Sunpaw grabbed the acorn from Shadowfur and whirled, turning away. She caught a quick glimpse of where Moonpaw and Gingerpaw headed off to before she turned to run.

She had no plan. But that was alright.

She bounded through the snow that must have fallen the night before. She felt fresh flakes fall on her face. She wondered if it would snow for real thist time. Before, there had been little to no snow when she thought she had scented it.

She shouldn't worry about that now. She hurried away into the trees.

Maybe she could hide the acorn up in a tree! Shadowfur had never said anything about that. Technically, it was still allowed.

Sunpaw looked around to try and find a good tree. Where is a good one? She was beginning, already, to get a little annoyed with the acorn in her mouth. It rattled around like nobody's prey.

Suddenly, she also remembered that the full moon was the next night. She hadn't gone to any Gatherings since the first one, and she hoped that she could go.

She shook her head to clear the distracting thoughts from it and continued looking for trees. She realized she was kind of heading towards the huge cave that Skypelt had shown her before, on her first or second day in the Clan, back when she was still Sun. Those days seemed so far away, even though it had only been about four moons.

Perfect! Sunpaw thought as she spotted a tree. It was a tree that didn't look any different from the others, exceot it had slightly thicker limps. It was also tall, and looked hard to climb. It looked a bit like Sky Tree, except smaller.

Sunpaw launched herself at the tree, digging into the soft bark with her claws as she hauled herself up. Climbing wasn't her greatest skill (swimming was, due to her power), but she was good enough.

When Sunpaw reached a branch she thought she would be able to jump down from, she was about to stop, but then had a brainwave. Why not go a little higher, then just jump down from the top onto the other trees? It would be a bit of a hard landing, of course, since there were no leaves on the tree, but she could deal with that. She had tough pads.

Sunpaw noticed that there was a small owl hole in the tree. She hissed, praying that it was empty. When she heard no answering hoot from whatever owl might be in there, she stuck her head in cautiously and sniffed. It was pitch dark, and small. The scent of owl was extrememly faint, though.

Sunpaw pulled her head back in. How can I let them see the acorn? It was in the rules to let the other team see it, just a little, so it wasn't too hard.

Then she had an idea. A thin layer of snow covered the branch. She scooped it up in her front paws, ignoring the tingling in her paws from the cold, and shoved it in the hole. She repeated that a few times, sometimes having to stretch up to other branches to borrow their snow. Soon, though, Sunpaw had filled in the entire hole.

She grabbed the acorn, which she had left on the branch, and nestled in the soft snow. Then she allowed a bit of the moss dangle out, a bright green spot in the grayish-white landscape. They would see it if they looked up.

Sunpaw leapt down from the tree. It was time to go on the offensive, which she was also good at doing. She was going to win. Together, Gingerpaw and Moonpaw had an advantage- one could scout ahead to find the acorn, and one could stay to defend their acorn.

Sunpaw quickly remembered that her scent might be at the tree and groaned inwardly, then prayed that it was too cold for the smell to be left on the tree. Or that it was too wet out. Like when she splashed through a puddle and her scent didn't reappear until she was out of the puddle and dry.

Just to be safe, she rolled in snow, coating her pelt with thick, fluffy, cold, wetness. This would not only disguise her scent, but it would also disguise her silver tabby pelt. She quickly patted the spare snow into place and set off.

She happened to glance behind her, then groaned. Footprints! Since it was snowing, she would leave behind footprints. But, she thought, since it's snowing right now, the snow should, in theory, cover up my pawsteps.

She gave herself a high-paw for being so smart and continued on her way, keeping to the shadows of the trees.

She would have to think of how to find them. How would I find something at all? She thought. She thought about stalking prey. How did she do that?

First you taste the air to find any traces of the prey, Sunpaw reminded herself. She opened her mouth, and tasted.

All she could scent was snow.

What next? She asked herself. She mentally shrugged, then remembered something else. Oh! Wait! Then I would pad around and try to find a trace of something!

Sunpaw padded off in the direction where the starting point was. She knew what direction they had gone in, so she just needed to find the starting point.

Soon she stumbld upon it. It was completel devoid of any cats- Shadowfur, Hailheart, and Skypelt had long since left to watch, she reasoned.

Sunpaw looked around to see where Moonpaw and Gingerpaw had set off. Sure enough, two pairs of pawsteps were imprinted in the snow. But the falling flakes would cover them soon, so she had to find them.

Then she had a thought. What if Moonpaw or Gingerpaw and she met up, each trying to find the other's base? Then whoever it was could go back and tell the guard that she was coming. Sunpaw sighed. This is way too complicated.

She turned to a nearby tree and leapt up, climbing to the lowest branch. Then, they most likely wouldn't see her, unless they were looking up, but she would be able to see the pawprints.

She followed the pawprints quickly, trying to make sure they didn't get covered up. The sky was dark, and more and more snow continued to fall. Sunpaw saw that the sky was the exact shade of gray as a dove's wing.

Then she remembered Doveheart's prophecy- Snow will bring danger to the Clan. Did she mean the snow that was falling now?

All the cats in the Clan had begun to look extremely skinny. Like the prey wasn't running well enough. Sunpaw hadn't been on a hunting patrol for a few days, but she had noticed that the fresh kill pile was getting smaller and smaller.

Was that her fault?

Sunpaw was able to breathe underwater. Couldn't she swim around under the water and find as much prey as she could? Even if the rivers and lakes froze over, then she might be able to. After all, she could just try and pound her way through th ice, breaking it. Air wouldn't be a problem.

And what about the Dark Forest? Sunpaw had seen some of her Clanmates fighting... differently in the latest battle. Almost everyone was still weak, but there were a few who had emerged unscathed- Lightningfeather, Shadowfur, Stonewhisker.

Wait a minute. Lightningfeather?!

Was he training in the Dark Forest? No, he couldn't be! Sunpaw willed it to be true. Her friend would never do anything like that... would he?

Yes yes I know I said that I would get the entire training exercise in this chapter.

Oh well.

I suppose the next chapter will be very exciting then! XD

And a cliffie about Lightningfeather... hmm hmm hmm.

Just to tell you, in a few chapters I'm going to do a little time-skip of about two moons. Sunpaw has some stuff to do :)

And hey! This book is actually almost over! About eight or nine more chapters, then it's onto the next one! It's going to be called Dusk, by the way. @Swift_Jay made it up. She makes up loads of stuff for me. Including a lot of these chapter ideas XD SO CHECK HER OUT! I've said it before, but I'll say it again! She has one awesome book that she hasn't updated in FOREVER. So update Swiftie Jay Jay! PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

That's all! And this was about 1250 words so it should be good and long for you all ;)

~Rainfeather