Chapter 2 Patrols
Lionpaw rose before the sun. Even after the world turned him into the wrong species, he would still get up on time. No matter what happened, he would remain vigilant. Though having a nightmare about killing his crush, Heatherpaw, really helped keep him from wanting to sleep in.
After his morning stretches, Lionpaw considered who he should talk to. Usually it would be his mentor, but Ashfur wasn't here. He looked around at the nests. Everyone was awake, except for Jaypaw, who Leafpool was trying to wake up.
“Lionpaw, I need to speak with you,” said Firestar. Firestar had been turned into an orange horse with wings and a horn. He had lost his stripes and his mane and tail were red.
Lionpaw walked over to him. “Yes Firestar?”
“I need you to go scouting. Take Crowfeather with you. I smelled something in that direction last night.” Firestar flicked his tail. Then he looked down. Then he pointed his head to the right of the rising sun. “So you two should go in the opposite direction.”
“Why? It might have been prey.”
“They smelled like wolves and dead plants, and I heard them howling.”
“I see, I'll get Crowfeather.” Lionpaw walked over to the edge of the clearing and called, “Crowfeather!”
“Yes?” asked Crowfeather. Crowfeather had been turned into a black thing that resembled a horse. He had holes in his legs, a black frill on the back of his neck, a horn, and tattered bug-like wings.
“Firestar asked us to go on patrol.”
“I'm on my way.” Crowfeather padded over to Lionpaw. “Which way are we going?”
“This way,” said Lionpaw, pointing his muzzle over his shoulder. Then he started walking away.
After a while they hadn't caught anything, due in part to their clumsiness in their current forms and in part due to the cold weather. Then they got to a cliff overlooking a colorful twolegplace. A few horses, some with wings, some with horns, and some with neither, were walking the paths. They even saw a multi-colored bughorse like Jaypaw. But for all that they saw, there were no twolegs in sight.
“Let's go back and tell Firestar what we saw,” commanded Lionpaw.
“Firestar!” called Lionpaw.
“Yes, Lionpaw?”
“We found what looked like a twolegplace, but instead of twolegs it had horses running around loose,” said Lionpaw. "Some had wings, or horns, but we didn't see any with both. We didn't see any that looked like Crowfeather and Hollypaw either, but we did see one that looked like Jaypaw.”
“I'll arrange a scouting mission soon, for now we just need to find food.”
“Some of our number have wings, have any of them tried flying up to the rocks we came out of?” asked Lionpaw.
“Squirrelflight is leading the attempts to get up there, but it will take time.”
“Shall Crowfeather and I continue hunting?”
“Yes.”
Lionpaw and Crowfeather headed back out into the woods.
Crowfeather and I are two of the best hunters in our clans. I may still be an apprentice but I'm better than half of the warriors, and Crowfeather is pretty good to. Not as good as me, but once when he was still an apprentice I heard he and 2 others took down an eagle. Between the two of us I'm sure we will catch something now that we're really trying. After all, I've never come back from a hunt without anything.
At sunhigh they had still not caught as much as a mousetail.
“So, we haven't caught anything, and I don't think we're going to. Should we just go back?” asked Crowfeather.
“No! We can't go back without anything.”
“Don't let your ego cloud your judgement.”
“I'm not, I just want food for my clanmates.”
“It's still better to go back emptypawed, than emptypawed and late.”
Lionpaw nodded and turned towards camp, keeping an eye out for prey and scenting often.
When they returned to camp they still had not caught anything.
“Hey Lionpaw, can you come over here?” asked Leafpool. She was a brown horse with a cream undercoat and mask. She had a dark brown mane and tale, and she had a straight horn.
“Sure thing!” Lionpaw responded as he trotted over. “What did you need?”
“I need you to eat these herbs,” answered Leafpool, through a mouthful of what appeared to be dead grass.
“But that's just grass.”
“Who are the medicine cat's here, you or us?” said Jaypaw.
“You,” admitted Lionpaw.
“So eat the herbs,” said Jaypaw.
Lionpaw took the grass. It tasted slightly bitter. He ate it under the watchful eyes of Leafpool. “And you had me eat grass because?”
“Because we are now planteaters,” said Leafpool.
“Just because we now look like horses doesn't mean we have to eat like them.”
“But it does,” she refuted. “Because we now have teeth made for eating plants.”
“And we don't have claws anymore so we can't hunt anyway,” Jaypaw added.
“So, how did you get that grass? There's snow all over the ground.”
“Watch,” Leafpool said, pawing at the snow with her hooves. After a few heartbeats she unearthed some grass. “We need you to tell Firestar so he can call off the hunting patrols, and we can focus on gathering grass.”
“Yes.” And he headed off to where Firestar was napping in a weak sunbeam. “Firestar?”
“Yes Lionpaw,” he said, looking up and opening his eyes.
“Leafpool has discovered that these forms are supposed to be planteaters, and thus thinks we should eat grass.”
“But how do we get to the grass?”
“Watch,” Lionpaw answered, before repeating Leafpool's demonstration.
“Ahh. I'll stop sending more hunting patrols. In the meantime we should gather more food, I think Leafpool and Jaypaw might already have a place to collect it.”
That evening after the hunting patrols had all returned Firestar sounded a variation off of the familiar summons. “Let all cats present gather by my nest!”
Everyone came over to Firestar's nest, where he lay in a lone beam of sunlight that had penetrated through the thick forest canopy, causing his orange pelt to glow like fire. “I need to discus the watches tonight and the tomorrow's scouting patrol.”
Brambleclaw flicked his tail.
“Yes Brambleclaw?” acknowledged Firestar.
“We should avoid sending the guards scouting.”
“Yes,” said Firestar. “Brambleclaw, Squirrelflight, and Leafpool will scout out the horseplace. Breezepaw has first watch, then Sandstorm, then Crowfeather, then Lionpaw, and then Hollypaw.”
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I love that book series
Why not make them all Abyssians?
Well, this is interesting. I have’t read the Warriors series in years, but still remember it. Can’t wait to see where this story goes.
10757993
Being turned into Ponies makes them blend in better. It gives them more challenges to overcome. And, most importantly, we totally forgot the Abyssians.
10757921, 10758092
I hope this lives up to your expectations and does both series justice.
I like the story being told, but it feels like it's moving too quickly. Take it up a notch, really push yourself to improve on the details of what's happening and how the characters are feeling about it. The story will only get better for it.
10758577
Thank you for your input. I will try to do that more in the next chapters. That is probably the hardest part for me but I agree that it is important.
10758723
The best way to improve is to keep writing, so I look forward to seeing how you progress.
Terribly sorry about the wait. Working with a co-author makes scheduling much harder. I had intended on getting chapter 3 out before they left town for a month.