Always Lessons to Learn [training topic]

It had always been hard being a cat who woke up at dawn. Becoming a warrior had helped that in many ways - especially when one could hunt or lead the dawn patrol - but as a mentor, Barleytuft had come to find that waking up early didn't come easily to either of his apprentices so far. Brookclover had been good at dutifully awakening, but Barleytuft found that Gingerpaw had worked better if she slept a bit later in the morning. It left him pacing around camp at the time. As he awoke on his first planned day of training with Loonpaw, he wondered what his mornings might look like in regards to her training. She hadn't been in the nursery for long once Graybriar had her kits, so Barleytuft was uncertain what her typical sleep schedule might be like. And as an apprentice, had eagerness sharpened her sense and awoken her early? There was only one way to find out.

First, Barleytuft peeked into the nursery as he always did to check on his kits and their mother, his beloved Graybriar. Seeing they were all busy with themselves - sleeping mostly, or wriggling sleepily - brought him a warm sense of peace, and he backed out to carry on in search of Loonpaw's pale tortoiseshell coat. He found her and nudged her gently, meowing, "Loonpaw...? Loooooonpaw... Hey, good morning."

She wanted to stay awake, really Loonpaw tried to. She wanted to impress Barleytuft- to show him that she was going to be the perfect apprentice. If she was awake when he came to fetch her, he would undoubtedly be proud of her, and that - having someone feel pride for her - would have been one of the best sensations Loonpaw would have ever felt. If she could fend back sleep, that was. But she couldn’t. Her eyelids dropped lower and lower every time she forced them wide. All she could see was the gentle rising and falling of sides as her fellow apprentices slept, and the sound of their breathing was too much of a lullaby for Loonpaw to fight back against the raising veil of sleep. Too soon, she found herself under a blanket of dreamless rest.

It seemed, to Loonpaw at least, that she had hardly bothered to close her eyes when a soft nudge to her shoulder awoke her. At first, thinking it was the misplaced paw of a fellow apprentice, she merely shifted and grumbled, trying to regain the sleep she had been warding off only hours ago. But it seemed the offender wasn't quite finished. The voice that spoke her name seemed far away, as if Loonpaw was hearing them through a fog. Slowly, ever so slowly, her ear twitched to acknowledge the call.

Then came the landslide of recognition. Barleytuft. Her eyes, once slowly fluttering to break the drowsiness surrounding her, burst open with newfound energy. Barleytuft. The name of the tom, her mentor, was all too familiar and suddenly so menacing. Oh, stars. He was waiting for her to wake up. He was still waiting. She was already such a disappointment, and it was only her first day. How could she manage moons upon moons of this?

She struggled upwards, her legs feeling like led and her head spinning from the sudden lurch. But she pushed those pains away, turned the memories of them to the back of her mind. Today was a new day. "Barleytuft! Yes, good morning. It's a good morning." Loonpaw meowed in greeting.

"Sorry," she said quietly to the tom. "For not being ready."

For a moment Loonpaw didn't stir from his gentle words and Barleytuft wondered if he ought to wait until the sun was a bit higher to rouse her. He knew he was prone to being awake early, and many of his Clanmates weren't so keen to get moving right as the sun came up like he was. Besides, he wouldn't mind laying in the morning sunlight to wait for a while. Before he could commit himself to the thought, however, the she-cat's eyes flew open. Barleytuft recognized the guilt and half-panic - he'd seen it from his fellow apprentices when he was younger, waiting to patrol with them - in her eyes, and when she lurched to her feet he rumbled, "Whoa - hey, easy, Loonpaw."

The pale she-cat steadied herself and mewed a hasty good morning. Her head dipped bashfully as she apologized for sleeping in, and Barleytuft's tail swept behind him as he chirped merrily, "No trouble! It's your first day, and all I said was that we would train, not when we would do it. You couldn't know when I'd be up. We'll work on waking you up for dawn patrols in a moon or so once you have gotten your feet under you."

Barleytuft turned from his apprentice then and padded towards the fresh-kill pile, nodding his head to it. "The warrior code says that elders and queens must be fed first before others may eat," the creamy tabby tom meowed seriously, "and in the future it will be your duty to ensure they've been fed. However, I strongly believe that it's harder to learn on an empty stomach, so today for both our sakes why don't you get something small and eat up? We have a big day of learning the territory."

Just as her head had started to steady and her vision had begun to slowly stop spinning, she heard Barleytuft murmured soft words of reassurance. And that simple action caused Loonpaw to blush fiercely beneath her fur. She was an apprentice now. She shouldn't stumble over her paws everytime she stood. She was acting like some kind of oaf. She was supposed to be stronger now, better, Loonkit would've laughed over falling. Loonpaw? She was disappointed in herself and ashamed that she was so weak in front of her mentor. Still, she brushed it off. Things could only go uphill from here.

"Okay. Good point." she relented. The she-cat took a deep breath. As she exhaled, she imagined all her misfortune and negativity floating out of her, and dispersing into the cool morning air. And somehow, the weight of the world was lifted from her shoulders. Loonpaw set those same shoulders and followed her mentor out of the apprentice den. "But I promise I'll wake up on time tomorrow and every day after that. I double rabbit-tail shrew-heart swear." She looked to her mentor, her gaze suddenly full of determination. If there was one thing Loonpaw trusted within herself - it was her inability to break a promise. She had never backed out of a double rabbit-tail shrew-heart swear. Nor did she ever plan to.

"Oh. It's fine." she paused. Already she could hear Barleytuft's unspoken protests. But Loonpaw knew she would not set a piece of prey in front of herself until she had fulfilled the debt she owed to every warrior or apprentice who had brought her food as a kitten. Her stomach was so full of nerves, however, that she doubted she could even handle two mouth-fulls of prey. "I'd rather have my first action as an apprentice be catching something, it'd be a waste for it to be eating prey when I'm not even hungry." the words came out harsher than she anticipated, more passionate than she had imagined herself to be. Loonpaw bowed her head, but stayed firm in her belief of what she said. If Barleytuft commanded her to do it, she would complain of a stomach ache or some other ailment. But she couldn't let herself stoop low enough to break the warrior code, even if Barleytuft said it was okay.

"So, what are we doing first?"

Despite his reassuring words, Loonpaw didn't seem quite pleased with her "late" awakening and promised to be up on time from that point on, even going so far as to make a double rabbit-tail shrew-heart promise. Barleytuft himself had never really put much weight into such promises even as a young apprentice, but he understood the value that they held for younger cats and so he took Loonpaw's seriously. He added helpfully, "That's an admirable goal - I don't think I know any warriors who ever kept a promise like it. To make it easier, I'll even let you know exactly when we'll be training during the day."

Other apprentices had eagerly jumped at the chance to eat before going out for training - Barleytuft himself had done so at Swiftstep's prompting a few times - but Loonpaw was not so enthused. The warrior was surprised when she rejected the offer of a meal, stating that she wasn't hungry and that it would be a waste. Barleytuft regarded her with a curious expression. That's a pretty strong will for a new apprentice, he thought, and though the small tortoiseshell apprentice's head was bowed he could glimpse a sparkle of determination and finality in her eyes. She wouldn't be convinced otherwise - he'd learned that look from Brookclover. I wonder how training Loonpaw will be compared to her.

Barleytuft instead smiled and nodded, replying with a satisfied voice, "Alright, then. If you change your mind later we can come back to camp for a rest." With that discussion settled, Loonpaw relaxed a little and asked what the plan would be. The warrior thought about it carefully for a moment. He looked at the fresh-kill pile still adequately stocked and thought of the borders likely unpatrolled yet and so he meowed, "Let's go learn the territory. When you start feeling peckish I can find us a place to hunt and start teaching you that. How does that sound?" He wasn't sure what she wanted to do first, but he.... well, he wanted to do it all. Having an apprentice was a gift he thoroughly enjoyed.