Lionpaw spun around to face him; hot fury flooded through him from ears to tail tip. “I suppose you found that out when you were fighting ShadowClan,” he taunted.
Berrynose sprang off the rock, his ears flattened and his neck fur standing on end. “Don’t talk to a warrior like that!” he spat.
“Then stop being such a know-it-all!” Lionpaw retorted.
“You’re not my mentor, so stay out of my fur.”
For two mouse tails he would have hurled himself at Berrynose and raked his claws across the cream warrior’s muzzle. But he knew he would be in big trouble if he attacked a Clanmate for real, not as part of a training bout. Turning his back on Berrynose, he stormed off to the side of the clearing, where he stood with his flanks heaving, trying to control the waves of rage that surged through him.
“Just wait till I’m a warrior,” he vowed under his breath.
“Then I’ll show you who’s best at fighting.”
“Take it easy, Lionpaw.” The calm voice felt like a draft of cool water. At first Lionpaw thought it must be Tigerstar, and he looked around for the shadowy tabby figure. Instead, he spotted Stormfur sunning himself in a quiet patch of sunlight at the foot of an oak tree.
Awkwardly Lionpaw dipped his head to him. “Sorry,” he mewed. “But I can’t stand it when Berrynose acts like he’s Clan leader.”
Stormfur let out a sympathetic murmur.
“I know I shouldn’t let him get to me, but I can’t help it,” Lionpaw confessed. “Sometimes it’s the other apprentices too. Well, not Hollypaw, but the rest of them. I feel like I have to be the best all the time.”
Part of him was horrified that he’d blurted all that out to a senior warrior. There was no reason for Stormfur to care about his problems.
“Why?” the gray-furred tom asked.
“I don’t know why!” Lionpaw hesitated, thoughts battering his mind like a storm, then added, “I suppose I do know, really. It’s because I’m Firestar’s kin. There’s never been a leader like him, and every cat will expect me to be just as good because I’m related to him.”
“And Tigerstar?” Stormfur prompted.
Lionpaw dug his claws into the ground. How could Stormfur possibly know about his meetings with Tigerstar and Hawkfrost? “T-Tigerstar?” he gulped.
Stormfur blinked at him. “I know what problems your father had. Brambleclaw was always afraid the Clan would never trust him, because they hated Tigerstar so much.”
Lionpaw had never thought of that before. It was hard to imagine his father as a young cat, uncertain of his place in the Clan.
“What was my father like?” he asked, padding up to Stormfur and sitting beside him in the comforting splash of sunlight. The fur on his shoulders began to lie flat again; he had almost forgotten the quarrel with Berrynose. “What was it like when you went on the quest together?”
“Terrifying.” Memory glowed in Stormfur’s amber eyes, fear and courage, humor and friendship, all at once. “I don’t know what was harder—traveling through unfamiliar, dangerous territory, or trying to get along with cats from other Clans. We all came back changed.” He paused to rasp his tongue over his shoulder, and then went on. “At first we seemed to argue all the time. But it was usually your father who had the best ideas, and pretty soon we realized that he was the natural leader among us.”
“Tell me what happened,” Lionpaw prompted.
“Four cats, one in each Clan, had a dream telling them to go to the sun-drown-place,” Stormfur began. “They were supposed to listen to what midnight told them. None of us realized that Midnight was a badger.”
Lionpaw nodded; he and his littermates had never met the badger who helped the Clans find their new home, but his mother had told them stories about her.
“It must have been really hard,” Lionpaw mewed, trying to imagine getting along with cats from other Clans. Okay, he’d been friendly with Heatherpaw, but suppose he’d had to cooperate with Breezepaw or warriors from ShadowClan?
“It wasn’t all bad,” Stormfur replied. His tail curled in amusement. “There was the time your mother got stuck in a Twoleg fence. She was spitting with fury, and she couldn’t move!”
Lionpaw let out a little mrrow of laughter, imagining Squirrelflight stuck and furious. “Did my father rescue her?”
Stormfur shook his head. “No. Brambleclaw was thinking about digging up the fence post, and I thought we might bite through the shiny fence stuff. Meanwhile Tawnypelt and Feathertail smoothed down your mother’s fur with some dock leaves and got her out that way.”
“I wish I’d been there,” Lionpaw mewed.
“I wouldn’t have missed it. Even though we were scared a lot of the time, or tired, or hungry, we all knew we were doing our best to help our Clans.”
“And you became really good friends with my father.”
Stormfur twitched his whiskers. “We weren’t all that friendly to begin with. I was jealous of Brambleclaw.”
“Why?” Lionpaw asked, surprised.
“Because I liked your mother too much. But a blind rabbit could have seen that Brambleclaw was the cat she liked best, even though they spent most of their time arguing.”
“You liked Squirrelflight?” Lionpaw blinked in astonishment. Suppose Stormfur had been his father instead of Brambleclaw? I would have been a different cat…
“I’d never met a cat like her,” Stormfur admitted. “So bright and brave and determined, even though she was only an apprentice then. But then we stayed with the Tribe in the mountains, and when I met Brook I knew that she was the right cat for me.”
His amber eyes clouded and he fell silent. Lionpaw couldn’t understand why he should look like that, when he’d been talking about finding Brook. “What’s the matter?”
Stormfur let out a long sigh. “My sister, Feathertail, was with us on the journey,” he explained. “She was a beautiful, warm-hearted cat. She died in the mountains.”
Lionpaw dared to reach out with his tail and rest it on the gray warrior’s shoulder. “What happened?”
“The Tribe was being hunted by a mountain lion. There was a prophecy that a silver cat would come to save them. At first they thought it was me, but it was Feathertail. She died saving them.” His voice shook. “I had to leave her there, buried in the mountains.”
“I’m so sorry,” Lionpaw mewed, trying to imagine what he would feel like if Hollypaw died.
Stormfur licked his chest fur a few times and jerked his head as if he was shaking off a fly. “Moons pass, and you have to carry on.”
“I hope you didn’t mind my asking.”
“Of course not.” Stormfur sounded more like himself again. “You can ask me anything you like. If I can help at all, I’ll be glad to.”
“Thanks.” Lionpaw felt as warm and comforted as if he’d just eaten a plump piece of fresh-kill. “It’s easier talking to you than to a ThunderClan cat—oh, sorry.” He broke off, scuffling his paws with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean—”
“That’s okay,” Stormfur meowed. “I know what you meant.
It’s true that I’m only a visitor here, however loyal I feel toward Firestar and your father and the other ThunderClan cats.”
“Where do you feel most at home?” Lionpaw mewed curiously. “In RiverClan, or with the Tribe of Rushing Water, or in ThunderClan?”
Stormfur didn’t reply at once. His eyes grew thoughtful; he licked one paw and drew it over his ear a few times. “I’m a RiverClan cat at heart,” he replied at last. “That’s where I grew up and where I became a warrior. But that was back in the forest, and no cat has a home there now. Right now I feel loyal to ThunderClan, because you welcomed me and Brook.