Chapter 2

Zuko (Fire Nation)

Disclaimer: I don't own A:TLA or Warriors

I had tried, in vain, to contain the fire, until the thunderstorm rolled through. I guess I should have been thankful to the rain for putting out the fire, but I hated getting wet. As the last water steamed off of my clothes due to my fire bending I finally reached the cave where I was staying. For some reason, it smelled strongly of cat. None lived there, but it was probably due to the fact that I was there. After what seemed like hours, I fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes, I realized that I was in a forest of some sort, but it had none of the familiar landmarks. The smell of ash and smoke had vanished from the air. Almost everywhere I stepped, some sort of prey animal darted out from underneath my feet. This didn't make sense. A good portion of the forest had been burned down. By a fire YOU caused my mind reminded me acidly.

Without my noticing, the light had dimmed till it was almost nonexistent. Since I am a firebender, this wasn't a problem and soon a small fire flickered just an inch from my palm. With the increased visibility, I could see that this forest was not as cheerful as it had been just moments before. The forest looked dark and foreboding and there were no longer any signs of animal life.

As I was thinking about this, my firelight illuminated something that was unmistakingly alive. I almost attacked before I realized that it was only a cat. Unlike the white shorthair that sometimes watched my firebend, this one definitely didn't look appealing. It was a large, brown cat with scars all over its body. It looked like this cat had been in several catfights or something of that nature. It stared malevolently at me with its golden eyes.

When I turned away, I thought I heard a voice. It sounded like something along the lines of "Go away, filthy twoleg!" I turned to see who had said this, but there was no one there. Even the cat had vanished into thin air. No doubt about it, this place was definitely creepy. I turned around again to get back to the good forest when I realized that I didn't know how to get back. I was hopelessly lost.

I was just starting to panic when I heard another voice. This one was distinctly feminine, unlike the other one. It said "Yo mouse-brain, over here!" Curious, I moved closer to the voice and peeked out into the next clearing. There was the good forest, but again, there was nothing in the clearing, just the white shorthaired cat that I had been seeing recently. I stepped out into the forest and put out my fire.

The cat looked disdainfully at me, then it spoke. "You must be REALLY stupid. I would think that almost burning down a forest would teach you not to do that anymore, but apparently you haven't figured that out yet."

I bristled at that statement. "How dare you call me names? Do you have ANY idea who you are speaking to?"

The cat looked stunned, and it was then that I realized that it had just talked to me and could, apparently understand every word I said.

"Wait a minute, you can understand me?" we said almost simultaneously.

The cat looked imperiously at me. "Of course I can talk, mouse-brain, but you twolegs are the ones that can't seem to understand us not the other way around.

"The same could be said for you" I retorted.

I looked around. "Where are we anyway?"

She let out a low "Mrrow" and I realized that she was laughing at me!

"StarClan. It's where the spirits of clan cats go when they die." She said all of this so simply, as if any moron could figure it out. She looked at my expression of horror calmly. "By the way, we're not dead, just dreaming. Medicine cats sometimes go to StarClan when they dream."

I stepped out of the dark forest and joined the cat, who had set off at a fast trot.

"So...you mentioned 'clans.' Is that what you call yourselves?"

She let out another Mrrow of amusement. "Yes, I am a warrior of WindClan, RiverClan lives across the river, ShadowClan lives in the pine forest. You pretty much destroyed ThunderClan. They USED to live in the forest. Don't know where they are now, but I'm sure that they aren't in their camp! It looked as though the fire was headed there." There are four of them I thought, thinking of the four nations.

I stood there, taking all of this in. The cat stopped next to me and began to casually lick her paw, swiping it over her ear.

"So, you all live together then?" I tentatively asked awhile later.

She nodded. "We have camps in our respective territories. Cats of different clans only see each other during gatherings. We hold them once a month at fourtrees." Before I could ask another question, she went on. "Fourtrees is the center of the clans geographically. Spiritually, we have the moonstone, where our medicine cats and leaders go to speak with StarClan."

"What's your name?"

She looked taken aback by this. "Iceheart" she replied.

I stared at her incredulously, "Iceheart!" I snickered.

She puffed out her chest, looking indignant. "It's a warrior name; we get it when we're finished with our training. Until a few days ago, I was known as Icepaw."

"Doesn't it get confusing?" I asked.

"For twolegs, maybe. But us clan cats have amazing memories. So.. what's yours?"

"My what?"

Another mrrrow. "Your NAME, mousebrain!"

I glared at her before answering. It wouldn't be fair to firebend at her for her antagonistic comments. After all, where was the honor in attacking a cat? Even if it was a warrior cat.

So I simply answered "Zuko, Prince Zuko."

Iceheart stifled a snort. "Zuko. And you said my name was strange."

Again, I stifled the urge to firebend at her. Instead, I lit a fire in my palm again to show her that I could do so if I wanted to. Instead of shutting her up, it had the opposite effect of making her more curious.

"Doesn't it hurt to light your paw on fire like that?" she asked.

"If it did, we wouldn't do it so much. It helps with visibility and makes an excellent threat" I said while I extinguished the flame.

Her tail twitched in amusement at this. "It works. Its very threatening.

She turned to me. "So, what's your clan like?"

"There are no clans, but there are four nations. There's the Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation and the Air Nomads. We all live in areas based on what elements we can bend. I am a Firebender.

Iceheart sniffed "I guess things are the same everywhere, no matter what you call yourselves." I shrugged in response.

It was then that I noticed something was wrong. The forest was going out of focus, turning fuzzy. Iceheart noticed this too, but seemed more or less calm.

"It's daytime now. We are leaving Starclan." She explained before the forest disappeared completely and everything went dark.

A/N: Sorry for changing the ending to this chapter, but I couldn't find a direction that the story could take. Also, I've made some grammatical changes to both chapters one and two. Please read and Review!