Chapter 5: Destiny

I woke up near the lake again, well didn't wake up... This was a dream, yes, but it felt so real it almost didn't seem like it. Finally Squirrelflight would teach me how to make it in the world again. Maybe I could even teach Owl. But this wasn't the name part of the lake as last time, I looked to the right and from far away I could barely spot a tree line. That was where I normally was... But where was I now and where was Squirrelflight.

"Hello Moon..." Said a cat from not to far away. I didn't recognise this cat... The only other cat that had been in my dreams besides Squirrellflight was Firestar... He kind of scared me, he was looking at me with what looked like a crooked smile. I stepped back a little and he stopped smiling.

"Where am I? And who are you? Where is Squirrelflight? She is supposed to be teaching me how to hunt out in the woods today." I said to him. He sat down and began licking between his legs. Was he just going to ignore me? This cat seemed a little weird and I couldn't tell if he was good or not.

"I am Onestar, I was once the leader of Windclan a long time ago. I do not know where she is at but I can tell you that you will be learning how to hunt today..." Onestar said to me and then began heading a little bit closer to me. There it was something about clans again. I had no clue what exactly those things were but I had heard the word several times.

"What is Windclan? What are these clans everyone keeps talking about?" I said to him. He smiled and then just ignored my question, which did irritate me a little bit. I never understood what they were talking about, they just always told me that it was my destiny to rebuild the clans. How could I rebuild something if I had no clue what it was in the first place?

"Now today we are going to be teaching you to hunt rabbits... Since your near the moorlands... The area that you are in right now, I have teach you how to do this before you must head on your journey..." Onestar said to me. Its almost like he had no idea what I was saying the first place. And for a second I kind of thought that these dreams were just preplanned in my head from the day before. It would make sense... Maybe I was born with some since of how to hunt and i just had to find that from inside my head...

"Okay... What is a rabbit?" I asked him, he continued to smile which was actually starting to annoy me. And then he nudged me as if he was asking me to follow him. He then ran off and I ran after him. He then was nearby and nodded for me to lower my head.

"That over there is a rabbit, they are huge and are enough to feed at least 2 cats for a whole day." Onestar said to me. I had seen those a few times before and I had seen 1 on my way when I found Owl. They didn't look like food and they did look like they were scared of me too.  "Now i need you to watch me carefully, this is sort of like learning how to catch a mouse but it is a little different."

I watched him as he lowered his head making sure the rabbit wasn't looking at him. Then he ran and caught it before it had time to jump. He then bit down on its throat for the kill blow. That was a lot different actually... The mice were way faster, and had faster reaction times too. Those were just overall bigger.

"Alright Moon, now it is you turn... There is one over there." Onestar said to me pointing his paw over to an area. I saw nothing but then suddenly it seemed as if it appeared out of nowhere. There were 2 just sitting there together. I began heading towards them lowered my head to make sure they didn't hear or see me.

Suddenly one hopped up and saw me, then so did the other... Then they both began too run... I ran after them too... I was slightly faster and I began to catch up to them. Suddenly they disappeared from nowhere. And i looked around a bit confused. Where in the world did they just disappear too? This was a dream after all, maybe they just weren't really there in the first place.

"Where did they go? I was about to catch them!" I yelled, a bit upset that they had just suddenly gone away like that. Onestar walked over to me smiling...

"Look... They can see you from 100 tailengths away.. You might think you can catch up to them... They have little burrows inside the ground that they like to hide in to get away from any sort of predators such as us." Onestar said to me. I nodded my head in return as he pointed to a few more rabbits closer to the lake... It actually kind of scared me to go anywhere near that because my old female owner used to put me in these big tubs of water and it was heard to swim. This like looked a million times bigger than that... Maybe even bigger than that. It seemed as if it was never ending...

I lowered my head and then began heading towards them making sure I was not in their sight this time. I slowly began to getting closer and closer to them. Then once I was a few tailengths from one of them I ran as fast as I could... Maybe I could have gone a little bit further but I still was going to easily catch them. Onestar yelled at me from far away.

"Make sure you bite down on their throat." He told me. I kept that in my mind and they then saw me coming and quickly began to scurry off. If I wasn't so fast then they might have gotten away. But I got one of them before it even had a chance to began running away. I bit down on its throat to make sure it wouldn't run of like that mouse did in the barn last night.

I was thankful for Onestars help as I was running towards it. I probably would not get another chance like that again. He smiled as he began heading towards me from afar. I happily began strutting over to him with the very big rabbit hanging from my mouth. It was actually insanely heavy and I wasn't sure how long I could actually realistically hold that up.

"Put it down I can see its painful for you." He told me... I nodded gratefully and then put it down... He then began to eat it, which confused me because he had just caught his own somewhere nearby.

"That was awesome, whenever I rebuild the clans or whatever they are exactly... Im going to teach all my friends how to hunt like you guys. I'll teach Owl how to hunt tomorrow." I told him. He looked down a little sadly... Maybe he didn't think I would actually be able to rebuild the clans. I had remembered Squirrelflight had told said to Firestar one night that I would never be able to rebuild them. I was sure I was going to be able to do it though, I just didn't really know exactly what they were in the first place. Maybe it was some sort of group of cats... Maybe thats why they had so many of them.

"Yes you will do so... Take a quick little bite... You will catch a much better one tomorrow with your little friend." Onestar responded to me. I went towards it and took a quick few bites. It was good but not as good as that mouse I had caught from yesterday. Still a lot better than the food that my owners used to give me. I sighed a little bit, I had to stop thinking about them, if they even cared about me one bit then they wouldn't have thrown me out and not let me back in, no matter how many times I had scratched against that door... The male owner yelled a few times and kicked against the door but they never would let me back in.

"Goodbye Moon, I will see you a while from now... Stay safe out there." He told me... Then he began to disappear along with the rabbit. I knew what time it was at this point. I was used to it no matter how badly I wanted to stay inside those dreams and keeping learning and having a never ending supply of food. But then finally I fell back down to sleep from inside my dream.

I woke up and Owl was no longer beside me but instead a saw him from not too far away stretching himself. I hopped down from the haybale and then followed him down then beginning to stretch myself along with him. He looked at me a little confused which also confused me in return. Was I not doing stretching right or something?

"Did you have some sort of nightmare last night? You were yelling a few times like something was attacking you. You weren't having any dreams of coyotes were you?" He said to me. It made me laugh and I shook my head... I wasn't too sure what exactly coyotes looked like up to this point... All I knew about them was that they would kill up a cat in less than a second and they were making some sort of wolfing noises from deep inside the woods.

"No it actually was a good dream as a matter of fact. Hey would you want to go out in the moorland today? I want to go catch a rabbit." I told him. He looked at me a bit confused, but then he began laughing. I was now a bit confused... He didn't think that this was some kind of joke did he? I was being serious, I was going to catch one of those like I did last night.

"I mean we can go out there if you want... But I would be a little bit careful around those things. I don't think the are exactly hunting animals. I had a friend that used to come around often, he had tried to catch one of those one time, then it scratched him in the eye and he lost all sight in that eye for the rest of his life." Owl told me. It actually then sort of scared me to even think about going after one of those. But I knew I had to, if I was going to rebuild the clans at this point. Maybe it was a joke or something. But I wasn't all too sure of that.

"That's probably because he didn't bite down on its throat like your supposed to, he probably caught it and it fought back at him." I said to Owl. I wasn't too sure if it was true but anything to get that off of my mind that I might lose my sight in one of my eyes for the rest of my life.

"That would make sense I suppose, he only had caught mice before... Haven't seen him in while, he was a bit older... I kind of miss him, he was a bit of a funnier cat." Owl told me. I thanked Onestar from inside my head that he had taught me how to catch one because I didn't want to have to be blind for the rest of my life like that one cat that Owl was talking about.

"Alright well once your ready then I am too... I don't want to be stuck in this place for too long." I told him. He began licking his legs and then looked back up to me.

"Of course, but in the winter we are going to have to stay in here... The mice don't come out all that much that time of the year and the barn folk give me that dry food." Owl told me. I wasn't all that sure I was going to be staying with him. I mean I would love to but it seemed as if I was destined to do something far greater than that. And I would love if Owl would follow me on that quest. I could really use a friend... Not that those other cats weren't, but I'm also not sure if those cats were real in the first place.

After a few more moments he then got up and then we began heading out of the barn area. His owners, or barn folk as he liked to call them, but im pretty sure they were owners if they were giving him food and water during the cold months within the year. I had never really experience the cold, it got a little chillier when the snow came during the winter when I was younger but other than that I had never experienced the cold season all that much.

His barn folk were nowhere to be seen at this time and we kept on walking. We kept heading closer to the fence and I shyed away from the Cows and sheep as Owl liked to call them. Owl started to laugh as we were walking closer to that section of the fence, where we were able to get out.

"Scared of the coyotes?" Owl said to me. I wanted to laugh but at the same time I just couldn't laugh at the joke because those things were so big. But we kept on moving and I was happy as soon as we got out of that area. "You know... They a lot of them were sleeping right beside us last night?"

I didn't even realize it, but I probably should have because I had smelt some sort of stench all morning in there.

"Did they ever take baths? I was wondering what that awful smell was this morning." I said to him, he laughed... It had smelt like one of the worst smells I had ever smelt in my life... Worse than that one time Tristan was sick and couldn't get all the way to the litter box... Now I didn't even use a litter box. I just peed and pooped wherever I felt comfortable.

I did miss my old owners but at the same time I didn't because I was free and not just stuck to one small area like I used to. It was a lot safer and easier to get food but it wasn't really living like it was out here. Tristan had always told me a cat would not make it a day out there before he was torn apart by something or died of starvation. But I was now beginning to see how wrong he was in that aspect.

We began heading to the moorland and Owl was staying behind my back because he was scared to go after any of those rabbits. I would show him how to do it and not be scared anymore. Onestar had done a good job of training me. Owl would soon find out how wrong he was to just assume that I was just a normal kittypet. But I guess at the same time... When he first met me I had no idea what anything out here was and had no idea how to make it... But I was beginning to learn and my day was soon to come.

I suddenly stopped and so did Owl... I saw a rabbit from not too far away... Now was my chance and I wasn't going to miss it the first few times like last time. Owl began speaking but I quickly shushed him in case the rabbit heard us.

"Alright just stand here and watch. Don't say a word or it will run off." I said to him. The rabbit then lifted its head but did not see us, we were a bit further away and at the same time the rabbit wasn't really looking for us it was just more looking around. I began heading in the opposite direction that it was eating from.

Doing exactly what Onestar had showed me how to do last night. I lowered my head as soon as I caught back up and saw it. It was still just sitting there like a perfectly normal day just eating some grass. It didn't know that this would be the last time it would ever do that.

I then began heading towards it very slowly... Making sure I didn't step on anything and making sure it didn't hear me or most importantly see me. Onestar said they were better at seeing rather than hearing, which would be way easier than a mouse as long as I was smart.

I then was just within a few tailengths from it when I then began to run... It had no chance and didn't even look up when I jumped down onto it. I then bit its throat making sure it didn't attack me like it did that one cat that Owl was talking about earlier. Owl then began running towards me happily.

"Wow that was awesome! That thing is bigger than me! You have to teach me how to do that soon." He told me. I would gladly teach him the same way that Onestar had taught me. It was way easier than catching a mouse as long as you were smart with it.

"Of course! My friend had told me to make sure that they did not see you... So that is the first step." I told him, he looked at me smiling, I was so happy to be with him. He was such a kid and friendly cat, I hoped he would follow me on this quest. We would learn so much together and I didn't really want to be alone.

"Yes that was so cool! I'm so happy that we are together! We will learn so much from each other for the rest of our lives!" Owl said to me. I then felt a little bad... But maybe if he came with me then I wouldn't have too. I just had to choose my next words wisely.

"Owl I cant stay at the farm... There's something I need to tell you... It isn't just a normal cat that teaches me how hunt. I want you to come with me... I have to follow my destiny."