The Land Between, Chapter One

THUNDERCLAN

Leader- Lightstar – white she-cat

Deputy- Foxpelt – sandy gray tom, amber eyes

Medicine Cat- Duskflight – speckled tabby tom

Warriors- Brownwhisker – brown tabby tom, yellow eyes, apprentice, Mosspaw

Sagewing– a stocky calico she-cat with amber eyes, apprentice, Rainpaw

Snakestripe – a dark mottled tabby tom

Dewfrost – a reddish brown tom with green eyes, apprentice, Blackpaw

Moonclaw – a gray tabby she-cat, apprentice, Speckledpaw

Apprentices- Speckledpaw – an orange-and-white tom

Rainpaw – a patchy black and white tom with amber eyes

Blackpaw – a large, stocky black tom

Mosspaw – a grayish-brown she-cat

Queens- Dawnleaf – a small calico she-cat, blue eyes

Skyfeather – a pure white she-cat with green eyes

SHADOWCLAN

Leader – Redstar – a calico she-cat with a very long tail

Deputy- Iceblaze– a pure white tom

Medicine Cat- Blackwing – a smoky black she-cat, apprentice, Thistlepaw

Warriors – Sandfrost – a sandy brown she-cat

Sunwing – a silver gray tom

Greenwhisker – a ginger she-cat, bright green eyes

Spottedpelt – a patchy tabby tom, apprentice, Gingerpaw

Snakefur – a jet black tom with green eyes, apprentice, Smokepaw

Apprentices- Thistlepaw – a dark tabby she-cat with green eyes

Gingerpaw – a bright ginger tom

Smokepaw – a dark russet tom with orange eyes

Queens- Thornwind – a dark tabby she-cat

WINDCLAN

Leader- Heatherstar – a gray tabby tom

Deputy- Dreamwhisker- a long-haired white she-cat

Medicine cat- Daisyleaf – a stocky tortoiseshell she-cat with amber eyes, apprentice, Jadepaw

Warriors- Russetpool – a long haired dark gray she-cat

Shadowpuddle – a blue-gray she-cat, apprentice, Graypaw

Waveclaw – a dark gray tom

Mousefoot – a brown tabby tom

Marshfall – a very dark gray tom, apprentice, Duskpaw

Dirtnose – a reddish tabby tom with green eyes

Apprentices- Duskpaw – pale ginger tom with amber eyes

Jadepaw – a long-haired dark-gray she-cat with bright green eyes

Graypaw – a smoky black she-cat

Queens- Wildflower – a pretty calico she-cat

RIVERCLAN

Leader- Fallenstar – a large ginger she-cat

Deputy- Brackenflood – dark brown and gray tabby tom, apprentice, Hailpaw

Medicine cat- Skunklilly – a black and white tom

Warriors- Streamflight – a silver gray she-cat, apprentice, Rosepaw

Clovertail – a pretty gray she-cat, apprentice, Mudpaw

Bonewing – a huge white tom

Brookfeather – a lithe black and white tom

Cedarbreeze – a dark ginger tom

Frostfur – a silver and white she-cat, apprentice, Shellpaw

Apprentices- Hailpaw- a small calico she-cat

Mudpaw – a pale brown she-cat

Shellpaw – a gray tabby she-cat with yellow eyes

Rosepaw – a white and silver she-cat with blue eyes

Queens – Ashwhisker – a black she-cat with white paws

It was a regular morning in the forest.

Three apprentices raced across the forest floor, laughing and scattering leaves. They were young, they'd only been made apprentices about a moon ago. The sun was barely rising in the forest and they were enjoying the freedom of the morning before their training started, their bellies already full of fresh-kill.

The biggest of the three, a round black tom named Blackpaw, was in the lead. "Race you to the lake!" He yowled to his friends as they charged through ThunderClan territory. "Last one there has to eat a dead adder!"

Behind him, orange-and-white Speckledpaw tried to match his pace, almost panting at the effort. And Rainpaw took up the rear, a small, black and white tom. His feet were already tired from running. He was smaller than his friends, and he knew he'd be the last one to the lake, and he didn't feel that much like getting there, anyway. He just didn't have the sort of zest his friends had.

So Rainpaw stopped running and sat down and licked some mud out of his pawpads. He could hear Blackpaw and Speckledpaw racing off to the lake, unaware he'd stopped following them. But that was okay. He could do his own thing for a while. His mentor, Sagewing, always pushed him to the limit, and then some, and he was always exhausted by the time training was over. There was no reason to tire himself out even more.

Suddenly, Rainpaw smelled a vole from the bushes next to him. He immediately dropped into a crouch. He had yet to make a successful kill. Speckledpaw and Blackpaw had already caught whole squirrels, but he couldn't even catch a mouse. He didn't know what was wrong with him. They always scented him and got scared off.

Rainpaw crouched and waited for the vole to come into view. He could hear it and smell it, rustling in the underbrush, but he couldn't see it. He had a bad feeling he was going to botch this. What was it about him! Sometimes, he wondered if he wasn't cut out for great things, or even to be a good warrior at all. And Sagewing always pushed him so hard because she knew he was incompetent. He was sure of it. And no matter how hard he tried, he still let her down.

The vole stepped out from the underbrush, unaware of him crouching nearby. Don't flick! He told his tail. Don't twitch! That was always his problem, he couldn't keep an ear from twitching or a whisker from wiggling. Not to mention how distracted he always got. Sagewing always told him how much patience hunting took, but Rainpaw had the worst patience in the world. He the attention span of a newborn kit. Anything that could distract him, would distract him.

Like, in that moment, a breeze picked up behind him, sending some dead leaves into the air over his head, and Rainpaw was suddenly overwhelmingly compelled to leap into the air and swat them down. StarClan, he was the worst apprentice…He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to focus on the vole, imagining how proud Sagewing would be if she saw he'd made a kill while she'd still been back at camp.

The vole moved closer. Now was his chance! Rainpaw exploded from the covering of rich leaf-fall leaves with all the strength in his small, lithe body, amber eyes blazing. The vole was caught completely unaware, and it was locked in the spot where his paws would land, claws splayed.

Rainpaw's paws hit the ground, but the vole was gone. He couldn't believe it! Furious, he raised his head in time to see it disappearing into a well-concealed old rabbit den covered up by dead leaves. He charged after it. The vole's scent was everywhere, suffocating him.

He dug furiously at the dead leaves. He dug and dug. No! He kept thinking. No! I can't fail this time! I had it! Soon, he was digging into the dirt of the den itself, getting dirt and mud all over his patchy black and white fur. But he dug anyway, possessed. Not this time! He even begged StarClan to help him catch the mouse brained vole that had somehow eluded him.

But then, he saw something else. At the heart of the den, his head and front paws and legs buried in darkness and dirt and leaves, came a blinding light. He couldn't tell where exactly it was coming from, but it was right ahead of him, so he continued to dig and push until he could fit farther into the den. The stench of the vole was overwhelming, but the blinding light was greater. He dug and dug, until he saw the source of the light.

It looked like it was coming from itself. It wasn't coming from anything at all, just a perfect prick of light floating above the dirt at the end of the den. It was brighter than any star or any moonlight or the sun at the middle of the day in the heat of Greenleaf.

Rainpaw stared. Then, he daringly stretched his paw forward, straight into the light until it became so bright his paw disappeared, and his mind flashed with white light and color and unfathomable images. His body shook and trembled and, suddenly, he was blasted backward out of the den, flew several tail-lengths into the air, and landed hard on his back.

He was totally stunned. He could hear Speckledpaw and Blackpaw calling his name. "Rainpaw!" "Rainpaw?" He tried to call back, but he was winded, and couldn't get his breath.

"Rainpaw?" The voices were closer. Blackpaw appeared in his peripheral vision, and behind him was Dewfrost, his mentor, and Speckledpaw and Sagewing too. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Rainpaw wheezed. At the sight of his mentor, he immediately made a valiant attempt at standing up, but he was obviously feeble and shaken up.

"What happened to you?" Sagewing asked, looking disdainfully at his dirty fur.

"I was chasing a vole," Rainpaw mewed. "And he went down the den."

"Is he still down there?" Blackpaw meowed eagerly, darting to the opening of the den and pushing his head in. "I can smell him."

"Don't-" Rainpaw tried to interject. Blackpaw dug himself deeper, and then popped out, shaking dirt off his muzzle.

"Huh." said Blackpaw. "I guess I missed him. Oh well."

"Did you see the light down there?" Rainpaw asked.

"What light?" Blackpaw asked, and Sagewing, Dewfrost and Speckledpaw all turned to stare at Rainpaw.

"Nevermind." He laughed. "Can we practice hunting today?"

"Of course!" Sagewing said, approaching Rainpaw. "Let's see your form. Give me a hunting crouch."

Rainpaw dropped into his hunting crouch. Everything felt right, but he knew it was somehow wrong, anyway. Sagewing corrected his haunches and his paws. "Sagewing," Rainpaw mewed sadly. "I don't think I'll ever make it as a hunter."

"That's not true!" She assured him. They started walking into the forest together, as Blackpaw and Speckledpaw took off another direction with Dewfrost. Sagewing's calico paws pattered gently over the forest floor. She was one of ThunderClan's greatest warriors. Her, and the noble deputy, Foxpelt, had taken on two badgers one particularly cold leaf-bare when almost every kit in the nursery had greencough. Rainpaw was so excited to have her as his mentor, even though he always felt like he was letting her down.

"You know it took Foxpelt almost three moons since his apprentice ceremony to finally catch something?" Sagewing asked, whiskers twitching. "And he's one of the best hunters in the Clan. You just have to believe in yourself."

"But what if I'm just not cut out for hunting? It's like there's something wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you. And if you aren't cut out for hunting, you're cut out for something else. Trust me, Rainpaw. You'll be a true hero someday!"

"Well, thanks…" Rainpaw wondered if he should tell his mentor about the light he saw in the rabbit den. But it was just too weird to explain. It probably didn't matter, anyway. Maybe some Twoleg rubbish had gotten in there. He didn't feel particularly scared, so there was no reason Sagewing should, either.

They reached the training hollow, where Blackpaw and Dewfrost and Speckledpaw and his mentor, Moonclaw, were already practicing hunting crouches.

"Okay, everyone," Sagewing said, "Go out and see what you can catch. Blackpaw, you try those rocks. Speckledpaw, see if you can try your paw over by those aspens, see if you can get another squirrel. Rainpaw, head over that ridge. The thickets down there will be full of mice this time of day, so pickings will be easy."

"Okay," said Rainpaw, secretly resenting having to be the one given the easy break in front of his friends, but also hoping maybe he could make up for his embarrassment with the vole earlier. This time, he would get it right.

He skipped over the ridge toward the thicket, the training hollow disappearing behind him. He immediately caught a whiff of mouse. At least he had such a strong nose. That was something. He turned his head to locate the smell, and when he did…the world disappeared.

In the blink of an eye, the forest Rainpaw stood in was charred to bones. The trees, once growing rich and tall with their leaves turning orange and red and falling around him like snow, were blackened, barren skeletons, pointing toward the sky like jagged bones.

The forest floor beneath his paws was a bed of ash. All underbrush and thickets had been destroyed, there was no more grass or ferns or bushes. Just ash, pure ash, and the charred remains of greenery and tree branches. The air was completely silent. The sky overhead was a pure shade of dark gray. He couldn't smell smoke or see fire, but the forest was absolutely destroyed.

"Oh…oh no." Rainpaw mewled, his eyes so round they were stinging.

And just like that, the burnt forest was gone, and in its place was a huge lake, only, it was bigger than a lake, because the water went all around him in every direction as far as he could see. And then he started to sink as the ground disappeared under him, and he paddled desperately to stay afloat.

"H…Help!" Rainpaw cried, water going in his mouth.

The water disappeared again. He was back in the forest, the trees and bushes and leaves in full abundance, standing just before the ridge to the thickets with the mice. He turned around to return to the training hollow and tell someone what had happened. But when he reached it, through the trees, he saw something strange.

Blackpaw and Speckledpaw were present with Dewfrost and Moonclaw, sitting and listening to Sagewing, and when Rainpaw listened he could hear what she was saying.

"…see if you can get another squirrel. Rainpaw, head over that ridge. The thickets down there will be full of mice this time of day, so pickings will be easy."

Rainpaw stared. There was another cat, too, listening to Sagewing with his back to Rainpaw, who Rainpaw didn't recognize. But the more he stared, the more he realized who it was. The small black and white tom, sitting calmly and listening to Sagewing….it was Rainpaw.

The world blinked again. Now, Rainpaw was standing over the ridge, looking down at the thickets, his nose full of the smell of mice, exactly how he'd been before this all started. It had all taken maybe a few heartbeats at best. This time, he didn't move a muscle. There was only one thought in his mind.

Did I just travel through time?

AN: Hi guys, this is my first story on fanfiction, and it's Warriors of course! Please tell me what you think…this story is going to be about a big adventure, so buckle your seatbelts! (Haha jk).

~Delaney