ᴡɪɴᴛᴇʀ ᴡɪɴᴅs ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴀʀᴅᴇɴᴇᴅ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛs.

[Kat.]

what O.O now I feel stupid >.<
well, your welcome x3 I guess my idiocy CAN help someone out! [wow, my math teacher was right...]

[lil.bee]

Okay, I've finished reading all the chapters you've posted, and I have to say you've officially gained another forum stalker. o.o You're writing is so beautiful! And it's just so amazing how you add so much reality and truth into personalities and the way people, or cats, act. Honestly, you really do add so much more description and personality than the Erins. If one of your dreams if to become an author then I truly think it won't be that hard! Thank you for sharing this awesomeness, and please keep writing!

[prodigy.]

oh wow.
i haven't read any of the warrior's books in about a year in a half, maybe two, so i thought i'd totally lost interest in them and pretty much had up until this point. chess, your writing is so beautiful and well structured and carefully planned that you've gotten me back into the warrior's books, and i am so glad. your story is absolutely magnificant so far, and i eagerly await upcoming chapters. please, do us all a favor and NEVER stop writing.

[111misc]

Thanks, everyone, for the praise. It really means a lot. I've the bad habit of loosing my drive when I'm aloud to, so the comments help me write more then anything. Do you have any critique for me?

[CaptiveLegacy]

Wow, I only have read a little bit out of the first chapter, and I already think its very lovely c:
I still need to read a lot more before giving better comments and critique, but so far its well written, don't notice any spelling or grammar errors. Great job, and I hope to see more!

[111misc]

My favorite things in the world are birds.
Wolfpaw thinks it's weird, how I like to wait a moment before pouncing, just to look
at them. But if you think about it, and watch them....they're so beautiful.


Minnowfur had seemed rather despondent the past moon, and Cherrypaw did not understand it. In reality, it was the first moon of her apprenticeship where he'd taught her real battle moves, and actually brought her hunting with him. The first moons of her apprenticeship he had focused only on technique, and it had been as dull as the expanses of stone around their territory. And hardly more tolerable. Still, the she-cat had been put in a type of hype over the new freedoms. Because the wolf still meandered through their land, on occasion, whenever he was sighted she was ordered back to camp, but she knew moves now, and could, in theory, protect herself.
Not for a moment, though, did Cherrypaw fool herself. She knew if Wolfpaw could have died by that creature, she would have died.
"What do you think? Not bad, huh?" She mewed around tufts of brown fur as she carried in a mouse to her grey companion, who was lying in camp. Wolfpaw had left the medicine cat's den half a moon ago, but his velveted fur, which Cherrypaw had actually found rather handsome at one point, was marred all along his one side in ugly silver scars where fur could not grow back. His belly too was slashed, and he looked, with all his gory trophies, like a stranger to her. But his eyes were the same, and that was something she held on to.
"I caught it myself, fresh this morning." She grinned, setting it down between them. He was lucky, at least he was out. Brightthorn was the talk of the clan, lying barely alive in Darknose's den, and Cherrypaw had recently begun sharing tongues with Icetail about it, their heads bent low together whispering about the she-cat's condition. Despite Icetail's higher station as a warrior, the white cat was a fool, and she was petty, and Cherrypaw, getting older and leaner and more clever every moon, had qualified in some way of friendship. And despite the calico's private feelings, she did not turn down the offer.
But that is the way everyone is. There is not a man, or cat, or dog, or toad alive that could ever be honest, wholly. Secrets are the roots of the tree; hidden too low and deep for the eye to see, but the source of all life, the building blocks for everything.
But Wolfpaw was in no mood to humor her pathetic scrap of a kill. He didn't glare at her, but he didn't smile at her, either, and continued to groom his pelt indifferently, eyes downcast. Cocking her head, Cherrypaw's blue eyes searched his face, but found nothing. A barren treasure chest where only dust and cobwebs lie. She didn't say anything, she was too proud to apologize for something she didn't know she'd even done--and for that matter, Cherrypaw would be too proud to apologize for even something she had known she'd done. Instead she lifted her chin a hair higher, and looked down at him with those azure eyes that much much later in life, Wolfpaw would swear could see into his soul.
But he knew her well enough, and knew she knew he was angry with her. And that was enough for him; he was too kind for his own good, and too lenient with a spoiled friend.
"Well," he sighed, almost as if replying to her body language, "it's just that you don't hang around me much, anymore. You've made yourself new friends, Cherrypaw." His voice could have been bitter, or even jealous, maybe even cruel, and she couldn't have blamed him, but only soft somberness floated off his tongue, a tad self-pitying, and with heavy-hearted undertones of a deep nostalgia. His voice was really too kind; but by then, Cherrypaw had come to expect his kindness. His lack of fire and flame in his words. To any other cat he would challenge or dare or badmouth. He would curse or scream or swipe at anyone for anything. It was who he was; a short-tempered, youthful, tom. But he wouldn't do that to her, because he knew her too well. She was too delicate for him to hate or even get angry with. They were different to each other, and he needed her too much to hate her, or scream at her. So he found a way to contain himself, because everything was muted with him and her; everything, even anger or frustration, was twisted in he presence to a kinder, softer, almost pitiful whisper. He loved her too much.
Love is the most common emotion. You can be in love with your mate, your family, your friends, and yourself. You can even be in love with your enemies. You can love ideas, actions, songs, rhymes, colors, heros, villains. You can love anything and everything, for to live is to love. The challenge in life is learning how to use it, how to choose, how to channel it. Love is the brother to hate; for in every heart that beats they sit like parasites, from birth to death, side by side, undying and dangerous; both.
A smile flickered through the puddled cat's gaze, rippling over the surface like a wave, before dying into nothingness; an unreadable, clear, blue. She let her tail rest on his in the way only the best of friends can do, the one's that trust their souls to each other's keeping. And she sighed.
"I thought you knew me better, Wolfpaw," already the manipulation was edging silently into her voice. There was a sweet, sad tone to it that the cat clearly decided to put in there. In the last moon, speaking had begun to be just another training session. But it was more fun then fighting or hunting: this one was a game. She had started to use it like she did her hunting moves. First se would practice on her own, try it out in the middle of nowhere, taste the words on her tongue. She would think about it for a day, maybe two, how the tones and beats changed the meanings. Like the way a medicine cat stocks memories of herbs--their smells and tastes and looks--in their head, so Cherrypaw accumulated words and sentences and common, casual gestures in her mind. And already she had started, more curiously then anything else, to use them in practice. Warriors don't just decide one morning to make friends with a younger, basically incompetent, she-cat, no matter her appearance. You have to force it. You have to try. And Cherrypaw had woken up one morning this past moon, and a thought had crossed her. Why not try? So on patrols she began to chat, to brush a cat's pelt every now and then, to look at them kindly; to be their friends. And like the sun, whatever she saw, whatever she set her sights on, she touched, and warmed, and they felt themselves loved.
And she was so kind. All she added to her voice and tone and words were happier, more melodious sounds and tokens, like adding feathers to a nest. Easing everyone's nerves silently and subtly, for no one ever noticed, and how could they? She was too clever for that.
But it was different with her friends. Despite the fact that nothing harmful ever came out of her new art, how these new calculated thoughts and words were just a game to Cherrypaw, something to play with as she aged and matured, something that, just like her skills in hunting and fighting, was growing and brightening and blooming, she had yet to try anything on Wolfpaw. Or Minnowfur. Or even Dustypaw, but that could possibly have been out of lack of contact with the she-cat. Sunpaw had been her first; he'd given her the taste for it, and she'd found how much fun her new game could be.
So now she tried it out on her tongue, talking to her best friend, eyes kind and voice like the white clouds that leisurely breeze past the horizon, soft as down, yet far away, too; like a prize never to be won, or prey never to be caught. Tantalizingly out of reach.
"I'll never have a friend like you," she flicked her whiskers quickly, adding to the effect of closeness, "you should know that by now." A pause, "But I mean, seriously, Wolfpaw," instead of enphasizing 'seriously,' Cherrypaw flitted her chilling eyes to his at his name, drawing it out longer, making it sound like a plea, like a guilty confession, or like a harmless tune, "what did you expect me to do? You're always gone; Stormyfang takes you hunting and training and fighting just as much as any senior warrior...and by the time you get back," more quietly now, her voice took on an almost hurt quiver, "you're always too tired for me. Please, don't think I've forgotten you, Wolfpaw." The last sentence was almost an accusation, but said so softly that her friend had to train his ears though they sat side to side. And already Cherrypaw could feel the guilt and relief roll off his pelt. She told herself that she had not only told the truth (though a tad bit glorified) but it had made him happier, in the end, for he now realized he was the one at fault, not her, and she wasn't trying to avoid or leave him as a friend. It was almost out of pity she used her new art on him, but it was out of excitement too. Out of the thrill for it. Words never ceased to give Cherrypaw that breathtaking moment when you lean over the lip of a mountain, and see all the way below. See how far you can fall, if you lean just a bit more. It's dizzying, but when you lean back again, sit on the soft grass on the highest peak of the cliff, the wind in your fur and the feeling of exhileration, Cherrypaw has always thought that feeling was better then anything Starclan could ever give her.
And he grinned at her, shaking an emotion from his shoulders. "Oh, well, lets forget it, huh, Cherrypaw? We're both busy now, me with getting back into my training, and you with yours. Once we're warriors it'll be better, we can lounge around all day and tell other apprentices what to do!" The tom laughed loudly and fully enough for Stormyfang to glance across camp at his grey apprentice, and Wolfpaw, jovially, unburdened, took a bite from her mouse.

[111misc]

It's a bit short, and not that well written. Please, I seriously need critique, and this, I think, will be the easiest one so far to give me some on! Anyone brave enough? {Yes, that's a challenge ;) }

[Mentalist Psycho]

Maybe you could describe how Wolfpaw's feeling at the beginning a bit more in this one? I didn't pick up that he was upset until you basically straight-out said it. ...Or maybe I just lack the ability to pick up other's feelings. :3

[111misc]

Hm, alright, I'll edit it and try that. I get where you're coming from. Thank you ^^

[Mentalist Psycho]

I don't think you realize how hard it is to criticize your work.