Ain't Nothing Come Easy (c)

Tallshadow was up at the first light of dawn, as always. This time he awoke under familiar stars, in a familiar place. He took a moment to let the snow-scent mingled with the moor grass and gorse. Even in the dead of Leaf-bare, WindClan’s moors had never looked so beautiful, or their disparaged camp felt so cozy. The repairs were well under way, but this morning there were other tasks to do. He picked his way around his sleeping clanmates, finding the familiar divot where the apprentices slept. It settled something in his chest to see his siblings curled up together with their denmates in the same place he had slept as an apprentice. This is how it should be, WindClan apprentices sleeping under the sky, surrounded by the safe press of gorse. He nudged Heatherpaw gently. “C’mon little sister, it’s time to run the moor.”

He felt that same tug of excitement in his paws when he first saw the true extent of WindClan’s wide sprawling fields. He beckoned the pale she-cat to follow him with a twitch of his long golden tail, and then squeezed his way through the gorse tunnel and into the openness beyond. “Try to keep up.” He said, but there was a gentleness behind his teasing. Even with the snow blanketing the familiar landmarks, the tall warrior knew WindClan’s territory as intimately as he knew the strength in his shoulders or the feel of his claws against the grass. There was no hesitation when he leapt up the rise, leaving WindClan’s camp nestled snugly in the snow below, and broke into a long loping sprint through the snow. He relished the bend and release of his spine, the way his lungs ached with the cold sting of the morning air, the wind plastering his whiskers back. Everything settled into the rhythmic pounding of his heart, free at last to run like he was born to do.

He slowed his pace so Heatherpaw wouldn’t be left behind, and eventually a massive flat rock came into view, jutting from the hillside like an unsheathed claw. “That’s overlook rock, you can see all the way to four trees from up there, but there’s also a rabbit warren here.” The tall golden tom grinned down at the apprentice, clearly content to be back in the place he loved most. “Tell me if you can scent any prey nearby, and then you can go test out that hunting crouch you’ve been working on.”