Chapter Text
Spider is having a hard time adjusting to clan life. It’s not that she doesn’t want to be here, she really does! It’s just a lot to get used to.
She has a mentor who tells her how to improve on what she’s bad at, she has clanmates and denmates to talk to, there’s nobody constantly looking over her shoulder with an icy gaze, she doesn’t rely on just Twig to be protected, it’s better now! She's better now. She has to be better, she’s part of a larger group now. A clan , she reminds herself. A clan that took them in when they would have been on their own. She needs to be better. And Twig seems so happy! He’s with his littermate and his mother, and he’s adjusting, so she should too.
The molly sighs, trying and failing to clear her racing mind.
“What’s got you so troubled?” Robinclaw –her mentor– asks a few paces ahead of her. The older she-cat decided a bit of hunting couldn’t hurt, and took them both on a walk through the territory, where Spider was supposed to be trying to identify and catch prey. She startles, realizing she hasn’t been doing what she was supposed to, and rushes to apologize for being so distracted.
Robinclaw chuckles before she can ramble on, “Don’t worry about it, you looked like you could use a walk, some fresh air,” she states, like Spider didn’t just waste hours of sunlight trailing behind her aimlessly.
The black she-cat shakes her head, “I was just… thinking…” she trails off, uncertain. Her mentor hums, giving her the chance to elaborate. She doesn’t.
“Well,” The warrior starts, ”Since you’re back to the present,” Spider winces, ”How about we try hunting for a bit?”
“Sounds good,” She replies in a small voice.
The hunting trip goes worse than Spider would have liked. She identified a good amount of prey, even spotting some before Robinclaw did, but she managed to botch a few attempts at catching them. She wasn’t fast enough, she wasn’t quiet enough, she chided herself, repeating what she did wrong over and over in her head until she got it right on the next try.
They decide to return to camp after her third fail in a row, to Spider’s dismay, exhaustion evidently catching up to her.
“We caught a very good amount of prey anyway,” Robinclaw had said, a hint of exasperation in her voice. “I think it’s going to take both of us to carry it all back.” Spider shrugged, too tired and disappointed to speak. She let her mentor lead her back to where they buried her earlier catches and dug them up in silence, picking them up and carrying them away.
On the way back, Robinclaw kept glancing her way with poorly hidden curiosity and concern shining in her eyes, and she was momentarily thankful for the prey keeping them both quiet. She didn’t particularly feel like being scolded, even if she probably would be once they got back, if not by Robinclaw, then by some other warrior.
The sun was close to setting, the last of its warmth sinking into her pelt as its glow cast the forest in golden hues, and she allowed herself a moment to appreciate how beautiful it was compared to the mountains.
Yes, the mountains were scenic at times, allowing them to stand high and watch from a bird’s eye view, its snowy peaks reflecting the sun and shining during the day, softly glowing at night under the moon’s light, but it was lonely, nothing but the wind and cold to keep them company.
The forest was full of life, in every nook and cranny there was something new, something interesting. A bird’s nest in the branches of a tree, a small burrow hidden in the undergrowth, the rustle of the branches in the wind above her head and crunch of the leaves under her paws, it was like she was a part of the world that she was used to watching from afar, and she loved it.
They reached camp far too quickly, in Spider’s opinion. Loud chatter filled her ears as the she-cats stopped by the fresh-kill pile to drop off what they had, and she quickly turned on her heel in hopes of avoiding the conversation she had felt building up over their trip back.
“Spiderpaw! Wait a moment, I want to talk to you about something,” Robinclaw called, forcing her to stop in her tracks as the molly caught up.
That was another thing she didn’t particularly enjoy, the name changes. Everyone seemed to act like it was no big deal, but she liked her name! Cricket had named her, and she would like to keep it that way, thank you very much. Twig seemed okay with this, but that was different, she reminded herself. Twig had reunited with his family. Cricket wasn’t coming back.
Spider turned her head to look at the warrior, dread weighing in her chest.
“You did good today Spiderpaw,” She said, her comforting tone doing nothing to quell the anxiety swirling inside her mind. She nodded anyway, hoping to be done with the interaction. Weariness must have shown in her eyes still, because Robinclaw looked sad.
“You know nobody’s expecting you to catch every single piece of prey that comes your way right? It’s an unreasonable thing to expect from anyone, even from an experienced warrior,” She said quietly, as if Spider was a fragile thing she needed to be careful with.
The black molly dropped her gaze to her paws, staring at them with contempt. She heard a sigh.
"Alright, take some of these to the nursery, then you can eat some yourself and go rest," The warrior said before walking off.
After doing as told, Spider slowly approached the fresh-kill pile, eyeing it wearily. Her eyes flicked between the options, looking too big and too tasteless. She ended up with a scrawny vole that tasted like ash on her tongue.
A glance up revealed the sky being painted pink in the beginnings of sundown, the moon stubbornly showing its pale outline despite the hours to go before nightfall. Footsteps and laughter reached her ears, making the she-cat shrink in anticipation. The ditch was getting too crowded, too many voices overlapping and the unfamiliar scents overwhelming her senses.
"Hey!" the voice of a young molly –Featherpaw, her mind supplied– called, startling Spider from her thoughts. The cream apprentice bounded over to her, leaving the rest of her patrol behind. "Are you looking at the sky?" She asked with a slight tilt to her head. The blue eyed she-cat floundered, uncertain.
"I- Yeah?" She choked out eventually, her voice high and quiet. Featherpaw looked at her with a doubtful smile, seemingly in an internal conflict, before perking up.
"Come with me," She motioned with a jerk of her head, her voice softening,
"There's a cool spot I want to show you."