Outcast

Lionpaw stifled a twinge of jealousy. Not long ago, Honeypaw had seemed to like him best. It was hard to lose her admiration so soon after he had been forced to give up his friendship with Heatherpaw.

“Your turn, Lionpaw!” Berrynose broke into his thoughts.

“Let’s see what you can do.”

Who made you my mentor? Lionpaw glanced around the clearing for Ashfur, who should have been in charge of the training session, but he was several fox-lengths away, demonstrating a move to Hollypaw.

“Come on, you lazy lump,” Berrynose urged him. “You’ll never get to be a warrior sitting on your tail all day.”

No? Lionpaw gritted his teeth. If I looked at you, I’d think that’s all warriors do!

“Come on, Cinderpaw,” he meowed, beckoning with his tail to the gray apprentice who sat at the side of the clearing.

“Let’s practice.”

Cinderpaw bounced up to him, her fur bristling with eagerness and her tail fluffed out. She was moving confidently, Lionpaw thought, as if the leg she had injured felt fine.

As she approached, she aimed a blow at his ear with sheathed claws. He dodged to one side and tried to unbalance her by butting his head into her shoulder, but Cinderpaw stayed on her feet and wrapped her forepaws around his neck, thrusting him to the ground. Lionpaw battered at her belly with his hind paws. After a few heartbeats Cinderpaw let go and sprang away from him, waiting for him to get up again.

“That was great!” he panted. He knew he would have won eventually.

Cinderpaw was glowing with pride that she was getting her fighting skill back again. “Let’s try again!”

“You know, Lionpaw, you got that move all wrong,” Berrynose interrupted. “You should never have let her knock you over. If that had been a real fight, she could have bitten your throat out.”

Lionpaw spun around to face him; hot fury flooded through him from ears to tail tip. “I suppose you found that out when you were fighting ShadowClan,” he taunted.

Berrynose sprang off the rock, his ears flattened and his neck fur standing on end. “Don’t talk to a warrior like that!” he spat.

“Then stop being such a know-it-all!” Lionpaw retorted.

“You’re not my mentor, so stay out of my fur.”

For two mouse tails he would have hurled himself at Berrynose and raked his claws across the cream warrior’s muzzle. But he knew he would be in big trouble if he attacked a Clanmate for real, not as part of a training bout. Turning his back on Berrynose, he stormed off to the side of the clearing, where he stood with his flanks heaving, trying to control the waves of rage that surged through him.

“Just wait till I’m a warrior,” he vowed under his breath.

“Then I’ll show you who’s best at fighting.”

“Take it easy, Lionpaw.” The calm voice felt like a draft of cool water. At first Lionpaw thought it must be Tigerstar, and he looked around for the shadowy tabby figure. Instead, he spotted Stormfur sunning himself in a quiet patch of sunlight at the foot of an oak tree.

Awkwardly Lionpaw dipped his head to him. “Sorry,” he mewed. “But I can’t stand it when Berrynose acts like he’s Clan leader.”

Stormfur let out a sympathetic murmur.

“I know I shouldn’t let him get to me, but I can’t help it,” Lionpaw confessed. “Sometimes it’s the other apprentices too. Well, not Hollypaw, but the rest of them. I feel like I have to be the best all the time.”

Part of him was horrified that he’d blurted all that out to a senior warrior. There was no reason for Stormfur to care about his problems.

“Why?” the gray-furred tom asked.

“I don’t know why!” Lionpaw hesitated, thoughts battering his mind like a storm, then added, “I suppose I do know, really. It’s because I’m Firestar’s kin. There’s never been a leader like him, and every cat will expect me to be just as good because I’m related to him.”

“And Tigerstar?” Stormfur prompted.

Lionpaw dug his claws into the ground. How could Stormfur possibly know about his meetings with Tigerstar and Hawkfrost? “T-Tigerstar?” he gulped.

Stormfur blinked at him. “I know what problems your father had. Brambleclaw was always afraid the Clan would never trust him, because they hated Tigerstar so much.”

Lionpaw had never thought of that before. It was hard to imagine his father as a young cat, uncertain of his place in the Clan.

“What was my father like?” he asked, padding up to Stormfur and sitting beside him in the comforting splash of sunlight. The fur on his shoulders began to lie flat again; he had almost forgotten the quarrel with Berrynose. “What was it like when you went on the quest together?”