Night Training

[Kitty]

So, his apprentice was headed for the marsh, huh? Icepelt followed him through the wet land. "What can you scent, Reedpaw?" he asked, stopping suddenly. He scented the air; he could smell traces of prey, the marsh (of course), ShadowClan cats, and just a faint hint of dog.

He smiled. Time to see what his apprentice had learned so far from his training.

[hedgie]

Reedpaw nodded, smiling. The young cream tom stared down into the marsh water, eyes full of concentration. His tail twitched and his paws itched to pounce on the prey that was all around the two toms.

"Frogs, lots of them, a few rabbits and...wait? Smokeheart! I wonder what she's doing here."
Reedpaw could smell something wrong about the young warrior. She smelled of anger, sadness, pain and of a strange and unfamiliar cat.

"Iceplet...there's something wrong with her." He mewed anxiously.

"Wrong doesn't een begin to describe it, Reedpaw." She rasped, her eyes guiltily facing towards the ground. She wobbled over towards the pair, trying not to fall onto her face.

"I'm sorry, Icepelt, to intterupt your training session, but could you please send Reedpaw away? I hae something to tell you that an apprentice shouldn't hear. I'll need to tell Specklestar and the medicine cat when they come back, too. It's important, really." Smokeheart growled uneasily, her ears back against her skull. Afraid of her own clanmates? What kind of warrior was she?

[Kitty]

Icepelt looked towards the she-cat. She seemed nervous and panicky. But she was a good friend of his, even if she was several moons younger, so he did as she'd asked.

"Reedpaw. Want to try something? Practice hunting mice at night." He waved his tail to Smokeheart, indicating for her to wait a second, and led the apprentice over to some somewhat drier ground amongst a little more undergrowth. "Try and catch some. Keep at it until I come back, okay?" He narrowed his eyes. "And don't leave the marsh. Stay over here. Its your best chance at finding mice." With a nod, he turned and padded back over the damp ground to Smokeheart.

He sat next to her, neatly wrapping her tail around his paws, and touched his nose to her shoulder. The touch sent several different scents flooding over him - pain, guilt, and...an unfamiliar cat-scent. "What's wrong?" he asked, alarmed. "What happened?"

[hedgie]

Reedpaw watched the pair for a few seconds before turning around. He dropped into his best hunter's crouch and proceeded to hunt happily for mice.


Smokeheart sighed, and straightened up. "Oh, Icepelt....Okay...so I'd been hunting all day and into the night, and I was taking a break. I had this rabbit, and I heard someone in the bushes. I sat up and hit my head...and then, dizzily climbed up a tree onto a very flimsy branch. I fell, broke this front leg here..." She turned so he could see it better. "This tom..who seemed nie, really, offered to help me. It was dark, cold and I was scared. I went with him. Felt like we walked forever...then we were in this cave..and I was so out of it on poppy seeds...and," she stopped, frightened to say more, but she pushed on. "And then...we,um....did some things that I really don't want to describe. I fell asleep, woke up...and made my way over here. I'm scared, and ashamed, and I don't know what I'm gonna do, Icepelt!" What if...no, not what if...what would she do about...kits? They'd come....there was no doubt. There was time before the rest of the Clan would notice, but what if everyone found out? They'd hate her!

[Kitty]

Icepelt struggled to keep calm. But in truth, he was scared. What would the Clan say? If they knew what Smokeheart had done? So he said, stupidly, "What are you going to do?"

Which was exactly what she was worried about. so she couldn't really answer that. He straightened up. "Well, what are our aptions, here?" he asked. Theyd figure something out. This was probably the reason Smokeheart had come to him for help. She would have known that he wouldn't tell anyone because he cared too much about her and her safety, and that he'd try to work out something to do.

"First thing's first, let me look at your leg." It was already facing toward the tom, and he leaned in to get a better look at it. Yes, it was definitely broken. It was twisted at an odd angle. Broken or a bad sprain.

[hedgie]

"That's the problem! I have no clue. I'll have to tell Specklestar and Littlebird. I mean...they have to know, right? We'll just lie, Icepelt. I can tell them I broke my leg falling out of the tree, which is true. I don't have to tell them who the father is....unless you want to lie and say they're yours...."

She sat back and let him look. "How bad is it, Icepelt? I can't put any sort of weight on it, that's for sure. It hurts worse than any other wound I've ever recieved." Smokeheart sighed, peering down at her own leg. It looked pretty horrible to her.

[Kitty]

Icepelt looked up from her leg. Would he really lie for her? Yes, he thought he would. To the Clan leader and medicine cat, even. He just hoped that medicine cats couldn't tell such things. "Well, I think its broken, but we'd need Littlebird to confirm it..." he admitted.

He took a breath. "If you wouldn't care about telling the Clan they're mine, then that would be...okay. I mean, we'd be lying, but..." The Clan couldn't find out about Smokeheart's secret. That would be horrible for both cats, if he'd gone along with it. This seemed like thhe only option for the youong she-cat. And it was true; they had been spending quite a bit of time together recently. "I'd love to help you out, Smokeheart." He smiled at the gray warrior.

[hedgie]

"That's really true. Neither of us knows a thing about herbs amd injuries." She sighed, standing up from her sitting position. Her ears twisted forward. She wasn't as scared as she'd been before. Icepelt had fixed it, than Starclan for that. She still felt a bit guilty, but pushed it away so no one would notice when they went back to camp.

She smiled as he accepted the idea. Despite the pain, she felt so happy that he could help her. "Oh my goodness! Thank you so much, Icepelt! I don't know what I'd do without your help! Listen...I'm sorry to cut you session with Reedpaw short....but can we head back to camp, please? I'm so tired now."

[Kitty]

Icepelt smiled. "You're welcome, Smokeheart. I'll tell him he can come back to camp once he catches two mice," he meowed. "Wait here." As if she was going anywhere. He was surprised she'd made it this far on her own. He trotted over to the undergrowth where'd he'd left Reedpaw, quickly located the apprentice, and meowed, "You can come back to camp once you catch two mice. Smokeheart's leg is broken, and she needs help getting back, so I'm going to help her." He nodded once, then turned and bounded back out to Smokeheart.

"Come on, you can lean on me,' he meowed, offering his shoulder.

[hedgie]

Reedpaw looked up, one mouse hanging, clamped tight, from his jaws.He placed it down and nodded. "Alright...won't take me much longer, really. I've already got one. It's actually not that hard. I hope she's alright. That's not the only thing wrong, I know...but no one's gonna tell me anything." He was slightly miffed by this, but he knew that if he worked on Heronpaw enough, his brother would find out for him.

Smokeheart nodded as he walked away, to go find his apprentice. She swayed slightly, wether it was from exhaustion or the fact she was only on three legs, she couldn't tell. She just wanted to hurry back.

[Kitty]

"Okay, let's go," Icepelt meowed, ignoring his apprentice's comments when he'd left. He figured it woldn't be the lst time he'd hear abuot this. But at the same time he was proud that Reedpaw had already caught one mouse.

He let Smokeheart lean on his shoulder and slowly, pawstep by pawstep, the two cats made their way back to the ShadowClan camp. "Just let me know if you need to stop to rest," he murmured in her ear.

[hedgie]

"I don't stop until we get there. You know me, Icepelt." Smokeheart mewed. She leaned against him to keep her standing, but she could barely keep her eyes open. She shook her head to kep herself awake. They couldn't be far from camp, could they?

Reedpaw watched them go, and stared out into the marsh, watching for mice. He'd catch another one soon and be on track for camp. Soon, he was dropping into a crouch, hearing the ruffling of a mouse nearby.

[Kitty]

Icepelt laughed. "You*re right, I do," he agreed. The poor she-cat looked like she was going to pass out any heartbeat. He felt bad for her, really. She'd had a horrible night so far. Falling out of a tree, meeting that loner...an unexpected surge of hate swelled up inside of him at the thought of the tom.

[hedgie]

She yawned, and shook her head again. Trying to shake off the exhauation wasn't working, but she had to keep trudging on.
Every pawstep felt so heavy and sluggish.

"Are we almost there, Icepelt?" she sighed.

[Kitty]

"Nearly," he promised. They were almost there. There was a lot of noise coming from camp. A cat was yowling about something, but they were still too far away to make out what they were saying, except for the fact that it was a she-cat. "Do you want me to go get the medicine cat?" he offered, thinking of Earthfoot. the poor ThunderClan cat was probably wanting to get back to his own Clan by now. "You can stay here. You probably shouldn't be moving much, anyway."