Warning! The following contains spoilers for the Power of Three series and The Fourth Apprentice.
Typed up by Seedfur
(I don’t care if you use this for your own purposes, just make sure to leave a link to this site somewhere)
From the back of The Last Wilderness:
Dovepaw trembled in her sleep.
“Dovepaw! Dovepaw!” Voices wailed around her as she struggled in the current, dragging at her fur, swirling her through darkness. “Dovepaw!” The cries were jagged with fear. Trees and branches tumbled past her, sweeping away downstream. Darkness yawned below, stretching so far beneath her that horror caught in her throat.
“Dovepaw!” Rippletail’s desperate, lonely whimper rang in her ears.
With a start, she blinked open her eyes. Her Clanmates were sleeping around her, curled in their nests. Briarpaw muttered something and tucked her paw tighter over her nose. Blossompaw and Bumblepaw lay back-to-back, their flanks gently rising and falling, their soft breath warming the chilly predawn air.
Dovepaw was safe.
Her sister, Ivypaw, stirred beside her. “Were you dreaming?” The silver-and-white tabby raised her head a gazed anxiously at Dovepaw. “You were twitching like a mouse.”
“Bad dream.” dovepaw fought to keep her mew steady. Her heart was pounding at Rippletail’s cry echoed in her mind. She stretched forward and licked Ivypaw’s head. “It’s gone now,” she lied.
As Ivypaw’s sleepy eyes began to close, Dovepaw breathed in the soft scent of her sister. I’m home, she reminded her self. Everything’s okay. Yet her heart still pounded. She stretched in her nest, a shiver running to the tip of her tail, and clambered to her paws. Padding carefully between the nests, she headed out of the den.
Moonlight bathed the deserted clearing, and above the rock walls that encircled the camp, the horizon was milky with dawn light. The mewls of Poppyfrost’s newborn kits drifted from the nursery, and snores rumbled from the dens. The air felt strange, cool, and wet on her muzzle. for many moons, Dovepaw had known nothing but the parched wind of drought, dry on her tongue. But now she could taste the green freshness of the forest, heady and mouthwatering.
Thin clouds drifted across the star-speckled sky, draping Silverpelt like cobwebs. She wondered if Rippletail was watching from among her starry ancestors.
I’m sorry. The words echoed in her mind like the lonely call of an owl.
Even though the long journey upstream was a quarter moon ago, the memory still ached in her muscles. Dovepaw had traveled with Lionblaze and two cats from each of the other Clans to track down the beavers that had blocked the stream and starved the lake of water. Together they had destroyed the dam and unleashed the torrent that had filled the lake once more. And now life was returning to the territories. She felt it in the rustling of the forest, heard it in the stirrings of prey beyond the edges of the camp.
Pride coursed through her. She had been the one to sense the beavers as they worked to block the stream. She had helped break their dam to pieces and now all the Clans would survive. But the memory was bittersweet, like yarrow on her tongue. The RiverClan warrior Rippletail had died fighting the large brown creatures, their heavy bodies stronger than foxes, their snapping yellow teeth deadlier than claws.
Memories of the journey had thronged in Dovepaw’s mind since she’s returned, and Rippletail’s death haunted her dreams. Did Lionblaze feel the same? She didn’t dare ask. Nor could she confide in Jayfeather about how much the journey still clung to her thoughts. They might think she was weak. She had a great destiny ahead of her. Finding the beavers was just part of it.
How could she ever live up to the prophecy that had been given to Firestar many moons ago? There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws.
Dovepaw was one of the three, along with Lionblaze and Jayfeather. The realization still shocked her. She’d been an apprentice less than a moon and now she carried more responsibility than a senior warrior on her shoulders. What could she do but hone the power she’d been given, the power that made her one of the three? She practiced each day, reaching out with her senses as deep into the forest as she could, listening, tasting, feeling for sounds and movements even Jayfeather could not detect.
Dovepaw crouched outside the den, her pelt ruffling in the damp air, and closed her eyes. She let the sensation of earth beneath her paws slide away, reached beyond the sound of Poppyfrost’s kits fidgeting in the nursery, and let her senses roam. Out beyong the stone cliffs that enclosed the camp, through the forest to the edges of ThunderClan territory, beyond the borders, over the lake, and through the trees beyond. The forest trembled with life, shivered in the early morning breeze, filling her senses with smells and sounds: mice scrabbling, birds shaking out their feathers before they began their morning song, an early ShadowClan patrol padding sleepily out of camp, their paws clumsy on the slippery, needle-strewn ground. the sharp scent of catmint growing beside the abandoned Twoleg nest bathed her tongue. The sound of water chattering over the rock-cluttered stream on the WindClan border stirred her ear fur. Two cats were padding slowly around the edge of the lake….
Wait!
Why were two cats slinking beside the lake at this time of day? It was too early for hunting. Two cats didn’t make a patrol, but these cats weren’t lost. Their pawsteps were heavy and deliberate as they moved along the shore. They knew where they were heading.
Anxiety pricked at Dovepaw’s pelt. She blinked open her eyes. She should tell someone. But how could she explain without giving away her secret power?
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What do you think the two cats are doing? Who do you think they are? Tell me in a comment below!
**Fading Echoes comes out on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010!**
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