---Chapter Sixteen---

He bounded away, searching the whole camp for his brother and sister...and nephew. He thought he saw Foxpaw's pale ginger pelt through the group of WindClan warriors and raced over to talk to her but found himself caught up as he tried to weave his way through the enemy clan.

"OW! Watch where you place your paws!" A WindClan elder complained as Flamepaw accidentally stepped on his tail.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry…" He kept repeating as he bumped into more cats in the large, compact crowd. He lost track of where his sister went, but at last he caught site of Moonpaw and made his way over to the cream-colored tom. Before he could, however, he felt a stinging pain as thorn-sharp needles met his tail. His fur stood on end and he winced in pain but when he whipped his head around he found out that it was really the tiny teeth of a young playful WindClan she-kit.

"Hello," She squeaked, letting go of his tail, "I'm Shadekit!"

Flamepaw recognized the tiny grey she-kit from before. She had been the only sister of Ravenkit, the tiny nearly-black tom who he had saved. Flamepaw waved his tail happily as he saw her three brothers run up to her.

"Hey! It's Flamepaw!" The light brown tabby kit meowed. "He saved you! Rememeber, Ravenkit?"

The almost black kit did not respond but only looked up at Flamepaw with curiosity in his eyes. As much as he thought the kits were innocent and cute, he had to admit Rollingpaw was sort of right. They were a bit weird…or at last Ravenkit was. He figured he'd be polite anyway and nodded his head politely to the young WindClan kits.

"Hello." He purred. He wondered if they had any idea of what had happened to their camp at all. "Have you four kits settled down here?"

"Sort of," The calmest and quietest kit, a brown-and-grey tom, spoke up at last. "It smells strange here though."

"At least it's better than breathing in smoke." Flamepaw teased.

The brown-and-grey kit looked up at him, the light from the full moon reflecting in his eyes. "I'm Rabbitkit by the way." He purred.

"And I'm Tanglekit!" The brown tabby one piped up.

"Raven!" Was the only thing that Ravenkit said as he waved his tail back and forth, proudly. Shadekit lowered her haunches and wagged her bottom in the air, ready to pounce.

"Mousebrain, he already knows you!" She leapt at her brother and together all four kits began play-fighting with each other, pretending they were enemies from different clans. Flamepaw decided to slip away while they were distracted and make his way over to Moonpaw. The cream tom was chatting with a very talkative WindClan apprentice with a shiny silver pelt and white underbelly. Moonpaw looked downright bored as he stared in a daze at the WindClan apprentice, who was telling him a seemingly far-fetched story of how he chased away a badger from their territory earlier that morning.

"Moonpaw," Flamepaw addressed his nephew as he came up to sit next to them. The ginger apprentice once again felt Moonpaw's amber eyes burn right into him as the creamy apprentice turned his head to stare at Flamepaw. "Firestar wanted you to know that you're coming to the gathering tonight."

Immediately, the I'm-going-to-kill-you look in Moonpaw's amber eyes disappeared to be replaced by a brightening glow and his nephew let out a low rumbling purr. He flicked his tail towards the silver-and-white WindClan apprentice in front of him.

"This is Streampaw." He meowed, suddenly sounding very friendly. "He was just made an apprentice a half a moon ago. And Streampaw, this is my uncle, Flamepaw."

The WindClan apprentice bowed his head towards Flamepaw. "I was just telling Moonpaw here a story of how I saved my clan from a badger! Want to hear it?"

"Err, no, that's okay. I was actually looking for Foxpaw. Have you seen her?" He asked, trying not to sound completely rude.

"She's over there talking with Leafpool." Moonpaw flicked his tail towards the two she-cats standing together at the edge of the big group of WindClan cats. "See you." He called after Flamepaw as the ginger apprentice bounded away towards his sisters.

"Foxpaw," He said as he skidded to a halt in front of Leafpool and Foxpaw. "Dad says we can come to the Gathering!" He blurted out, waiting to see her surprised expression.

"That's great!" She purred. "Is Rollingpaw coming too?" She asked, looking around for him.

"Yeah, but, where is he?" Flamepaw scanned the group of cats around them until he finally spotted the light brown tabby pelt of his brother, gathered with a bunch of other cats in a small cramped circle. "He's over there! What are they looking at?" He pointed with his tail towards where Rollingpaw was and Foxpaw and Leafpool looked over at the gathering crowd of cats too.

"Oh no!" Leafpool gasped as she padded over to take a peek for herself. Flamepaw and Foxpaw bounded over too, and each of them squeezed through a bunch of cats to get to the center of the crowd. Flamepaw bumped heads with Rollingpaw while trying to dig his way through the crowd.

"What's going on?" He asked his brother, wondering if he knew what all the fuss was about.

"It's Cinderpelt!" He exclaimed with a look of great shock on his face, "She's been injured!"