Prey Digger's Romance Part 1



Based on the Glee episode "Showmance."

The Story
Fireheart’s POV

“Fireheart!”

“Yeah?” I murmured sleepily. I hadn’t been awake and out of the warriors’ den for ten seconds without Featherpaw ambushing me.

She set down the large hare she was eating. “I was searching around in the piano yesterday and found some sheet music that would be perfect for me to sing on lead vocals.”

“It’s alright, Featherpaw.” I slipped back into the warriors’ den and returned with several papers. “I found my own.”

“Oh, okay,” she mewed, looking slightly disappointed. Picking up the hare, she headed back towards the fresh-kill pile.

“Here, let me help you with that.” Crowpaw appeared by Featherpaw’s side and helped her carry the hare.

“Thanks, Crowpaw.” She looked at him with adoring eyes. “You’re so chivalrous.”

“Thanks. That’s a good thing, right?”

I could have watched and chuckled at them the whole day, but then Hollypaw, Mothpaw, and Ravenpaw were suddenly trotting up to me. Well, Ravenpaw was half-trotting, half-wheeling.

“How you guys doing?” I purred.

“We’re just practicing our singing and we wanted to show you,” meowed Hollypaw. She let out a few high notes while waving her pink-clad tail in the air. Mothpaw and Ravenpaw joyfully repeated the singing and movement in unison.

“Cool, I like the little tail wave,” I remarked. “Well, I better grab some fresh-kill and see if any of the patrols needs an extra member. Don’t forget to come to rehearsal after sunhigh!”

“We won’t!” the apprentices called back as they headed off to train with their mentors.

“Good morning, Stormpaw,” I greeted to the soprano tom, who was hanging around the water ditch with a few toms from the Special Guard. It had rained a few nights ago, so the ditch was still full of water; if it wasn’t, we usually got our water from the stream just outside of camp.

“Greetings, Flame Shoe,” drawled one of the Special Guard members—I remembered his name being Bramblepaw.

“Hope Tigerclaw is training you guys well!” I walked towards the fresh-kill pile, watching Featherpaw and Crowpaw head off towards the training hollow with most of the other apprentices. Behind me, I heard Stormpaw’s high-pitched mew, “One day, I will be leader of this Clan, and you will all follow me,” followed by a loud splash. I shrugged and put my mind back on breakfast.

“OOF!” I hopped back and instinctively unsheathed my claws, ready to face whatever had bumped into me. I blinked when I saw it was only Spottedleaf, the medicine cat, who apparently had also been heading towards the fresh-kill pile and was now shaking in fear.

“I’m so sorry, Spottedleaf.” I sheathed my claws again. “I didn’t mean to scare you. So much has happened recently, my mind is kind of muddled. Even today, I couldn’t even walk towards the fresh-kill pile without striking up three conversations with the apprentices from New Directions.”

“It’s alright,” she assured me, though she was frantically shaking the dust off of her fur. “I can understand how much the gleeks mean to you.”

I shook my head. “They’re not gleeks yet. But I do want to thank you for helping me the other day. Without you, I would have given up on these apprentices. Coaching them is where I belong, and I’ll be able to help Sandstorm and our kits without forgetting my dreams.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad to have helped,” she mewed brightly, daintily biting into a kingfisher. “I mean, I’m a medicine cat. Helping is what we do, even if most of the time it’s the physical aspect and not, you know, the mental aspect. Your fur looks very nice and shiny today, by the way, very clean—”

“Move,” a voice snarled. I turned to see one of the Cheerios glaring at me. Spottedleaf and I quickly moved out of the way as the nasty she-cat picked a lean mouse and stomped off.

“Yellowfang wants to see you in her den, Fireheart,” called another Cheerio, whom I recognized as Crowpaw’s friend Squirrelpaw. “She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“I’ll be right there,” I called back as I felt something build up in my stomach. I realized it was fear.

Yellowfang’s POV

“Yellowfang? You wanted to see me?”

“Hey, Clanmate, come on in,” I gasped as I finished up my leg stretches. Since my den happens to be the biggest in McKinleyClan, including Onestar’s den, there’s plenty of room to do leg stretches while waiting for mouse-brains to show up.

Fireheart padded into the den. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Well, I had a little chat with Onestar,” I began, “and he said if your Glee Club doesn’t place at Regionals, he’s cutting the program. Ouch.”

“You don’t have to worry about New Directions,” he meowed, a smirk playing on his face. “We’re going to do fine at Regionals.”

“Really?” I asked with heavy sarcasm. “Because yesterday I decided to visit AdrenalineClan and talk to Vocal Adrenaline’s coach. See, I’m important enough that I can waltz right into another Clan’s camp with out a single whisker twitch. Anyways, she and I struck up a little conversation. It turns out, you need twelve apprentices to qualify for Regionals. Last time I checked, you had five, plus the crippled tom with wheels.”

He stared at me, completely dumbstruck. Just how I like my enemies.

“I also took the liberty,” I continued, “of talking to some of the kittypets in the area to see if you would be able to recruit some of them, because I honestly don’t think any other cats will be willing to join your mini-Clan of misfits.”

Once again, he simply looked at me with his mouth agape. I waited patiently until he finally squeaked, “Are you threatening me?”

“Threatening?” I echoed, pretending to be shocked. “Oh, no, no, no. Presenting you with an opportunity to compromise yourself? You betcha. Let’s break it down. You want to be a star; you want to get some recognition from not just McKinleyClan but all the Clans. Let’s face it: you want to be me. So do to your depressing group of apprentices what I did to my crazy, blind son: kill it. And once you do that and still want to be something other than a warrior and a caregiver for your mate and kits, I’d be happy to make you my Cheerio helper. You could fetch me fresh-kill, check my fur for ticks…I think it would be good for you.”

“You know what, Yellowfang?” he smirked. “I politely decline your offer. New Directions is here to stay. I know you’re used to being the next Brokenstar—”

“Offensive,” I muttered.

“—but the Cheerios are going to have some competition. We’re going to compete at Regionals, and we’re going to win.”

Squirrelflight’s POV

“We’re in line to be the most popular cats in this Clan over the next couple of moons,” I explained, once again, to Crowpaw as we headed towards the training hollow. “Star of the Cheerios, leader of the Praise StarClan club…I’m not giving up all that just so you can ‘express yourself’ or whatever you call it!”

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this,” meowed Crowpaw, chuckling half-heartedly.

I sighed. “Okay, let’s compromise. If you quit the club…I’ll let you invade my personal bubble.”

That got his attention. “Really?”

“No lower than the upper belly,” I added with a snarl.

He stopped and pondered for a moment. Then…

“No, no, I can’t. I don’t want to quit Glee Club. I like it there.”

“The other apprentices think you’re with Stormpaw now, Crowpaw. And you know what that makes me? Your cover-up. The fur that’s supposed to hide a kittypet’s collar but doesn’t do the job very well.”

“Look, I’ve got to hurry to Special Guard patrol,” he muttered. “And you need to hurry to Cheerios practice. Just relax.” With that, he hurried at double speed towards the training hollow.

I was about to run after him when I heard a twig snap and saw a flash of feathery, silver-gray fur disappear behind a tree.

“Eavesdrop much?” I yowled.

Featherpaw, biggest loser of McKinleyClan, slowly padded out from her hiding place. I approached her, my fur bristling.

“Time for a little talk, tom-paws,” I growled. “You can dance with him, you can sing with him, but you will never have him. Got it?”

“I understand why you feel threatened,” she meowed in that annoying voice. “Crowpaw and I have made a connection, but I’m an honorable cat. I’m not going to steal your future mate. I have plenty of suitors of my own, because everyday Glee status is going up, and yours is going down. Deal with it.”

She turned around, about to run off towards the training hollow when a few Special Guard toms appeared, and splash! Tom-paws got a spit-full of water in her face.

Crowpaw’s POV

I felt bad about how I was making Squirrelpaw feel, which was probably why I was distracted at the Carrionplace that afternoon. Either that or it was because the song we were dancing to was terrible, and it was. “Le Freak” was so old that I bet even most Twolegs couldn’t remember much about it. Fireheart kept yowling at us to be more energetic, but even Featherpaw was dancing kind of lamely.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” yowled Hollypaw as Featherpaw almost clawed her eyes out. “StarClan to the no!”

Thornclaw stopped playing on the piano, rolling his eyes at Hollypaw. But she didn’t seem to notice.

“First of all, if you try to ruin my face again, I will cut you. And second of all, this song is terrible.”

“It’s not the song,” argued Fireheart, going into preachy mode. “You guys just need to be more energetic.”

“No, it’s the song,” meowed Stormpaw. “It’s really lame.”

“We need more modern music, Flame Shoe,” mewed Ravenpaw.

“I’m sorry, guys, we don’t have time to change this! We’re performing this song in the training hollow four days from now.”

“In front of the whole school?” asked Mothpaw, looking terrified.

“They’re going to throw crowfood at us!” cried Stormpaw exasperatedly. “And I just started using that berry therapy that Spottedleaf recommended to heal my face from all the times that mouse bile has been splashed at it!”

“I can’t tell you guys how important this performance is,” Fireheart stressed. “We need recruits. There are six of you, and we need twelve to qualify for Regionals. Otherwise, New Directions is over. I know you guys don’t like this song, but back when I was an apprentice, we took Nationals with this song; it’s a crowd pleaser. From the top!”

I shrugged. “It’s official. I’m dead.”

Fireheart’s POV

My father always says that you become a true tom when you help your mate create a nest to have her kits in. I’m not sure what he meant by that, since he lit the nest he made for my mom on fire after a crazy fight with her. (Luckily, that was just after I became an apprentice, so the nest was going to be destroyed anyway.)

“I was wondering about that big tree next to the nursery,” Sandstorm was saying to Frostfur, one of the other queens. “It’s always been my personal dream to climb a tree to gather leaves for my kit nest, instead of just picking leaves and moss off of the ground. Are the leaves in that tree good for nest building?”

Still, I couldn’t believe that we were actually doing this. It all happened so fast. It all started when Ferncloud, Sandstorm’s sister, brought her mate Dustpelt and three kits over to McKinleyClan for their once-a-moon visit. See, they were exiled for disturbing the peace too much, but they were allowed to live close to camp and come visit every now and then.

“I just don’t understand where you’re going to have the kits,” Ferncloud had mewed as Shrewkit, Foxkit, and Ferretkit ran wildly around camp.

“I know,” agreed Sandstorm.

“There are existing nests in the nursery,” I pointed out, covering my ears to block out the kits’ shrieks.

“No way!” cried Ferncloud. “I know you, Sandstorm. You’re not as obsessed with cleanliness as that crazy medicine cat, but you are not using a used nest. Otherwise, you’re going to wake up one night and start attacking your kits from the stress. Dustpelt, where are you going?”

“To make dirt,” her mate answered nervously, one paw already in the tunnel leading out of camp.

“No, you can’t,” she ordered. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re going to steal some poppy seeds from the medicine cats’ den. Anyways, this conversation is over; we have plenty of leaves and moss that you can use to build your own den. And I bet you can climb that tree by the nursery to get your own materials as well. You are not birthing those kits in a used nest. When hedgehogs fly.”

“Can I eat this?” asked Dustpelt weakly, holding up a piece of fresh-kill.

I crunched the bones of my own piece of fresh-kill in annoyance.

From there on, Sandstorm had gone crazy about making a nest of her own. It hadn’t help me much either; I barely got any sleep from trying to coach New Directions and help Sandstorm build the nest in one day. My eye twitched as I watched her climb up the tree by the nursery to gather the leaves.

“Sandstorm, don’t you think that’s a little dangerous?” I called up. “Besides, we have plenty of materials in camp. Why do we need to keep having to go back and forth between here and Ferncloud’s place? I really think using one of the existing nests will be fine.”

“No, it won’t!” she called back down. “Those nests are not clean!”

“Okay, you can climb up trees and get leaves,” I growled. “But please choose between the materials at camp and the ones at Ferncloud’s tree stump. I know hers are ‘better quality’ or whatever, but it’ll be much easier to use the ones here.”

She groaned, scrambling down the tree with a mouth full of leaves. “I’ll decide later. Let’s put these in the nursery.”

I had never actually see the inside of the nursery since I was a kit, and I had forgotten how peaceful a place it was. The floor was lined with soft fur and feathers, and the walls of twigs were the most secure of any in the camp, allowing a dark, yet calm and protective place for kits to eat, sleep, and play, and for their mothers to take care of them.

Sandstorm placed the leaves in an empty spot in the nursery and arranged them in a beautiful flower pattern. “There. This is the start of where our kits will sleep.”

“I love it, Sandstorm,” I murmured, pressing my nose to her cheek. “But I don’t want you going up in that tree again while you’re pregnant; it’s too dangerous. And you still need to decide whether we’re going to use the materials here or at Ferncloud’s.”

In reply, she rubbed her head under my chin. “Alright. I’ll use the materials here, but I’m going to keep climbing that tree until I’m too fat. This is our family we’re talking about, Fireheart.”

I knew, right then, I would do whatever it took, even if it meant getting a part-time job for Onestar so I could use his secret store of extra-soft moss, to make Sandstorm’s dream come alive.

“I’ll go climb that tree with you,” I purred.

“Yes!” she whispered into my ear.

Featherpaw’s POV

“Seriously, you need to talk to me before you style yourself with rags,” Stormpaw told Hollypaw at rehearsal.

“But they’re stylish!” she retorting, showing off her multiple black-and-white hand towels she had around her tail and paws.

“You look like a furry backup dancer in MJ’s ‘Black and White’ music video.”

“You’re a hater. That’s what you are, a hater. I bet if you had darker fur, you’d look just like me.”

I mostly ignored them, watching Crowpaw sharpen his claws on a rock. I hated the Special Guards, but I greatly appreciated how they cherished big muscles and showing them off while sharpening their claws.

“Okay, guys!” shouted Fireheart as he, Thornclaw, and the band (they used various trash at the Carrionplace as their instruments) carted the piano towards us. “Imma let you finish, but it’s time for a little Kanye!”

Yowls of joy filled the Carrionplace as we snatched the sheet music right out of Fireheart’s mouth.

“Is this for the assembly?” I asked.

“No, we don’t have enough time to practice this,” answered Fireheart, which caused a few faces to sink. “But I figured it would be awesome at Regionals. Communication is the foundation for any music group. You guys wanted modern music, I gave it to you.”

“Flame Shoe, I’d rather not do disco,” murmured Ravenpaw.

“Same here,” agreed Crowpaw, his voice causing my heart to skip a beat.

“Crowpaw, you’ve got the solo,” announced Fireheart without looking up from showing Thornclaw and the band cats the slight changes he had made to the music.

“Wait, I’d rather not.” Crowpaw looked rather uncomfortable. “I’m still trying to master walking at singing at the same time.”

“Oh, come on, Crowpaw, it’s no problem,” assured Fireheart, straightening up and smiling. “I’ll walk you through it.”

“Oooooh, challenge,” we all said in unison.

“Ravenpaw, you sing first verse backup. Hollypaw, you know this?”

“Oh, I got this,” she replied as she took a deep breath.

Click http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/showbiz/2009/09/18/glee.clip.fox.cnn.html to watch Fireheart, Hollypaw, Ravenpaw, Crowpaw, and the rest of New Directions sing “Gold Digger.”

Spottedleaf’s POV

I shivered as I stuck my paws into the water puddle next to the dirtplace. I hated being around excretions of other cats, and so I always washed myself thoroughly afterwards.

It was then that I heard a coughing sound coming from behind me. I turned around slowly, an idea forming in my head. Turns out I was right: there, behind a tree, was one of the she-cat apprentices coughing over a pool of vomit. But I definitely hadn’t expected the certain she-cat apprentice that was doing the coughing.

“Featherpaw? Are you throwing up?”

She didn’t bother looking up. “No. The she-cat before me left this.” She gestured towards the vomit with her tail. “I figured it would be best if I tried in the same place as her, but I guess I don’t have a gag reflex.”

“One day, when you’re older, that’ll turn out to be a gift,” I meowed. “Let’s have a little chat, shall we?”

I led her back to camp and my den. I did so in silence, since she looked pretty ashamed and I hoped she would look less so when we actually got to my den. I was wrong that time. She still had that hopeless expression on her face when I told her to sit and gave her a few poppy seeds to relieve some of her stress. Plus, they make cats more likely to tell the truth, which I’ve found is very useful in these guidance sessions.

“Featherpaw, making yourself throw up if a very serious and messy disease,” I began, glancing at Fireheart, who was outside waiting for a patrol he was leading to assemble.

“I don’t have a disease,” she meowed firmly. “That was the first time I tried it, and I failed miserably. I’m never going to attempt it again.”

“Okay.”

“It grossed me out.”

“Okay. Can you tell me what led you to want to puke your guts out?”

“I want to be thinner. Like that she-cat on the Cheerios, Squirrelpaw.”

“And why is that?”

Suddenly, she burst out, “Have you ever liked someone so much that you just want to hide in a cave, listen to sad music, and yowl in despair?”

I glanced at Fireheart again. “No…”

In truth, the other night, when it was raining, I went over to the secret waterfall outside of camp and yowled all through the night after I saw Fireheart and Sandstorm hunting together. Everyone thought it was a weird bird or something, even though my fur was drenched to the skin the next morning.

“Um, but a tom-crush,” I stammered, shaking myself, “I know about that, I mean, not now, it takes me back in the day, er, when I was an apprentice, I mean, I’m a medicine cat and all so I didn’t have a mate or anything, but, uh…you know what, Featherpaw, you need to take control of your heart. You need to do that, whether this tom doesn’t like you for who you are, or…” I looked at Fireheart again. “…or if he has a mate with kits on the way, you know, ahem, you don’t want to change yourself for that. Have you tried telling him how you feel?”

“He doesn’t even notice me,” she whispered.

“Okay, well, um, here’s what I think. Common interests are a key to romance. So find out what he likes, and maybe you two will end up bonding over something you never expected.”

For the first time since I found her by the dirtplace, Featherpaw smiled and nodded.

My work here is done. Or so I thought.

Yellowfang’s POV

I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t pissed. I wasn’t even furious. They would have to come up with a new word for how I felt about those two Glee Club apprentices: the dark gray tom with a brain the size of a pea, and the silvery-gray she-cat with the most obnoxious personality.

“Would you like to tell Onestar and Fireheart what I caught you two doing?” I growled. Onestar, Fireheart, the two apprentices, and I were squashed into the leader’s den, even though I had insisted we had this meeting on my own, spacious turf.

“It just sort of…happened,” muttered the dark gray tom.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I think she’s overreacting,” piped up the silver she-cat.

“You watch your tongue, young she-cat!” I lashed out at her. I watched, satisfied, as she cowered in fear.

“Being raised by a tom—in her case, two toms—encourages rebellion,” I pointed out to Onestar. “Medicine cats have studied it.”

“Whoa, wait,” cut in Fireheart, sounding like a Twoleg hippie. “Let Featherpaw speak.”

“Crowpaw was worried about performing in front of the Clan,” meowed Featherpaw, one of the worst names I had ever heard. “I saw that he was insecure and proposed something to make him feel better.”

“Yeah, pretty much what she said,” the surly tom mumbled. “She went on about how many Twolegs did multiple creative arts careers or something like that. And then I remembered these rumors about how Yellowfang steals pictures of famous Twolegs from Twoleg nests and keeps them in her den.”

“I beg your pardon?!” I tried to keep my voice from rising to a shriek.

“So we went into her den, found some pictures, made a collage, and there was our advertisement for New Directions. We figured it could get a bunch of cats to join the club.”

“And by a bunch, we need many diverse cats who would be willing to contribute to Glee Club and help us win Regionals,” concluded the she-cat.

“First of all, I do not steal those pictures from Twolegs,” I snarled a little white lie. “And second of all, those pictures are for Cheerios decoration use only.”

“Hold on a minute, Yellowfang—” interrupted Fireheart.

“I resent being told to hold onto anything, Fireheart,” I interrupted back. “I will not be treated like a second-class deputy because of my gender. You seem to believe that the warrior code does not apply to your apprentices.” I turned to Onestar. “I strongly recommend that both of these apprentices be hobbled.”

“Okay, how many pictures did they use?” Fireheart asked.

“Seventeen,” I spat.

“And how much are they worth?”

“I’d say about four mouse tails each,” meowed Onestar, choosing that moment to actually speak.

“So why don’t they just pay for the pictures?”

“I like this compromise!” purred Onestar. “Apprentices, pay Yellowfang sixty-eight mouse tails—that should add up to a small rabbit—and I’ll let you off with a warning. And Yellowfang, I’m sorry, but you have to clean up the blood you spilled when you attacked these apprentices in your den.”

“I have the scar to prove it,” mewed the tom, showing a long cut that went along his front leg.

“That’s why we have Barley!” I cried. “He’s supposed to clean up stuff.”

“We’re in a shortage of prey, Yellowfang,” sighed Onestar. “I allowed Barley to go back to his kittypet life for the time being. I can’t feed him—he eats more than Tigerstar! We all need to lend a hand.”

Fireheart and the two apprentices nodded in unison.

“Lady Justice wept today,” I growled.

Fireheart’s POV

I stormed out of Onestar’s den, not sure whether to be relieved or furious.

“We’re sorry about that, Flame Shoe.” Crowpaw trotted up beside me.

“It’ll never happen again,” added Featherpaw.

“You know what, guys.” I stopped and looked at both of them. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“That song is going to kill any chance we have to recruit new members,” mewed Featherpaw.

“You two have to learn that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do,” I told them. “We’re doing the performance, and we aren’t using those pictures of Twolegs to advertise. Everyone loves disco!”

I ran into the tunnel to go hunting, but stopped when I heard Crowpaw say, “It’s official. I should be named Crowfood instead of Crowpaw.”

“I know you’re nervous, but you’re really, really talented,” purred Featherpaw.

“Stop it,” muttered Crowpaw, chuckling.

“I think you’ll do great, though,” she meowed. “Do you want to practice tomorrow after Special Guard training?”

“I can’t,” replied Crowpaw, sounding disappointed. “I have a Praise StarClan meeting.”

Featherpaw nodded, and I watched the two of them separate. I shook my head, wondering if Darkstripe had put a curse on the Glee Club so that all directors of it after him were just as stalker-ish.