"All cats old enough to catch a falling feather, gather beneath the Hightree!" a light gray she-cat meowed.

The cats of CloudClan padded out of their dens and from where they were resting to sit under the Hightree, where their leader, Featherstar, was sitting on a branch, using her claws to grip the tree.

Once all of her Clan was paying attention, Featherstar began her announcement.

"I have found a cat worthy of being in our Clan."

Yowls broke out from the Clan.

"Not again!" a black she-cat with amber eyes growled.

"You're insane!" a small, light gray she-cat hissed.

Featherstar glared at her complaining Clanmates. How could they abandon her in this time of need? Like they always do, the CloudClan leader grumbled in her mind. If her Clanmates weren't going to help her recruit the cat she found, then she would have to do it herself.

As Featherstar was about to hold up her tail to silence them, a light brown tabby tom's yowl drowned out the rest.

"Featherstar might not be wrong this time! She may have found a great warrior that can lead our Clan someday!" the tom meowed.

The yowling she-cats stopped their complaining and stared at him in disbelief. Featherstar was always wrong. When was she ever right?

Scorchheart, the black she-cat with amber eyes, retorted, "You always think she has a good chance of finding a better deputy than me. What do you have against me, Nettlepelt?"

The light brown tom hesitated. Scorchheart waited for a response. Then, the smallest cat in the Clan, Smallpelt, piped up from the back of the wall of the two CloudClan she-cats who were facing Nettlepelt.

"Don't fight! Scorchheart, no cat hates you. Nettlepelt just stated his opinion. He has the right to do that," she mewed.

Scorchheart turned around to face Smallpelt, and, as if the small she-cat had some sort of StarClan power, sat back down and faced Featherstar. The remaining she-cat, Raincloud, grumbled before sitting down like the rest of her Clanmates.

Featherstar watched her Clan with focused eyes. She couldn't believe it. Smallpelt actually calmed Scorchheart down. Some power indeed, thought Featherstar.

The gray leader glanced at Nettlepelt, who dipped his head and resumed his silent attention. Then Featherstar gazed at the whole camp, with her Clan gathered beneath the Hightree, in deep thought of what to say next.

The camp was surrounded by hard stone walls that had green vines running down them.

The warrior's den was hidden inside of an abandoned badger den, under a flat stone with dark green leaves covering it.

Featherstar switched her gaze to the apprentice's den. The den, hidden inside of a giant oak tree trunk, was empty and dull. The holly bushes by the nursery would be getting cobwebs by the next leaf-bare.

The medicine cat's den also seemed bare. It was cold and desolate, being unused after their only medicine cat, Snowtail, had left to become a kittypet with the Twolegs.

CloudClan's camp looked barren, but Featherstar was sure that the cat she spotted would help bring it back to life. The CloudClan leader faced her Clanmates again, and meowed, "The cat I saw was an OakClan cat."