Author's Note: I was expecting a higher number of reviewers, but I'll take what I get! I'm not one of those authors who won't update until they get an impossibly high amount of reviews. That's just plain stupid. For the duet between Crow(feather) and Leafpaw/Dapplepaw, I chose an original song written by Gethernia. If anyone wants to know, I'm beginning to like WordPad more than Microsoft Word. Sure, there's no spellcheck or grammar check (I always found them annoying and you can spellcheck on FF anyway), or little paperclips doing stunts, but that's what I like about WordPad. To whoever created it, you rule! But back to FF, whoever's reading this rules too!

--

Love Is Not Easy

Dapplepaw was in a strange situation. From kithood, she had been given a steady diet of how romances worked. Two cats met, fell in love, got married, had kits...and lived happily ever after. Troubles might pursue this two, but they'd hold hands, smile and maybe kiss a bit, and from after that...apply situation "lived happily ever after" here. To ease her mind, she stepped outside, inhaling the clean night air, climbed up a tree (somehow that always was deemed romantic) and started singing. This was where it all went High School Musical-esque. For at the same time Crow was sitting on the caravan steps and singing, even though both had no idea the other was singing. Logically strange, visually romantic.

The Hidden Musicians' (which, the authoress might like to add, was compiled of a motley bunch of rogues/loners/kittypets) conductor, Smudge, gestured with his baton towards where Princess was sitting at a piano. She started up the tune.

Dapplepaw began to sing. "Mice, voles,"

And now Crow. "Birds, moles."

Then they chimed in together. "I'd give anything for you, yeah."

Dapplepaw reminsced on Crow's confident swagger. "I like the way you walk."

Crow scratched his chin. "I like the way you talk!"

And then together. "Why, oh, why does it have to be, so hard?"

"All I can think about is you," Crow sang.

"I'm failing training just to, think about you too." Dapplepaw remembered giving Blackstar catnip instead of comfrey and now he was dancing the tango with his shadow. Don't know how he managed.

"I can't find someone new," declared Crow, paw on his heart. Well, not his heart literally, but you get my meaning.

Together they sang the next line (man, writing this without script forming is hard!)

"Swing, swing from the tangles of, my heart is crushed by a from of love."

Dapplepaw gazed up desperately at the skies. "Why can't you help me, to carry on again?"

Crow too looked at the star-specked landscape. "It just seems soo real..."

And as Princess tapped out the last few notes, Dapplepaw concluded. "Something only we could feel..."

--

"Sleep well you did last night?" Midnight gave the toms a plate of crickets each and dug into her own meal. Sometimes Bramble wondered if her spoon used to be a shovel. She certainly didn't mind the mud on it. Crow and Bramble silmutaneously yawned and Crow's head fell into the crickets. "No?" Midnight stopped eating, a cricket leg sticking to her muzzle. Then she picked the cricket leg off, stared at it, shrugged and popped it into her mouth and chewed it anyway.

"I would have if someone wasn't caterwauling the night away!" Bramble said rather pointedly at his adopted brother.

"In heat maybe he was." Midnight shrugged.

"Crow's weird, but he's not a she-cat."

"Right maybe you are." Midnight said. Then she stopped. "Wrong maybe you are, too."

Bramble stopped eating and stared at Crow.

"Joking I was."

"Oh," Bramble laughed nervously. "I knew that."

--

"Tonight," Blackstar declared. "Two apprentices will recieve their warrior names. One will be named by me, while Littlecloud shall name the other." The Clan whooped and cheered as Autumnpaw stepped onto the Highbranch. Suddenly the older cats fell silent as they remembered what was about to happen. Even Blackstar sombered. "Autumnpaw, we as ShadowClanners have to apologize. You are actually," he gulped and looked down. "Actually a ThunderClan princess, Squirrelpaw. So now I give you the name Firestar, your father, decreed you'd have: Squirrelflight."

Squirrelflight gasped.

Then she fainted, which is not a good thing to do when you're standing on a branch.

"CATCH HER!"

Everyone tried, but she landed with a Squirrelflight-shaped crater in the ground and climbed out groggily.

As soon as the newly named Leafpool was back, just as stunned, Squirrelflight hurried her sister to their shared room in the warriors' den. "So, Dap--oh, er, Leafpool," Squirrelflight said. "We're actually ThunderClanners. Think about it, they lied for sixteen moons."

Somewhere in StarClan...

"SIXTEEN MOONS?!" Yellowfang grabbed a cup of coffee, drank it, and it spurted out of her mouth and onto Bluestar's face. "It's been sixteen moons already?!"

Bluestar wiped the coffee off her face. "Ugh. Yeah, it has been...HOLY STARCLAN! That means..."

"Scourge!" Spottedleaf grabbed all of her magical bling and threw them on both Yellowfang and Bluestar. "You'll need the bling. Scourge is back!"

--

The last of the reunion party walked out of the ThunderClan royalty's quarters. Leafpool gazed out of the window. She still couldn't forget Littlecloud, Blackstar, Tawnypelt...and Crow. Oh, how could she forget that handsome tom? Suddenly she felt kind of...tired. Hmm, that was a good idea. She could dream about her and Crow getting married. Leafpool slowly got to her deluxe bed and started sleeping. For a second she looked almost peaceful. Then she opened her mouth and started snoring.

Hey, princesses snore too.

They just don't know.

Unbeknownst to her, a small green orb with fuzzy green ears and a devil's tail began softly purring in her ear.

Oh, Leafpool...Leafpool...Get up...I have something to show you...

And as the Hidden Musicians started up the tune of 'This Is The End' from Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, Scourge started laughing maniacally.

"MUAHAHAHA...cough, cough. Sorry, where was I? Oh yes. MWAHAHAHA!"

--

Author's Note: The princesses are in trouble! Now which one of these items should Scourge-the-fuzz-orb use to make them fall asleep?

1. Two glasses of wine spiked with poison made from brambles

2. Two bramble thorns

3. A picture of Brambleclaw on a bad fur day