Smoldering Cinders

      “Well, how did I do?”       The sound of Cinderpaw’s voice brought Fireheart back to his senses. His apprentice sat in the middle of the sandy hollow expecting his answer. A few fox tails away her brother humbly waited for his turn to show his own prey-stalking skills. Graystripe was still sick, so this morning Fireheart decided to take Brackenpaw alongside his sister. But dividing his attention between both of them proved harder than he thought it would, especially since his own thoughts refused to leave him alone even for a minute.       “Er, not bad, Cinderpaw, but could you do that again?” Fireheart couldn’t meet her eyes. “Practice makes perfect, Lionheart used to tell me this.”       “Don’t tell me you weren’t even watching me!” Cinderpaw bristled. “Fine, I’ll do it. But this time look closely, alright? I won’t repeat it again.”       Brackenpaw stared at his sister in disbelief, but Fireheart just nodded. Cinderpaw dropped into the hunting crouch and crept to the hollow’s edge. Fireheart fixed his eyes on her movement. There wasn’t much noise, but every step left tiny clouds of sand in the air.       Soon the apprentice came back to him and gave him a questioning gaze. “Well?” she asked.       "Good, but you move too fast,” started Fireheart. Cinderpaw opened her mouth to say something, but he went on. “If there were branches and leaves on your way instead of sand, a bird would already fly away from all the sound you would make.” Fireheart pointed at Brackenpaw with his tail. “Now, you give it a try.”       Brackenpaw dropped to the ground and started crossing the sandy hollow, carefully weighting every step. Too carefully. Fireheart tried to keep his attention on him, but his thoughts started to drift away like they did before. Where was Graystripe in that moment, when Fireheart trained his apprentice for him? He was supposed to stay in camp, but neither Fireheart nor his clanmates knew Graystripe’s whereabouts. Fireheart couldn’t help but feel that Graystripe wasn’t completely honest with him lately.       “I need to find out if it truly was Tigerclaw who killed Redtail, and the last thing I want right now is more mysteries,” Fireheart thought. “Graystripe never hid anything from me before. What secrets could he have now, when I need his help like never before?”       Cinderpaw’s voice interrupted his thoughts yet again. Sand rose from the ground with each wag of her tail. Her brother sat near her, tentatively moving his gaze from his paws to Fireheart and back. It looked like he had been waiting for his assessment for quite some time.       “Your crouth was perfectly balanced, and your light step wouldn’t alert the prey,” Fireheart thought he could see a glimmer in apprentice’s eyes, but he had to continue. “But by the time you would reach the bird, it would fly away already.”       Brackenpaw looked down at his paws again, while Cinderpaw muttered something under her breath.       “Don’t worry, you both are doing alright,” Fireheart got up to his paws and left the hollow in a few jumps. Then he beckoned his apprentices with a swish of his tail. “With time and practice you’ll become the greatest warriors ThunderClan have ever seen. How about we’ll head to the Tall Pines so you can try your hunting skills in action?”       “Oh, come on!” suddenly mewed Cinderpaw. “How to stalk a mouse, how to stalk a squirrel, how to stalk a bird… I’m tired of repeating the same things every day! When will we learn something new? Instead of spending whole day getting to the Tall Pines we could start learning battle moves already.”       Fireheart just stared at her, lost for words.       “Fireheart’s mentor, we should do as he says!” Brackenpaw seemed surprised just as much as Fireheart. His sister was ready to argue when Fireheart finally got hold of himself.       “Cinderpaw, aren’t you too young for battle moves? We still have many moons of training ahead of us, and we— I mean you still have many things to learn,” what Fireheart was saying was completely true, and yet his words betrayed his own doubts. Cinderpaw and Brackenpaw became apprentices early and were only in the beginning of their training. But it was Fireheart’s first experience as a mentor. What if because of him Cinderpaw already fell behind? “I’m sorry if my lessons are too boring. I promise we’ll get to the harder trainings soon. Now let’s go, or we’ll never made it back to camp before the sunset.”       That time Cinderpaw didn’t say anything and only followed him obediently. She remained silent all the way to the Tall Pines. The feeling of doubt had been gnawing at Fireheart as they went. He wanted to learn the truth behind Redtail’s murder, but at the same time he couldn’t forget about his duty as a mentor. The clan didn’t believe Fireheart was capable of teaching an apprentice, and Fireheart had to prove them wrong.       When the dried leaves under their paws were replaced with soft needles Cinderpaw finally approached Fireheart. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking what I was saying. Your lessons aren’t boring at all!”       “It’s alright, I understand,” it was not the first time today the words of his apprentice surprised Fireheart. “I also was an impatient apprentice myself just a moon ago. You know, sometimes I think I haven’t changed since then.”       “I didn’t want to upset you, really,” Cinderpaw went on. “It’s just sometimes I think that our trainings could go faster. Swiftpaw won’t shut up about how many battle moves Longtail taught him already. I tell him how great of a mentor you are, and he just laughs at me!”       Fireheart smiled, but at the same time he felt a pang of guilt. The reason he chose Tall Pines as a place to hunt was actually quite selfish: Fireheart hoped he could leave the apprentices alone so he could take off to visit his kittypet sister, Princess. Chatting with her always helped him to forget about all those worries that wouldn’t leave him alone otherwise. But if he didn’t choose a place so far away, he might actually have some time to teach his apprentices more.       Fireheart glanced in the direction of Twolegplace. He wasn’t just a warrior now, he was a mentor, with all the related responsibilities. But he still was himself. Was it that bad that he wanted to see his family? Just to talk with someone who wasn’t judging his every step? Was that completely incompatible with his loyalty to his clan?       Fireheart shifted his gaze back to Cinderpaw, who was padding by his side. Suddenly he realized that his duty wasn’t as much to the clan as to this gray molly who put her trust in him. He licked her in the head and whispered, “I promise I won’t let you down.” Then Fireheart signaled his apprentices to stop. He sniffed the air and said, “watch me closely now, I’m going to show you one more time how to stalk birds the right way.”