I'm so sorry for not posting for a week! Or two! I can't remember when I last posted, which either means it's been a long time or I'm losing my memory. Or both, which is probably the case.

The reason is that one of my friends has been staying with me this week while this friend's parents are out of town PLUS I've had so much homework recently. Gah, school…

ANYWAY, I actually got a drawing finished, amazingly enough. I'm posting it on my Deviantart account on Valentine's Day. It's Valentine's themed, and I'm sure you'll love the characters involved. ;)

ShadowHawk540: Wait... I looked up those cities and they actually seem about a few hours away from each other. Did I find the right ones? :-\ Because yeah, my move was more across an ocean. (not that I'm not saying it's not a long ways away! I have a friend who lives a few hours away and I haven't seen her in a couple years)

EradrinSkyleaf: Yes, Sawn is better than Doot. XD I'm not sure who would prefer Doot. OhMyGosh you just pretty much perfectly described Rainpaw when you described yourself. ...O.O What is this madness are you Rainpaw secretly? I'm just going to call you Rainpaw in the next review reply if I remember. XD And I'm sorry about not updating soon! (do I still get cookies?)

walkswithwheels: Yeah, that rubber glove thing was actually a reference to this trollfic sort of thing called "101 Ways to get Kicked Out of ThunderClan" I started several years ago and recently deleted because I thought it was pretty stupid. I was wondering if any of my current reviewers actually read that or if they only know my good writing in this story.

Nightfeather:The rubber glove was an allusion to a trollfic I started several years ago called "101 Ways to get Kicked Out of ThunderClan." I was wondering if anyone here had read it before I deleted it. Also... homework in summer? Do you take summer school or live in the southern hemisphere or something? Because I don't have any school in the summer. And we're all children inside, I think. :)

Silverkitty16: My 16 is just a number I like. See, I used to like 4 for no reason whatsoever, but then I realized tha = 16, so 16 must be much better. I don't know... yeah. I also have a really good friend like that. :) Currently they're sitting about 6 feet in front of me practicing guitar. Happy Friday! (one week late, I know)

The Age of Awesomeness: You're like Sherlock and his mind palace? XD Sorry, Sherlock reference. I love that show. But that cabinet thing sounds interesting-maybe I should try something like it.

QLKwriter: Writing in journals can get hard to remember. I'm the only person I know of who actually writes in a journal, and I only do that so I can look back later and laugh at myself. So you could say it gets me nowhere, too. I used to want to keep things to myself, but my friends have finally succeeded in getting me to come out of my shell a little.

Willowdream of ForestClan: I also think of myself as close to my parents, but that might be just because my mom just came back from a long trip during which I missed her a lot. So this current closeness might just be the pent-up closeness of a few months, but oh well. Praying does also help get weights off you shoulders, I do that too when things just start getting to be too much. Luckily it doesn't happen too much anymore.

Cinderpaw's POV

Going over the tree trunk was nothing short of traumatic, at least inwardly. I closed my eyes as I set my paw on the sodden bark, then opened them again immediately as the branch gave an alarming sort of wobble.

"Come on, Cinderpaw," Foxtooth called, "it's easy!"

Easy for you to say, I thought irritably. He'd literally crossed the river in a hop, skip, and a bound. But I wasn't about to back down in front of this immature, lovestruck tom. I had to show him who was "boss" here. And that would, obviously, be me.

I shifted my weight onto the slippery wood, my tail waving randomly from side to side as I attempted to keep my balance. Slowly, I made my way to the center of the branch.

"What are you, a snail? Pick up the pace!"

I shot Foxtooth a glare and, digging in my hind claws and screwing up my courage, leaped forward across the remainder of the branch. In two bounds I was on dry ground again.

"Slowpoke!" Foxtooth teased, prancing around me, shying away whenever I turned toward him. Did he want to play tag like a kit? Really?

I lifted my chin loftily into the air. "I was only testing to make sure it was still safe after you bounced around on it," I meowed coldly. Foxtooth shut up at once, falling back to pad at my heels with his head down. I couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy, almost like a naughty apprentice was showing remorse after being told to clean the elders' den for a moon. But he deserved the treatment he got, chasing after me all the time. Didn't he have better things to do?

Oh well, I sighed, scanning the horizon. I certainly have better things to do, even if he doesn't. If there was a suitable place for the healthy RiverClan cats to stay while we tried to discover a cure for the sickness, quarantining them off so they wouldn't die also, the RiverClan cats would suffer the fate Rushstar had planned out for both herself and the others.

"Cinderpaw?"

I sighed to myself. "Come on, Foxtooth," I said resignedly. If he didn't come with me, he might very well go back to the camp and inadvertently catch the sickness. How would I explain to Rustpelt that I'd gotten his brother killed? If some cat tried to do that to me, I'd probably try to rip their throat out for letting Sootpaw or Rainpaw die; there was no way I'd try it on another cat.

"Cinderpaw?" It was Foxtooth again. I rolled my eyes as I turned around—did this cat ever shut up?

Foxtooth stood awkwardly by the river's edge, some distance away. Perhaps I'd scared him away with my annoyed sarcasm. Doubling back, I returned to the river, bounding alongside it until I reached Foxtooth.

"What-"

But suddenly, I knew what. I gaped at a small dip in the ground containing a few bushes and the remnants of a tree that must have been killed by too much water; as I descended into the hollow, my paws sank into the marshy ground, droplets of water rising up around my toes.

"What do you think?" Foxtooth sounded shy, almost wary as he followed me into the damp depression.

"Well, it'd definitely be perfect for RiverClan," I muttered, lifting a paw to shake off the water.

"We can stay in the forest, though, can't we?" Foxtooth sounded excited now, as though my lack of a sarcastic comment and my treating him as an actual warrior had somehow increased his confidence enough to act more like himself—that is, a kit. "If it's just us, we should be able to make ourselves a den under a bush or beside a tree, or even under a bush beside a tree!"

"I'm not sharing a den with Badger," I said shortly, turning away. Foxtooth seemed to have heard something more like, "I'm not commenting on us sharing a den in the forest because I secretly like it and like you and think we'll live happily ever after together surrounded by many litters of our kits," because he literally bounced out of the hollow after me. Together, we headed back to the tree-bridge.

I didn't mind the crossing as much, or at least, I was more confident on it. I crossed it in five bounds, only hesitating for a heartbeat on the bank before crossing. It was time to tell Rushstar of our discovery.

The leader of RiverClan was sitting in her den when we finally spotted her not-so-distinctive light brown tabby and white fur. Bounding over, we discovered that she also appeared to have gone both deaf and blind in the time since we'd last seen her, because she didn't look up until I sat down directly in front of her and began loudly making a report.

"Foxtooth and I went down to look at the river to see if we could cross," I said. Beside me, I felt Foxtooth shift slightly, but didn't glance around at him. "We spotted a bridge made of a tree branch and crossed to find a slight depression in the ground upstream from here. Since it's upstream, there wouldn't be any problem about the sickness being carried to you there. You and the other healthy cats could stay there until we find a cure for the disease."

Rushstar didn't move for a moment, but after I cleared my throat and said her name, she finally looked up at me. "Why bother?" she asked dully.

At once I saw the fire had gone from her yellow eyes. Her mouth twisted downward in an unhappy frown, the ends of her two front teeth showing past her lip. Her ears, previously shoved forward in a gesture of superiority, were tilted to the sides. She seemed oddly defeated. Maybe it was because she'd just thrown one of her Clanmates into the river. Maybe it was because she was finally ready to listen to reason, despite her last words.

"Why bother?" she asked again with a sigh. "The queens are dying. Their kits will soon follow. RiverClan is ending; why should I try to avoid it? RiverClan will end, just like the other Clans."

I stared at her. "But why are you giving up so easily?" I asked, stunned. "What if your Clanmates think differently?"

Rushstar turned her head aside. "If my misguided Clan sees fit to follow you in your crazy schemes, that's up to them. But I'm staying here. I see no point in trying to avoid the certain doom sweeping through my Clan."

I glanced at Foxtooth, suddenly worried about Rushstar's mental health. Was she really just going to throw away her two remaining lives for no reason?

"Fine," I meowed, glaring at her. "Fine, waste away in this stupid den made of fox dung. I'm going to go talk some sense into your Clan." And with that, I turned and led Foxtooth out of the den, away from Rushstar. I had cats to save.

Sorry, this chapter was really bad. I hope it's okay enough, though. :( I'm really tired and just wanted to get a chapter out for you since I've been slacking so badly.

AOTD: Yes, the aforementioned friend is the one I go to to talk about literally anything. We could talk about pink rhinoceroses (Terry Pratchett reference, anyone?) or family members dying or guys at school or anything. I also have a journal, though that's mostly used for writing down dreams nowadays. I write down every dream I have and so I remember more of them. Once I remembered four dreams in one night… O.o Yeah, but I also keep a journal so that in a few years I can look back and laugh at how childish I was. It's pretty amusing to look back at my journal from when I was 8.

AdOTD: Write at least a paragraph a day to keep your creative ideas coming and to keep your mind sharp.

QOTD: What will you be doing for Valentine's Day this year?