border CAN'T CHANGE FOR YOU [ ✦ ] mentor & apprentice

[Bluepool]

Their fourth stop today. First was horse place, then RiverClan then ThunderClan and now they had made their way over to ShadowClan's territory. Her old home. The pine trees loom like ghosts, forever unchanging even as the landscape and the cats around them do. Evergreens she had heard them called once and she thinks the name fitting for they were not like the oaks of ThunderClan that lost their leaves every couple of seasons only to gain them back. She had not liked the constant stagnation she had felt when she had lived in the marsh group, and still she does not find herself missing it. Like the other places, they slow upon their arrival. "Here we are!" She announces to the cat next to her. "ShadowClan. This used to be my home you know? Back when this place was just known as the Marsh Group" and what a time that had been! She much prefers WindClan though she does miss the freedom she had once held back when territories were not really a thing.

The Thunderpath lays before them, laying dormant like a sleeping snake. She is no stranger to the dangers here, though she does not worry about it nearly as much as she had worried about the gorge. "You have crossed the Thunderpath before yes?" she is certain he had, back when they had needed to seek refuge and then on the return trip. Though back then, his father must have carried him across. "We will not be crossing today, but there may come a time where you must and I do not want you to be caught unaware of the dangers of this path. We will have a lesson another day, not today for there is still much that needs to be done." And even in that lesson it was not likely they would be crossing either, but she would show her how to detect the presence of monsters.

"This is our last stop before we make our way to high stones" surely she was tired by now and the news would be a relief. Part one of their tour was nearly over. Tomorrow, she would show her the landmarks of WindClan. The sun warmed pool, the badger set, but today was meant to learn where their borders lie. "Are you confident in your knowledge of ShadowClans scent?" she had spent a considerable amount of time there as a kit, after all. Right in the heart of their territory. It wold not do to linger here longer than they had to.

// please wait for @FEATHERPAW

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[FEATHERSPINE]

Bluepool seemed content to reminisce, but Featherpaw was so ungodly tired that he found he could barely listen to more than two words in a row. Exhaustion was weakness, though, and- oh, she was showing it! What a ridiculous show. Ridiculous and pathetic and sad. The Shadowclanners, when Leaf-bare got more scrappy, they'd remember how weak and wiry she'd looked and they would think, easy pickings!

No, no. She wouldn't look as small as she felt, a new apprentice, dwarfed by her mentor. He looked to Bluepool, looked at the way she held herself- mimicked it. His spiky fur aided his size, his scowl aided his ferocity. Yellow eyes boiled like the sun.

He nodded, breath still returning to him. A lesson on the Thunderpath that knowledge would loom like a rising moon, then. It would draw out anxiety like the tide. Featherpaw didn't let himself falter. "Right," he affirmed, simple and sure. Not that Bluepool would have had to mind him like a kitten- he was not like his peers, who were taking too long to grow up.

"I g-g-got to know it well enough a moon ago," he retorted, patience thin. Did she think him too childish then, to have been paying attention? Oh, he was tired.​

✦ penned by pin​