Ashpaw settled back into the hollow between roots, sneaking glances at Stagpaw between bites of the mouse. His green eyes remained fixated on her as she ate, an uncomfortable silence coiling around them like a snake.

He broke it first.

"Have you eaten at all since being banished?" His voice was low, concern and curiosity filling his green eyes as he watched Ashpaw continue to scarf down the prey.

Ashpaw licked her lips, nose crinkling slightly as she stared back at her fellow apprentice. "A little," she responded in a quiet mew. "I stumbled on a mouse nest two days ago. Baby mice are barely a mouthful and don't last very long."

Stagpaw nodded, eyes flicking around claws flexing in and out. Ashpaw finished off the mouse, then settled on grooming herself. "Why are you here, anyways?" The grey apprentice asked, glancing up at Stagpaw.

Stagpaw shrugged. "I guess I felt bad. Something about the way you looked when you left the camp..."

Ashpaw finished off the mouse, then sat up, licking her lips. "For you information," she said quietly, eyes low. "I wasn't banished. Just... sent to think about my actions."

Stagpaw rolled his eyes. "Sure. Not banished. Whatever you say." He started to get up. "Don't expect to see me again. I'll get in a lot of trouble if I'm caught."

He looked down at her, and his eyes softened. "I'll be waiting for you when Maplestar lets you back in the clan."

Ashpaw didn't know how someone's words could sting and yet feel good at the same time.

Days limped by, falling into a predictable pattern. Wake up. Spend the day trying to find food. Travel along the edge of the forest, counting the moments. Go to sleep hungry. Always, always hungry.

Hunger followed Ashpaw as certainly as her shadow, chasing at her paws, urging her to slip into the forest, if just for a heartbeat, to catch a mouse, to find a morsel to eat.

But her pride was stronger than her hunger, even if only just barely. Her pride forbade her from taking even a step over the border, a whisker's twitch into the place she had once felt at home.

After the ninth night had passed, she left the forest altogether. She pressed deeper into the Open Lands. The grass reached higher than ever and shone a brilliant green after the rain that was sure to come each and every day. It waved above her head, tantalizing in its freshness and color.

Ashpaw made a face at it, but the hunger shadowing over her every though twisted it's needle claws into her, and she bit through the stalks of the grass, the taste bitter at first, and nowhere near the mouthwatering taste of mouse or shrew, but she ate it. And as Ashpaw looked around her, she realized that she would never go hungry again.

And so, life fell into a more forgiving pattern. Wake to the light of the sun. Wander the open lands until she happened upon a field mouse. Stay close to the river. And if she didn't happen to find any prey, she would eat the grass at night.

The only downside to living in the open lands was the nighttime. She always woke up freezing and soaked with dew. And the world around her was just as wet as if it had rained the entire night through, so there was no hope for a dry patch. And the noise! There were so many noises and chirps and the sound of rustling grass, always the sound of rustling grass.

Ashpaw was just fine living in the open lands, if it were not for the night.

Ashpaw lost track of the days. They all blurred together, with nothing to differentiate them from one another.

It rained all the time now. There wasn't a moment that Ashpaw wasn't soaked and chilled to the bone. The sun never crept out from behind the clouds longer enough to truly clear the dreariness that settled over all of the territories.

Ashpaw wandered, for lack of anything else to do. She let her aching paws carry her all along the Open Lands, beyond the river, where the shifting grass made way for the rough and tumble of stones and rocks, sharp against her paws as the apprentice wandered further and further away from the place that she knew as home.

There was a pool amidst it all. Clear water dipping further and further down in the day, no end in sight, and at night, all the splendor of the Sky Spirits danced in the waters.

And Ashpaw saw it all.

This was the night.

Energy zinged inside of Ashpaw as she waited at the edge of the territory, but she refused to let it show. They would never, never know how hard this half moon had been. They could never know how she had longed to be back in camp, to be back with everyone she had ever known and loved.

Though, she may have to take stock of who she truly loved, and who loved her, when she got back. Nightbloom would be at the top of the list. She couldn't imagine her mentor ever accepting or condoning the punishment enacted against Ashpaw.

A pit fell in her stomach at the memory of seeing the gentle black warrior in the medicine den, her pelt covered in blood. Nightbloom might not even be alive...

Ashpaw snarled and stamped her paws into the dirt, as if the action could crush the thoughts away, that she might never think it again. She knew it wouldn't work. She knew that it was only planting the seed deeper, and she wouldn't be able to get it out of her mind.

She paced a tight circle, wheeling in on herself. Her fur was fluffing up as she scented rain again, the clouds shrugging the sides of the mountians. With any luck, she would be able to wait this storm out in the comfort and warmth of a den, not just huddled under a lopsided nest of grasses.

Ashpaw scored her claws into the earth, impatience burbling in her stomach, cold, like the waters of a creek, or the stretches that separated the different clans. Why couldn't they just be here, already?

Chastising herself for the show of emotion, she schooled her body into calm rigidity once more. They couldn't know. They would never know.

Ashpaw tilted her ears backward, as she heard the distinctive snap of twigs and leaves being disturbed, and the fur between her shoulders raised.

She doubted it was a fox. Their stench could be smelled lengths away, so it was hard to be surprised by one of them. Raccoons were more lumbering, or so she had heard. They were also very reclusive, and didn't seek trouble.

Hunger nipped at her stomach, but she ignored it. Ashpaw had become very good at ignoring such things in the past half moon.

The crackling of steps was now accompanied by voices. Relief flooded her, swelling in her chest and tingling in her paws. She was going home!

She settled herself, curling her tail around her paws, giving her chest a quick look in an attempt to look presentable, despite the grass and dirt littering her fur.

Maplestar, Clovershine, and Antsnarl came into view, the two warriors in a heated discussion until Maplestar silenced them with a flick of his tail. The trio came to a halt just paces away from the ashen apprentice, her face settled into calm seriousness, but hints of worry could be seen in her eyes.

"I see you've survived," Maplestar commented, as if unconcerned for the young apprentice, not caring if she had been killed in the wilderness outside of the territories, or if she had withered away, unable to provide for herself.

The tip of Ashpaw's tail twitched, but the rest of her body remained the epitome of calmness. "I suppose you're bringing me back, then?"

Clovershine wrinkled her nose at the apprentice, her yellow eyes darkened in the shadows of the forest. "I suppose we must, since you weren't polite enough to find a fox or badger to finish you off."

Maplestar pinned a scolding glare on the warrior, and she folded her ears back, chastised by the leader, despite the russet tom not uttering a single word. He turned his attention back to Ashpaw, and a shiver chased down her spine.

"Needleclan will be glad to receive you, Ashpaw. I believe you will be stronger for your experiences, and I expect you to devote yourself back into your trainings, to catch up on everything that has passed in your absence."

Her experiences. Her absence. The words sent trembles of rage deep into her stomach. She didn't want to be stronger from the experience! She had wanted to be trusted! To be loved! To be viewed as apprentice, to be taken care of!

She stilled. Her anger would not do anything to change what had already come and gone. It had kept her alive this long, so she would cling to it once more, no longer to survive the dangers of the unknown, but the distrust of the clans.

"What are we waiting for?" She meowed, drawing to her paws, matching Maplestar's even glare with one of her own.

"Take me home."

Hey guys!

I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated this book, and I promise to be (sorta) consistent from now on! I promise at LEAST a chapter a month!

What do you guys think of everything that's been happening to poor Ashpaw? And when do you think will be coming up soon?

Please remember to vote and comment!!! I love hearing (reading?) what all of my readers think of what I write!

Till next time!

~Brindle