Frustration (closed for Chu)

Snowpaw padded out of the elders' den, having put fresh moss in Mistfeather's nest for the third time that moon. While all the other apprentices got to go out for fighting training and patrols and swimming practice, the fluffy white she-cat almost always got chosen to stay behind and do the chores that were the duties of all apprentices. She had been an apprentice for so long now that her sister, Sparkwillow, who had always been beside her, had become a warrior without her. The half-blind she-cat was lonelier than ever- only her sister had been willing to hang out with a disabled she-cat, and now she was busy with her warrior duties. If Snowpaw had been a regular cat she'd have been a warrior now, but she'd only been hunting twice in her moons of apprenticeship. She knew she was disabled, but Lilacfeather hadn't even been giving her a chance! Shaking off her frustration, Otterleap's daughter washed her mouse-bile-coated paws in a nearby muddy puddle. She was a disappointment to her parents, she knew, but she'd have to live with that.

Her forest green eyes looked around camp, searching for any familiar-looking shadows. Her ears were pricked and her scent glands readied as well; she relied more on those two senses than her impaired sight. Was her sister anywhere around, or anyone else in her family? Ears focused on listening for pawsteps as she walked, she wasn't paying attention to her own feet. Inevitably the apprentice tripped over the fresh-kill pile, landing face first in the cluster of fish. She tried to get up, but one of her paws slipped on a fat trout and she fell back on the ground. Exasperated, Snowpaw lay there, both hoping that someone would help and that no one would see her embarrassment.

"You okay there, sis?" Sparkwillow meowed with a teasing note in her voice, not knowing the bitterness that her sister felt towards her promotion. She was never really that close with most of her litter, more busy with her own thing and meeting Silentstorm on the border. There was so much to do, and half the damn clan was related to her anyway, family wasn't that big on her mind beyond the occasion thought. But she could spare a minute for her sister today. Nothing else was on anyway.

Leaning down, she picked up the fish and placed it carefully back into the pile.

-

Otterleap watched from the distance, happy that his girls were getting along. He was just returning from a hunting patrol, and he was quite tired but he went over to help. "Someone tripped?"

Snowpaw winced as she heard her sister come up, her voice light and teasing as always. It would be nice if she could take something seriously, for once. As Sparkwillow removed the troublesome fish, the sound of her father's voice rang across the clearing. It was nice that he cared, but why did he feel the need to state the obvious? Trying to shake the bitter, unhappy thoughts out of her normally intelligent head, the warrior-aged apprentice couldn't help but notice that it was only her family who came to help. However, the RiverClan she-cat forced a smile as she managed to sit up, shadowy green eyes as dull as always as she stared at the dark forms of her father and sister. "I'm... fine. I'm fine," she lied, voice falsely cheerful as she swept her fluffy snow-white tail over her muddy, wet paws. "I just finished helping Mistfeather with her ticks."

"No wonder you tripped. Mouse bile always had me gagging for hours and dizzy." Sparkwillow wrinkled up her nose at the thought of how the bile would always stick to her paws. Shaking her head to try clear the vivid scent memory, she joked. "Boy, I'm glad to not be an apprentice any more. Hurry up and join me in the warrior den sis!"

"It's a great honour to serve our elders, Sparkwillow. And Mistfeather was our former deputy, show some respect of I'll ask Fishstar to reconsider letting you be a warrior." Otterleap chimed in, before looking over to Snowpaw. "Ignore your sister, you're doing a valuable service for our clan."

Sparkwillow's seemingly innocent words cut her sister to the core. "No wonder you tripped.... Glad I'm not an apprentice any more.... Hurry up..." Her father's words,  probably meant to console her, faded into the buzz that filled Snowpaw's ears as she stared disbelievingly at her calico sister. As if I haven't been trying with everything I've got! As if Fishstar just doesn't want me to be a warrior! As if all of you aren't in on it! As if all of you actually care! Losing control of her carefully held-in emotions for the first time in her life,  the fluffy white apprentice let out a choked sob, unable to say anything that she wanted to. She turned tail and ran swiftly away into the territory, pushing past bushes and trees, already shadowy vision further blinded by hot tears. She didn't know where she was going, only that she was getting away from her sister. She heard bushes rustling, but didn't care what it was. It was probably some bird or some squirrel. They don't know how easy their lives are.

A cold fog swept through the reeds, slithering against the floor like smokey serpents crawling towards the white apprentice. Dead silent as it moved, it left thin sheets of ice covering the earth in a milky film that had all the birds and frogs quieten down in fear. For a second, there seemed to be shape in the mist, but that soon faded away to nothingness in the white depths. However the mist kept moving, it's speed increasing till it cut off the apprentice in her stride, circling her in a wave of frosty air.

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Otterleap gave Sparkwillow a hard glare, before he snapped at his daughter with the slightest hint of a growl. "Go fetch new bedding for the apprentice's den, and make your sister's nest lined with feathers for that comment. Go on! I'll fetch Snowpaw." Shaking his head, the warrior stretched his tired muscles before shooting off to follow Snowpaw's tracks. Her scent was distinct to him as her father, but something was getting in his way... Was it getting colder here? The tom shivered as he walked closer and closer to where she'd run off, his paws tingling as if he was walking on snow.

"What in the name of StarClan?" The warrior growled, looking around with concern as he finally spotted a shape in the dense mist. "Snowpaw! Is that you?! Are you alright?!"

Snowpaw sat on the grass, tears falling hot and fast from her forest green eyes. She thought nothing of the sudden chill until her tears started to freeze on her face. The apprentice looked up then, and her mouth gaped open in surprise and fear. A thick fog, the same dusty gray color that her vision perceived snow to be. Her heightened sense of hearing thought she heard whispers. Afraid, the fluffy white she-cat, glanced around, unable to recognize anything in the dense, frosty mist. She thought she heard her father's voice calling out in the distance, muffled almost beyond recognition. "Otterleap? D-Dad? I'm right here!"

Otterleap ran towards the point where he could hear Snowpaw's voice calling out to him. The cold nipped at him like tiny needles raking itself through his fur but he ignored it, thinking it was merely a reaction to the unusual turn of the weather. It had been moons since he'd felt weather this cold, it made sense he was stinging at the sudden change in temperature. Shaking it off, he took the final step to join his daughter where she stood concerned, fur rustled as she looked around with wide eyes at the fog.

"I'm sure it's nothing. C'mon, Snowpaw, lets go back to ca- Argh!" A icy pain shot through his body, and before he knew it, he was being pulled back by the tail into the depths of the fog. It was no ordinary mist, but with no enemy to fight seeable, he couldn't react, only madly clawing at the ground to stop. "Snowpaw! Run!"

-

A figure appeared in the mist, a faint shape of something animalistic and it had it's jaws clamped on Otterleap's tail. What it was couldn't be made out, but it was something monstrous and far larger than any cat should be.

Snowpaw screamed as her father was pulled into the mist by some dark, incorporeal form that seemed to he part of the strange fog. Her paws froze as Otterleap, the strongest tom she knew, was overpowered almost in an instant. He cried out for her to run as he disappeared. The white she-cat had an internal battle with herself in the split second she stood, paralyzed by fear and indecision. He told you to run, you idiot! Run! You haven't had any battle training, there's nothing you can do! Not even Fishstar thinks you're good enough to be a warrior- there's no point in even trying to help. Go get Shellwater and Sparkwillow! It seemed for a moment as though the voice of doubt that was always so strong in her quiet mind would win. But something inside her- some brave, insane, stupid something- wouldn't let her. Otterleap is your father. You can't leave him. Her two sides warred with each other fiercely. It could have been a second, a minute, possibly several cold, misty days that she stood frozen. You'll die, Snowpaw. The RiverClan apprentice's claws unsheathed. I- I don't care!

Yowling a desperate battle cry, the fluffy white she-cat ran at the monstrous figure, leaping atop its back and clawing with all her might. Her shadowy vision shimmered with tears, but she didn't care. She kept attacking the figure with all her might, trying to save her father. "Stay away from my family!"

The figure seemed to be surprised by the attack, however it was unharmed, after all, how can mist be hurt? Instead, by lunging at it, Snowpaw immersed herself in the centre of the icy cold torrent. The frozen vapours crept through her with her every breath and frozen her from within. The chill was burning, crawling through each vein and muscle till it left the apprentice frozen solid.

As for Otterleap, the warrior had been freed from it's clutches with only his tail frozen solid and a hind leg frost-bitten badly. As he tried to hobble over to help his daughter, the tail dragged behind him as a deadweight. He couldn't believe his eyes, how could this be? He tried to press his nose against her neck, check if her heart still bet but there was nothing. Before he could let out a mourning yowl and leap into the mist to join her on the other side, sleep overcame him. The tabby tom fought against it, but slowly his eyes shut.

Then it all went dark.