Chapter 7

Snowpaw happily carried her mouse back to camp, crunching through the late evening snow-ice. As she rounded the area for where camp was, she heard Rainwhisker and Frecklestar talking. She paused, sinking into the cold white snow, listening to what they were saying.

"She just won't cooaperate!"Rainwhisker meowed in an aggitated tone.

"Calm down,"Frecklestar replied."She's probablly just not taking to you very well...or...maybe..."

"Maybe what?"Rainwhisker asked.

"Maybe she hates you because you're here against the warrior code..."Frecklestar said nervously.

"You loved me! YOU invited me into your clan!"Rainwhisker raged."It's YOUR fault if cats don't like me!"Frecklestar winced at his harsh words.

"I caught a mouse!"Snowpaw interrupted happily.

"That's wounderful, Snowpaw. You should ge-"Frecklestar was cut off by Rainwhisker.

"Give that mangy ball of fluff to me, so I can eat."Rainwhisker scowled. Snowpaw looked at him, shocked.

"No! I haven't eaten so much as a mouthful ALL DAY!"Snowpaw whipped around, and padded back into camp. She started nawing on the thin, scrawny creature, when Heatherkit came up to her.

"How was your first day?"she asked.

"HORRIBLE! I HATE Rainwhisker!"Snowpaw roared.

Heatherkit looked at her sympetheticly."Oh I'm sorry. I thought everyone liked him."

"Well, that's not true. How was camp?"Snowpaw asked, relaxing at being around such a nice, calm cat that she didn't have to choose her words carefully with.

"Great! Me and Ravenkit made up a game!"she said, eyes sparkling.

"Really? How's it go? If you show me, I'll play moss ball with you."Snowpaw promised, praying that Rainwhisker didn't inturrupt their game.

"Okay! It goes like this: you battle someone the same age as you are, and then whoever wins, gets a little bit of the territory from that clan! Watch me and Ravenkit!"Heatherkit bounded over to her brother, and declared loudly,"I AM HEATHERSTAR, LEADER OF FORESTCLAN!"

"I AM RAVENSTAR OF SUNCLAN! I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN!"her brother replied, tackling his sister. Soon they were rolling balls of fluff, rolling and crashing through the snow. Snowpaw was laughing. She had played a game similar to this when she was younger, but she didn't tell the kits that.

Suddenly a patrol came in. At the head of it was Flameheart, who was followed quickly by Foxtail, Curleyfur, Hollowwing and Sagewhisker.

"Another glouris hunting day for Forestclan!"Flameheart called, and the clan was suddenly cheering and whooping for the loads of extra prey they had.

"Snowpaw!"she whipped around to see Blazeheart."Are you coming to the gathering?"he asked her.

"OH! The gatherings' tonight, isn't it?"she answered, shocked."May I come?"

"Well, all your siblings are, so I don't see why not."he answered, before padding off to join the mentors at the camp entrace. Snowpaw followed, her paws tingling with excitment. Her first gathering! She found Emberpaw, and started asking her sister quetions.

"So who's going?"Snowpaw asked.

"Well, all the mentors, which are Blazeheart, Rainwhisker, Ferncloud, Thistlejaw, who is mine, and Twigstep. And Nettletail and Briarpaw, and Frecklestar, and Stonehawk, Stormheart, Flameheart, and Funnyheart and Willowheart, and I think Sagewhisker is too. Oh and Sunfall and Foxtail."

"Wow! That's like half of our camp!"she exclaimed, but soon there was no more time for talking. Frecklestar had started leading the cats through the moonlit, snowy forest. The bare trees mixing in with the soft moonlight was very pretty. As they traveled along, the ground began to slope slightly downwards, and there was more short grass and no trees. They had come to a sort of clearing, where a giant tree had fallen over, and Snowpaw could already see two cats standing on the log. Many different scents were around here, and the ground had begun to flaten out. Frecklestar nodded to the two cats.

"Greetings, Frecklestar."a large grey tabby tom with pale yellow eyes meowed. Another smaller cat, a golden tom with a cream chest and underbelly, simply nodded his greeting, his amber eyes glowing in the pale light.

"Evening, Mudstar and Sunstar. Everything well with your clans?"Frecklestar replied. Both toms nodded.

Suddenly, a pretty silver she-cat with blue eyes jumped up."Hello, Frecklestar. I assume Rainwhisker's with you tonight?"

"Yes. He even has his own apprentice."Frecklestar started scanning the crowd of cats for Snowpaw, when a larger apprentice came up to her.

"Hello. What's your name?"he asked, his tone unusually friendly.

"I'm Snowpaw, Foreststar's daughter."she meowed politly.

"Oh. My mentor is over there. Who's your mentor?"he asked. Hawkpaw flicked his brown tabby tail toward a dark grey tom with amber eyes. Snowpaw spat.

"Rainwhisker. Worst mentor in the world!" Hawkpaw gasped.

"NO! He was my brother's mentor, before...he..."

"Left and destroyed my clan."Snowpaw growled."Who's your brother?"

Suddenly a white-dappled she-cat hissed to them,"Be queit! The gathering's begginging!"

"Whatever, Cloverspots."Hawkpaw growled."Jaypaw. He's over there."Hawkpaw flicked his tail to a grey tom with green eyes. Suddenly cats were cheering all around them,"WHITEPAW! SNOWPAW! EMBERPAW! BRONZEPAW! BRIARPAW! THUNDERPAW!"the cats chanted the names, over and over.

Soon, it was time to go home. Hawkpaw cast a glance at Snowpaw."Meet me here tomorrownight at moonigh!"he meowed in a quick, hushed tone. Snowpaw nodded. She liked Hawkpaw. He was a friendly cat, but then she stopped. I'd be breaking the warrior code! she thought, but then, she could just ask her mentor.

Once everyone got home, Snowpaw went straight to bed, falling asleep, dreaming about the handsome Hawkpaw.

Snowpaw woke from her pleastent dreams. She went over to the fresh-kill pile, and picked up a mouse to eat. The creamy she-cat ate quickly, then found Rainwhisker talking to Frecklestar.

"Rainwhisker! C'mon! Let's go hunting!"she meowed, eager to ask him how he kept it a secret about him and Frecklestar meeting in secret.

"Fine fine fine!"Rainwhisker replied, troting out of camp, Snowpaw at his heels.

! #$%^&*)

Snowpaw and Rainwhisker had been training all day. Now she bounded up to him, and asked him the question nagging at her all day.

"How did you keep it a secret that you and Frecklestar met and liked eachother?"Snowpaw asked nervously.

"I'll tell you IF you tell me why."he responded in an icy, cool tone.

"Well, Hawkpaw wants me to meet him at the Fallen Oak tonight."Snowpaw said.

"Wow! That's why you need to know and have been acting REAL pleasent all day?"

Snowpaw nodded.

"Well, we met in secret, told no one, and said we were hunting. Thankfully, no one ever noticed us being gone. It was such a wounderful time."

"Do you PROMISE not to tell anyone this?"Snowpaw asked, her green eyes full of determineation.

"I promise on a million mice."

"Okay. Well, I like Hawkpaw. He's a real handsome apprentice, and..."

Rainwhisker was just purring at Snowpaw. Aw...he's happy for me! she thought.

Snowpaw couldn't have been more wrong

YAY! CHAPTER 7'S UP! I KNOW IT'S ONLY BEEN A DAY, BUT NEXT CHAPTER HAS A WINNER IN IT!

LOL hopefully. So what do you think Rainwhisker did? Ruined their relationship? Close, but before I tell you, YOU MUST WAIT UNTIL THE NEXT CHAPE IS POSTED! WEEEEEEEEE!

Thanks for all the awesome reveiws!

~Night