Finally! Here is the next chapter. :3
"I'll find them." Fireheart promised. He automatically started looking around. For Graystripe, Fawnpaw guessed. The wind was rising and the snow wad growing thicker. A kit couldn't survive out there alone! Fawnpaw followed Fireheart as he rushed to the warriors' den and pushed his way inside. Graystripe wasn't there.
Sandstorm was just waking up. "What's wrong?" She meowed, seeing Fireheart peering around the den and Fawnpaw at his side.
"Brindleface's kits are missing."
"Cloudkit too?" Sandstorm scrambled to her paws, instantly awake.
"Yes!" Fawnpaw answered. She was trying to stay calm, but she couldn't unless she knew if her kit was okay. For all she knew, Cloudkit could be frozen by now. How long had he been gone?
"I was looking for Graystripe so we could look for them together, but he isn't here." Fireheart meowed, his words tumbling out in a rush.
"I'll come with you." Sandstorm offered.
Fireheart blinked. "Thanks." He meowed gratefully. "Come on, we should tell Bluestar before we leave."
"Dustpelt can tell her. Is it still snowing?"
"Yes and it's getting heavier. We'd better hurry." Fireheart looked at Dustpelt's sleeping form. "You wake him. I'll tell Brindleface we're going and meet you by the entrance." He bounded away, leaving Fawnpaw to catch up. Brindleface was still sniffing around in search for scents.
"Any sign?" Fireheart asked.
"No, nothing." Brindleface's voice was trembling. "Frostfur's gone to tell Buestar!"
"Well, don't worry." He reassured her. "Sandstorm's coming with me. We'll find them."
Brindleface nodded and carried on searching.
"I want to come to." Fawnpaw told Fireheart. He was not going to leave her behind her in camp! Not while her kit could be freezing somewhere out there.
Fireheart starred at her for a moment, then said, "Fine. You can come."
Fireheart led the way over to the gorse tunnel, where they then joined Sandstorm. They all hurried out into the woods. Outside the camp, the wind felt even fiercer. Fawnpaw struggled against the blizzard.
"It's going to be hard picking up a scent through the fresh snow." The ginger tom warned the two she-cats. "Let's start by checking to see if they've climbed up to the forest."
"Okay." Meowed Sandstorm.
"You take that side." Fireheart told Sandstorm, pointing with his nose. "Fawnpaw, you head for the training hollow. Meet you two back here. Don't be long."
Sandstorm bounded away amd Fireheart leapt over a fallen tree.
Fawnpaw turned and ran towards the training hollow, ignoring how with each step she sank up to her belly in cold snow.
Fawnpaw stopped at the edge of the hollow, it was empty. Fawnpaw shivered, pelt pricking worriedly. She had to find the kits!
Fawnpaw was heading back to join up with Fireheart and Sandstorm when she froze mid step. She thought she had heard something. Fawnpaw listened, and through the wind she heard squealing kits.
Fawnpaw sniffed the air furiously, and quickly caught the familiar scent of Cloudkit. She jumped up and followed the scent trail. She scrambled onto the top of a fallen tree and looked down on the other side.
Huddle in the snow were two small kits. Fawnpaw felt a rush of relief until she noticed that Couldkit was not with them.
"Where is Cloudkit?" Fawnpaw yowled, jumping down beside them.
"Hunting." Squeaked one of the kits. Her voice trembled with cold and fear, but there was a note of defiance in it.
Fawnpaw curled herself around the two kits, not letting Brindleface's two kits freeze in the snow. Just then Fireheart and Sandstorm scrambled onto the top of the log, sending snow showering down onto Fawnpaw and the kits.
Fawnpaw shook it off and stood up.
"You found them!" Sandstorm purred.
"Where is Cloudkit?" Fireheart asked, landing beside her.
"Look!" Sandstorm, still standing on the top of the log, yowled. Fawnpaw looked where Sandstorm was pointing.
A bedraggled white shape was struggling through the snow toward them. Cloudkit! Every step was a massive leap for her little kit- the snow was as high as he was. But he kept coming, and in his mouth he carried a small, snow-encrusted vole.
Fawnpaw jumped up, abandoning the other kits with Fireheart and Sandstorm. She ran forward and scooped up the kit by the scruff of his neck. Cloudkit grunted in protest but refused to drop the vole that dangled from his mouth.
Fawnpaw cleared out a place on the ground and set down her son. She licked him fiercely, feeling reflifed to see him okay.
Fawnpaw looked up to see Sandstorm and Fireheart help the stumbling kits toward her.
Cloudkit squirmed as Fawnpaw licked him. Fawnpaw paused and glared at him as he proudly held his catch. Fawnpaw felt mad at him for leaving the camp in the blizzard, but couldn't help feeling impressed by the little kit. Some how he had caught that vole, his first prey!
"Come on." Fireheart picked up a tiny she-kit, who was mewling pitifully. Sandstorm picked up the other one, and Fawnpaw held her son by the scruff again. The group struggled towards camp.
Brindleface was waiting outside the gorse tunnel. Bluestar stood beside her, her eyes narrowed against the driving snow. As soon as they spotted the group, they rushed forward and all the cats hurried into the camp.
Once in the clearing, the three cats droped their frozen bundles on the ground. Fireheart shook the snow from his fur and looked down at Cloudkit, who was still stubbornly clinging to his catch.
Bluestar glared at the three kits. "What do you think you were doing out there? You know it's against the warrior code for kits to hunt!"
Brindleface's two kits shrank under their leader's angery gaze, but Cloudkit looked back at her with round blue eyes. He dropped his vole and mewed, "The clan needed fresh-kill, so we decided to catch some."
Fireheart flinched, and Fawnpaw wondered if it was really a good idea to have her kit join the clan in the first place. Would Bluestar send them away because Cloudkit didn't follow the code?
"Whose idea was it?" Bluestar demanded.
"Mine." Cloudkit announced, hie head still unbowed.
Bluestar fixed her eyes on the defiant little kit and yowled, "You could have frozzen to death out there!"
Cloudkit was startled by the anger in her voice and dropped to a crouch. "We did it for the clan." He meowed defensively.
"Your intention," Bluestar meowed slowly, "was good. But it was a foolish thing to do." Fireheart cringed as Cloudkit piped up again.
"I caught something, though."
"I can see that." Replied Bluestar coldly. She gazed at all three kits. "I shall leave it to your mothers to decide what to do with you. But I don't want to find you doing anything like thie again. Do you understand?"
Cloudkit nodded and Fireheart relaxed a little beside Fawnpaw. Fawnpaw let out a breath that she hadn't noticed she had been holding in.
"Cloudkit, you may add your catch to the fresh-kill pile." Bluestar added. "Then all three of you go strait to the nursery and get yourselfs dry and warm."
Brindleface's kits stumbled toward the nursery, followed by their mother, while Cloudkit picked up his vole and trotted off toward the pile of fresh-kill. The proud tilt of his head made Fawnpaw wonder again if Cloudkit would make them both leave, just because he didn't follow the code like the others.
But was that a glint of admiration in her leader's eyes as she watched him leave?
"Well done, you three." Bluestar meowed, turning her attention to Snadstorm, Fireheart, and Fawnpaw. "I'll send Longtail out to retrieve the other search party. You should go to your dens and try to warm up too!"
"Yes Bluestar." Fireheart answered. Fawnpaw turned to leave and go back to the nursery but Bluestar called her back.
"Fawnpaw, Fireheart." She meowed, "I want to talk to you two." Her tone made Fawnpaw worried.
"Cloudkit showed some fine hunting skills today." Bluestar began. "But all the kill in the world if worthless if he can't learn to obey the warrior code. It may be for his owb safety now, but in the future the safety of the whole clan will depend on it."
Fireheart looked at the ground, and Fawnpaw glanced over at him. What was he thinking about? Was it the same thing Fawnpaw was worried about? Or was it something else?
"I'll make sure he learns." Fawnpaw promised and Fireheart nodded to show that he will try too.
"Good." Bluestar sounded satisfied. She turned away and padded to her den.
Fireheart left for the warrior's den. Fawnpaw waited a heartbeat then padded to the nursery, and settled down in her nest by Cloudkit, who was now sleeping.
Fawnpaw looked down at her kit and licked his white pelt. The longer she was around him, the more the feeling of worry left. He would learn, she knew he would.
Done! :D