It was a quiet morning in the damp spruce forest. The winter sun shone down in shafts through the trees, reflecting off the snow and ice glaringly. There wasn't much prey to be found here, but Rogue didn't mind- he would mind later, he knew, when he got hungry, but he wasn't hungry just yet. All he wanted to do right now was relax and take in his surroundings.

"It's another beautiful winter morning~!" the young gray tabby mewed happily. "I'm glad it's not windy anymore!"

Last night, the cold winds had ripped viciously at the empty bird's nest atop the highest black spruce tree in the woods, which Rogue called his home. He would have to rebuild it soon. But not quite yet…

He squinted against the bright sun. Were those pawprints he saw? It seemed that they were- and they were fresh, too. Rogue sniffed curiously at the pawprints. They were bigger than his, but definitely belonged to a cat, not one of the twolegs or the dogs they walked through these trails every now and then.

Indeed, Rogue could detect a fresh cat scent. It looked like it had been just one cat travelling alone, and they had passed through here during the wind storm last night, just a few hours after Rogue has gone to bed. He sniffed indignantly. He scarcely ever got visitors, and when he did they usually got scared by him and ran away, so for a cat to have passed through here and for him to have just missed it was no fair. He didn't want to hurt any cat; he just wanted a friend.

The young cat followed the trail of prints, hoping that the cat- who he could tell from the smell had been a she-cat, a little over his age- was still in the area. The birds were chirping in the trees above him, but Rogue could wait to hunt. A visitor was far rarer than one of the chickadees, redpoles, waxwings, and other such common winter birds that, along with the occasional squirrel (although he always felt guilty hunting squirrels, since they were so cute) he would hunt during the winter, while the mice and voles were hibernating.

Sure enough, the trail eventually led him to an old hollow tree stump. The tree itself had fallen over many seasons ago, before Rogue had come to the spruce forest. The scent of cat was very strong now, and when he listened closely he could hear soft snoring sounds coming from inside.

This was it.

"…Uh, h-hello," Rogue mewed, flinching at the nervous squeak in his voice. "Good morning to you! What brings you to my forest?"

With a flash of yellow-amber fur, the no-longer-sleeping figure inside the stump rose to her feet. Rogue found himself staring down the sharp end of a set of gleaming claws, and standing face to face with the young she-cat they belonged to.

"How did you find-" She broke off. "Never mind; I guess it's obvious enough how you found me. The question is, why was I mouse-brained enough not to pick up on your scent while I was passing through here last night?"

"I don't think you were mouse-brained," Rogue offered helpfully. "I just think the cold can make cats' noses get plugged up. It's harder to smell stuff that way."

The stranger didn't reply. Instead, she narrowed her striking green eyes, looking confused and slightly frightened.

"I'm Rogue, by the way," he went on cheerfully. "These are my woods. You can stay in them too if you want, though. What's your name?"

"My name is Honeypool." The name suited her; her fur was the colour of honey, although it wasn't really shiny. It was very fluffy, though. "…What happened to your face?"

"My face?" he echoed, a crushing disappointment settling onto him. Why did every cat who passed through his woods always have to ask about his face?! "What's wrong with my face?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Honeypool asked incredulously, pointing with her left paw, which was a darker, more amber shade. "You've got… you know…"

Rogue sighed. He had played dumb, but he knew what she meant. Rogue considered himself to be a normal young cat, with his pale gray fur and tabby stripes; his white paws and the white tip at the end of his tail; his pale green eyes. Except that he only had one eye.

Rogue's left ear was split, and his right eye was permanently closed by the three scars running down it. Sometimes cats asked whether his eyeball had been gauged out, or if it was still in there, but useless. Rogue preferred not to answer. He preferred not to talk about his scars.

"I've had them since I was a kit," he explained to every cat who mustered up the courage to ask, as he did to this new cat. Honeypool seemed rude, but she was still a visitor in his woods, so he had to be nice. "I don't really remember how I got them."

Honeypool wasn't done asking questions just yet.

"So, did you say your name was Rogue?" she inquired. "That's more… a thing a cat is than a name, isn't it? I mean, you don't see me going around calling myself 'warrior', even though I am one. Well, I only just got my warrior name a few moons ago, but still…"

Rogue didn't answer her. In fact, he hardly heard the rest of her sentence after the word "warrior". It was a very important word, and though he didn't know it at the time, one that would change his life.

"You're a… warrior cat?!" He made some effort to hide the excitement in his voice, but it wasn't his biggest priority. "I've heard about the warrior cats! I've met cats who've said they've met someone who knows them! Sometimes they even claim to have met them themselves!"

Honeypool looked like what Boss used to call "caught off guard". Rogue didn't really understand what that meant, but he knew that it was kind of like surprised.

"…That's right, I'm a warrior cat," she said slowly. "I'm probably not one of the ones you know of, though. Tell me, what so you know about them?"

"Well, um, they all live together in one big group…" No, that wasn't right. Rogue bit his lip, trying to remember what that black-and-white tom that had passed through the spruce forest last summer. "I mean, in four smaller groups! And they fight sometimes, but they're really all friends, but only sometimes, I think. Sometimes they even fall in love with each other when they're not supposed to!"

"Oh, really now?" Honeypool's whiskers quivered with amusement. "What else do they do 'sometimes'?"

"Well, they go on journeys," Rogue offered. "Are you on a journey? Are you going to save your, uh, group thingy from the lake?"

"Actually, the Clan I come from- that's what those 'group thingies' are called- exists individually. It's not related to the other Clans," she explained. "In fact, our Clan is nomadic. I was just scouting out this area to see if it was suitable for us to live in. And judging by the fact that you've managed to survive here all by yourself for this long, I'd say I got my answer."

That was cool! Rogue could hardly contain his excitement now. Even if it wasn't related to the warrior Clans he had heard about, it would still be amazing to get to meet the cats belonging to it.

"How many of them are there?" he asked. "Cats in your Clan, I mean."

"Well, it's smaller than the re-" She broke off for a second before continuing with a different word. "It's smaller than the rest of the Clans. There's only about ten- no, eleven cats, counting me. And that's including our kits and apprentices, which there are only three of right now- two kits; one apprentice. There were two apprentices, but one of them got scared and decided to leave us for kittypet life after he watched one of our older warriors die."

It was a lot to take in. Rogue, in fact, hadn't taken in very much of it. He'd definitely heard something about two kits and an apprentice watching someone die. That's dark, he thought, although he had the distinct feeling that he wasn't one to talk.

Besides, there was only one thing on his mind at that moment. And it was the most important thing that there could ever be.

"So, if you and your Clan move into my woods…" His breath caught in his throat; he could barely be brave enough to ask. What if she turned him down? "…Can I join you?"

Honeypool looked caught off guard again. She blinked slowly, as though she were thinking it over.

"I mean, you did say you didn't have very many cats," Rogue said quickly, hoping to convince her that it would be a good idea to take him in. "And I'm so lonely out here on my own! I mean, I get by, but it's hard. I know it's hard in Clans as well, but at least you all have each other! I don't have anyone."

He stopped, cringing at his words. He sounded so pathetic! He didn't want Honeypool to see him as a mewling kit, even though that was basically what he was.

"I can hunt pretty well," he went on, trying to sell himself this time rather than evoke pity. "I can fight, too! I mean, I've never actually had to fight anybody, like, to the death or anything, but one time one of the twolegs' dogs got loose and chased me, and I had to scratch it a bit! I said sorry afterwards, though, because it was a nice dog. It couldn't help chasing me; it was just its instincts. Oh yeah, and I can build things! Like for instance, I made steps up the side of my tree so I wouldn't have to climb it in the winter, when it's too slippery. I even made a fort out of branches and some twoleg garbage one time and tried to sleep in that, but the wind made the twoleg garbage fly away after a couple nights, so then it was just sticks. And once the first snowfall of the season came, it collapsed! I could have fixed it, but I decided it wasn't worth it. I like my nest in the tree!"

Honeypool stood in silence for a good twenty seconds or so. By that point, she had climbed out of the stump where she had slept, but was still standing on its roots- Rogue figured that she wanted to make herself look bigger. She wasn't exceptionally small for her age- after all, she had said she had only recently been made a warrior, so she was probably still growing somewhat- but Rogue had been told he was large for his age, which he supposed was true, although he was rather slim.

Finally, she spoke again. Rogue waited with bated breath to hear what she had to say. Would she let him join her Clan, or would he be turned down?

"I'll have to speak with Strikestar," she began cautiously. "He's generally pretty friendly, but he doesn't take too well to rogues. I'm not sure what he'll think of a cat whose name is Rogue! Still, you seem promising enough…"

Rogue was already grinning. Honeypool smiled as well and purred quietly, her right ear flicking slightly forward as she did.

"I'll tell you what, kid." Though her words could just as easily have sounded threatening, they sounded friendly; maybe she was nice after all. "It's been a while, and Strikestar is probably wondering where I've gone. I'm hungry, though, and I'd be willing to bet you wouldn't say no to something to eat right now, either. So the deal is this: you catch something for yourself and something for me within the next half hour, and then you can take me to your little nest in the tree and we'll eat breakfast together. If you can manage that, I'll take you to the place where my Clan spent the night and ask Strikestar about taking in a new cat. Got it?"

"Got it," Rogue replied readily, nodding vigorously. "I'll do my best!"

He spun around and immediately started sniffing the air. He caught the scent of twolegs walking through the trails. That wasn't good; they'd frighten all the prey away. In the other direction, though, he could detect the faint scent of chickadees. They were small birds, but mice were small too, and he'd never heard any cat complaining about that.

Rogue dropped into the hunters' crouch and began the hunt.