Starsplash was vaguely aware of waking, but she made no move to get up. Her head swam at every noise and twitch, and even in the warmth of the barn she shivered.

"Is she dead?" came a she-cat's voice, light and soft.

"No, see? She's breathing, so she's not dead." A tom this time, gruff and short.

She whimpered and threw a paw over her eyes. "Aw, she's not dead!" came the first voice again.

She growled and opened an eye. In front of her was a snowy white she-cat, bright blue eyes like a winter morning. Behind her was a brown and white tom, thin and shifty. A third voice purred behind her. "Ah, and here she wakes. Wake up, princess."

She moaned in pain, the she-cat's voice directly in her ear. "Water," she croaked. Her mouth tasted like death had crawled inside and had kittens.

A moment later, a small calico face appeared before her, a bundle of soaked moss in her jaws. "Steel said that you might need this," Lilypaw mumbled, her voice muffled by the moss.

Starsplash nodded and took small sips, pacing her drinking. She purred and sat up a little. "Well, the headache isn't gone, but I do feel better. Thanks."

Lilypaw beamed. "Great! What else do you need?"

I need to get out of here, Starsplash thought, but she shook her head. "Am I hot to the touch, and do I smell sour?"

Lilypaw nodded, and Starsplash sighed. "Alright. I need tansy and chickweed. I don't think we have to use catmint yet, so lucky me, I suppose."

"What do those look like?"

Right, she's not trained in herbs. "Let's see… tansy has round yellow leaves, and its scent is sweet and fragrant. Chickweed is a tall-stemmed plant with fat, almond-shaped leaves."

Lilypaw nodded and scurried off to wherever in the barn these rogues were keeping their stolen herbs. Starsplash stifled a hiss and stood, supporting herself on a bale of hay.

The burly tom chuckled, tail flicking. "So you're the stolen apprentice," he mused. "Good. We need a medicine cat."

Starsplash snarled. "I'm a proud warrior of Thunderclan, buzzardface."

The snowy she-cat scoffed. "Well, you're not a very smart one. His name is Eaglefang, not Buzzardface. I'm Icewing, by the way, and the ginger behind you is Jinx." She huffed and flicked her tail. "Honestly, what made you think his name was Buzzardface?"

"It's an insult, you stupid- forget it." She took a step forward past the rogues, swallowing the impulse to vomit. She took deep breaths until she felt better and took a step again, and again, until she could get a few tail-lengths without passing out. She smiled and sat back down, satisfied with her progress.

"Here you are!" Lilypaw chirped, herbs in her mouth. She dropped them in front of Starsplash. Starsplash stared blankly at her.

"These are goldenrod and coltsfoot," she stated.

Lilypaw ducked her head, ears flattened against her head. "Sorry," she murmured, avoiding eye contact.

Starsplash sighed and licked the kit's forehead in reassurance. "Hey, it's alright. The only reason I know so much about herbs is because I was always with Jayfeather in the medicine den." She flicked her tail and picked up the herbs, quickly swallowing down the coltsfoot with a short grimace. "I suppose that Coltsfoot is good for easing breathing, anyway. Come on, let's put the goldenrod back in its place."

Lilypaw ducked her tail underneath her. "About that…"

Their herb storage was an absolute nightmare, located in the loft of the barn. The herbs were either trampled on the floor, torn and muddy, mixed with hay, or shoved on top of the hay bales, where they were exposed to rot and mold. Starsplash hissed at the sight, of all the precious herbs just thrown about like loose fur. "Do they have any idea how long it took to collect, to store, to study and treat and prepare all the herbs? It takes moons to restore a good herb supply! And you're just going to treat it like carrion?" She hissed her little rant at the nearest rogue, who just so happened to be Chillfang, checking on their darling prisoner.

The rogue shrugged. "It's not like we need it," she muttered. "We're not going to get sick."

"Oh yeah?" Starsplash challenged, tail lashing. "And what if one of your cats gets injured? Or poisoned? Are you going to throw out valuable cats just because they aren't in the best shape?"

Chillfang glared at her. "Oh, please. We have tons of it. It's not like we're short."

"I hate you. I really, really hate you," Starsplash hissed under her breath. She flicked her tail to Lilypaw. "Fetch your brother. We're going to make a sensible store of this."

One tiny apprentice later, Starsplash and her assistants went to work. She had the two siblings sort the herbs by flower, leaf, and root, and then into what was broken and what was still usable. Once that was done, she carefully went through each pile and salvaged what she could.

Snakepaw watched her, eyes wide. "That looks so hard. How do you know what's still safe to use?"

Starsplash purred. "Well, if the leaf is simply torn or crushed in one part, I can tear off the broken part and save the rest. If there's infection or rot already set in, however, then it's safer to throw it out, in case the rest of the plant grows the rot."

Lilypaw snorted. "This stuff is too complicated."

"Oh, hush." Snakepaw placed his tail on his sister's back. "Just because you don't want to be sorting herbs for the rest of your life doesn't make it any less cool."

"Get back to work, you two!" Starsplash hissed playfully, tail lashing. The apprentices squeaked and skittered off.

"Now, we need to find a safe, dry place to put all of these." Starsplash and the apprentices started to search, before Snakepaw yelped.

"Hey, look! I think it's a twoleg shell." He pulled a shell made of wood out, intersecting sticks forming a thick weave tight enough to hold the herbs.

Starsplash purred. "This'll do well. See if you can find any others." A few minutes later, they had found five or six. "Alright, now put the first pile in the red shell."

Finally, all the salvageable herbs were placed in the shells, and they were safe in the corner of the loft. Starsplash sighed and flicked her tail in satisfaction. "Alright, now to dispose of these destroyed herbs outside. Come on, you two can help me." They made their way down to the lower level, herbs carried in mouths and under chins.

Hawk and Icewing were at the entrance, alongside a rather small white tom with a bobbed tail. The small tom averted his gaze, staring pointedly at the wall. Hawk huffed and blocked Starsplash's exit, gaze hard and cold on her. "Where are you going with my children?" he asked.

Starsplash stared him down, dropping her herbs on the dusty floor. "We're throwing out the rotting herbs. Which, by the way, we wouldn't need to do if you had stored the herbs properly."

Hawk hissed and cuffed her ears, drawing blood. Starsplash winced in pain and brought a paw to her ear, stomach dropping at the sight of blood. "Don't talk back to me, kit," he snarled. "I taught you one way to stalk your prey. Do you want me to teach you what it's like to be the prey?"

The white tom grimaced. "Come on, Hawkfrost, lay off of her. She's just scared." Hawkfrost?

The tabby snarled, and the white tom shrank back, bringing a paw up to protect his face. "Are you seriously going to sympathize with this clan cat? Aren't they the ones who let you suffer in that foxtrap for days, before we came along? The ones who tried to kill your mate? And now you're going to just let her out of the barn, with no promise that she'll come back, and with my children no less?"

"I didn't say that!" the tom protested.

"Really? Because it sure sounds like that."

"She's not the one who did that! It's not her fault-"

Hawkfrost stood, and the tom shrunk back, cowering in fear. Icewing watched with gleeful eyes, flicking her tail. "Ooh, you're gonna get it!"

Hawkfrost glared at her, and she quickly shut her mouth. He turned back to the tom, gaze softening slightly. "I know you mean well, Torntail, but I am your leader, and you must learn to obey me without question." He gently nudged Torntail into standing, before he turned back to Starsplash. "If you can tell me, without a shred of lie in you, that you will return after disposing of the herbs, then I will let you leave with my children."

"I will return after disposing of the herbs," she lied.

Hawkfrost clearly didn't believe her, but he sighed and moved. "Icewing, fetch Owlfang and Darkstorm, and take them on a patrol near the pasture. Riverclan are getting antsy, and I don't want them discovering anything." He smiled, a wicked glint in his eyes. "If you find any clan cats snooping around there, well. Darkstorm still hasn't passed his final assessment."

Final assessment?

Hawkfrost stood, muscles rippling underneath a dark pelt. "I will watch where you are disposing of the herbs. Don't try anything, or I will break your legs."

Starsplash nodded, though she couldn't stop shivering. Outside, the cold winds were picking up, undeterred by trees like in the forest. Snakepaw padded up beside her, the torn roots in his jaws starting to spill out, making it look like he was a chipmunk. "Where?" he asked, voice muffled.

Starsplash chuckled. "Let's put them over there," she said, flicking her tail towards a pile of horse dung.

Lilypaw wrinkled her nose at the scent. "Yuck! Why do we have to bury them here?"

"Do as you're told," grunted Hawkfrost. He watched as Starsplash and the apprentices placed the herbs i the pile, though Starsplash noticed his lip curling at the scent, and pushed down the urge to laugh at him. "Come on, enough of this. Back to the barn, you two."

Snakepaw let out a little yelp as a single snowflake fell and landed on his nose. "The sky is falling!" he shrieked, running in circles. Specks of snow drifted down, the clouds above them dark as ash.

Hawkfrost chuckled and lay his tail on Snakepaw's back. "It's just snow, my child. Nothing more."

Snakepaw watched, transfixed, as the specks grew thicker and heavier. He gingerly reached a paw out and batted at a thick clump of snow. "It's so cold," he murmured.

Lilypaw shrieked with joy and started hopping about, batting the little flakes out of the sky. Her eyes were wide with excitement, fur fluffed out. Her brother joined her, trying to catch every piece of snow before it touched the ground.

Starsplash smiled at the kitten like antics, but a piece of her grew worried. There was sickness already in her clan, and the cold would only make immune symptoms weaker. Chills and fevers were bound to run rampant, and prey would die, or burrow deeper in their dens. The odds that her clan would make it out of this leaf-bare unscathed were nonexistent.

She looked over to Hawkfrost, who merely watched his children with a detached amusement. Had he once been a small kit, batting snowflakes out of the sky with his littermates? Or had he been born with a piece of ice in his heart? Could he find happiness in such silly activities now, when it didn't benefit him?

Starsplash coughed roughly, her chest seizing up in the harsh air, but she forced herself to take deep breaths, easing her lungs. She shook out her short fur, trying to warm herself in the quickly-chilling air. "Let's head inside, alright? This storm is no time to be out."

Hawkfrost grunted, plucking up his daughter and carrying her towards the same secret entrance Starsplash had used when she had rescued Bramblekit and Featherkit. Snakepaw followed shortly, grumbling under his breath, "Why does she get picked up?"

Starsplash giggled. "Aren't you supposed to be the mature, tough sibling?"

"Yeah, well, be quiet!" Snakepaw flushed and scampered forward, scurrying into the barn. Hawkfrost pushed her in after him, then placed his daughter down. "I'm going hunting," he muttered, before padding off in the thick snow.

"What could he possibly hunt in this weather?" Starsplash wondered aloud, tail flicking. She watched as his children shook off, before running about and chasing each other's tails. She purred and climbed up into the loft, grabbing a sprig of chickweed and chewing it down quickly. "Maybe he'll fetch some mouse bile!" she chuckled to herself.

Suddenly, she heard a yowl of pain. "Starsplash!" called Snakepaw, voice thin with fear. "Kelsie's kits are coming!"