A/N: Technically speaking, this chapter's a two-parter: this is the first part to one really long chapter I decided to cut in two. The next one will come... when it comes, maybe in a few days or two? I dunno, my writing process works in mysterious ways, but I won't make y'all wait too long.

I hope everyone's been enjoying this story now that we're more into the meat of it! Comments are always appreciated, I love to know if people are reading or if I'm just screaming into the void, hehe. Thank you for reading!

Spottedpaw spoke little on the trek to IvyClan camp — and thankfully, at a point, Heronpaw stopped, too. All Spottedpaw could think about was the cold against his paws, how thin and prickly the plants in IvyClan's territory were, the hauntingly familiar markings on the black-and-white warrior, and how much he wished he hadn't been here.

The paths twisting through IvyClan's territory were just like the stories — where ElmClan boasted thick trees, bushes, and leaves protecting their camp, IvyClan was hardly protected from the snow, the trees thinner, the grass sparser. The air even felt colder — perhaps the harsh winter had chilled their hearts, but they would thaw by spring… that was what Daisyheart would say. The kindest old cat in the Clan, the only one who'd ever dare to call an IvyClan warrior a cat just like them.

Would ElmClan's soft-hearted deputy be able to keep up their optimism if they saw what was happening to their apprentices now? It felt as if one of those icy stone crags had formed in Spottedpaw's stomach — his fur pricked in the cold, and though any authority figure would probably agree the IvyClan patrol had overreacted… he couldn't help but feel like a prisoner of war already.

"...we weren't doing anything bad," Spottedpaw meekly offered, not taking his eyes off the dirt as Heronpaw turned to glance at him.

No cat listened, and it only made the snow chillier.

After what felt like hours of walking, the sun began to finally set, bathing the thin trees in a scarlet orange that made Spottedpaw wonder if his Clanmates had noticed his disappearance — would Nettlepaw, all too keen on avoiding his mentor's training sessions, have curled up in the apprentice's den by now, maybe even stretch out to steal Spottedpaw and Heronpaw's spots? Would Mottleheart be pushing himself into the medicine den's entryway by now, demanding Comfreywing to know where his son was?

Or…

The alternative made Spottedpaw shiver — he felt like a dumb kit scared of nighttime stories just thinking about it, but… what if they hadn't noticed? What if they wouldn't — not until he came home to his Clan as a pile of bloody bones, as the black-and-white cat — Sheepclaw, apparently — licked their lips and thanked Falconstar for the free fresh-kill…?

As Firwhisker slid through IvyClan's camp entrance — a mess of thorny plants with a gap he was just small enough to squeeze through, intuitive for a Clan of lithe and small cats, but dreadfully inconvenient as their prisoner — Spottedpaw watched the brown tabby go. His glare was as cold and sharp as it had been when he first found the two — the same glare that spearheaded the attack on their camp…

Sticking close to Heronpaw, who managed to hold his head high even in these circumstances, Spottedpaw uncomfortably eyed the cats scattered around camp. A hulking gray-brown tom with matted fur, looking like a beast out of ElmClan's apprentice den's nightmares, paused his conversation to stare at the two.

The sun had begun to set, casting the unfamiliar camp in a fiery orange. Tall, harsh shadows cut into the sprinklings of snow — the dirt under his paws, the arrangement of the dens in the earth, the plants bordering the clearing and even the sight of a few kits with their heads poking out of the nursery… it was just like home, but skewed on the wrong axis — like an odd dream.

He could hear whispers — whispers of voices he didn't recognize, and as much as he strained trying to remember his first Gathering… none of the cats were ones he recognized, either. Even if they had been, the hatred in their eyes warped their faces, and Spottedpaw's hyperventilation fogged the air at the sights of them. A young, kitlike part of him feared that he would never see his own camp, his own Clanmates, ever again…

…but Heronpaw, on the other paw, didn't turn his head — no, he looked coldly on, jaw clenched hard as his eyes flitted to follow Firwhisker's pawsteps, and for once, Spottedpaw regretted ever calling him immature… his leader's blood flowed through his veins. This was a situation Falconstar and Brightclaw must have warned him about many, many times now.

Finally, treading through the murky dirt underpaw, was a cat Spottedpaw knew the face of. Small, with short dark gray fur and stocky limbs, a pudgy face and tired-looking eyes that seemed as if they had no idea what to do with the patrol's presence… IvyClan's leader, Stormstar. The tip of her tail twitched and swayed, in contrast with her slow, deliberate movements as she padded out of the leader's den, blue eyes drifting from Firwhisker, to Sheepclaw and his apprentice, to Heronpaw, to Spottedpaw, then back.

Her jaw parted to speak for a moment, before shutting again when Firwhisker spoke for her.

"Falconstar's son," the wiry brown tom started, tilting his chin towards a suddenly bristling Heronpaw, "and another young warrior," Spottedpaw lowered his head in time for Firwhisker to turn back to his leader, "were trespassing on our territory." Cooly, the deputy sat down, wrapping a long, striped tail around his ankles. "They were planning something. Claws were unsheathed."

All the respect Spottedpaw had for his fellow apprentice left in an instant, when Heronpaw's ears pinned back with a snarl, "we were training, beetle-brain!" He hissed. "On the rocks you gave us over Ivyfur's dead body!" His tail lashed in the direction of a long-furred white-and-ginger molly at Stormstar's side, who was in the middle of picking the skin off of a young mouse. "It's ElmClan territory, you can even ask the medicine cats!"

If nothing else, Falconstar sure taught her son the Clan's history. Spottedpaw wouldn't be surprised if the tom started naming off what phase the moon had been in at the time — but looking around, no cat seemed convinced. Just… wary. Some of them began to bristle.

Their unease was met with Heronpaw's defiant glare, until the small IvyClan apprentice at his side spoke again. "Your camp's far from there, isn't it?"

Firwhisker nodded. "A long way to walk for leaf-bare. To spar among denmates, no less."

Well, sir, I've got a good explanation for you: my friend is a stupid mouse-brain, sorry about that and I'll be on my way now, Spottedpaw wanted to say, but he was beginning to get the feeling any words he gave would be turned against him in an instant. Instead, he kneaded the dirt nervously, tracing mindless shapes in the melted snow — hoping that, if nothing else, his obedience would net him better treatment than Heronpaw.

"W—well—" His fellow apprentice began, voice sputtering out as his tail flopped to the ground like a dead fish. "Falconstar says I can train wherever I want…!" None of the IvyClan cats seemed convinced, much less so when Heronpaw awkwardly turned to address Spottedpaw. "And… I wanted to bring my friend someplace cool! Is that such a crime?"

Firwhisker scoffed — Spottedpaw noted that his leader still hadn't said a thing. "The son of Falconstar should know better — she would do the same to see two enemy apprentices that far from home."

"And what, do you expect us to just let those rocks sit there?" Heronpaw snapped, and Spottedpaw's eyes squeezed shut. "What else would they be for? You gave 'em to us, don't be surprised when we actually do stuff with them! We've got lives outside of bickering with you, y'know."

A low growl sounded from deep within Firwhisker's throat, but no other cat spoke — until Spottedpaw finally looked up to see Stormstar's whiskers uneasily twitching. He couldn't guess what was going on in her head — she wasn't the terrifying warlord he'd expected from an IvyClan leader, but she wasn't exactly soft and open, either, and despite her tail continuing to twitch anxiously, there was no note of mercy in her eyes.

"...keep them overnight." Stormstar concluded, shifting her weight on her front paws. Heaving a deep sigh, her fur bristled — though Spottedpaw could smell the fear it masked, beneath the shell of a righteous leader's patriotism, or at least something she had cobbled together to resemble it. "I can't put faith in Falconstar's kin."

"Are you serious?!" Heronpaw spat, before audibly whining as Sheepclaw knocked into his side. Spottedpaw couldn't hide his frizzed fur and high-pitched gasp — the cat to approach him was the white-and-ginger molly, who he could distantly assume by the green coating her paw pads to be the medicine cat, nudging him and Heronpaw into a den they could only hope was the medicine den — not some torture cave for prisoners, or, or…

"I know ElmClan would do the same for us." Stormstar muttered, just loud enough for him to hear. She shook her head — hiding behind forlorn blue eyes stories Spottedpaw was too young to even begin to comprehend. "Falconstar and her cats have been too aggressive lately."

To keep from dropping dead with terror, Spottedpaw noted the unique look of IvyClan's medicine den — rather than a neat gap in a pair of mossy crags, cramped and stuffy but serving its purpose well enough, the area dipped into a much larger clearing, with a miniscule creek of water, neat nests for the sick, grass well-trod over the generations, the heart of camp the only place either Clan in the Elm-Ivy conflict could surely, confidently call their own.

Of course, thinking of the attack last moon — unable to shake the sight of Sheepclaw's fangs, now casually bore to pick at his lip, tearing into Tawnyfur's soft, open throat — Spottedpaw found himself questioning even that. As Heronpaw grumbled nursery insults beneath his breath, Spottedpaw saw the cats who had killed two good ElmClan warriors, well enough to patrol borders, to take prisoners into custody, to answer to Stormstar's calls…

What was wrong with this Clan? He shuddered — a deputy should've knelt for their leader, not the other way around… in any good Clan, a warrior abusing power was to be punished, and an honorable warrior need not kill another cat to win a battle, but here three killers were, walking free, making the big decisions… Stormstar had yielded to her deputy without a second thought — the very same deputy who'd attacked those apprentices a moon ago.

Why? He screwed up his face in thought. Stormstar was the leader — her Clan's divine ruler, the eye of the tornado with nine lives picked by StarClan themselves. She could've exiled them on the spot, stripped them of their warrior names and told them to go be kittypets, and they couldn't have done anything to protest the matter.

…instead, she was like a tired young mate that Firwhisker pushed around. She would outlive him nine times over, and that was the respect she'd earned for it…

…but even then, Spottedpaw supposed, it was business. A Clan punishing enemy trespassers on their territory… if it had been IvyClan, Spottedpaw would've been suspicious, too. Two IvyClan apprentices training just on the brink of ElmClan territory… he could see Falconstar demanding they be locked up overnight, too. He couldn't exactly blame them, then, as much as the sound of Firwhisker's unsheathed claws scraping the dirt brought chills up his spine…

It was a look into a world that was just like his own — but tilted to the left. ElmClan, but with a cowardly leader and a conniving deputy, and a clearing past the medicine den, and long, thin plants lining the camp's entrance, populated by faces he didn't recognize in the least but looked just enough like ones he knew. The long-furred medicine molly here… with a fluffy white tail he could delude into being Comfreywing's.

See, we're not so different after all, Daisyheart would say with sunshine in their eyes, they're cats like you 'n' me. But Spottedpaw's fellow apprentices would spit, evil cats, they attacked our camp without warning, and they killed two good warriors, and Daisyheart would mull over it a bit, before shrugging, leaving the big decisions to their leader.

The cold air was biting, unfamiliar on Spottedpaw's skin, the wet, dirty grass sharp and making his paw pads itch — the only familiar sight was Heronpaw, who only looked on with an unrepentant glare at Sheepclaw and the medicine molly, having accompanied the prisoners into their makeshift cells. Despite her soft, long fur, and the maternal look to her blue eyes, the molly offered no kind words as she nudged the two apprentices into the medicine den's clearing. The camp was out of view now… and something about that frightened Spottedpaw even more than being paraded around to the warriors.

"Your leader's a lazy queen, isn't she?" Sheepclaw snorted at Heronpaw's wide, furious eyes. "Not even disciplining her own kit. Letting him run amok and kill things as much as he wants. All on our territory."

Is that true? Spottedpaw wanted to ask, but the words caught in his throat. Instead, he did what he did best… avoid trouble, keep his head down, and stare intently at his paws. Maybe, just maybe, if he made himself small enough, they'd let him go with a clawless swipe to the ear.

"My Mom's not lazy!" Heronpaw snapped. "She's a better leader than your mouse-brained molly outside could ever be! She doesn't sit back and let her warriors do everything for her!"

He wondered if Heronpaw ever got tired of arguing — if the little tom would ever step back and see IvyClan's pitiful attempts to provoke him as anything but that. He was braver than Spottedpaw, that was for sure, but… too brave. Brave in a way that made Spottedpaw fear he'd earn a mouthful of deathberries for his impudence one day. He'd make the wrong cat angry, and…

Spottedpaw kept his ears down, burying his muzzle in his paws and shutting his eyes tight. This was a nightmare — a living nightmare. Even IvyClan's medicine cat didn't seem to care about him… the sun was going down, and all Heronpaw could think to do was argue. Maybe that was his own way of surviving the night — but all it amounted to was flailing as he drowned, splashing about incoherently and throwing more water into his nose, and he'd catch Spottedpaw's tail with his claws and drag him down into the rapids, too.

Eventually, the yowling quieted down — with it, pawsteps left the clearing, and the chirping of nighttime bugs began. Heronpaw huffed in annoyance as he plopped into the nest at Spottedpaw's side — a presence the smaller tom didn't want to feel right now. Any Clanmate would be better, any familiar face but the one that had gotten them into this stupid mess.

And for what — a long walk to some rocks?