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Description
Today was finally the day. On this day, as the sun beat down against his delicate and very meticulously groomed white fur, Icepaw would be taken to see the Moonstones. Such an undertaking was a mandatory part of every apprentice's training, but even though that was far beyond common knowledge, it still seemed so utterly obscene that every cat that walked the four Clans with a warrior name had made the trek all the way past StormClan, all through Oma's path and to the heart of the caves that lied beneath to bear witness to the ethereal stones that had stood there for generations on end. He knew it happened, but it just seemed so.. foreign. He couldn't believe something so ritualistic and sacred actually happened, and he certainly still couldn't believe that he was about to go do it himself. It didn't seem real at all. The Clan moved around him in a dreamscape of slow-moving blurs as he waited patiently for his mentor, having been almost completely unable to sleep the night before and somehow, despite it all, not completely running on empty. Even in spite of his nervous anticipation and wide-eyed wonderment, he was still standing straight and attentive, hoping every cat he saw moving would be Flamestare, finally here to escort him across territory and onto what was still the most excitingly daunting task of his entire apprenticeship yet. The trial of walking to DuskClan and back seemed to pale in comparison to what he was about to undergo.

After an unmeasurable amount of minutes that seemed to both stretch into eternities and at the same time disappear in instants, he felt waves of relief and simultaneous anxiousness wash over his mind as he turned to see Flamestare smiling at him sweetly. in the absence of his own mother, arguably gone after the fateful hour he was born, Flamestare had been a great comforting prescience in the stuffy apprentice's life. She seemed a bit sloppy and scatterbrained at times, but he knew she was always well-meaning. Her affections towards him were genuine, she never tried to drown him in false love until he choked or used his love against anyone. It was.. refreshing to have that, to say the least.
He didn't really hear what she was saying to him through the whizzing of ideas roaring within the prim and proper little brain between his ears, although the show white apprentice could hear that her tone was just as caring and confident as any time they had trained before.

It wasn't soon after the lecture he was too jittery to even listen to that they began the long journey across the vast seas of grass to the furthest edge of LakeClan's claim. Icepaw was extremely hesitant to take those first pawsteps onto what he knew was StormClan's territory, but Flamestare assured him that they would allow them to pass through their borders peacefully so long as they didn't dawdle and went straight to where they were going. He was wary the whole time, and expected at any second for the scary ninja cats he had heard haunted the fog that was slowly engulfing them to pop down and slice them to bits at any second, but they never came. At first he thought StormClan was a lot like LakeClan, but as they walked further and further into the mouth of StormClan, the ground they trod on became boggier, the air became thicker and fog quickly choked everything around them, leaving a layer of moisture and weighing down the fur of the LakeClan uninitiated. Everything was wet and marshy, and gnarled roots and reeds jutting through the soggy ground made the terrain even more difficult to traverse in the already laughably low visibility. He was so sure that they were going to be lost forever in an endless maze of weeping willows and blinding fog, but Flamestare helped to calm his shot nerves and assured the young cat that they were fine, and that they were almost there. Of course, Flamestare was feeling just as anxious and carried much of the same worries and doubts about their path that her apprentice did, but she kept a calm demeanor and a confident smile to keep him from worrying.

Out of sheer luck, Flamestare's bluff passes, and it wasn't soon after they both began to feel stones of worry and doubt weighing in their bellies that they came to the entrance of what couldn't be anything other than the mouth of the Moonstone Cave. There was a buzzing energy around them, it was so powerful and palpable that any shred of doubt that they had arrived at their destination was immediately dissolved.
They entered the caves, assisted only by their natural ability to see in the dark, but even then, that was little assistance in the dark tunnels. Sight was taken from them as they stumbled blindly, traversing passages that overlapped and entwined with each other in a tangled mess of dirt and darkness. It was only after tracing over paths and openings that they surely had passed a hundred times before that there was finally a light at the very end of the tunnel. As the two LakeClan cats emerged into the great opening, they were greeted with massive white rocks jutting from every corner of the room. They glowed with a light that was almost siren-like in its draw, but was almost warm and maternal at the same time. Flamestare stood at the mouth of the hollow and watched as her entranced apprentice slowly crept into the cave. His blue eyes were totally fixated on the giant, curving peaks of the shimmering, iridescent white stones before him. He could do nothing else but simply stare, totally hypnotized and humbled by their beauty. Colors shimmered in flecks and danced around every smooth and sharp edge on the ancient rocks as he drew in closer and closer. It seemed as if his body wasn't moving on his account, rather, as if the stones themselves were telling him what to do, bringing them closer and closer to them. When he was close enough to see a vague outline of himself staring back in the rainbowy white, his nose bumped against the stone, and his eyes closed instinctively. His journey to the moonstones hadn't ended in finding the cave, rather, they had just begun.

Flamestare belongs to KinglyKingstone
Words: 1,063

Description
Today was finally the day. On this day, as the sun beat down against his delicate and very meticulously groomed white fur, Icepaw would be taken to see the Moonstones. Such an undertaking was a mandatory part of every apprentice's training, but even though that was far beyond common knowledge, it still seemed so utterly obscene that every cat that walked the four Clans with a warrior name had made the trek all the way past StormClan, all through Oma's path and to the heart of the caves that lied beneath to bear witness to the ethereal stones that had stood there for generations on end. He knew it happened, but it just seemed so.. foreign. He couldn't believe something so ritualistic and sacred actually happened, and he certainly still couldn't believe that he was about to go do it himself. It didn't seem real at all. The Clan moved around him in a dreamscape of slow-moving blurs as he waited patiently for his mentor, having been almost completely unable to sleep the night before and somehow, despite it all, not completely running on empty. Even in spite of his nervous anticipation and wide-eyed wonderment, he was still standing straight and attentive, hoping every cat he saw moving would be Flamestare, finally here to escort him across territory and onto what was still the most excitingly daunting task of his entire apprenticeship yet. The trial of walking to DuskClan and back seemed to pale in comparison to what he was about to undergo.

After an unmeasurable amount of minutes that seemed to both stretch into eternities and at the same time disappear in instants, he felt waves of relief and simultaneous anxiousness wash over his mind as he turned to see Flamestare smiling at him sweetly. in the absence of his own mother, arguably gone after the fateful hour he was born, Flamestare had been a great comforting prescience in the stuffy apprentice's life. She seemed a bit sloppy and scatterbrained at times, but he knew she was always well-meaning. Her affections towards him were genuine, she never tried to drown him in false love until he choked or used his love against anyone. It was.. refreshing to have that, to say the least.
He didn't really hear what she was saying to him through the whizzing of ideas roaring within the prim and proper little brain between his ears, although the show white apprentice could hear that her tone was just as caring and confident as any time they had trained before.

It wasn't soon after the lecture he was too jittery to even listen to that they began the long journey across the vast seas of grass to the furthest edge of LakeClan's claim. Icepaw was extremely hesitant to take those first pawsteps onto what he knew was StormClan's territory, but Flamestare assured him that they would allow them to pass through their borders peacefully so long as they didn't dawdle and went straight to where they were going. He was wary the whole time, and expected at any second for the scary ninja cats he had heard haunted the fog that was slowly engulfing them to pop down and slice them to bits at any second, but they never came. At first he thought StormClan was a lot like LakeClan, but as they walked further and further into the mouth of StormClan, the ground they trod on became boggier, the air became thicker and fog quickly choked everything around them, leaving a layer of moisture and weighing down the fur of the LakeClan uninitiated. Everything was wet and marshy, and gnarled roots and reeds jutting through the soggy ground made the terrain even more difficult to traverse in the already laughably low visibility. He was so sure that they were going to be lost forever in an endless maze of weeping willows and blinding fog, but Flamestare helped to calm his shot nerves and assured the young cat that they were fine, and that they were almost there. Of course, Flamestare was feeling just as anxious and carried much of the same worries and doubts about their path that her apprentice did, but she kept a calm demeanor and a confident smile to keep him from worrying.

Out of sheer luck, Flamestare's bluff passes, and it wasn't soon after they both began to feel stones of worry and doubt weighing in their bellies that they came to the entrance of what couldn't be anything other than the mouth of the Moonstone Cave. There was a buzzing energy around them, it was so powerful and palpable that any shred of doubt that they had arrived at their destination was immediately dissolved.
They entered the caves, assisted only by their natural ability to see in the dark, but even then, that was little assistance in the dark tunnels. Sight was taken from them as they stumbled blindly, traversing passages that overlapped and entwined with each other in a tangled mess of dirt and darkness. It was only after tracing over paths and openings that they surely had passed a hundred times before that there was finally a light at the very end of the tunnel. As the two LakeClan cats emerged into the great opening, they were greeted with massive white rocks jutting from every corner of the room. They glowed with a light that was almost siren-like in its draw, but was almost warm and maternal at the same time. Flamestare stood at the mouth of the hollow and watched as her entranced apprentice slowly crept into the cave. His blue eyes were totally fixated on the giant, curving peaks of the shimmering, iridescent white stones before him. He could do nothing else but simply stare, totally hypnotized and humbled by their beauty. Colors shimmered in flecks and danced around every smooth and sharp edge on the ancient rocks as he drew in closer and closer. It seemed as if his body wasn't moving on his account, rather, as if the stones themselves were telling him what to do, bringing them closer and closer to them. When he was close enough to see a vague outline of himself staring back in the rainbowy white, his nose bumped against the stone, and his eyes closed instinctively. His journey to the moonstones hadn't ended in finding the cave, rather, they had just begun.

Flamestare belongs to KinglyKingstone
Words: 1,063