Sunrise light streaked the sky, early dew clinging to the camp's heavily-trodden flat grass. Fog still hung in the morning air, the sunlight warming it away. Dipperflight felt his fur prick as he heard movement, and he snapped his gaze in the direction of the rustling, his heart racing. His fur fell flat though as he recognized Rushfrost. His light ginger tabby and white fur wasn't smoothed down yet, and his yellow eyes were still clouded with sleep. He yawned, stretching low to the ground, before padding to Dipperflight's humble den.

"How'd you sleep?" He meowed gruffly, settling down across from the tabby to groom his pelt.

"Okay," he lied, his eyes heavy. His body ached with fatigue and his muscles sore. He hadn't slept at all that night.

"Mm," he nosed the moss nest carefully, and Dipperflight edged back as his muzzle came so close to him. "Foxpaw did a lousy job on your nest. I'll have to schedule him to stay in camp and redo it." Stay in camp. Stay in camp. Contained. Kept away from the outside world.

      "N-No!" He stuttered, eyes wide. "I.. I mean, no. It's okay. It's fine." Rushfrost tipped his head to the side, and the black striped tom avoided his questioning look. "He should go out and be an apprentice. Train. Run. Have fun." He half-closed his eyes. There's no way I'll be the cause of Foxpaw being kept in camp. No way.

      "If you say so. Did you want to go on any patrols? We have a beech copse just further down from here. It's nowhere close to dense undergrowth and tall oaks, but you might still find comfort in it. I know the river is nothing to be comfortable around when you're used to flying through treetops." Rushfrost murmured, laying back down.

There was more movement from the warriors den as another few cats exited. Dipperflight recognized one as Owlheart, the gray and white mentor to Foxpaw, but the others he had only seen at gatherings. As they passed, a creamy brown tom with dark marks on his face, legs, tail, and ears, cast a sour look in Dipperflight's direction. The brown tabby pulled his legs close to himself, lowering his head. Rushfrost sensed Dipperflight's uncomfortable squirm and his gaze flicked to the warrior.

"Troutface, doesn't Ravenpaw need you to wake him up right about now?" The golden and white deputy raised a brow, though his yellow eyes were icy cold. The tom flicked his tail coolly.

      "I think Ravenpaw's learned how to wake up by now, but if you insist...," he flashed a glance to the ThunderClan warrior before departing toward the apprentice's reed den across the camp where the other four warriors had gone.

"That was Troutface. He's... particular." Rushfrost's eyes softened as he turned his head back. Dipperflight have a stiff nod. A few moments passed before the bicolor deputy stood, his feathery fur flattened and shining in the sunrise light.

"Feel free to visit the Beech Copse, and don't be afraid to ask a cat to accompany you, if need be. The elders love going out on walks, though Moleclaw might try and hustle you," he purred. "I'm supervising apprentice training, so I'll see you late tonight maybe. Oh, speaking of which," he waved his tail in a hello to Foxpaw as he watched the ginger apprentice groggily step out of the reed and sedge walled nursery, the tom padding the few pace distance to the thinly striped 'paw and asking something along the lines of "How's your sister?"

Dipperflight tucked his head back onto his paws, amber eyes carefully observing the camp wake up. Breamclaw padded out of the warriors den, bickering with the much smaller Stormcall, Hazelstream awkwardly nudging the sleek dark tom to quit quarreling so early in the morning. Dipperflight sniffed, closing his eyes.

       I want to go out.. I want to go to the Beech Copse. I want to see if it's really big, if there are squirrels, if there's a lot of undergrowth, if I could climb the trees. I want to. But I know what lies outside of this camp's walls: Fennelstorm. I'm not safe. Even if I were to leave the clans, it wouldn't be hard for him to track me down.

He blinked his eyes open. All of the apprentices were warming up for the day outside of their den. Foxpaw was vibrantly poking at Ravenpaw, making him get increasingly annoyed, and a pale ginger tabby she-cat was grooming her fur as a second pale ginger tabby tom did the same at her side, the last apprentice of the group, a dark brown tabby tom, meowed brightly to the cleaning siblings. Sagecloud pad up to the group of five, brightly smiling. His fur was smoothed, faint tabby stripes perfectly visible in the morning's rays. Maybe I could ask Sagecloud to go with me... he seems like he would know how to talk Fennelstorm down if he were to show up. That's possibly the only way to keep Fennelstorm from mauling us all.

Sagecloud meowed something to the apprentices, and Foxpaw loudly with happiness, the group of young cats standing and padding to the entrance of camp, where their mentors were waiting. Dipperflight's gaze followed them, locking eyes with a pair of pale blue ones. Troutface. The point tom looked away immediately, saying something inaudible to the cats around him with a charming swift flick of his tail, Ravenpaw at his side, before leading the group of cat's out. Sagecloud blinked after them before turning, his amber-brown eyes lighting up as he saw Dipperflight.

"Hey, how's it going?" He meowed as he pad up.

"Ah... fine...," he mumbled. There was a moment of silence, Dipperflight not knowing what to say. I can't just ask him to take me to the copse, I can't be his obligation.

"I was just seeing the apprentices off to their training. Gorsepaw always needs a motivation speech in order to actually go a little bit further than his best," he explained, sitting. "The other apprentices, especially Foxpaw, really like it too." Dipperflight blinked.

"Oh, is one of them your apprentice...?" I hope he didn't skip mentoring his apprentice to kit-sit me. Even out of ThunderClan and in an entirely new place I'm still a burden on everyone....

       "No," Sagecloud shook his head, "but I think I was supposed to get Foxpaw's sister as my apprentice, but she got very, very sick around a moon ago when they turned six moons. She's not sick anymore, but she's still terribly weak. Still not a 'paw." Sagecloud gave a side smile, which had fallen gradually as he had progressed through the story.

Dipperflight mumbled an "oh," silence once more filling the cold morning void.

"Did you want to see the territory at all? Beech Copse is just right around here, I can take you..?" Sagecloud raised his tail, the long fur lightly banded with stripes. Dipperflight hesitated. Tempting but... why leave the camp? I'll only leave my scent all over the territory and increase the chances of Fennelstorm tracking me back here. "If anything remotely threatening pops up, I'll give it my all to protect you," he offered again, ambery-brown eyes warm. The ThunderClan warrior glanced to both sides before finally shaking his head.

"I... maybe next time," he murmured, setting his white muzzle in his paws. Sagecloud sighed softly, laying down across from Dipperflight, the wind buffeting his water-repellant fur.

"That's okay. I'm not really the strongest fighter, anyway. Unless a smile could persuade your fears to subside." Dipperflight curled tighter.

"Even the greatest fighter in all of RiverClan couldn't fight him off...," he said softly. Sagecloud blinked slowly, twitching his whiskers. "I don't think he would register what a smile is." He closed his eyes, shutting out all the bough-less skies and reed structures.

"That's too bad. All bad guys have a weakness though, right? Badgers are strong and scary and smelly and fierce, but they're lumberingly slow, and kestrels have brilliant eyesight and quick as WindClan, yet they aren't strong enough to carry a full grown cat. Just try and think of one for whatever you're afraid of."

Nothing. I can't think of anything. Fennelstorm is strong and smart and fast. He's a great tracker, a great everything. He has no heart. None of that could ever be the downfall of anything.

"He doesn't have any weaknesses." Dipperflight mumbled. Sagecloud eyes widened slightly before softening.

"I can definitely see, now, why you're so scared." His voice was soft. Dipperflight turned his head away.

       "I-I'm not scared." He growled, feeling a coldness sweep over him. He stood, turning and laying back down again, his thickly striped back facing the gray warrior. He almost thought he could feel the hurt expression of the gently warrior, but he pushed it away. I'm not something to be pitied or something to be picked at.

      "I... I have to go," the longhaired RiverClan tom whispered, standing quickly and leaving. Dipperflight sniffed, the seething feeling still lingering. He knew it was wrong, and he shouldn't have been angry-- but for some reason he wanted to clutch the burning feeling and hold onto it longer. He wanted to be angry. For everything Fennelstorm had done to him, for everything that had happened... he wanted be enraged.

       He felt his breath hitch, the coolness of the day gusting the darkness away with a simple thought.

       Is... is that how Fennelstorm feels?

//

I've been working on this for a few days, apologies it's pretty late. I was hoping to finish this up over Christmas break because I have no friends and no life, but wowwee wow Christmas break is super short this year, and doesn't start until December 23 for me, going until January 2. :'-) rip.

OOH YEAH. I fixed the cover if you noticed. It had been bothering me forever. Unfortunately the red tint to "Crows" got played down a bit; I'm not sure what I did differently that changed it... I used the same font and technique I don't know what I did??