Listen up, kid

The short-legged warrior was wide awake. Although most of his clan preferred to sleep during the day, Rowantalon almost always stayed awake to watch the sunrise. There was something about it- the promise of a new day when all the territories shared the same yellow-golden light -that almost made him forget the war. Almost. But no matter how hard he tried, Dustcloud and her clan were never far from Rowantalon's mind. Every time he closed his hazel eyes, he couldn't stop imagining the worst possible scenarios. Windclan could decide it would be better to make an alliance with Riverclan, or perhaps Skyclan and Riverclan had joined forces and finally attacked Thunderclan's camp.
The thought of an already-weakened clan, elders and all, forced to battle in their own camp made the reddish-brown tom's sleek fur stand on end. 'Still,' Rowantalon thought to himself, stepping out of the mouth of the warrior's den to allow others to enter. 'Littlestar wouldn't turn her back on a helpless clan.' The spotted tom stretched, allowing himself to be comforted by that thought. It wasn't good to dwell on such matters anyway, so Rowantalon decided to focus on the task at hand: The training of his apprentice. His grandson, while rather amusing, was going to be quite the handful. Still, the Shadowclan warrior was determined that he would train him, even if he had Lionpaw running in laps around the camp from sunset to sunrise. If all went well, Lionpaw would become a strong Shadowclan warrior.
Rowantalon padded towards the apprentice's den, his ears twitching. If he remembered correctly, Silentstorm had used a series of tests when Rowantalon himself had been a young apprentice. He would have to do the same thing for Lionpaw. The short warrior peered into the apprentice's den, his tail-tip twitching. "Lionpaw, get up and come with me."

Lionpaw was fast asleep, curled up, however, when the elder warrior spoke, his ear twitched, he yawned and stretched and took a minute to come out with Rowantalon, his eyes half closed, he sighed, his days of slaking and sleeping freely had ended, but he quickly masked his disappointment with a smile.

"Good morning to you too grandpa, hehehe" Lionpaw went silent after that, following the elder at a slow pace.

Rowantalon sighed softly as he walked, wending his way through the marsh. This was going to be tough, but a bit of harshness would do an overconfident apprentice some good. Once they were out of camp, the spotted tom whirled around. "First of all, you will address me as Rowantalon. I may be your kin, but that does not mean you will respect me any less than your other seniors. Secondly, I expect you to listen and follow to every word I say quickly and efficiently. You will present yourself promptly for training every day at sunrise, and always appear neatly groomed and clean. Any failure to do so will result in a longer, harder training session. Do I make myself clear?" The spotted tom was careful to keep his posture straight and his head high. Hopefully, Lionpaw would listen without any protest. The tom had much potential, although at this point Rowantalon wasn't so sure his apprentice would grow to use it.

Lionpaw got a bit taken aback, he couldn´t even be at ease and relaxed with his own grandpa? Wow, he instantly decided he wasen´t going to like the training at all... but he had to do it, for his family and the clan.

-Uhh sure... whatever you say, Rowantalon- it felt so awkward to call by the names.

He sighed, and stayed silent, waiting for his next orders.

Rowantalon looked down at his apprentice, his ears twitching as Lionpaw spoke. He snorted. "When I ask a question you will answer me with either 'Yes Rowantalon' or 'No Rowantalon'. I can see you aren't prepared to give older cats your respect. Let's see if a little bit of running convinces you. Three laps around the edge of camp, as fast as you can. If you don't get back here quick enough, you'll do it again. Am I understood?" Without waiting for the apprentice to answer, Rowantalon nudged him forward. "Ready, go!"
Once today was finished, hopefully, Lionpaw would take training more seriously. Then they could go over hunting and battle techniques.

Lionpaw looked at the camp and then to the older cat, being used to do anything at all, all day was going to make him pay the price now, he got up and walked to the edge of the camp, once there, he started running, putting the minimum of effort on it, that way, he could start thinking...

-Yep... i´m not going to like this warrior thing at all-

Rowantalon hissed as Lionpaw half-ran past him, his spotted tail lashing the ground. "Faster!" He mewed angrily, hazel eyes narrowed as the black-and-white apprentice trotted past halfheartedly. There was a lot of work to do, but there was a great amount of potential that the older warrior saw in his grandson. "If you want to be a strong warrior, you must first master physical fitness. And you're not going to do that if you jog everywhere! Now when I say run, you run. Now go! Run faster!" By the time they were finished with training, the yellow-eyed tom would hopefully be able to lap the reddish-brown warrior.

Lionpaw lowered his ears, and tried to pick up his speed, barely doing so, he was hating the whole training thing more and more, it just felt... wrong.

The young apprentice ran, for several minutes, not stopping even once to breathe or to rest, he was scared of making his grandpa more angry, i mean, if he couldn´t even be in confidence with him, what stopped the older warrior from clawing at him even? He didn´t dare to take the risk.

So he kept running, waiting for Rowantalon to tell him to stop.