The story of Hawkpaw

"Lets go! We have to leave before sunrise!" Snakepool hissed. "Everyone else is ready, Hawkpaw!"
"Alright, alright! I'm coming!" Hawkpaw called sleepily. She sprang out of her nest and dashed over to where a few other selected cats were waiting to go to the gathering.
Snowmist hissed in annoyance as Hawkpaw spun around and mewed "Wait! I forgot something!" Snakepool grabbed her by the scruff like a kit.
Then the five cats, Snakepool, Snowmist, Hawkpaw, Leafstar, and Dapplepaw, disappeared through the camp entrance.
"Ow!" Dapplepaw screeched as a thorn stabbed into her already sore pad. "Shut up!" Snowmist growled as she hit Dapplepaw in the head with her paw.
"Unnecessary violence!" Dapplepaw mewed in a high pitched tone.
"It seemed necessary enough to me..." Snowmist mumbled under her breath.
"Everyone calm down!" Leafstar mewed in an authoritive tone. Then she added quietly to Dapplepaw, "I'll help you with that thorn when we get to the gathering."
"Snakepool! Put me down! I can walk myself!" Hawkpaw protested before being dropped to the gound with a thud. Hawkpaw shook the soil from her pelt.
She began to walk next to Dapplepaw. "Snakepool and Snowmist are always so mean. Just because they became warriors before us. They're not even a whole moon older.Heck, we might be warriors as soon as tomorrow for all they know!"
Dapplepaw nodded, but was really only focusing on not crying because of the thorn. If Snowmist caught her crying, there would be a whole 'whimp' lecture, as they called it. It was when Snowmist or Snakepool gave them a lecture about being whimps.
"We have arrived." Leafstar mewed calmly.
"No duh." Hawkpaw mocked. Leafstar shot her a glance before trotting up to the rest of the clan leaders. There was Shadestar of ShadeClan, Sunstar of SunClan, Breezestar of DewClan, and , of course, Leafstar of IvyClan. This was the first generation of the newly formed clans. Shadestar and Sunstar were the first leaders of their clans, but Dewstar came before Breezestar, and Ivystar came before Leafstar.
The four leaders walked over to the branch where they sat during the gatherings. Leafstar hopped up onto the branch with ease. Shadestar jumped up onto the branch and landed on it after two tries. Breezestar knew there was no hope of her reaching the branch, so she scrambled up the trunk of the tree and climbed onto the branch. Sunstar leaped, but only his paws touched the branch. He grabbed the branch with his claws and pulled himself up onto the branch.
"May the gathering begin!" Leafstar yowled. "IvyClan is faring well, and we would like to welcome our two newest warriors! Snakepool and Snowmist!" All of the other cats began to chant, "Snowmist! Snakepool! Snowmist!!!"
"ShadeClan is experiencing some fox troubles, and we may need an ally to help us fight them off in the distant future, and we are low on prey. Foxes eat a lot....." Shadestar admmitted. He didn't like to admit his clan was not doing well.
"Twolegs are building their dens closer and closer to SunClan territory, and we may be forced away from our home in the forest. But we do welcome a new apprentice, Hollypaw, and a new warrior, Toadfoot." Sunstar meowed.
"Hollypaw! Toadfoot! Hollypaw!!!" The crowd cheered.
"DewClan is doing well. No new warriors or apprentices, but we do have a new kit that could not be here tonight. Yarrowkit!" Breezestar announced.
"Yarrowkit! Yarrowkit!!!"
Hawkpaw looked around timidly. All of the cats from the other clans were beginning to disappear. She looked and saw Leafstar beginning to retreat with the rest of her clan members. She waited until all of the other cats had gone. She began to look around. She sniffed a spot on the ground. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. It smelled of smoke. A ShadeClan cat must have sat there. She smelled a different spot. She took a moment to inhale the delicious smell of flowers and grass. She loved the scent of SunClan cats.
"What are you still doing here?" a voice spoke from behind Hawkpaw. She spun around to see a mud colored tom that looked as if he were no older than her.
"Answer that for yourself, then i'll talk."
"When I saw that an apprentice was hanging back and sniffing the ground, I thought I would stick around to see what was going on."
"I.....I.....I was trying to find out what SunClan cats smelled like..." She lied.
"Well, I'm a SunClan cat." The tom mewed.
"So what?" The tom shrugged. "Did you think I was going to smell you?"
"Yeah, sure. Why not?" Hawkpaw shrugged and sniffed the toms pelt. The sweet smelling pelt. It smelled of flowers and grass, but it had its own certain tang to it. She was sure that that smell came from only this cat. But it was a good smell. She almost forgot to stop sniffing him. She pulled her head back. "I'm Hawkpaw!" she mewed cheerfully.
"Hawk PAW?" The tom mewed with disgust. "Well, i'm Toadfoot."
"You just became a warrior?" Hawkpaw mewed. He had just been an apprentice himself! He had no right to be disgusted at the fact that she was an apprentice!!!
"Yes. Yes I did. Indeedy I did. Yes Yes Yes." He meowed happily."So. We could hang out for a while. We could play like we had our own clan!!!"
"You are a warrior. Who wants to play? I could get used to you!"
"Hawkstar! I smell a badger on..umm...uhhh...OceanClan territory!"
"Toadfoot, my deputy, I will fight it off of our territory! Toadfoot you play the badger!"
"Okay!" Toadfoot imitated a huge clumsy beast. He walked around stiff-legged. Hawkpaw stalked up behind him. She gathered all of her strength in her unusually strong LeafClan hind legs, and pounced. Toadfoot made a deep voice and wailed. Hawkpaw put her jaws around his scruff and said between her teeth, "I killed it. Deathbite!" She hopped off and saw Leafstar and the SunClan deputy, Oceaneyes, looking at them disappointedly. "I-" She started, but was cut off by Leafstar.
"Come, Hawkpaw." She dropped her head and watched Oceaneyes and Toadfoot walk away. She looked up to see the disappearing tip of Leafstars tail. She followed looking at her paws. "Hawkpaw, what were you thinking?!?! We were all worried about you!"
"I'm sorry, Leafstar......"
"There will certainly be more than a minor punishment for this."
Hawkpaw felt her whiskers droop.
"Oh, I know. No more gatherings for you, Hawkpaw."
"What!?! That's not fair!"
"I'm sorry you feel that way."
Leafstar walked through the camp entrance and went into her den. Hawkpaw looked around. No-one was around. She backed away from the entrance, and trotted towards the SunClan border. She trotted, and when the SunClan smell grew stronger, she broke out into a full sprint. She skidded in the dirt and stopped at the border.
She sniffed cautiously, then walked across the invisible scent border. She followed her nose to the SunClan camp. She looked around, no-one was awake. She crept into the apprentices den and curled up next to the cat she remembered being announced at the gathering as Hollypaw.
"What in the name of StarClan are you doing here, Hawkpaw?!?!" Toadfoot whispered from the entrance.
"I ran away, and I decided to join SunClan."
"You can't just do that!"
"Watch me." She went back to sleep. Toadfoot angrily stomped out of the den and marched right into Sunstars den and yowled, "There is an intruder from IvyClan in the apprentices den!" Sunstar hopped up and charged out of the den. He ran into the apprentices den and snatched Hawkpaw up by the scruff.
"Hey what are you doing?!?!" Hawkpaw yelled.
Sunstar ignored her and set her down in his den in front of Toadfoot. "Did you invite your little playmate to come join us, young one? Well I want you both to get out! Get out NOW!" Sunstar slashed out and raked Toadfoot across the nose with his claws. Toadfoot stood, stunned.
"But, Sunstar, I didn't do anything. It's not my fault the kit followed us. I was just trying to help you, to warn you. To get her out."
"Ah, to get her out. And out she shall be. Now follow my orders."
"I'm NOT a kit!" Hawkpaw protested.
"Get out NOW! Leave! Intruders! Rogues! You are no longer in my clan, and you, kit, never were! Maybe your clan will take you back, but Toadfoot has no where to go!" Sunstar leaped on Hawkpaw and reached down with her fangs, about to pierce the neck....Hawkpaw shut her eyes and stretched her neck out, waiting for the moment when fang would meet fur...
Toadfoot let out a yowl and was on Sunstar in a second, and fangs finally did meet neck fur, but not the teeth and neck of who were about to meet. Toadfoot backed away slowly. "What have I done? What have I done...No.No...No." He was struggling for breath as he whispered. "NO!" He yowled. He turned to the entrance and was gone. Hawkpaw stood frozen in fear at the spot where Toadfoot had disappeared.
That night is now only a vague memory of Hawkflights, but she awoke in cold sweat as she relived it for the first time in a dream. She shook herself. "Toadfoot?" Then she remembered, he was gone. Disappeared that night, never to be seen by the clans again. Her mate, Swiftbreeze, stepped into the den to lay next to her. "Snakepool and Snowmist finally passed. This morning, while it was dark. I will sit vigilante for them tonight, along with you. Fernstar said I could pick who sat with me, so you and Dapplemist are coming." Ah, Dapplemist. Such a crybaby as an apprentice, but now the fiercest warrior the clan had to offer.
"Oh. Alright." She wasn't very partial to the old cats, but was willing to honor their deaths. In their time, they had been honest warriors and determined hunters. She stretched and got up. She walked over to the border and sniffed the air. No SunClan cats had intruded. But she did smell something. A familar scent, like grass and flowers, like SunClan, but with a tang. The scent was gone as soon as it had come. Hawkflight was almost certain this was her imagination.
She stood at the border for a moment, until Oceanstar, the new SunClan leader, led a patrol up by the border. "You, IvyClan cat, what are you doing, wandering so close to the border?"
"I was checking the border when I ended up daydreaming..." She admitted. Oceanstar sneered and led the patrol up the hill. Hawkflight sighed, turned away to face her territory, and began to wander in the woods, not realizing she had caught the tangy scent again and was following it.The scent caused her to drift away to an old badger set. She realized there was no badger scent, she was far away from home, and this could be a potentially dangerous cat.
She was debating to go in or not, when a familar mud colored muzzle protruded from the den. Hawkflight felt like she leaped about eight feet in the air, but it was only eight inches. "Toadfoot!" She yelped, licking the tom right on the nose.
His eyes were cold and souless as he stared back at her."You are on my territory. And Toadfoot, the brave warrior who used to live here, is dead. All there is now is Fang. The cold, heartless, murderer."
Hawkflights heart sank. "Don't do this to yourself because of me, please Toadfoot."
"There IS no Toadfoot!" Fang hissed as he slashed her ear. "And you didn't make Toadfoot kill himself, he did. You didn't make him kill Sunstar."
Hawkflight looked longingly into Toadfoots glistening green eyes. Or now Fangs. She felt the first salty dew drop leak down her small face.Then the others. Then they were streaming down her face. She turned, tail between her legs, and slowly walked away. Fang stood, no emotion showing, as she walked away.