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| - Leafpaw padded back into camp with a only a couple scrawny voles. Her mentor Boulder didn't have much more to drop on the fresh-kill pile. The apprentice flung herself to the ground, exhausted. She pretended not to notice her mother boring into her with burning green eyes. She tried to tell herself I've been training and hunting all day. It doesn't matter if that's not good enough for her. She brightened up a bit when she saw her brother Lionpaw come back to camp. He dropped himself next to her on the frost-hard ground. "Boulder been training you hard?" he asked sympathetically. Leafpaw could barely muster the energy to nod. "You think they're planning an invasion?" she asked him. He shrugged. "Maybe. C'mon, we should go back to the den. We can't just sleep out in the clearing." Leafpaw purred a bit and followed her brother back to the apprentices' den. "Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather beneath the Talloak for a Clan meeting!" yowled Brokenstar. The senior warriors and deputy were gathered around him, looking stonily out at the ShadowClan cats. "I bet you were right about the invasion, Leafpaw," murmured Lionpaw under his breath. "Cats of ShadowClan," Brokenstar meowed, "you all know how scarce prey is- especially now, with leafbare stalking the edges of the forest. And you know how we've suffered in silence every leafbare, when we have to struggle with the most prey-poor territory of all the Clans." The huge tom sat graciously through the Clan's indignant caterwauling. He continued in a yowl, "RiverClan grow fat on their fish, ThunderClan have all the creatures of the woods to eat. What do we have? We have our foggy marshes and barren pines! Even with the StarClan-forsaken hills that those WindClan weaklings used to inhabit, we can barely feed our kits! Is it our fault that our kits are strong enough to avoid illness? Is it our fault that those fox-hearted, arrogant ThunderClanners treat us like worms? But we can show them that we still have claws! We still have fangs! And we will never forget what they've done to us!" The crowd of ShadowClanners yowled in agreement, while Brokenstar was in a rage himself. "And I know how we'll show them that we won't be pushed around. We invade!" More yowling in approval. "We aren't just kittypets to be impressed by ThunderClan strutting! We are strong! We are great! We are ShadowClan!" He leaped down and began to organize the warriors. "Lionpaw, I want you to go with the invasion force," he meowed. "What about me?" asked Leafpaw. "I've been training for as long as he has!" "And you'll be staying at camp," growled Brokenstar. "That's final. I'm your leader and your father." "Russetfur?" pleaded Leafpaw. The dark ginger she-cat simply narrowed her eyes and stalked off. "Please?" --- Leafpaw tried not to notice the angry stares coming from the older warriors. "Looks like little Leafpaw's finally learning what it's like to live in ShadowClan," growled Brightflower from the other side of camp. "Trust me, kit, not getting picked for a battle is far from the worst that can happen to you." Leafpaw's black and orange fur bristled, but she knew that anything she said would come across as spoiled whining. Part of her was certain that she was angry over nothing. Part of her knew that Brightflower was right, that having parents who were unconcerned with you at best wasn't really something to complain about in a place as harsh as ShadowClan. Hope you're having fun, Lionpaw, she thought.
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