WARNING: u don't have to read this. I'm not unpublishing this book, chill.

This is an AD. I know I hate advertising my own book on my other books, but I'd really appreciate if you read my new book Selcouth. The cover honestly isn't that great, but that's not the point. Sorry guys.

Here's a disclaimer if ur interested:

Fernkit stirred as the brown figure beside her squirmed and fidgeted.

"Ugh, Heatherkit, stop moving," she complained sleepily as she drew her tail over her nose and buried further into her mother's white pelt.

"There's a thorn in my nest!" squeaked the dark brown figure again, scrambling out of their nest, causing Fernkit to stir and sprawl out uncomfortably. She started shivering as the warm space beside her grew cold.

Gradually, she opened her pale green eyes, blinking the sleep away from them and sat up.
"I don't think so," she mewed, rummaging her paw through the spiky nest.

Her fur was fluffed up, and the chill of leaf-bare was slowly creeping up her spine.

Heatherkit has still persistent on what she had claimed. "I bet my tail there's a thorn in there!" she cried stubbornly.

"Ouch!"

Fernkit retracted her paw as scarlet drops dripped into the nest.

"Told you!" yowled Heatherkit.

"What's all this commotion? Can't a kit get any sleep these days?"

A light grey tom-kit with a darker patch on his eye, paws and tail padded over to the two sisters, turning up his nose at whiff of blood.

"Fernkit! You're bleeding!" he exclaimed. Heatherkit filled him with the details.

"She was pricked by a thorn," she explained briefly, fur fluffed up at the cool breeze that was starting to creep in.

Fernkit licked her paw, and then tested it by placing it onto the stiff hard ground.

"Eh, I'll live. Let's explore camp while we have the chance! If we're lucky, we'll see the dawn patrol on the way out!"

Her tail swished the frozen moss impatiently as her littermates curled up theirs in excitement, marigold-yellow orbs dancing wildly.

As they headed out of the comfortable warmth of the den, Fernkit shrunk back, as well as Birchkit, both vulnerable out in the cold, crisp air. Heatherkit paused, before sticking out her tongue.

"Mouse-brains! Scaredy cats!" she teased.

Fernkit and Birchkit hared towards Heatherkit, twitching their whiskers indignantly. Fernkit slowed to a trot, before reaching her sister.

The snow beneath her paws were hard blocks of ice, but Fernkit was obstinate enough to not let Heatherkit and Birchkit know.

"So this is what camp's like!" Heatherkit exclaimed. Birchkit flicked his tail over to one side of the camp, supposedly near the entrance, which was towering over piercingly thick icicles.

"Look! They must be warriors!" he squeaked, shivering at the gigantic blurs in the snow.
"They're huge!"

"Look at that one!" Fernkit gasped.

Just across the clearing, sat a sleek, pure black tom, ribs showing from lack of meals, sitting in the crumpled snow near the warrior's den.

There was a nick in his ear, and a deep scar etched into his left flank, which was facing the trio.

There was also a scar running across his right eyelid, and Fernkit almost see the pink skin stretched across his eye when he blinked.

It was enough to send Fernkit, Birchkit and Heatherkit the same shudder down their spines.

Birchkit was the first to break the silence.

"He's scary!"

The black tom fixed his amber gaze on the kits for a second, his questioning gaze burning into the back of the kits' skulls.

His ear twitched, and for a moment he was about to stand, but was called into a different direction.

The voice was as smooth and soft as honey.

"Blacktooth! Blacktooth, come in! You'll freeze out there!" the voice called.

"Hurry, you'll get a chill!"

Blacktooth turned his head, immediately forgetting the curious kits and disappeared into the warriors' den.

Thanks for understanding.