A/N: I'm horrible at updating, aren't I? I'm so sorry. DX The information of why I haven't updated this yet is in the author's note on Chapter 24 of EBN. I don't want to just repeat it. I won't be replying to any reviews here since it's been so long.

To all my readers/reviewers/people who favorited/people who alerted this story: Thank you. I love you all. ;3; (No, not in that way...)

Hey, my birthday was on August 3rd, which you might know if you already read the author's note of, again, Chapter 24 of EBN. If you already wished me a happy birthday, you don't need to again. :)

One question:I'm thinking of axing the individual review replies and the bottom author's note; and either PMing the person if they have a question or addressing it here if more than two ask it. I will answer reviews here if they're anonymous, but there will most likely be just a couple neat paragraphs in the author's note telling what I feel about the chapter, what I did while writing it, and blah. PM me your thoughts about this, since I still want votes in my current poll!

Poll Status: There are 18 votes, 13 for DawnpawXStormpaw, and 5 for AmberpawXTigerpaw. What?! D; I thought it would be close. And come on, I know I have more than 18 readers (hopefully... ;-;), so get those votes in~

Chapter 15: Tussle

The air is thick and ashy. It catches in my throat and makes me cough.

Smoke threads through the air, obscuring my view. I bat at it with my paw to see if I can brush it to the side, but only succeed in dissipating a few strands. The thick, bitter smog finds its way into my lungs with every shallow breath I take, and I hack raucously, shoulders shaking with each heave.

Clarity filters into my mind for one split second, knifing through the haze both in my head and around me, and I can see the escape. But it's tiny; either too small for me to fit through or too far away from me to get to in time.

Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? A voice at the back of my head assures me that this isn't real, tells me that it's just a dream, but it certainly feels real enough. Flames lick at my feet. They're hungry, ready to feast upon screams and ginger fur.

Fire tears at my eyes, wielding them shut with heat and pain. I'm blind. Blind as a day-old kit, blind as a many-moon-aged elder, blind as any cat stumbling around in the dark on the night as I was born. The flames are merciless, unrepentant as they cavort teasingly around my paws and reach up to touch the corners of my eyes, beautifully wild as the orange-red flares twirl around my tail and spiral under my belly, burning even hotter all the while.

They'll have a taste of my fire-colored pelt next.

And then the flames and I will be one, my body giving it sustenance to dance even higher until finally it flickers out and all that remains is ash. What a terrible way to end, a horrific means of leaving normal Clan life and joining StarClan up above.

If you even are destined to go to StarClan, that is.

Where I will go doesn't seem to be that. If not…then why am I being surrounded by fire, being tortured by the thick smoke that shreds my lungs and blinds my eyes?

Yet at this moment, I feel strangely at peace. The heat cools for a moment, giving me a respite. I already feel like I have joined with the flames, though my body is still substantial and unmarred from heavy burns. I feel…strong.

And then the flames roar up again, swallowing me whole and flinging me into a dark, deep, bottomless hole…

"Amberpaw? Amberpaw?"

I groan and try to turn away from the voice. Slightly familiar, but unwelcome nonetheless.

"Hey, wake up." Someone suddenly looms over me; I can tell by the sudden absence of light emanating from the annoyingly bright sun.

"Come on, sleepyhead. It's time for training."

I don't care if it's time for the moon to rise and do a jig with the stars across a clear blue sunny sky. I want to sleep.

But then I catch a wisp of a dream—or is it a nightmare?—disappearing into the corners of my mind. Vaguely, with a spark of alarm, I remember something about flames. Heat. Being burned alive. Like the dream I had while in the place with the Twoleg nests.

Nightmare or not, I judge the distance between me and this cat's face and lash out, eyes closed, and claws sheathed, just in case there might be consequences later.

"Amberpaw—Hey! Ow!" I tuck my left paw back under me, satisfied. He's going to leave now, right? "I didn't even shout this time!" A pause. "Well, now I am, but that's because you smacked me in the face!" Another pause, longer this time. He leans even closer until I can feel his breaths ruffling my fur faintly with every exhale. I catch the familiar scent of dew in the morning. It's Tigerpaw. "At least open your eyes and have the grace to look sorry!"

I keep my eyes closed for another five seconds. No? He's not going to leave? Well, then. I refused to open them for another six seconds, just to see if he'll back away.

He does not.

One…two…three…

I open my eyes, lean forward, and carefully say, "Boo."

The sudden movement makes him yowl with surprise and jump back.

"Scared much?" I remark as I stand up carefully, testing my weight on the newly healed paw. The three days have now passed and I think that it's fully back to normal. Still, I step out of my nest gingerly, not wanting to put much pressure on my right paw, and pause to look at the apprentice still sitting on the floor, haunches up and dark brown fur puffed out.

"Very much so," he growls as he climbs to his feet, his pelt gradually flattening as he comes to stand next to me.

I grin. "Oh, but your expression. From the look of it, you'd just seen a ghost than heard the word 'Boo'!" When he doesn't grin back, I bump him gently. "Sorry."

He sighs. After a moment, he says, "Apology accepted." He turns his head to look at me. "But…did you have a nightmare or something? You were sort of, well, shaking and rolling around in your nest."

Images of fire flash in my mind. But I don't feel like telling him about it. "I think I might have," I say carefully. "It doesn't matter. I barely remember it anyway."

He looks slightly relieved, for some reason. "Okay."

We walk outside, where tiny snowflakes are beginning to fall. It takes me back to the morning Tigerpaw and I played together in the snow, before he went off to play Tag with the others, and before I wandered around the camp until Graypaw found me and enlisted my help in finding his sister.

Tigerpaw is walking slightly before me, head tipped back to supposedly catch the tiny white flakes on his tongue, as I can't see his face. I slyly watch him out of the corner of my eye, making sure he can't see me. I've got an idea.

I stop walking and soundlessly dash behind a bush, where a nice pile of snow is accumulating. I work quickly, shaping the white mass with my paws. Meanwhile, he moves on, unaware of the fact that I'm not walking behind him anymore. Good.

In a matter of seconds, my weapon is formed: a round, cold-to-the-touch snowball. From behind the bush, I rear up on my hind legs, balancing the snowball between my two front paws. By now he has to have realized that he's alone, and I have to get this shot in, quickly, before he turns.

He starts to turn.

Plan B: Or, I can throw it right in his face as he starts to turn.

I launch the snowball.

I can see the understanding in his widening eyes as the sphere flies toward him; he begins to duck, but it's too late. It whistles toward him and explodes on contact right between his eyes.

Score.

"Fox-dung!" Tigerpaw begins to make his way toward the bush. Too late, I realize that I should have immediately ducked back down after I'd thrown the snowball; he probably would have guessed who had thrown it, but the snow would have blinded him for a few seconds and he would have had to figure out where I was hiding.

I'll give myself up, I decide. If not, he'll probably start a snowball war, and then we'll never get to training in time.

"Happy leaf-bare!" I shout, skidding out from the bush. Right then, a snowball flies just over my head. It's good that my head is already down—otherwise, it would have caught me on the face right where my snowball landed on Tigerpaw. "Truce?" I yell, laughing madly all the while.

Though the snow is falling even heavier now, I can still see his eyes narrow. "None?" I guess, practically roaring the word at the top of my lungs in an attempt to be heard above the wind. He does nothing. "Okay, then!"

Stealth time! I think happily.

First, dash behind a bush. Make sure you are not seen. Second, make your way to another, or anything you can hide behind. Launch snowballs while doing this. Follow these instructions until you have almost reached the enemy.

"Amberpaw—" he starts to growl. But he doesn't finish his sentence. I successfully shut him up by pouncing on him.

We scuffle on the ground. He seems to be unable to get me off, and I use this to my advantage by sitting on him and making another snowball with one front paw—keeping the other on his back for more balance—while he squirms. I grind it into his face when I'm done making it.

"Hey—!" Spitting sounds commence. "Can you at least get off—?" I shove another snowball into his mouth. "This position isn't very fair to—" Another snowball. It looks like he won't be able to finish a sentence at all today.

Finally, with "Aargh!" he manages to flip me off of him. This is mostly because I let him, practically skipping off his back myself.

"I think we can agree that I've won," I cheerfully say, bending down to look at his snow-covered face. His eyes narrow and he leaps up, but I'm ready and back away before he can land on me like I did to him.

He lands heavily, snow flying up with a kick of his paws. I haven't realized the length of the time we've been in the snow and how our snow fight has affected the state of our pelts, but as he stands there, glaring at me, I can see that all that snow has turned his pelt to white, with dapples of brown peeking out occasionally. I must look the same.

I laugh. He looks confused, so I explain. "You know how, before, I said that you looked like you'd just seen a ghost? Well, now you look like one!"

He cracks a smile. "Same to you." And before I can move away, he reaches forward and hooks a paw under my front feet, bringing me down.

"Ooof," I manage.

"I don't think we can agree that you've won yet, Amberpaw," he says. Darn it; he's turned my own words back on me. I hate that. "Shall we contest that fact?"

"Sure," I reply, popping up faster than he expected, which is obvious from the fact that he quickly scrambles backward before he realizes what he's doing. I laugh, and then lunge.

He's ready, and has risen up on his hind legs to meet me. Still, my weight brings him down and we both topple into the snow with a loud thump. He immediately starts trying to get up. White clouds fly up all around us as we grapple for top position.

"What's that?" a voice calls out from the warriors' den. It sounds like Ashfeather.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see a scraggly brown head pop out from the elders' den. Treefall. "Just a bunch of mousebrained apprentices," he shouts. "Noisy things," he mutters a second later, turning tail and disappearing back into the den.

"Might as well give up, you noisy thing," I taunt Tigerpaw from my higher spot.

He flips me on bottom with a grunt. "You first, mousebrain."

I gasp dramatically, thrashing from side to side to try to reverse our positions. "I am wounded."

"Quite," he says dryly, using sarcasm to counter mine.

"No, seriously." I make my voice thin and weak, which isn't that hard considering he's already crushing the life out of me. I take a shuddering breath. "My paw…you're hurting it."

Immediately he rolls off of me, which I wasn't expecting him to do—at least, not as fast. "I'm sorry," he says, eyes wide with something I can only describe as concern and shock. "I—I didn't mean to. Do you want me to take you back to the medicine cat's den? Because I can carry—"

His last sentence ends in an "Ooof" as I pounce on him.

"Actually, I think I feel better," I answer, grinning at him.

I can see the realization in his green eyes. Faint blue shimmers as he blinks, shock surfacing in his irises.

"So…you weren't actually injured?" He makes to rise, and I let him, lifting my paws from his chest as he sits up from where my weight knocked him flat.

The hurt on his face makes me reconsider the blunt "No" I had been planning to answer with.

"Well, you were squashing the life out of me. But for terrible pain…no, there was none of that."

The dark brown striped apprentice looks more upset than when I scared him in the medicine cat's den. The posture he's assumed would make a bystander think I'd just taken his favorite prey and gobbled it all up, instead of merely tricking him to get off of me. What's the matter with him? "So…I didn't actually hurt you?"

"No." To try to wipe that doleful expression of his face, I hold up my paw and waggle it in front of him. "See? I'm fine."

He still doesn't smile. "So…you made me believe that you were injured again just so you could win?"

I wince. When it's put that way, it seems worse than it really is. But is that how he truly sees it? "Hey," I say in a soft voice, getting up and padding to his side, where I sit down again. He doesn't look at me. "Well, yes. I don't really like it being put that way, but I suppose that's true. In fact, I didn't think you'd fall for it, but sorry." I pause. "Again," I add.

He turns to look at me now, shoulders hunched and head dipped. But his eyes are fierce, channeling fervor for something I don't know—yet.

"Well, I did fall for it."

I open my mouth to deliver another apology, but something in his stance makes me stop. I ponder what else to say. A question is brought to mind. "I've got a question," I say carefully. "Why does this matter that much to you? It wasn't much—okay, it didn't seem like it had a big consequence in my mind—but you're acting like I pretended a rock fell on Branchstar and then ran around shouting that it was just a joke." Tigerpaw isn't an over-reactor, and there is an answer to my own question tentatively raising a paw in the back of my mind, but I'm ignoring that. It couldn't be why.

He sighs. His pelt rises briefly, then flattens. His hesitation is clear in his body language—obvious in the twitch of his tail and the emotion in his eyes, which are now staring at the ground, and the dip of his head. I'm not sure if I'm annoyed at the fact I can read him so easily or like that at least I can always tell what he's thinking.

"Well, I don't want to cause you harm," he says finally. My pelt warms. Well, yay. He won't ever kill me, which is something pretty much already guaranteed by the warrior code on pain of banishment and perhaps even death. Good to know.

But he's not done. "I want you to promise something," he says.

"…What is it?" I ask hesitantly.

He looks at me, then, blue-green eyes earnest. Any hesitation has seemed to have evaporated.

"Amberpaw, if I ever hurt you, you tell me," he says. "Okay?"

I take a deep breath, already knowing what I will say. It's not as if I can just snip off a "No," right?

"I will," I say, heart heavy as I utter the words. What once was a happy atmosphere has now dimmed to an indeterminate tension in the air. Snowflakes swirl thickly in front of us. A lot of time has passed since Tigerpaw woke me up this morning, but the sky is still as gray as a mourning dove's plumage, heavy clouds thick and dark like the said bird's feathers. Another promise. As if the first one isn't already under enough pressure.

Almost like he's reading my thoughts, Tigerpaw nuzzles my shoulder, an action so surprising and sudden and sweet that it nearly makes my heart stop. "Okay, good," he tells me. The dark brown tom stands up. "We've still got training to get to," he says as if nothing happened just now.

We start padding toward the entrance. We must be late, I think anxiously. It's better to be worrying about that than mulling over what just happened. It's a wonder that no one besides Ashfeather and Treefall bothered to question the scuffle we had in the clearing; they must be hunting. Or, I realize as we pass Cedarheart and Ivyrain, who are asleep beside the bramble entrance, that we must be early.

"Dad!" Tigerpaw pounces on the dozing tabby tom. "What are you doing?"

"Huh?" Cedarheart startles awake; Ivyrain begins to open her eyes. "What?"

"You're asleep! You're supposed to be guarding the camp! What if some StoneClan warrior came strolling by at this moment, huh? He'd sneak right on by!" Tigerpaw sits back on his haunches, a mask of shock and betrayal plastered over his face. I can tell that it's fake, but Cedarheart looks like Tigerpaw's the leader, not a mere apprentice, and has just caught Cedarheart eating prey before bringing fresh-kill to the queens, kits, and elders.

The brown tabby warrior rubs a forepaw across his eyes, supposedly to try to wipe away any grogginess. "I…I'm sorry. I do think we fell asleep only an hour ago, though. I suppose I'll go tell Branchstar. It's been a tiring night." He takes his leave and starts padding across the clearing—which is covered with paw prints, I notice, and wince—to the leader's den.

Ivyrain yawns before she catches up watching with wide eyes. You are not supposed to fall asleep while guarding the camp, after all. "Don't follow our example," she jokes, managing to make us smile. "What are you two up to?"

"We're going to training," Tigerpaw says proudly. "Tell my dad 'Good morning,' okay?"

"Right," the light-brown she-cat says. "Falconflight, Pounceclaw, Rainsong, and Ravenwing will be working with you all today. And I will."

I nod at her in reply and we make our way to the training hollow, Tigerpaw leading me as I have no idea whatsoever where it is.

How cute was that? ;3 I didn't even mean to introduce a new promise. I just veered off what I was writing and found myself putting that in. XD What do you guys think of it? Do you think she'll be able to keep that one, too?

And what's with the nightmares, hmm?

Review? It motivates me. Even just a quick "Great, I love it. Update soon" will help. ;D Plus, I'm hoping to get to 150 votes with this chapter, though I don't think I will. I need 12 more reviews until there's 150.

~Ponyiowa