Apprentice army

(Part 2)

“Today we’re taking a tour of CrowClan territory,” her mentor mewed as she caught up to him. Mousepaw huffed under her breath. She’d imagined something more “Clan-like” for her first lesson. Maybe something like fighting or hunting; something she could actually use to help her Clan. Walking wouldn’t help her one bit.
Mentor and apprentice walked along the side of a creek bed, and into a meadow, the dry stalks of grass shimmering and sparkling with morning dew in the weak sunlight. It would have been beautiful; if not for the drought the Clan had been experiencing since greenleaf. The plants were broken, crumpled, and colorless.
Mousepaw shuddered as they brushed against her pelt like cold hands.
She took a breath and dashed after her mentor.
“It’s gonna be a hard leaf-bare,” she heard him mew. “If we survive that long,”
“Why?” Mousepaw meowed. She knew the Clan didn’t have enough prey and water, but she got plenty just fine!
“Kits are very well fed.” Fallenbeam said. “You wouldn’t know what the warriors and apprentices had been going through. Well, you’ll experience it now, that you’ve become one of us too. There’s no water, or prey. Everything we find we give to our kits and elders, everyone else has been starving since greenleaf. Our medicine cat can’d stock up on herbs for the leaf-bare, everything’s dry and dead. She’s ran out of the ones she’s collected last year, now she had nothing to treat anyone with. We can’t even prepare ourselves by eating prey and getting nutrition, because there’s no prey! We’re doomed.” Fallenbeam gazed sadly at his apprentice, and only now did Mousepaw realize how skinny he was; his fur was thin and dull, and Mousepaw could count every one of his jutting bones.