The morning Alderkit became an apprentice, no birds sang.
A mist clung to the camp, silver and still, muffling even the elders’ murmurs. Cats gathered beneath the Highbranch - where the leader called names and destinies - and waited as if the air itself held its breath.
Bramblekit and Sleetkit should have stood besides her.
Their names were never spoken.
The Clan’s leader, Owlnose, raised his tail high. His voice rang firm, though he looked at Alderkit longer than most before beginning.
“Alderkit, you have reached six moons, and shown strength through hardship that few warriors ever will. From this day forward, until you earn your warrior name, you will be known as Alderpaw.”
A small murmur rippled through the clearing.
“Alderpaw,” they repeated. A name both soft and heavy in the morning air.
Owlnose turned. “Your mentor will be Stormfern.”
A dark grey tabby stepped from the crowd.
Stormfern was known for his temper - sharp, fast, and loud. He was brave, fiercely loyal, and a nightmare to train under. Apprentices muttered that he expected perfection from the moment claws touched the earth.
He looked at Alderpaw with wary eyes.
They touched noses. She said nothing. He said nothing.
But the Clan saw the tightness in his jaw.
Stormfern didn’t like mysteries. And Alderpaw was a mystery carved in silence.
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Training began the next morning.
She rose before the sun. She groomed her fur with swift, efficient strokes. She told by the entrance of the apprentice den long before Stormfern arrived, her amber eyes watching the trees like sentinels.
Stormfern frowned the moment he saw her. “Early rising doesn’t make you a warrior.”
“No,” Alderpaw said flatly. “Work does.”
Stormfern twitched an ear, as if deciding wether she was mocking him. She wasn’t.
They trained in silence. No idle chatter. No questions. She did as told - perfect stances, tireless repetition. She fought like she meant it. Her strikes were precise. Her footwork solid. She didn’t dodge - she endured.
Stormfern tried to provoke her.
“You fight like you’re already dead,” he snapped once, after she refused to flinch from a mock blow. “You’re not stone. You’re a cat. Feel something.”
Alderpaw blinked at him, unblinking. “Feeling doesn’t stop claws.”
He snarled. “But it makes a warrior!”
She said nothing. Just reset her stance. Again.
Stormfern paced in frustration. “You don’t learn, you just survive. That’s not the same thing.”
Still, she said nothing.
But the Clan watched.
They saw her carry bramble bundles three times her size without complaint. They saw her guard the elders’ den all night in freezing rain without falling asleep. They saw her take a blow from a senior warrior in training, get knocked out breathless - and rise without hesitation.
Even the other apprentices stopped teasing. Some avoided her. One tried to challenge her and limped for two days after.
Only Barkclaw visited her in quiet moments, brushing his tail across her shoulders in passing.
“She’s not like other apprentices,” he told Stormfern one dusk at the mentor brooded besides the fresh-kill pile. “But you knew that.”
Stormfern let out a low grunt. “She doesn’t ask questions. She doesn’t make mistakes. It’s unnatural.”
“She does make mistakes,” Barkclaw said gently. “She just never lets anyone see them.”
Stormfern glanced towards where Alderpaw sat alone near the alder stump, gaze locked on the horizon as if waiting for something only she could see. “What kind of warrior is she going to be?”
Barkclaw looked at her with something that wasn’t quite sorrow. “The kind who breaks before she bends. Or never breaks at all.”
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One night, moons into training, Stormfern pushed too far.
It was a battle simulation. Stormfern came at her harder than ever before - fast, brutal, snarling like a true enemy. He struck her across the muzzle, knocking her into the mud, then pinned her.
“Submit!” he growled. “You’re beaten. Say it!”
Alderpaw looked up at him. Blood trickled from a cut above her brow. Her chest heaved.
She didn’t speak.
She just stared, silent and defiant, eyes burning like amber caught in flame.
Stormfern backed away, breathing hard. “What are you?”
And for the first time since kithood, she answered more than she had to.
“I am what’s left,” Alderpaw said. “And what remains.”
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Later that night, Stormfern sat beside Barkclaw again, quiet.
“She doesn’t need a mentor,” he said at last. “She needs a place in the stories.”
Barkclaw shook his head. “No. She needs someone to stay.”
And so Stormfern stayed. From that night forward, he stopped trying to make her into something else. He trained her as if preparing her for war - not because he thought it would save her, but because it was the only thing that might keep her.
And Alderpaw never asked for less.
