Chapter 7: Moving On
Leafpool was dreaming. Two cats sat outside a small, cozy-looking barn similar to Sparrowheart and Mossflower’s old one. Their pelts, black-and-white and light brown tabby- were pressed together, and while Leafpool could see their mouths moving, as though they were speaking to her, she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
At last, the words of the black-and-white cat made sense: “Leafpool!”
Leafpool jolted awake, her eyes huge and round, when she heard her mate’s voice.
Crowfeather was looking at her in concern. “Leafpool, are you all right?”
“Of course I am,” mewed Leafpool, stretching and standing up. “I was just dreaming.”
Crowfeather looked momentarily relieved, but worry overtook his face so quickly that Leafpool wondered if she’d imagined his consolation. “Mossflower is due to have her kits in a moon. We haven’t seen this barn yet, and-”
“We’re nearly there,” Leafpool meowed with a confidence she didn’t feel inwardly.
Crowfeather’s whiskers twitched as if he didn’t believe her.
Leafpool yawned broadly, overlooking her Clan. Mossflower, her belly round with the kits she carried, was dozing beside Fawnstep and Hollykit. Breezekit and Lionkit were tusseling not far away. Jaykit and Sunpaw were having an apparently hot conversation.
“Crowfeather is a million times better than Sparrowheart,” stated Jaykit.
“Yeah right!” snorted Sunpaw.
Said Sparrowheart, Tawnyblaze, Stormpaw, and Rainpaw were absent from the clearing the traveling cats had found. Leafpool remembered that they were trying to improve the apprentices’ hunting skills.
“Once Sparrowheart and the others get back and everyone gets a bite to eat, we’ll move on. We’re close, I can feel it,” Leafpool told her mate.
“We’re a bit too deep in Twolegplace for my liking,” growled Crowfeather.
“Where better to find a barn?” countered Leafpool.
Crowfeather’s ear twitched. “Ravenpaw’s barn was a good ways away from Twolegplace, as was Sparrowheart’s.”
Leafpool frowned. “I know, but I just feel like we’re almost there.”
“Meaning that this isn’t Ravenpaw and Barley we’re seeking out?” assumed Crowfeather, his ears flattening with disappointment.
Leafpool suddenly recalled her dream, about the two cats outside the barn. One of the cats had had a black-and-white pelt, so it could have been Barley, but the other cat was light brown, not black like Ravenpaw. She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Crowfeather’s eyes narrowed, and he looked into the trees, which were quickly diminishing into the sprawl of Twolegplace. “Let’s just hope you’re right. Mossflower has to find a safe place to kit.”
Sparrowheart and his patrol came in soon after. Each cat had two pieces of fresh-kill swinging from their jaws, except for Rainpaw, who had...
“A pheasant!” squeaked Leafpool, racing over to the hunting patrol. Lionkit and Breezekit broke apart from their tussel to scurry to Rainpaw’s side, as did Sunpaw and Jaykit. Soon, the whole Clan was clustered around a very embarrassed Rainpaw.
“I just got lucky,” she blustered, scuffling her paws shyly.
“She scented it before any of the rest of us did,” Sparrowheart put in. “She was great!”
“Congratulations, Rainpaw,” mewed Leafpool warmly. “This along with all the other prey caught will feed the whole Clan!”
The little cat brightened considerably and offered to take her prey to Mossflower.
Once every cat had eaten, Leafpool decided it was time to move on. Soon, StormClan was traveling once more. With Mossflower and the kits surrounded by the warriors and apprentices and Leafpool and Crowfeather in the lead, they covered a good stretch or ground.
The sun was hanging above their heads when Crowfeather came to a complete halt.
Sunpaw run into his mentor from behind. “What’s up?” the golden-furred apprentice mewed.
Crowfeather ignored his apprentice and glanced at Leafpool. “I’ve been this way before,” he meowed.
“On the journey to the Sun-Drown-Place?” she asked. Crowfeather nodded.
“Do you remember any barns of importance around here?” asked Tawnyblaze from the back.
Crowfeather shook his head. “No, we kept on the move. We didn’t stop very often. But here I remember.” The gray-black tomcat flicked his tail toward a fence. “See that there? Squirrelflight got stuck under there. Feath- Feathertail used a dock leaf to flatten her pelt and help her squeeze out, I remember now.”
Leafpool tried to act nonchalant when he mentioned Feathertail, but she saw the pure agony that flashed across his face every time he said her name. StarClan bless him, she prayed, all of her sympathy pouring out to him at once.
”Why hello there!”
Leafpool’s fur stood on end as a voice meowed from somewhere beyond the fence. She immediately pulled Jaykit and Hollykit close to her, and she noticed that Fawnstep did the same with Lionkit and Breezekit. Sparrowheart and Sunpaw went to stand beside Mossflower, and Tawnyblaze allowed her hackles to rise. Crowfeather called out in a threatening tone, “Who are you? Show yourself!”
A tabby tom emerged from beneath the very spot Squirrelflight had been stuck in all those moons ago, but he was much too skinny to be caught like she had. He was very elderly-looking, his pelt thin and flea-bitten and covered with ticks. Clearly, he was feeling the bane of living as a rogue. “Hey! I know you, you’re that Crowpaw fella, whasisname...”
“Purdy?” Crowfeather’s fur flattened and his mouth fell open in amazement. “Purdy, what are you doing out here?” He flicked his tail, and the rest of the Clan lowered their hackles and flattened their fur, but they still looked wary.
“I could ask you th’same, Crowpaw,” Purdy meowed flippantly, scratching behind his ear with a hind leg.
“I’m a warrior now, my name is Crowfeather,” he mewed, his too-thin patience already wearing out.
Purdy looked at him strangely. “Oh yeah, I knew that. And you, you’re...” Purdy frowned slightly, looking at Leafpool. “I forgot your name, who are you again?”
“Leafpool,” she mewed patiently.
“A’right, Leafpool, but I don’t know th’rest of you,” he meowed as-a-matter-of-factly.
“Who is this flea bag anyway?” mewed Breezekit loudly.
Leafpool cuffed him with a hiss, about to tell him out for how rude he was (and how much like his father he was turning out to be), when Purdy said, “No, no, don’t get all mad at th’younglin’, I won’t deny I got fleas. M’name’s Purdy, by th’way.”
“Are you a kittypet?” asked Lionkit, struggling away from Fawnstep to get a look at the stranger. He didn’t look disdainful, just curious.
“He doesn’t smell like one,” commented Jaykit.
“Fawnstep used to be a kittypet, and she doesn’t smell like one anymore!” argued Hollykit.
“But that happened a long, long time ago, before we born!” mewed Breezekit.
Leafpool chuckled at her kits’ not-so-keen sense of time.
“No, I don’t be a kittypet, I live by m’self,” responded Purdy, scratching behind his ear again. “Are ya’ll lost or somethin’? Every time Crowwhatsit here came through, he and his friends were always lost, an’ I had t’get ‘em back on track, y’see.”
Crowfeather snorted.
“We’re not really lost,” meowed Leafpool. “We’re just not sure of where we are going.”
“Which means you’re lost,” Purdy mewed truculently. “Don’t worry, I know these roads like th’back of me own paw.”
Crowfeather found it fitting to snort again.
This time, Purdy seemed to hear him. “Well it’s true! Ya’ll woulda been lost all those times if’n I hadn’t helped ya!”
“Yeah right,” muttered Crowfeather.
Leafpool nudged him roughly. “Don’t be rude,” she muttered to him sharply before saying, “Actually, Purdy, I think you may be able to help us. Do you know of a barn where there are two cats living? A black-and-white cat and a light brown tabby?”
“Hm, barn with a black-n’-white... Yeah! I know just th’place, ain’t too far from here.”
“Could you show us the way?” asked Tawnyblaze.
“I sure could, I never really gone there m’self, but I do know how t’get there.”
“Oh, wonderful,” sighed Crowfeather.
I'm so glad I got to bring Purdy into this!! :D I love him and his accent. <3