The other side of the woods was entirely new to Diamondpaw. She had never crossed the river before, never been to a gathering, and especially never stolen prey. Now she was alone in a new territory with no idea of where to look for fresh-kill.

Well, she wasn't alone. Her sister was with her. Stormpaw had been chosen to join the assault on DawnClan while Diamondpaw stayed in the apprentices' den and sat wide awake, staring at the starry sky and hoping that her sister was safe. Now Stormpaw led her sister past a clearing full of stumps through an unfamiliar world.

"Where are we going?" Diamondpaw mewed quietly, keeping her voice low so as to not scare off any prey.

"This is the way to DawnClan camp. I figure if we can get there, I'll find my bearings and be able to navigate," Stormpaw responded, a bit overconfident. Diamondpaw wouldn't say it, but she was worried that her grey-furred sister was going to get them lost.

"A-are you sure?" Diamondpaw fretted, her tail flicking back and forth nervously.

"Of course I'm sure," her sister reassured her. "See, there's that… stump-place. I think I saw it through the trees on our way here?"

Diamondpaw sighed. "We're totally lost, aren't we?"

They walked past a dozen more towering beeches before Stormpaw relented. "Yeah, we're totally lost."

She took a deep breath. Why did I even agree to this? Going into new territory without a warrior with us? What if we run into a fox or a badger?

"Let's just try to hunt, okay?" Stormpaw meowed, interrupting her worries. "After that we'll worry about getting home. All we have to do is follow the setting sun!"

The white she-cat relaxed. Her sister was right. DuskClan was named after the dusk because the sun set on their side of the woods, so it would be simple to find her way back. The only issue was that it was sun-high, and it would be ages before the sun began to set.

"Okay, but we'd better be back in our dens by tonight," Diamondpaw teased her sister. "Or else you owe me some of your fresh-kill share. This was your idea, after all."

"What? No way!" Stormpaw gasped jokingly. "We'll definitely be back by tonight. And besides, we don't have to ration prey anymore now that we have DawnClan territory to hunt in."

Diamondpaw smiled widely at the thought of eating an entire mouse rather than just half of one. Her stomach grumbled in response and she quickly bade her sister good luck before bounding away into the woods, her mouth open to taste the air.

Soon enough she had tracked a tiny dormouse to where it sat under a thick shrub, and while its lifeless body was small, the scent of fresh-kill was tantalizingly delicious. But she couldn't eat just yet- the warrior code dictated that apprentices and warriors couldn't have their shares until the rest of the Clan was fed. Diamondpaw knew the StarClan-given rules well, being one of the first things she was trained on, and as she padded through the woods after burying her catch, she recited them in her head.

Diamondpaw's mind swam with rules and boundaries, thoughts of honor and leadership filling her consciousness as she pounced on a sparrow and bit its neck. She thought with unease that some rules of the code were being broken by her Clanmates, but then reminded herself that it didn't matter; loyalty to the Clan was paramount, and if the destruction of DawnClan could keep her friends and family safe, surely StarClan would understand?

By the time she had finished remembering each tenet of the code, she had caught five pieces of prey, more fresh-kill than she had seen in one place in her life. She grinned at the thought of a feast, where each kit and elder had enough to eat, and the warriors didn't have to tremble so as they walked.

She realized quickly that her sister hadn't told her where to meet up after their hunt, and so Diamondpaw wandered frantically through the unfamiliar woods trying to find her. After a while of this searching, she decided that the best option was to backtrack, so she traced her scent slowly through the forest until she was back at the stump-clearing.

Even still, there was no sign of Stormpaw, and she wondered if her sister had decided to head back to camp. With a mouth full of feathers and fur, Diamondpaw scrambled to the top of the highest stump, her legs taking her gracefully between the wooden platforms. From her height she could see the trajectory of the sun, drifting slowly away from the forest she sat in.

Her eyes burned from staring at the great heavenly body, a mass of every StarClan cat in Silverpelt, but Diamondpaw soon managed to find her way out of DawnClan's woods.

Just before her was a point where the trees thinned out, and she heard the trickle of the river as it flowed over the rocks and pebbles in the riverbed.

As Diamondpaw padded out of the thick woods, marveling at the warmth of the midday sun, she heard a loud mew from a point far down the river.

She whipped around to face the noise, worrying that it was her sister and that she had somehow got herself into trouble, but she only saw clumps of reeds and grass along the river's bank.

Still convinced that her sister was in peril, she ran alongside the water, calling out "Stormpaw!" as she ran, though her voice was muffled by the fresh-kill she carried. Stormpaw had been with Diamondpaw since, well, forever, being her littermate, and the two had a close bond. If anything happened to her… no, she couldn't stand the thought. Being alone in the Clan with little more than her parents and her many acquaintances was a future she wasn't very fond of.

She had run halfway down the river when she saw it. A flash of cream fur in the foliage by the river bank, only visible for a moment before it was gone.

Diamondpaw set her prey on the ground so that she could hiss in frustration. She didn't truly feel angry; she rarely did. This was different, more of an overwhelming worry. A cat she had thought was her sister was just some stray kittypet in DawnClan's territory, and she was still lost as to where her sister could be.

Just then she heard a rustle and soon enough she was pinned to the ground, her legs stuck beneath her and her muzzle buried in a pile of mud.

"Ack! Sorry!" her attacker squealed, relenting and releasing her. Diamondpaw turned on her with a growl as she had been taught, but her expression softened in an instant as she recognized her sister.

"Don't scare me like that!" she purred, flicking Stormpaw with her tail. She padded down to the river to wash off her nose as she listened to her sister speak.

"Diamondpaw, I am so so so so sorry that I forgot to tell you where to meet!" Stormpaw squealed. "I mean, I didn't think we'd get lost like that and I was already kind of flustered so when it came time to make a decision I wasn't really in my right mind and all I could think of was prey since I was super hungry so I also wasn't thinking straight and-" she had to pause to take a deep breath, and then laughed after realizing how much she had rambled. Diamondpaw chuckled too, but it came out as a gurgle since her mouth was underwater. "Sorry."

"It's no problem, really," Diamondpaw mewed as she pulled her face from the chilly stream. She tried immediately to forget how worried she had been about Stormpaw, embarrassed that she had so frantically searched for her along the river, like a kit calling out to its lost mother. "I wasn't even worried anyway."

"Ha, sure," Stormpaw teased, not believing her sister for a moment. "Hey, nice catch by the way! We should head back to camp."

With one last glance at DawnClan's forest, Diamondpaw nodded and grabbed her quarry in her jaws, stepping into the river with an oddly hopeful feeling.