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Reposting the entire MapleClan Fanfic for new arrivals:
MapleClan: Bluefire’s Apprentice

Duskpaw- a gray tabby she-cat with green light eyes
Brightwing – light brown tabby she-cat with white paws and amber eyes
Maplestar – Dark ginger she cat with white flecks and blue eyes
Dawnpaw – Pale ginger she-cat with white paws and tail tip and bright green eyes
Bluepaw – Lithe, broad-shouldered dark blue-gray she-cat with piercing dark blue eyes
Bluefire – a blue-grey she-cat with storm-grey eyes, one black paw, and a black tail tip
Gingerkit – bright ginger she-cat with blue eyes
Jaykit – a blue-grey she-cat with lighter tabby stripes and jay-blue eyes
Briarkit – a dappled brown she-cat with amber eyes

I sort through the pile of herbs, methodically, placing each in the pile where it belongs. I really need an apprentice, I know it, but who? I sigh. I’ll have to ask Maplestar if I can apprentice one of the new kits. There are three, Gingerkit, Briarkit, and Jaykit, littermates and sisters, kits of Dawndapple, our newest nursery queen.
“Maplestar,” I call, ready to tell her of my decision, but not wanting to leave my herbs.
A young kit walks up to me. “Hi Bluefire,” she squeaks. I stare at her. She has bright ginger fur and blue eyes.
“What is it, Gingerkit?” I sigh.
“I’m almost old enough to be an apprentice, and, well. . .” she stares at her paws. “Can I be your apprentice?”
“I’ll have to talk to Maplestar, but I’m sure we can work something out,” I assure her. She squeals with delight, bouncing around. I laugh, shoving the herbs aside for now. I walk towards Maplestar’s den, Gingerkit trailing behind. I reach the entrance to then den.
“Maplestar? Can I talk to you a minute?” I ask. When there is no response, I continue. “Gingerkit wants to be my apprentice.” Maplestar pushes through the leaves, looks at Gingerkit, and smiles.
“Of course she can be your apprentice, I’ll arrange the ceremony later.”
“Thank you,” I say gratefully. “Come on Gingerkit, I’ll tell you about a couple of herbs while we wait.” Gingerkit bounces after me happily. We return to my den and I begin teaching Gingerkit about the properties of marigold and cobweb. She is eager to learn. I leave her to sort some herbs while I go out to collect more.

“Gingerkit! You’ve made a mess of the whole den!” I drop my bundle of herbs by the door. Ever since Maplestar agreed to arrange the apprentice ceremony, Gingerkit has been staying more in the medicine cat then than the nursery. But now. . . “Help me with this,” I command as I start angrily sorting out the scattering of previously sorted herbs. Gingerkit, tail dragging the ground, head hung low with shame, begins to help me. I sigh. She’s just a kit, after all, but almost an apprentice. She should be able to have some level of maturity.
“I’m sorry, Bluefire,” she says finally. “I was trying to find the catmint, like you asked, and I just made a mess of things! I’d be a horrible medicine cat!” She lashes her tail, frustrated with herself.
“It’s alright, Gingerkit, everycat makes mistakes,” I assure her. “I did the same thing when I was apprenticed to Moonblaze.” For a second, I’m lost in memories of my mentor, who had died moons ago from the very sickness that had made him the medicine cat apprentice. It was rumored that Grey Wing, one of the first in the four clan’s forest, had died of the same disease, a breathing problem that made it hard for him to hunt. Moonblaze had been like a father to me, ever since my own father had been killed by a monster on the Thunderpath.
“Bluefire? I think we’re almost done,” Gingerkit says, shoving me out of my thoughts. I see the freshly sorted piles of herbs. While I’d been thinking, Gingerkit had put everything back in it’s place. “Just these left,” she says, moving to pick up the bundle of leaves I’d carried in.
“Careful, Gingerkit,” I warn. “The leaves are just leaves, but there are deathberries inside.”
“Deathberries?” Gingerkit squeals, leaping away. “Why would you want deathberries?”
“If a cat is going to StarClan, there is nothing we can do but ease their pain. Sometimes it is the only way,” I say solemnly, remembering an elder’s passing from not too long ago. He’d been bitten by a snake, and Moonblaze had fed him deathberries so that his death wasn’t painful. “Remember Frosttail?” Gingerkit nods. Frosttail had been her mother’s father, after all. “Run along now, I’ll put these away,” I tell her. She dashes out of the den to join her sisters, Briarkit – a dappled brown she-cat like her mother, with gleaming amber eyes – and Jaykit – a blue-grey she-cat with lighter tabby stripes and jay-blue eyes – in the clearing, where they are playing mossball. I gently pick up the bundle of deathberries and slide them into place on the shelves that line my den.
Soon, I tell myself, soon I will have an apprentice.

“Will all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather beneath the Great Rock for a clan meeting?” Maplestar’s voice rings through the camp. I set down the stem of poppy seeds I had been shaking into a leaf and step out into the clearing. I know what’s happening today. Gingerkit, Briarkit, and Jaykit are to become apprentices. And Maplestar has agreed to let Gingerkit be my apprentice!
“Briarkit, step forwards,” Maplestar is saying. “Do you promise to uphold the warrior code, and to train hard to learn the duties of a warrior, no matter the cost?”
“I do,” Briarkit squeaks.
“Then from this day forth, until you receive your warrior name, you are Briarpaw. Your mentor is Mistylight.” A pale grey she-cat steps up to touch noses with Briarpaw. Maplestar continues. “Jaykit, step forwards. Do you promise to uphold the warrior code, and to train hard to learn the duties of a warrior, no matter the cost?”
“I do,” Jaykit says, eyes shining with happiness.
“Then from this day forth, until your receive your warrior name, you are Jaypaw. Your mentor is Hawkfeather.” The dark brown tom, his golden tabby stripes gleaming, touches noses with Jaypaw. “And finally, Gingerkit, step forwards.” Gingerkit hops up to take her littermates’ place under the Great Rock. “Gingerkit has chosen to follow the noble path of a medicine cat.” This is my moment. I step up onto the Great Rock.
“Gingerkit,” I declare, “Do you promise to follow the warrior code, and the code of the medicine cats, to protect all cats equally, and to train in your duties as a medicine cat?”
“I do,” Gingerkit responds, tail high in the air.
“Then until you are given your full name as my apprentice, you are Gingerpaw.” I step down from the Great Rock and touch noses with Gingerpaw. My apprentice!
“Thank you, Bluefire,” she whispers.
“Briarpaw! Jaypaw! Gingerpaw!” The clan chants, louder and louder, until Maplestar calls for quiet and dismisses the clan. The other apprentices crowd Briarpaw and Jaypaw.
“I can’t wait to show you the scraggly tree by the border!”
“No, I’m going to show them!”
“They have to tour the territory with their mentors, idiot.”
“I want to teach them hunting.”
“Their mentors teach them everything.”
“Well, they’d better not step on my nest.”
“Oh, shut up you prickly furball.”
I purr with laughter as their friendly bickering turns into a play-fight, claws sheathed as dust billows around them. As I’m walking back to my den, Gingerpaw bounces over, giddy with excitement.
“When do we start?” She wonders.
“Right now,” I decide. “Come with me.” We slip into my den, and Gingerpaw’s training begins.

“Bluefire! Bluefire!” Gingerpaw gasps for breath, skidding to a halt at the entrance to my den.
“What is it?” I ask, pausing in the middle of sorting yarrow stems from the flowers.
“It’s Brightwing! She’s fallen from a tree, it looks bad,” Gingerpaw exclaims. I jump up.
“What??” I race out of the den after Gingerpaw and into the clearing, where Maplestar, Dawnpaw, Bluepaw, and Mistylight standing over Brightwing, who they laid in the middle of the clearing. Jaypaw and Briarpaw poke their heads out of the apprentice’s den to see what the fuss is about, and I hear gasps and exclamations from warriors and apprentices alike, but I ignore it all and approach Brightwing. Maplestar steps back, motioning for the others to as well, and I gasp when I see Brightwing’s injuries. She has a long, thin scratch across her flank, not too deep, and her right foreleg has been popped out of it’s socket, but the worst is her right hindleg and her tail. Her leg is twisted and broken, almost unrecognizable, and her tail is bent at an odd angle, like it’s been snapped almost in two, a mass of flesh and blood, the bone sticking out.
“What happened?” I finally say weakly. I’ve seen a lot of injuries, being a medicine cat, but this. . . it’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen.
“We were hunting,” Bluepaw stammers, “and she went after a squirrel.”
“She was all the way at the top of the Tallest Maple,” Mistylight explains, “and she fell.”
“Can you help her?” Maplestar asks.
“I– I can fix her foreleg and the scratch, but I’m not sure if she’d be able to ever use her hindleg or tail again,” I reply shakily. “She needs to be moved into my den.” Maplestar, Mistylight, and Dawnpaw gently lift Brightwing off of the ground, and Bluepaw grips her ruined tail. They move her into a nest in my den. Gingerpaw gapes at the wounds, having only caught a glance before.
“Gingerpaw, get marigold and cobwebs for the scratch,” I order, “then help me set her foreleg.” Gingerpaw fetches the herbs, then sets them down, and braces Brightwing’s body so I can snap the leg back into it’s socket. Brightwing flinches, she’s still partially conscious. I quickly treat the scratch on her flank, then tell Gingerpaw to get her sisters and find some sturdy sticks. As I wait for them to return, I clean away the worst of the blood and arrange the leg and tail so they are straight instead of twisted and bent. When the apprentices return with the sticks, I use the sturdy branches to keep the leg and tail straight while I wrap them with leaves to hold them still after placing herb polituces on the wounds.
“I’ve done all I can,” I report to Maplestar after returning to the clearing. “She’s in StarClan’s paws now.”

So-o-o. . . what do you think?