Sablekit's Apprentice Ceremony

“Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather beneath Highrock for a clan meeting!" Nettlefire's voice echoed down from the Highrock.

The deputy stood in her place, ready to begin another apprentice ceremony. She waited for the expected crowd to arrive so that she could continue on with the rest.

Sablekit poked her head out of the nursery at the yowl, her tail flicking behind her, her ears twitching. A meeting? A tingle of nervousness thrilled through her paws. There had been a lot of these, usually for kits coming out of the nursery and becoming apprentices. Did this mean...? But... they couldn't. Dogs had attacked the camp and she'd frozen. Rosekit would have been a better cat to make an apprentice - she hadn't.

Still, she went outside the entrance and sat there, quickly licking down a couple of the tufts of fur sticking up on her chest. She squinted a little as she looked up again, the bright beams of sunlight overhead twinkling through tree branches into her eyes. I want to but I don't want to. Flutters of nervousness in her stomach made her tail twitch as she shuffled her paws, her maw shut tight.

"Sablekit, please take a step forward,"

Nettlefire looked down towards Sablekit. She had noticed the kit shuffling her paws, and noted that she seemed a little more apprehensive than many other kits did when they suspected their ceremonies were coming. The deputy tried to move through the ceremony itself as quickly as she could without it being rushed, assuming that overly prolonging the she-kit's moment in the spotlight would only make whatever nerves she was wrestling with worse.  

"Sablekit, you have reached the age of six moons, which means you are now ready to become an apprentice. From this day forward, until you receive your warrior name, you will be known as Sablepaw. Your mentor will be Beecloud,"

Flamepaw's sudden disappearance had been hard on Beecloud, no less so when it was discovered that she wouldn't be coming back. The scent of cat mixed with fox covered her scent trail, and the search team quickly deduced that Flamepaw was lost. Beecloud has barely been her mentor for a few weeks. She was still kitlike. He mourned her with the clan. Now, it was time to move forward.

Batbite's kits were ready to leave the nursery, and Nettlefire had asked him to take on Sablekit. Watching her from the corner of his eye, he noticed her anxiety as her paws twitched on the ground. He figured that he might be an easy transition into apprenticehood for her. As she was named Sablepaw, he moved towards her with a small ghost of a smile, tapping his nose gently to hers. "I've heard your father calls you by another name," he whispered as the ceremony came to an end, "That's neat. Which one do you want me to call you?"

It was her ceremony. She felt excitement clash with the sudden pit that had opened in her stomach, her paws stilling on the ground as she stared up at Nettlefire. Suddenly, it felt as though the whole clearing was suddenly looking at her, their stares heating her pelt and making her paws slick. And then she blinked. Wait, step forward. Oh. Heat flushed anew through her pelt and she hastily took a slightly stumbling step forward, her legs just a little wobbly, her throat closed so tight she could barely breathe, or would breathe too loudly, and everyone would hear and-

"...Beecloud."

It was over. She blinked, her maw shut tight, and turned her eyes up, and up, and up again as a massive tom stepped up to her. Beecloud? His tall frame hadn't looked so big from a distance, where she'd usually seen him. Wide eyes took in his face, with a hint of a smile on it, and she blinked, closing her mouth to stop it from gaping - something she hadn't even noticed doing - as his nose touched hers, feeling her ears twitch.

And then everyone started yelling her new name. Sablepaw? I'm Sablepaw? A dazed, slightly blank look met Beecloud's whispered question. "U-um...."

Finally, somewhere, somehow, she managed to find her voice. "I'm um... You can call me, uh... Lirista?" Blinking up at him, she tried to squish the embarrassed heat still crawling under her fur and making her tail-tip twitch in small, jarred motions as it curled by her paws. "I mean, I was Sablekit, but I'm Sablepaw now, but I've always been Lirista?"