over. Peonyclaw stared curiously, tilting her head to one side.

"Also, don't go so fast you lose your balance," mewed Peonyclaw. "Remember your hunting training when you learned how to pounce. Except you are fighting with a cat, so you will need to do it much more quickly & much more hard. I'll demonstrate. Brace yourself for *my* pounce."

"Okay," Birchpaw said, breathing a little heavily. He was mid-way to holding his breath, but in half a second, Peonyclaw toppled him over.

"Get up," Peonyclaw nicely commanded. It took a second for him to get up.

"Now," she continued, unsheathing her claws. "You should know about these from your kithood and our last training. Remember to keep these sheathed during training, but you should have them unsheathed during a real battle to hurt your opponent much more and have a better chance of winning." She sheathed her claws and stated, "And now, you're learning to scratch enemy cats. Let's do a fight, and I'll see how good your abilites are. I'll go easy on you."'

Birchpaw made sure his claws were sheathed, so he didn't hurt his aunt.

Peonyclaw & Birchpaw began fighting, and Birchpaw tried to scratch Peonyclaw, but she immediately dodged, and leaped out of the way. From there, she immediately pounced on Birchpaw before he even had time to see where she went, and he got pinned by Peonyclaw.

Then she got off of him and responded, "A good start. Your flaws must have been your accuracy & thinking. You need to be swift to your opponent's actions, and also use that thinking try to aim where your opponent might go."

Birchpaw thought about what she said. *Swift.* Another painful reminder of Primrosekit probably not being a warrior at all. *Well, at least I'm not in her situation,* Birchpaw tried to reassure himself, trying to focus on his training.

They trained for a while until Peonyclaw concluded the training.

"Now, was there anything you wanted to ask me? You seemed painfully distracted," mewed Peonyclaw concernedly.

*Oh right,* Birchpaw thought. *Whitelight.* He was also thinking about Primrosekit, but he was way more interested about who Whitelight was.

"What about... um, that cat, Whitelight? That cat you were talking to a couple of days ago?" Birchpaw asked. He expected Peonyclaw to have gotten angry and scream at him and stuff, but she just smiled and replied, "I've been meaning to tell you about that. Whitelight... is my sister."

"Your sister?!" Birchpaw exclaimed. Some of his friends training stared at him, and Peonyclaw narrowed her eyes at Birchpaw for silence. Then she whispered, "Yes. Like I used to be Penelope & Flipsnow used to be Felicia, her name used to be Wendy the second. Don't ask me why she was named after our mother, Wendy, our Twolegs named us all, including our parents.

"Why did she end up in SnowClan? Well, like the three founders of the Clans, we used to be a trio, too. I was the calm and sensible one. Flipsnow was the intelligent & creative one. Whitelight was the rebellious & strong one. When we were kittypets, Flipsnow, Whitelight & I wanted to run off to Clans. Flipsnow & I wanted to be in our uncle, Wisdomheart's Clan, and also be with our cousin, Maplestripe, son of Wisdomheart & Queen, father of Primrosekit & Dandelionkit.

"But Whitelight... she wanted to be in her mate, Blackwater's Clan. Flipsnow & I didn't even *know* what in Silverpelt he looked like, so we tried to talk her out of the idea, and join us, but she left sooner or later without even telling us... I mean, we're still friendly with each other, but I don't like her very much like I like Flipsnow. At least *she* stayed with *me.* And we did fall in love with two best friends, Blazesky & Littleclaw. When we all were apprentices, we had crushes on each other. Now we're adults, and I mother your cousins, Zebrapaw & Stonepaw. Whitelight, obviously has kits as old as warriors. Their names are Juniperpetal & Paleeye, the former's a she-cat, the latter a tom.

"Only Flipsnow & I know about Whitelight's relation to us, not our mates, children, or Wisdomheart or Maplestripe or Rosepetal. Even Moonstar didn't know. No Clanmate of ours know about this... except for you now. Please keep this a secret and don't tell anyone, especially your father, the leader," finished Peonyclaw.

Birchpaw tried to process all this information, and his mind was boggling with all this information about Whitelight, Flipsnow & Peonyclaw. *Why did Whitelight want to join her mate instead of her sisters? Why was Peonyclaw still angry at Whitelight after so long?* But the most important question to him was, *Why did Peonyclaw want to tell me this secret info?*

Then Mountainkit came. "What was Peonyclaw talking about her sister?"

Birchpaw easily came up with an excuse. "Oh, we were talking about your mother, Flipsnow, you know," he said. "About her history."

"Cool, can you tell me?" Mountainkit asked eagerly.

"Sure, she used to be a kittypet named Felicia, and your aunt was named Penelope, too. And so, they ran off to the Mountain Clans together..."

He told Mountainkit the whole story that Peonyclaw told him, excluding anything about Whitelight.

Birchpaw thought about his training, again. About Rainpaw. Primrosekit. Swankit. Peonyclaw. Whitelight. Even Maplestripe & Wisdomheart. Quailpaw & Sandleap. Everyone he knew, almost.

*Are they actually okay? Are they harboring secrets like Peonyclaw's?* Birchpaw wondered worriedly.

He ate a hare for dinner, and thought about hares after that.

**This is a chapter subpage of MoonClan's ambitious story (1): The First Four Leaders.**

***This is the first chapter of Part 2: Birchpaw's Training.***

*← Previous Chapter: Chapter 9: Apprentice CeremonyNext Chapter: Chapter 11: Swanpaw, Mountainpaw & Berrypaw... Icepaw & Zebrapaw →*

*← Previous Part: Part 1: Little Birchkit's LifeNext Part: Part 3: Birchcreek's Selflessness →*