High Rank Announcement [#hrannouncement]
Dawnstar watched the interaction between Cougarivy and her former apprentice, Pigeonstep with a touch of envy. Dawnstar's interest in taking an apprentice herself had weaned greatly due to the betrayal of the last one. Eventually, she had put him out of his misery. A bittersweet story, that ended up in some odd trauma to form within the leader. Any apprentice she trained she'd always wondered in the back of her mind if they'd end up like him as well.
It was safer for her to simply train ShadowClan's apprentices when she had free time, rather than devote all her attention to one single apprentice. Sparkpaw was the only apprentice she had attempted to train, more as a debt to Talonstone than anything else, but she vanished for a number of moons and even though she had returned to ShadowClan, Dawnstar had lost all faith in the she-cat. Dawnstar doubted that the apprentice would remain loyal to ShadowClan for long, she had no drive or passion to be what Talonstone had been.
"From now on until you receive your warrior names you'll be known as Mothpaw, Spiderpaw, and Willowpaw." Dawnstar forced herself back on track as all three newly named apprentices peered up at her with excitement and eagerness. Well, actually, Willowpaw looked more shocked than excited, did the hairball not keep track of her age or something?
"Willowbriar, it's about time you start training an apprentice. Mothpaw is yours to teach." Dawnstar glanced over at the warrior who watching the new apprentices with this type of earnestness that Dawnstar would be a fool to ignore. She clearly wanted an apprentice and so she'd get one.
"Spiderpaw, your mentor will be Lynxblossom. I trust he'll train you well." Dawnstar waved her tail in the direction of the gray cat with the bobtail. The leader was really hoping that she wouldn't have to reassign any of these apprentices by the next meeting.
"Willowpaw, you'll be training with Redheart." The warrior had recently returned to the clan after a long period of absence. Perhaps a little responsibility would keep him from wandering this time.
"Pinepaw, I've no clue where your mentor disappeared to but considering they're no longer around to train you. Foxwhisper will be taking over your training." Dawnstar wasn't sure why she didn't have as many cats to assign as normal. But she wasn't going to question it since it wasn't something terrible.
"Now then, Purekit, despite holding the rank of a kit, you old enough to know better than to sneak into a gathering to cause an unnecessary fuss with some stupid ThunderClan apprentice. I don't care why you did, all that matters is that you did. So even though you recently just return to the clan, I'll be sending you out in temp exile for the next seven sunrises, if you survive, I'll let you back into ShadowClan. I'll expect better behavior from you. Your apprentice ceremony will be delayed by a moon from the time of your return." Did Dawnstar give dung if her clan thought she was being too harsh on a kit? Nope, not in the slightest. Purekit was lucky she was still breathing. If the kit was arrogant and smart enough to sneak into the gathering unsupervised, being stuck in the outskirts for a few sunrises wouldn't hurt.
"This meeting is over." Dawnstar finished, leaping down, although called out to a select few as soon as her paws were on solid ground. "Spiritfire, Redpaw, Aspenpaw, Orchidmoon, Juniperpaw I want you all in my den. I want to speak with you. If anyone sees my foolish cousin, Ebonyfang, return tell him I want him in my den immediately." As the massive shadow queen began to retreat to her den, she stopped to shoot Cinderblaze a sharp look.
"You, go to WindClan and find Twilightstar. She'll have a message for you." Dawnstar growled to the deputy and then finally retreated into her den. So much work, so little time.
