Icepaw had a panic attack. She blacked out for a second and came to without anyone realizing. She knew who the shade was. She glanced at Echopaw and then Windpaw. Echopaw was frozen in terror and realization and Windpaw was openly shocked. Stop looking like that! she yowled at him in her head. You look like an idiot! He was an idiot. Icepaw knew that Echopaw was the most shocked and terrified out of all of them because Shadewing had been nicest to her when Echopaw had been a kit and Shadewing a new apprentice. But the shock of realizing your friend was evil… But he isn’t. Her mind whispered. How could he be? Unless… he became that way over time. But how? What would happen that would make him so devastated he would go mad? Icepaw noticed that Echopaw had fled from her spot on the far side of the crowd. A gray tail was whisking into the apprentices' den. Icepaw looked around to make sure everyone was dispersing anyway and headed towards the den. Windpaw was headed in the same direction. Echopaw was sobbing in the corner of the den, head facing the wall and looking so different from her usual bouncy self that Icepaw wondered if it wasn’t the “Shady problem” at all. Icepaw curled up around Echopaw’s shaking body and Windpaw followed. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. “I-I don’t know i-it’s just h-him w-why him?” “Cats don’t get to choose their destinies,” Icepaw pointed out. “But why him?!!” Echopaw exploded. “Echopaw.” A voice that didn’t belong to any of them spoke. Fangkit materialized in a cloud of stars. “Do we all see him?” Windpaw asked. “Yep,” Icepaw replied. “ShineClan has tried many times to avoid the whole prophecy happening,” Fangkit said. “For instance, they tried to get Larchpelt to mate with Bristleflower so that Shadewing wouldn’t be born in the first place. But since Larchpelt is a complete jerk, that didn’t work too well.” Icepaw didn’t say anything to defend her mentor since it was mostly true. She’d heard the story a few times from older cats: Bristleflower fell in love with Larchpelt, who told her that he loved her. But then he went behind her back with an apprentice, Flamepaw, who would become Flamesight. Larchpelt often spoke badly about Shadewing and his siblings. Bristleflower had mated with another tom in the clan, but the interesting part was, no one knew who. “They also sent me.” Fangkit took a deep breath. “They realized that Songcloud didn’t want more than three kits, therefore having Echopaw never be born, and put me on the path of a medicine cat just in case… the thing happened anyway. Songcloud wasn’t the brightest, but ShineClan had already had Echopaw set to be Songcloud’s next kit. They hoped Windpaw and Icepaw and I would become apprentices and make the re–thing never happen. Their most desperate attempt was putting in Irismoon’s head the idea for the test.” Echopaw’s head shot up. “They purposely tried drowning me?” Her eyes were full of rage. “Yeah. Not my fault, little sis. They’re trying some other things but I’m not allowed to tell you about them.” “Let me guess. The foxes.” Icepaw raised her eyebrow. “Thought you’d guess that. You’re smart. Unlike Windpaw.” “You-you son of another clan-” Windpaw stuttered. “See what I mean?” Fangkit rolled his eyes. “We’re all half-clan.” Windpaw groaned. Icepaw grinned. Echopaw giggled. Fangkit had always liked to annoy Windpaw to wit’s end. It was especially fun when Windpaw said something dumb or obvious back. It seemed he’d lost his forethought or something. “Anyway. Hilarious. But can we get back to the matter of not killing me?” Echopaw asked, serious again. “I’m afraid ShineClan doesn’t have many options: we either kill you, kill Shadewing, or let the entire point of the clans go up in flames, allowing many cats to die.”
OooOOoOOooO Magic
