Gustclan Post 59

Gannetpaw was the one who chose where they were going to bed for the night. It was a little inevitable, seeing how for the last hour, he’d been stopping to check every interesting smelling bush.

”What are you doing?” Gullpaw asked, the third time it happened. ”We can’t carry around a store of random herbs you find to bring back. They’ll probably all be rotten by the time we’re home anyway.”

Gannetpaw shook his head. ”New clans crop up all the time. Who knows whether this land is already another clan’s territory? What if they smell us, huh? What if they’re aggressive and smell us while we’re sleeping?”

Gullpaw had started diving into the bushes whenever his brother had started smelling them after that, and Adoniscloud had clearly taken this as a hint to start looking for somewhere suitable to sleep. He’d done this each of the nights they’d been travelling.

Now here they were, huddled together in a thick bush beneath the shadow of a huge mountain. Just beside the bush was a huge stone, swirly and brown. Gullpaw had asked what it was, and Adoniscloud had said it was Cairngorm – they were near where Heronstar had come from. Gullpaw asked if they could see her old clan. Adoniscloud shook his head firmly and said no more on the matter.

Gannetpaw’s legs stretched in his sleep – far more than they could have done had their father still been huddled around them – but did not wake. If he had, he might have wondered what his father was doing. If he had more sense of what Adoniscloud did on most of his journeying, he might also have wondered who his father was seeing. But for now, here he was, warmed by four things; his thick fur, the flank of his brother against him, the happiness in knowing he’d see his mother and other siblings soon, and the pride in his heart at knowing his mentor thought him ready to be promoted.