A Concerning Check-In [C]

ShadowClan Camp - Evening

There were many cats that Fawnpatch would never be able to get near. So many of the young cats had mothers or fathers or mentors to guard them, and she was no longer a trusted queen in ShadowClan. She would not be trusted by the adult cats of her clan to be left alone with any if someone else could look after them. This is why her gaze consistently was drawn to one particular cat: Forestpaw.

She remembered him from the Gathering. He’d been with some other apprentice, and his mentor. A different cat of the Dark Forest had confronted them—Stagshade, was it? She could not recall—while she had been busy with cats of her own. But before she had left with ShadowClan following the Gathering, the poor child’s foolish mentor had crossed another Dark Forest cat. She had heard the desperation in the apprentice’s voice calling out for his mentor: Ratrunner, oh Ratrunner.

Now the child was without a mentor, and it didn’t take long observation to learn that his parents weren’t around either. Even that she-cat apprentice he was with no longer stayed near to him from day to day. He seemed so…alone.

Perfect.

One afternoon while Forestpaw was by himself, away from too many other cats, Fawnpatch made her move. After retrieving a vole from the kill pile, she approached him with the usual gentle grace she had when she was still alive. She stopped in front of him and laid down as casually as any friend or concerned queen would. Fawnpatch was acutely aware of her stench, and her wet appearance, but she hoped that her sweet words would be able to affect the apprentice faster than the others.

“Little one, why do you look so down?” she purred. Her voice was silky and sweet, as smooth and concerned as any living queen in the nursery. “I’ve been so worried about you.” She set down the vole and pushed it towards him. “Have you been eating well? You look like you’re getting so thin.”