The First Cat

There had always been fear of foxes in the territory. Slick as they are fast, many who go alone anywhere run the risk of becoming a fox’s next meal. Everyone assumed that’s what happened when Smokestorm went missing. A wily old brute, he would have known better to walk into an animal’s jaws, but a week past and what was left of his scent had vanished with a heavy rain. It became difficult to track and hunt, and with a heavy heart, their leader announced his death at the gathering. The clans continued on.

It was a particularly stormy night, the clouds had gathered and wind whipped through the canopy, whistling. All the kits were ordered inside. The medicine cat fretted for the last patrols of the night. The leader watched the empty clearing. An ear flick, and then silence. She finally laid down.

Crash, Tumble, Bump! A hiss echoed through the silent forest and birds scattered. The leader shot up, thoughts racing through her mind. The other clans wouldn’t risk an attack, not on such a stormy night-

Before her thoughts grew too out of hand, the figure emerged, limping, and breathless. The cat underneath the brambles and matts was barely recognizable, though it was his mottled yellow gaze that pierced right through the leader’s heart. “Smokestorm!” Deerstar looked at him surprised, as if a ghost had just entered instead of her former deputy.

Smokestorm took a few more steps, woozy and off balanced. He finally stopped midway through the camp, heaving to catch his breath. His smell was different. He reeked of something unfamiliar and strange. “Get these damn leaves out of my fur!” He crowed, trying to pull the brambles out himself, only for them to catch his cracked tooth and cause him a shot of pain.

Deerstar approached. “Let’s get you to the medicine den-” She tried to usher him there as thunder shook the whole camp.

“Medicine den?! I don’t need no damn herbs-..I need a Queen to groom out these forsaken burs!” He hissed, as volatile as ever and disoriented, he couldn’t fight the leader’s weight as they brought him into the safety of the clan.

The Cederheart jolted awake at the warrior’s complaints. With a stretch she moved to examine him, that strange odor stinking through her nose, causing it to wrinkle. “Where did you go? What happened?”

“I don’t know!” Smokestorm snapped, and only then did Deerstar see him shaking underneath the tangle of undergrowth. “I was on our border, remarking our scents and making sure everything was secure. Something got me. I can’t…I can’t remember. And then it was dark. It was so dark.” He yowled as the medicine cat pulled against a thorn that had scrapped down his side. “I don’t remember it becoming night, was I gone for the whole day?!”

“Smokestorm,” Deerstar looked at him, a mix of horror and contempt crossing their face, both at his temper and the story he had told.



“You were gone for almost three weeks,”

Apprentices are closed for all clans