Sorry, this took longer than I thought it would, but it's pretty long. Nothing too exciting happening here, but there's characters introduced and just the barest of hints toward one of the big plots.

Cross-posted to AO3 and Warriors Amino.

Remains un-beta'd, so apologizes for errors.

Chapter Three

Tiny looked around ThunderClan's camp with wide, awestruck eyes. It was so big and there were so many cats. He didn't know what to do or if any of the cats were friendly or not. Looking over the cats, he spotted two cats looking about his age sitting near a tree stump on the other side of camp. One of the two was a familiar looking black cat. He padded over to them, hoping they would at least let him sit with them.

The unfamiliar cat, a fluffy gray tom, looked up and saw him. "Hey there, little kittypet," he meowed, voice warm and welcoming. "Ravenpaw was just telling me how you threw yourself at a fox. I didn't know kittypets were fox fighters."

The comment almost sounded like an insult, and it took Tiny a moment to realize that the gray tom was genuinely curious. He stopped in front of them, shuffling his paws. "No," he muttered, "I don't think most kittypets would be considered fox fighters. I didn't even know what one looked like until this morning."

"But you did try fighting one off! That's something most cats wouldn't try doing alone," the gray cat mewed. "By the way, I'm Graypaw and this is Ravenpaw. And welcome to ThunderClan."

"My name is Tiny," he returned, unsure of how to really respond to that. He looked over the two, Gray was larger and fluffier, looking like he ate more than he should, but was already looking like he was going to grow up into a large bulky build. Ravenpaw on the other paw, looked like Graypaw's opposite; smaller, though not as small as Tiny, with thinner fur and a lean build, he was scrawny-looking but not unhealthily so. Tiny's eyes landed on Ravenpaw's shoulder and noticed cobwebs covering a wound and guilt overcame him. "I'm sorry, Ravenpaw, if it wasn't for me leading the fox towards you, you wouldn't have gotten injured."

Ravenpaw blinked in surprise before responding, "No need to apologize. The fox was already on our territory, it was only a matter of time before it found me or someone else and attacked."

Tiny glanced down at his paws, the words were supposed to be comforting but he still felt guilty. A loud hiss caught his attention and he looked up, looking around to find the source of the commotion.

In a corner of camp, near a pile of fresh-kill stood three cats. A pale tabby had his fur fluffed up, ears back and teeth bared, glaring at a medium-furred tortoiseshell she-cat. A blue-gray tom stood at the tabby's side, his red-brown undercoat shining through the gray in the sunlight. Tiny was too far away to hear what was being said, but it was clear that the tortoiseshell was saying things that the tabby wasn't too happy about. The gray tom brushed his tail along the tabby's back in a comforting way as he whispered something to him, which seemed to calm the tabby down, before turning to the she-cat and saying something to her. The tortoiseshell lashed her tail; clearly not liking what was said, before stalking off toward the entrance of camp. The two toms moved into the shade next to a den, the gray's pelt turning darker with the lack of bright light bringing out the undercoat's color, making the tom look familiar.

"Looks like Honeyfang's in a bad mood today," Graypaw meowed at Tiny's side. "Best to try to keep out of her way."

The small tom turned back to the two he was sitting with, confused. "Who is she?" he asked them.

"The tortoiseshell she-cat," Ravenpaw meowed, "her name is Honeyfang."

"She's got a real nasty personality that contradicts her appearance and name," the fluffy tom added. "Honeyfang doesn't like apprentices or kits- well there's not many cats she actually does like."

"Apprentices? What are those?" Tiny asked.

A look of shock overtook Graypaw's face before realization dawned upon him. "Oh, that's right; you're a kittypet so you wouldn't know. The Clans are made up of mainly warriors, who hunt and fight for the Clan. Once kits reach six moons, they are made apprentices and train to become warriors."

"Clans? There's more than just ThunderClan in the forest?" he asked, surprised. He had been surprised by the amount of cats he had seen in ThunderClan's camp, he hadn't thought there would be that many in the forest. The thought of more cats than that started to make him wonder just how many cats lived without twolegs.

"There are four Clans and not all live in the forest," Ravenpaw meowed. "There's ThunderClan, which is where we are. Then there's RiverClan who lives by the river, WindClan who lives in the moor, and ShadowClan lives in the pine marches."

Four large groups of cats lived just outside his mother's twoleg nest and none of the kittypets had any real idea. Tiny looked about the camp at all the cats that were going about their day and he noticed that the two toms that had that confrontation with Honeyfang were gone. "Who were those two toms?" he asked.

"The tabby is called Longtail and the gray is Stonefall," the black apprentice answered.

"Stonefall is Ravenpaw's mentor and Bluestar's son," Graypaw added.

The information that Bluestar had at least a son stunned him for a moment. When he had spoken to her in the medicine den, she seemed like the kind of cat who put duty over love, but perhaps it wasn't always that way. Now that he thought about it, the two did look a lot of alike and Tiny wondered if Stonefall's odd red-brown undercoat came from his father.

"Come on," Graypaw called out, on paws and nearly bouncing with energy. "We'll show you around camp."

"All right," Tiny responded as he followed the other two. They didn't go very far, just to the other side of the tree stump were a large clump of ferns that made a nest, it seemed smaller than the rest of the nests in camp.

"This is the apprentice's den," the gray tom explained. "All warrior apprentices sleep here. Right now there's just Ravenpaw, me, Sandpaw and Dustpaw."

The black kittypet looked over the den again; it seemed far too large for only four cats to be using. "Is there normally more apprentices?" he asked.

Ravenpaw blinks and murmured back, "Yes, there normally is, but ThunderClan suffered heavily last leaf-bare when greencough hit."

Tiny didn't know what greencough was, but it sounded like a bad illness. If Graypaw and Ravenpaw were about the same age as Tiny, then they had to have been kits in leaf-bare. They may have lost family, even littermates, to this greencough. Tiny had never been close to his own littermates, Socks and Ruby, but if they had died, he'd still miss them.

The apprentices started padding away and Tiny nearly tripped over his own paws so he wouldn't be left behind. They stopped by a den larger than the apprentice's den and covered in brambles. Voices could be heard inside and he could pick out the high, squeaky voices of kits.

"This is the nursery where queens and kits stay," Graypaw meowed.

Before they could turn to move on, a pale ginger she-cat emerged from the nursery. She blinked in surprise to find three cats standing outside of the den. "Graypaw, Ravenpaw," she greeted the apprentices before her gaze landed on him. "Oh hello there."

"Hello, Goldenflower," the black apprentice greeted her in return.

"This is Tiny, we're giving him a tour of camp," Graypaw explained.

"Hi," Tiny mews awkwardly, not really knowing what to say.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Tiny," Goldenflower purred, her yellow eyes filled with warmth. "Don't tire him out too much, you two, he's still injured."

"We won't, Goldenflower," Graypaw meowed while Ravenpaw nodded his head in agreement next to him.

The she-cat nodded before padding away and Tiny watched her head toward the fresh-kill pile. The queen had reminded him of his mother and with guilt he realized that she would have noticed him missing by now and be worried sick about it. He wished there was a way for him to let her know that he was safe.

"This way!" the gray apprentice called out to him.

Tiny looked up and saw that they had moved on without him and he rushed to catch up with them. He caught up to them by a fallen tree that looked like there was a den under it; several elderly cats were lying down in front of it, sunning themselves.

"This is the elders' den and these cats are the elders," Graypaw explained.

"Aren't you going to introduce us to our guest, Graypaw?" an elderly black and white tom asked, looking mildly amused at the apprentice.

"Of course I am," the gray tom meowed in a tone that made Tiny think he hadn't planned to. "These cats are Halftail, Smallear, Patchpelt, One-eye and Dappletail," he introduced, pointing his tail toward each cat.

Tiny stepped closer to the cats and meowed, "It's a pleasure to meet all of you. My name is Tiny."

The gray she-cat squinted her one eye at him. "You aren't Ravenpaw," she croaked out.

"I'm over here, One-eye," Ravenpaw mewed from Graypaw's other side, but it appeared the elder didn't hear him.

"His name is Tiny! He's out guest!" Patchpelt meowed loudly in her ear. The elder then turned to face the guest and gave an apologetic purr, "Don't mind her, her eyesight is bad and the only thing worse than that is her hearing."

"Then why didn't you say so?" One-eye grumbled, "Young cats these days."

"It's fine," Tiny mewed. He never really interacted with elderly cats before, but he liked that ThunderClan cared for them in their advanced age.

"Have you eaten yet?" Dappletail asked the small guest.

Tiny blinked at the question, thinking back to when he last ate and remembering that he hasn't eaten all day. He could now feel how hungry he now was and shook his head.

Dappletail turned to the apprentices with narrowed eyes. "Go get our guest some food, it would be very rude to have him starve on us."

"Yes, Dappletail," the apprentices chorused at the same time.

"Come on, Tiny," Graypaw meowed as he lead the way to the fresh-kill pile. "I'm hungry myself, so it's the perfect time for a break."

The group of three arrived at the fresh-kill pile and as the apprentices picked out pieces to eat, Tiny just stared at it. He had never eaten anything that the twolegs hadn't given to him. How did they catch these creatures? How does one even eat something that was once alive?

"What's wrong?" Graypaw asked after picking out a piece and noticing that Tiny hadn't picked anything out.

"I've never eaten prey before," Tiny admitted embarrassed.

"What? ...Oh, right! Kittypet," the gray apprentice exclaimed before remembering the small cat's origin.

"Here," Ravenpaw mewed, placing a mouse at Tiny's paws. "Try this, it shouldn't upset your stomach too much."

"Thank you," the black kittypet mewed before following the apprentices back to the tree stump where they settled down to eat.

Tiny stared down at the mouse, still unsure if he could really bring himself to eat it. His stomach ached with hunger and he lowered his head down to take a small bite of the mouse. It was an unfamiliar and strange texture, but it didn't taste bad, in fact it actually tasted pretty good. He dug in, starting to devour the mouse.

After he had finished the mouse, Tiny turned toward the two apprentices and saw they too had finished their meals and were grooming themselves. "Why is everyone being so nice to me?" he asked the two. He had thought the cats living in the forest wouldn't be so friendly toward outsiders, but apart from the medicine cat every cat he had interacted with had been very kind to him.

"Not too long ago, it might have been different," Ravenpaw meowed as he started to explain. "Except for ShadowClan who always took in rogues, the Clans usually never took in outsiders before. Now the Clans are a little more accepting of letting others in; I know that there's at least two cats in WindClan that joined them several seasons ago."

"There's also one in RiverClan, a former kittypet I think," Graypaw added, pausing mid lick to his paw. "I saw him fall into the river the other day, it was hilarious!"

Tiny thought back to Bluestar's offer to join ThunderClan and while he was relieved to know that other cats had joined the Clans before, he was still nervous about the idea. If he did accept and he failed to become a warrior, would Bluestar throw him out?

The calm, quiet lull of camp broke as a group of cats entered ThunderClan's camp. The cat in the lead, a tortoiseshell tom, went straight for a large boulder, stepped through a curtain of lichen into a den. Cats from around camp started to murmur to each other, which caused more cats to come out from their dens to see what was going on.

"The patrol's back!" Graypaw exclaimed as he jumped to his paws in excitement. "They were gone a long time, I wonder what took them so long."

"Patrol?" Tiny asked confused as he looked at the cats that had entered camp. He spotted one of them, a black tom with a reddish undercoat shining through in the sunlight, was holding his broken collar.

"The patrol was set out to chase off the fox that attacked us," Ravenpaw mewed.

Bluestar and the tortoiseshell tom emerged from the den in the boulder and Bluestar immediately leapt on top of the rock. "Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather here beneath the Highrock for a Clan meeting," she yowled out.

The cats of ThunderClan began to gather under the boulder, even more cats spilling out of dens to hear what the leader had to say. Tigerclaw slipped out of the medicine cat's den, limping over to the base of the boulder and settling down to sit there. "Let's get closer!" Graypaw meowed, as he moved closer to the rock.

Tiny stood and followed the apprentices closer to the rock, wondering if he should even be listening in. He wasn't a part of ThunderClan and while he supposedly was old enough to catch his own prey, he never had. Did that exclude him from the Clan meeting? He didn't voice his thoughts aloud and settled down next to Graypaw and Ravenpaw.

"Redtail and his patrol has returned and has news to share with the Clan," Bluestar announced before stepping back a bit on the rock and inclining her head to the tortoiseshell.

Redtail leapt up beside the ThunderClan leader and addressed the Clan, "We've chased the fox off ThunderClan territory, but while we investigated to search where it came from we discovered something. The fox came from Twoleg Place, but that's not the only unusual thing. We also scented the fire-smelling rogue again."

The Clan erupted into loud murmurs about the fire-smelling rogue. Tiny wondered who the rogue could be and how a cat could smell like fire. Whoever the rogue was, regardless of smell, ThunderClan didn't seem to like them.

After the Clan settled down Redtail continued, "We are not sure exactly, but it smelled like the rogue at different times followed the fox and our kittypet guest."

The gathered cats broke out in murmurs and whispers again, but Bluestar silenced them with a flick of her tail. "Do you think the rogue had anything to do with the fox or our guest?" she asked him.

Redtail shook his head as he meowed, "No, I don't think the fire-smelling rogue has anything to do with our guest. However if I were take a guess, I think the rogue followed the fox into the forest, perhaps even chased it into our territory even."

"Thank you, Redtail," the blue-gray she-cat meowed before addressing her Clan. "Until we are certain this fox won't return to our territory, no apprentices are allowed outside camp alone for any reason. As for this rogue, everyone must remain alert; we do not know what their intentions are but we shouldn't lower our guard while they still roam our territory. This meeting is now over."

Bluestar and Redtail jumped down from the boulder and beckoned several warriors over to talk near the rock den's entrance. The rest of the Clan dispersed, talking about the findings the patrol brought back and about the rogue. Tiny blinked when a cat stopped in front of him, blocking the sunlight from hitting him.

The black kittypet looked at the cat and saw it was the black tom that was still carrying the tattered collar in his jaws. The warrior placed it at Tiny's paws before meowing in a rough sounding voice, "I thought you might want this back."

"Th-thank you," Tiny squeaked out as he stared down at the ruined collar.

The warrior grunted before padding away across camp toward Honeyfang and a she-cat that looked almost exactly like Honeyfang, only with shorter fur and lighter amber eyes. The shorter furred tortoiseshell she-cat appeared to greet the tom in a friendly manner, while Honeyfang ignored him.

"Whoa! Shadepelt actually talked to you!" Graypaw exclaimed in amazement. "He hardly talks to anyone but his family."

Tiny stared down at his collar, pawing it over and looking at the break. It was surely broken beyond what his mother's twolegs could repair. He wondered if the twolegs would be upset that it got broken and if he should just get rid of it.

"Hey, runt!" Tigerclaw's growl scared him out of his thoughts. Looking up, Tiny saw the crippled cat standing near the medicine cat's den, glaring at him. "Get back in here," he ordered before entering the den.

"Good luck," Graypaw meowed in farewell.

"Try not to stare at his leg, that gets him really angry," Ravenpaw told him.

"Thank you for today," Tiny mewed before grabbing the ruined collar, deciding he'd think about what to do with it later, and hurried back to the medicine cat's den. He was already growing pretty tired and it was only sunhigh, he hoped the scary medicine cat would let him sleep a bit.

So this chapter was mainly a tour of part of the camp, but I felt it was needed for the story. Below is the list of changes so far to help lessen some confusion.

Tiny didn't wander into the forest as a kit, the first chapter was his first encounter with the forest

This takes place in about Into the Wild time, if it wasn't obvious

Stonefall is Stonefur, you will find out more about him later, I also changed his pelt a bit

Due to having Stonefall as a mentor, Ravenpaw is braver and not a scaredy-cat but still shy and quiet

As revealed last chapter, Tigerclaw was crippled and became a medicine cat. Spottedleaf isn't a medicine cat in this.

Honeyfang and Shadepelt are connected and they are connected with the shorthaired tortoiseshell as well, plus another cat that hasn't been introduced yet