Fern crept through her yard as the moon began to rise above the mountains in the distance. Leaffall was just coming to an end and the cool nights were turning crisp and leaving little pebbles of ice on the ground. They still thawed when the sun rose, but the fact that they were forming at all was warning enough. Soon snow would blanket the ground and then she wouldn't have to worry about keeping those fox dung toms away from her catnip. Her brindled brown fur bristled slightly as she remembered.

Brody and Cougar. They always picked fights with any cat unlucky enough to explore out of her yard, and sometimes they'd come right into the yard to pick fights. Fern had learned a few techniques to drive them off, and they hadn't bothered her for nearly a moon. Still, it would be just like them to come strutting in when she least expected it. Speaking of which…

Fern's ears perked at the sound of a young cat's voice, "Stonestripe! I smell cat mint! I think these twoleggers have planted some in their yard!"

Fern's eyes narrowed and she crouched lower in the dead grass. More cats trespassing!

"Very good Brindlepaw. You're right, I smell it too. Let's see if we can't harvest some. Even a mouth full would be precious right now."

Two cats, one the soft gray of river stones, the other a youngster and nearly Fern's twin in color stepped through the fence that surrounded Fern's yard and headed straight for the catnip. They were talking in excited whispers as they began to dig at the soil where the last sprigs of catnip of the season hunkered down against the cold.

Wait for it. Wait for it…. NOW! Fern exploded out of the grass and hit the gray one smack dab on the flanks right when her attention was buried in her work.

"Trespasser!" Fern snarled loudly, pummeling the stranger with swift blows of her paws, "This is my yard! Thief! Get out! Out out out and stay out!"

The stone colored cat was taken completely by surprise and stumbling and tripping, she tried to scramble back and out of reach of the furious fighter that seemed to have simply appeared next to her.

"Leave Stonestripe alone!" The younger brown cat launched himself bravely at Fern and clawed at her.

Fern was briefly startled by the strength of the youngster, but was no less efficient in rounding on him. She swatted him firmly on the nose and while he shook his head, trying to recover from the startling blow, she went for his head, snapping and swiping at his face, nose and tender ears.

Caterwauling and snarling up a storm she herded the strangers until they finally had to turn tail and flee after only a few half hearted blows of their own.

Snorting softly after their fleeing tails, Fern sat down and began to wash her tail. Her bluff had worked... this time. Unfortunately once they calmed down a bit, they might realize that neither of them had gotten so much as a scratch. Oh they'd sting and smart here and there, especially around the face where they were the most tender, but all in all, Fern's attacks were meant to frighten off rather than harm. If those two came back, she would have to escalate.

/\/\/\/\/\

Panting and gasping, Stonestripe and Brindlepaw hunkered down in the shelter of the trees while trying to catch their breath. The brown flurry hadn't followed them past the edges of the yard so they seemed to be safe for the moment.

"Are you all right Brindlepaw?" Stonestripe asked when she'd caught her breath enough to speak, "That kittypet didn't hurt you did she?"

"That was a kittypet?" Brindlepaw sucked in a sharp breath, "I thought we were attacked by a member of Tigerclan! No… No. I'm all right. I sting a bit in places but I don't think she hurt me. What about you?"

"I'm all right. But I lost the one sprig of catmint I managed to dig up. Mouse dung! And with half the Clan down with greencough I don't know who can help us get back in there…"

The two cats were silent for a moment, and then Brindlepaw offered tentatively, "What about Blackfur? He's not sick yet…"

/\/\/\/\/\

Fern growled low in her throat when her sharp green eyes caught sight of three cats trekking their way back to her yard. So they thought bringing backup would help huh? She felt a heavy feeling settle into her gut at having to face off with three cats at once but she latched onto her courage with grim determination.

She dropped low in her twoleg's garden and stalked slowly toward the fence. Maybe if she could get them before they got inside…

"Hello?"

Fern's eyes widened slightly as the gray cat poked her had through the fence. She glanced around and then wiggled through.

"Hello? My name is Stonestripe. I'd like to talk to you if I may."

Fern's lip curled but she stalked forward, "Didn't you learn your lesson the first time? Go away!" A powerful bump of her shoulders bowled Stonestripe over and Fern's paw flicked out to rest grimly on the strange cat's chest, "Maybe your ears aren't working right? Maybe I should claw them off so you can hear me better?" Fern flexed her sharp claws, kneading Stonestripe's fur.

"Please. I need to ask you a favor. Won't you at least listen for a few minutes?" Stonestripe made no move to defend herself and her earnest blue eyes begged Fern to stop for a moment.

Fern's eyes narrowed for a few breaths as a cat with fur the color of deepest night pushed through the fence and crouched, growling softly at her. The youngster crouched by the black cat's side, his eyes wide and anxious but no less determined.

"This is Blackfur, a warrior of my clan, and this is my apprentice, Brindlepaw," Stonestripe offered when Fern remained quiet. "We belong to Thunderclan. Many warriors of our clan have fallen sick as the weather has gotten colder. I'm the clan's Medicine cat and I've run out of cat mint, a plant that I use to treat the illness that is creeping through our camp. Your yard has a little bit left. Please, we know it's your yard, but many of our clan may die from the illness unless we bring it back."

"What's your name?" she finally asked into the lengthening silence.

"I'm Fern." Fern backed her ears and eyed the cats suspiciously. She didn't understand half of what Stonestripe had been talking about, but the talk of illness rang clear enough. "You say my catnip is a cure?"

"Is that what you call it? Catnip, or cat mint, it's very important that we find some. It's not so much a cure as a way to help treat the illness." Stonestripe slowly rolled to her paws, gently dislodging Fern's paw, which had grown lax as she had talked.

Finally Fern sighed, "All right then, though I think you may be out of luck. There's not much left after last night's frost. But if you think it will help, then you can dig up whatever you can find." She turned and led the trio through the yard and carefully scraped away some of the dry stalks to reveal precious little of the plant left.

"Thank you," Stonestripe made no effort to hide the relief as she carefully bit off a small number of leaves and rolled them into a bundle.

Fern watched for a moment, then rubbed absently at her nose with her paw, "Listen you three, I don't like thieves and I don't like trespassers. You forest cats may think you can just strut on in here and take what you want but if you try it again, I'll rip your fur out and use it as bedding. Don't believe me, ask Brody or Cougar, if you can get them to talk long enough before they try to turn you into crow food. If you need something from my yard… ask next time."

The medicine cat's answer was muffled around the precious bundle but she waved her tail to show she understood and the glance she gave the kittypet was friendly. Blackfur nodded curtly and followed suit, tailed by the apprentice who called out, "Thanks! Bye!" as he disappeared though the fence.

As her twolegs called out, Fern turned around and padded inside. Well, that was the last of the catnip. This meant she could relax and not patrol her yard this winter. In a way it was a relief; Brody and Cougar could tromp around in the cold all they wanted and she wouldn't have to tromp around too to keep them out.

/\/\/\/\/\

"Fern…"

Fern squeezed her eyes shut tighter and buried her nose under her tail on the warm couch.

"Fern. Wake up!"

Fern sat bolt upright with a temperamental snarl. A strange cat had gotten into the twoleg house and was pestering her. She was cranky enough right now to bypass all the feinting and go straight for the claws and teeth of the matter.

A sweet scent rolled over her nose and Fern froze, eyes wide. A dark tortoiseshell cat with amber eyes was staring up at her from the floor. Stranger still was that she didn't seem to be fully real. If Fern squinted a little, it seemed as though there were stars sparkling in her coat, and if she looked hard enough Fern could see the rug faintly through the strange cat's form.

"Who are you?" Fern demanded, spitting to herself at the quaver that ruined a great deal of her bravado.

"My name is Spottedleaf. I was a medicine cat for Thunderclan many moons ago."

"Aren't you a little lost?" Fern asked dryly, "You're in a twoleg house and your forest friends are all out there." She waved a paw to indicate out the window.

"I'm not lost," Spottedleaf's whiskers were forward in mild amusement, "I came to ask you for your help."

"You're behind the times then. Stonestripe already took the last of my catmint." Fern lay back down, "Now if you'll excuse me I've got some sleep to catch up on."

"She didn't take the last of it," Spottedleaf corrected sternly. "There's an ample supply hidden away that no one else knows about. I need to ask you to deliver as much of it as you can carry to the Thunderclan camp. They're in desperate need of so much more than what Stonestripe could bring back."

Fern backed her ears and gritted her teeth. She didn't like the idea of walking around in the middle of the night. And besides… "I don't know where to go!"

"I can show you the way. I know it's late," her voice gentled, "and I know you're tired. But my clan really needs that catmint, and if you don't get some to the clan in time, many will not survive even a few days longer."

A sharp thorn of anxiety raked its way up Fern's spine. If a cat's life depended on something that Fern could do…

"Show me," she growled, leaping to the floor and heading for the kitty door with determined steps.

Spottedleaf seemed to have vanished, gone like those bubbles that the twoleg kits sometimes blew into the air. But as soon as Fern stepped out into the cold bright light of the three quarters full moonlight, she saw the dark pelted medicine cat trotting across the yard and beyond the fence.

Fern leaped off the porch and sprinted across the ground, which was already beginning to form icy crystals under the pads of her paws. Spottedleaf led Fern away from the house and to the sagging remains of an old barn sitting next to a much newer building where heat radiated from within. Ahh yes, the 'green house' that the big male had built back in Newleaf. Sheltered between the two buildings, the scent disguised by a pungent patch of garlic plants gone wild, sat a healthy patch of catnip.

Fern's eyes stretched wide in amazement. If Cougar and Brody ever found this patch, there would be no hope of keeping them from it. Pushing the dismaying thought aside, Fern went to work nipping off the leaves as she'd seen Stonestripe do. When she had a sizeable bundle, she scooped it into her jaws and turned with a grunt to the waiting Spottedleaf.

Wordlessly she followed the glimmering form into the trees. Just when she thought she'd lost the starry coated cat, she would catch a glimpse of her again ahead and through the underbrush. Her jaws ached from the thick bunch of mouthwatering plant leaves and her legs protested the long trek, but she continued doggedly until…

Something slammed into her from above, howling like a cat possessed and clawing at Fern's backside. Fern dropped her bundle with an angry snarl and whirled on her attacker. In a flurry of strokes, the pair rolled around the little clearing until they finally were forced to a standstill, Fern with her teeth fastened on the scruff of her attacker's neck and her attacker latched on with grim determination to Fern's left front leg.

"What in the name of StarClan is going on out here?!" demanded a new voice, and Fern glanced up to see a dark gray cat with ice blue eyes stalking from a thicket of thorn bushes. It took a brief moment for her to see that there was a narrow tunnel through the sharp thorns, which must have led to Thunderclan's 'camp'.

"What are you doing out here Burrback? And who is this? And…" he sniffed, "And… is that… cat mint?!"

The dark cat bent down and peered in the dim light at the heady bundle that Fern had carried with her.

"I couldn't sleep," Burrback said, reluctantly releasing the leg so he could answer the other cat, "So I climbed my favorite tree to count StarClan warriors until I relaxed. I just looked down and this stranger was walking straight for the camp."

"I see. Who are you stranger? And why do you have this much cat mint with you?" The gray tom tapped the bundle lightly with a paw.

"Don't touch that!" Fern snarled, dropping Burrback abruptly and making an abortive lunge at the strange cat, caught up short by Burrback snatching at her tail, "Keep your grubbing paws off that! It's for Stonestripe!"

"Stonestripe?" the gray cat abruptly stared deep into Fern's eyes, "How do you know Stonestripe? And… great StarClan, have you been rolling in garlic?" his eyes stretched wide and he leaned back from the brindled kittypet.

"That's where I found the stuff," Fern grumbled, absently running her tongue over the fur of her chest in a few awkward strokes. "Stonestripe trespassed in my yard looking for some… and… and I found a bigger patch of this tonight and thought…"

For some reason, Fern was reluctant to tell about Spottedleaf, who apparently had disappeared the instant Fern had been pounced upon. Though how to explain how she had found the camp in the first place…

"I see. Let her go Burrback. One way or another, Stonestripe needs this bundle and I see no reason why this kittypet can't carry it the rest of the way. I'll take her to the medicine cat's den. I want you to wake up Earthstar and tell him about our visitor."

Fern bristled at the strange cat's dismissive view of her origins, but kept it to herself as she picked up the bundle. She was going to see Stonestripe anyway so at least that was something.

Her fur prickled as she squeezed through the tight entrance and into the camp, where she could hear the sniffling and coughing of many cats in the crisp night air. Bleary eyes stared at her from the shadows and one or two made half hearted growls before breaking out into harsh coughing bouts.

Fern's tail drooped but she followed the gray cat until she paused and called out, "Stonestripe! Someone seems to be here to pay you a visit!"

"Oh dear! Not another one sick with greencough! I'm completely out of… Fern! How did you find us? And… oh my… is that…?"

Abruptly shy, Fern dropped the bundle and rolled it to the medicine cat's paws, "I carried as much as I could… I found more. Lots, lots more… if you want it."

"Thank StarClan," she breathed in relief, "And you walked all this way in the dark… Well never mind that." Abruptly brisk, the medicine cat poked Brindlepaw awake and set him about distributing the precious leaves to the worst afflicted members of the clan.

A cream colored tom with paws the deepest earth brown she had ever seen was introduced as Earthstar. He gave Fern a piercing stare before he stirred several warriors and ordered a 'patrol' to follow Fern back and to harvest as much as could be gathered without destroying the crop.

Fern sagged briefly at the thought of traversing that distance yet again, and then once more coming back. She thought, briefly, of telling Earthstar to go chase the bees in his brain until he fell off the edge of the earth. Then a harsh cough wrenched her attention over and she saw an elderly white she-cat with silvery gray legs clawing futilely at the ground while Brindlepaw scrabbled over as fast as his paws could carry him to stuff a precious leaf into the stricken cat's open mouth.

Sighing, Fern turned and found three pairs of eyes regarding her steadily. Three warriors, one of which was just beginning to wheeze with the beginnings of the illness, were ready and waiting for her to take them on the first steps.

"It's a long walk," she mewed grimly, and turned toward the entrance of the camp, "You may feel the urge to want to run. Believe me you'll collapse if you try it. I'll show you where it is. But if you want some more, you'd best be sneaky. There are two kittypets who will try to bully you out of it if they discover the patch. The garlic is pungent but it hides the catmint."

Not one of the three cats made a sound as they listened to her warnings. By the time the four cats returned, their tails were dragging in the dirt and their heads hung low as the sky began to change colors to the dawning of a chilly, cloudy day. But each cat carried a thick bundle of cat mint.

As the quartet dragged their way back into camp, apprentices swarmed forward to take the bundles from the adults. The gray cat that had taken Fern to meet Stonestripe turned out to be the "deputy" of the clan called Stormpelt. Stormpelt ordered the warriors to return to their dens and sleep. Fern was guided back to Stonestripe's den to sleep herself.

/\/\/\/\/\

"Is she the one?"

"That fluffy kittypet walked to the twoleg place and back to Thunderclan twice last night carrying herbs."

"She'd make a pretty good medicine cat don't you think? Just like Brindlepaw and Stonestripe."

"All right you gossiping fur balls, go pester your mentors and let that poor kittypet alone. She worked hard last night, as hard as any warrior. And she saved the clan from greencough. She can snooze the day away for all I care." Stonestripe's voice was an amused purr and Fern cracked an eye open to see three apprentices scamper off. "And as for you Fern, go back to sleep. It's only been a few hours since you collapsed, right on top of my pile of chervil too." Stonestripe laughed a little.

"Augh. Sorry, sorry," Fern staggered upright, her legs feeling like lead, and limped her way to a soft sandy spot where she wouldn't be laying on any of the herbs before dropping down again.

"It's all right. I can hardly blame you. We'll wake you up later and help you get back to your twoleggers…"

Fern dropped her head heavily on her paws and fell promptly back to sleep.

A tantalizing scent woke her much later and she opened her eyes to find a plump mouse just a whisker length from her nose. Befuddled, she wondered how a mouse happened to die just at that spot.

"Wow, you snooze deeper than an Elder in the sunlight. Earthstar said you could have some fresh kill," Brindlepaw chattered cheerfully and gently bumped the plump body closer to Fern, "Go on. I promise it's good. Picked it out myself."

"Thank you." Fern took a mouth full and was surprised to find that it was very good.

Brindlepaw closed his eyes in pleasure when he saw the expression on Fern's face and scampered off, calling over his shoulder, "Stonestripe says to rest as long as you like!"

The mouse was much better than the kibbles her twoleggers fed her, and she licked her whiskers clean when she was done. She still felt tired, but much less so than she had that morning. Her legs ached, and her pads still stung slightly from trekking such a long distance, but a shy curiosity sent her following the apprentice's paw prints to peer around camp.

The sounds of coughing had drifted away in the night to the occasional wheeze. Stonestripe could be seen across the clearing, checking over a cat here or there.

"So what do you think of my clan, hmm?" Fern jumped and spun around to see Earthstar looking her over with gentle amusement.

"Amazing," she admitted. Then, remembering her manners, she added, "Thank you for the mouse, and for letting me sleep here."

"And I must thank you, Fern, for helping my clan. We are complete strangers to you, and yet you left your soft kittypet home and walked through the forest alone to deliver something that our warriors desperately needed." Earthstar's gaze was warm, "But I must ask you… how did you find us?"

"You probably wouldn't believe me," Fern said, looking away, "It felt more like a dream than real myself."

"And yet you were walking straight toward our camp. My warriors said your path was almost a perfectly straight line from your patch to our camp. I will not laugh at you." Earthstar reassured her.

So, reluctantly, she told him about the gorgeous tortoiseshell that had woken her up from a sound sleep and led her to the camp. "She said her name was Spottedleaf," Fern finished.

Earthstar's eyes were closed for a moment, and then he said, "Now let me tell you a story. A story of how our clan was led to this land by a great leader called Firestar. He is the great-great-great grandfather to some of my clan members. He was a kittypet, like you, when he first joined my clan… He saw this cat Spottedleaf many times in his dreams, and many of the clan saw her in their dreams too."

Fern listened with wide eyes to his story.

"So that's why I don't object to you being a kittypet, among other things," he finished. "And I'd like to extend an invitation to you, to join my clan."

"But I'm no apprentice!" Fern protested, "I'm moons older than they are."

"If you're willing to work past that barrier, I know of a cat that would be willing to mentor you," Earthstar replied, "I don't expect an answer right now of course. Blackfur has offered to take you back to your twoleggers whenever you're ready. If you decide to join us, go to the Greenleaf Twoleg Place tomorrow night. A warrior will lead you back to our clan.

Fern spent the rest of that day and the next thinking it through. After having a taste of real mouse, her kibbles were incredibly unappetizing. And the clan… Some of those cats had gazed at her with awe and gratitude for her one night of hard work. She thought about the starry pelted Spottedleaf, and how Stonestripe's gratitude had shone in her eyes when Fern had appeared with that first big bundle of catnip. Even as the sun began to sink beneath the mountains, the answer was clear in her mind.