Moonshine's Tale

Part of the Stars (Series)

Moonshine's Tale
“NightClan!” Shadowstar leapt up onto the tallest rock in their camp, and sat down with her black tail curled over her paws, waiting for silence to fall among the cats below her.

A dark gray tom pushed to the front of the crowd, and sat in the front of the mass of cats, looking up towards his leader. Shadowstar looked down upon her deputy, Smokepool.

“Stormnose!” chorused two tiny voices, and two little kits tumbled out of the nursery, towards a dark gray tabby tom, stopping when they felt the eyes of the whole clan. Patchkit and Barkkit crept back to their mother, Dovewhisker, who gave a tiny snort, and settled down on her haunches, her tail curled protectively over her two kits.

“NightClan,” repeated Shadowstar, looking down upon her clan. The pelts were a mix of grays and blacks, darkened from the moons spent hunting in the shadows, attacking in the night, and slinking through the darkness.

“Moonpaw. Come forward.” A dark silver she-cat padded to the front of the crowd, her pelt almost blending in with those of the cats around her.

“I, Shadowstar, leader of NightClan, call upon my warrior ancestors to look down on this apprentice. Do you, Moonpaw, promise to uphold the warrior code, even at the cost of your life?” Shadowstar inquired as she leaped agilely down from the rock. Moonpaw nodded, with a brave, “I do.”

“Then, by the powers of StarClan, I grant you your warrior name. From this day on, Moonpaw, you will be known as Moonshine.”

“Moonshine! Moonshine! Moonshine!” chanted the clan, and Moonshine licked her leader’s shoulder as Shadowstar rested her own muzzle on Moonshine’s head.

A dark gray she-cat emerged from the throng. “Well done,” purred Darkshadow, resting her muzzle on top of her former apprentice’s head. “I’m proud of you, Moonshine.”

“Smokepool, send out a hunting patrol please,” Shadowstar requested, and her deputy nodded, gathered up his apprentice, and began to list the names of the cats he would take with him.

“Tinypaw, Silentheart, myself, Thunderwing and Crowflight,” he called. “Come on, we’ll go by the river and see if we can catch some voles.”

Night was falling, but that was perfectly all right with NightClan. They had the twinkling stars of Silverpelt to guide them, along with their keen sense of sight in the dark.

Moonshine sat on the edge of the clearing, licking her paws, and purring as her younger brother, the only surviving kit of his litter, rubbing against her.

“Mother will be proud,” he mewed, and his sister flicked his ear with her silver tail. “Even in StarClan, she’s looking down on you, and I bet she was the second one to cheer you on with your name.”

“Who was the first?” Moonshine asked curiously. Ivypaw purred.

“Me!” Ivypaw licked his sister’s flank, and then leapt down from the rock on which they were sitting, and raced across the clearing. “I may be a warrior,” called Moonshine. “But I still have the spryness of an apprentice!” She jumped down after him, and instead of following him, went the opposite direction around the camp to head him off. He crashed into her.

“You’ll make a good leader one day,” Ivypaw commented as he picked himself off the ground and began to wash himself. “You’re good at strategizing and diversionary tactics.”

Moonshine laughed. “How did I divert you?” she purred, rubbing her tail along his flank.

“By shouting, ‘Fox! Fox!’” He chuckled, and then stopped when he saw Moonshine’s terrified expression.

“That wasn’t me,” she gasped. “Someone was calling for help!”

“Shadowstar!” yowled Ivypaw, and he nearly bowled into the black leader as she padded away from him.

“What—” But Shadowstar never got to finish her sentence, for at that instant, a light gray tabby tom raced into the camp, panting, his eyes glimmering with desperation.

“Shadowstar,” he breathed.

“Silentheart?” asked Shadowstar fearfully.

“Two she-cats were being carried by a fox into the river! It’s trying to drown them, come quick!” Silentheart panted.

“What are you waiting for?” cried Shadowstar. “Berrysplash, Moonshine, Ivypaw, Blackwing, Graymoon, Ravenmist, come on!” Moonshine raced into the darkening forest on the heels of her leader.

Ivypaw trotted alongside her, his eyes wide. This was his first battle, he had been a moonrise-old apprentice when a badger had attacked his mother, and he hadn’t been in that battle. Moonshine had. She remembered it clearly.

The badger’s pointed, black and white striped face, cold, narrow eyes that were slits, as it shook Breezefall’s body, her form not yet limp, her legs flailing as the badger’s thorn-sharp teeth dug into her back. Moonshine had given it two clawed eyes to remember it by, but there was no bringing back the dark gray she-cat from StarClan.

“There it is,” whispered Shadowstar, and she held out her tail to signal her clanmates to stop.

The reddish-orange fox with its white, angular snout had dropped two she-cats in the stream, and while one larger one was struggling, another, smaller, thinner she-cat was lying limp against one of the rocks. The little, limp bundle slid off the rock and dropped, face down in the river. The fox raised a clawed paw, aimed towards the flailing, bigger cat, but Shadowstar let out a furious yowl and launched herself across the stream-like river, and landed on the fox’s back. NightClan swarmed through the water and up onto the bank to attack the fox. Thunderwing, part of the original hunting patrol, had the fox’s white-tufted tail in her teeth and was shaking it ferociously. Smokepool was clawing at the fox’s ears, and the other cats were darting in and raking the fox’s flanks with their claws.

Moonshine was on the fox’s head, scratching its eyes with her curved claws, using the same move she had on the badger that had stolen her mother’s life. Blood spurted into her paws, and Moonshine clawed the fox’s snout.

Ravenmist leapt into the water, using her strong hind legs to churn the water out behind her. She grasped the large cat’s scruff in her teeth, and dragged her out onto the NightClan bank. The apprentice coughed up seawater, and at the same time, the fox yowled, threw the cats off, and dashed along the stream towards the end of the clan lands.

“Someone, get Pinefire!” commanded Ravenmist, and Tinypaw scrambled over the rocks in the river towards his own clan territory, and, once on solid ground, dashed towards the camp, yowling for Pinefire.

Moments later, a light gray she-cat returned with Tinypaw. The medicine cat scurried over to the apprentice lying limp on the bank, and put a soft paw on her chest.

“She’s breathing. She’ll live. I thought you said there were two she-cats?” she said with a sudden concerned sharpness in her mew. Sageflight fled back into the river, searching the bottom of the riverbed. Moonshine remembered a small, bedraggled bundle falling into the river after the fox’s fleeing hind legs kicked it.

Moonshine leapt into the water after Sageflight, and squinted down into the shallow water. She spotted the light-colored pelt of the kit-sized cat. Moonshine gestured with her tail to Sageflight, and she picked up the little cat, padding up onto the bank with her small bundle in her jaws.

The apprentice was gibbering, water still spilling out of her open mouth. Her eyes widened when she saw the little kit and she yowled, “Mosskit!”

“What’s your name?” demanded Shadowstar, looming over the she-cat.

“Birdpaw,” whispered the she-cat, still staring, grief-stricken at the tiny cat, Mosskit.

“Well Birdpaw,” began Shadowstar, but Birdpaw began to yowl in earnest, her voice piercing the night air, silent except for the doleful hoot of an owl somewhere off in DuskClan land.

“StarClan have claimed my youngest sister! What have I done to deserve this?” she wailed, turning away from Mosskit’s body. She sounded like a queen, thought Moonshine, grieving for the first dead kit of all of her litters.

“StarClan, have mercy!” Birdpaw cried, then her head dropped to her paws, and tears filled her green eyes.

And, through the black sky, thick, fat drops equal to the ones oozing down Birdpaw’s face, began to fall, and Birdpaw’s grief was lost amidst the sounds of rumbling thunder, and the cats around her fell silent, as it began to rain.