Honeykit's Apprentice Ceremony

Nettlestar stood on the Highrock here to conduct...an apprentice ceremony. It felt...strange and not entirely comfortable to do a type of ceremony she had left behind, had gotten used to not doing, but if she needed to, then she needed to.

"ThunderClan!" she called out, "Please gather beneath the Highrock for a clan meeting,"

Honeykit having heard the call of the Thunderclan leader pushed her way out of the nursery. Her usually fluffy fur was smoothed back by her mother's tongue. Her blue eyes shined quietly as she sat down quietly among the gathering clan cats for a moment.

The kit took a seat among her clanmates, but only for a moment before Nettlestar called her forward.

"Honeykit, come forward, please," she called, resting her green eyes on the soon to be apprentice.

"Honeykit, having reached the age of six moons you are now ready to become an apprentice. From this day forward, until you earn your warrior name, you will be known as Honeypaw. Your mentor will be Thrushnose,"

Honeykit blinked as she was urged to step forward and quietly she did smiling some as she lifted her head a bit listening to what her name was now and who her mentor was. With a small smile the newly named Honeypaw looked for her mentor in the crowd.

Though Thrushnose joined the crowd beneath the Highrock at Nettlestar’s call, her mind hung back, drifting somewhere beyond ThunderClan territory. Robinloft’s kidnapping (the only word ugly enough for what Asylum had done) had been loud, violent, and brutally public; but Thrushnose had simply gone to sleep one night certain her father was safe, and woke to a world without him. Asylum had made plain the consequences of bravery, and Minkstream was one of the bravest cats Thrushnose knew. But he wasn’t dead. Until she found his body, he wasn’t dead.

“…will be Thrushnose.”

The sound of her name in the formal, ringing tones of a ceremony pierced the fog. With a deliberate blink, she peered over the crowd to see a golden-brown puffball of an apprentice at the front, head turning in search of her mentor…in search of Thrushnose. Hauling herself to her paws with a small, rough shake to clear her head, the broad tabby brushed past her Clanmates to meet Honeypaw. A faint, apologetic smile flashed across her face as she tapped her nose against the young she-cat’s. “Training begins tomorrow, at dawn.” Honeypaw deserved her full attention. A mentor’s patient guidance, not a warrior straining to keep her muzzle above water. For ThunderClan and her new apprentice, Thrushnose had to push forward.