Tigerpaw had just returned to camp from a hunting patrol along with RobinWing, And LeafStorm. It had been the season full of snow and scarce prey, so they didnt return with much. He walked over to the fresh kill pile, but instead of dropping it, he hesitated and realized that the elders should be hungry by now. He proceeded to walk over to the elders den. “CrowSong? Ripple Tail?” He called. He looked over to see crowsong huddled in the corner, as if he didnt care for anything much more. Rippletail glanced over aswell and sighed. “He hasnt been the same ever since Mistytail died.” She croaked. Mistytail had been crowsongs mate, and they both strongly loved eachother. Rippletail looked at her paws, then back at tigerpaw. “I ate earlier,” she said. “Crowsong needs it more.” Tigerpaw nodded and slowly walked over there, and dropped the sparrow beside him. Crowsong lifted his head from his paws and looked at both tigerpaw, and the sparrow. “Thank you,” he finally said. “No problem.” Before tigerpaw left the den, he made sure crowsong had some bites of the food. As soon as he got out of the den, the cold, white feeling of snow spread through his paws, he had forgotten how cold leafbare had been. As he looked around camp, not many warriors were out. Darkwing was organizing a border patrol to make sure shadeclan hadnt been coming to take prey - especially when prey had been so scarce. Tigerpaw sniffed and went to his den for some sleep, he had been pushed around all day by woolytuft, his mentor. He thought he had deserved some sleep, until his name was called. “Tigerpaw!” He heard a voice call. Tigerpaw grunted and left his den to see duskheart inviting him to a patrol. Tigerpaw forced himself forward in exhaustion. “Yes?” “I want you to join the hunting patrol with me, frostpaw, and stormcloud” he finally meowed. Tigerpaw let out a long sigh before agreeing. He was incredibly tired, but he would do anything he had to to make sure his clan was fed. As soon as the patrol went out, tigerpaw looked over at frostpaw, then back. Frostpaw had only been an apprentice for two moons, but she was doing well so far in her training. “Okay, lets split into two groups, we will need to find as much prey as possible if we are going to get through leafbare” duskheart. “Can i go with tigerpaw actually?” Frostpaw asked. She had been wanting to learn more advanced hunting techniques like tigerpaw had been, she wanted to help feed the clan aswell. Duskheart looked at the two younger cats for a moment, then spoke. “Very well. Just dont get into trouble” he finally said. Frostpaw smiled in excitement, and the two padded over to the nearby pond. “Its frozen!” She squealed. “Be careful, we dont know if it’s completely frozen yet” tigerpaw spoke. When he stopped, he noticed movement in the corner of his eye. It was a Pheasant! Tigerpaw looked at the size of the bird, and quickly got into hunting position. Unsheathing his claws, he leapt for it. He had barely missed! He panicked, and ran after the pheasant. ‘No!’ He thought. He quickened his pace and leapt again, this time pinning the large bird. He bent down and nipped its neck. Gratefully, he panted and picked up the large bird. Frostpaw look at tigerpaw, wide eyed and impressed. “Wow!” She exclaimed. “I thought you would lose that thing for sure!” She blurted. Tigerpaw looked at her frustrated, and grabbed the pheasant by its neck. “Go see if you can find anything else, ill very quickly bury this somewhere” he ordered. Frostpaw nodded and cantered away, looking for more prey.

The patrol had just returned to camp with the pheasant, and two mice. They had good luck so far. “Ill take the mice to owl eye and gingerpool” stormfur announced. Duskheart looked at the pheasant. “That means the elders and queens have eatan, ill inform hazelstar and and we can all have a good bite from the pheasant hopefully” He continued, “ill also tell her about that good catch, tigerpaw” tigerpaw looked at duskheart. He didnt think about how much it had mattered that he done something big for the warriors by bringing a large bird back to camp. He placed it onto the fresh kill pile and padded torwards his den, to finally get some rest. He was starving, but figured he could go out and catch something tomorrow. He yawned and fell into a deep sleep. He was now in a dream, being swarmed away by massive waves of water, away from home. He could see his clanmates crying for him to swim back as best as he could. Tigerpaw struggled against the strong waves, water filled his lungs, which were screaming for air. “Ow!” Called a voice. Tigerpaw woke up. “Can you stop that?” Complained bluepaw. “Sorry” replied tigerpaw. “It was a bad dream.” “Well can you not fidget?” Bluepaw snorted. Tigerpaw looked at his paws, starving, he left out to go hunting under silverpelt to clear his mind. He looked around desperately, hoping to find some kind of prey. He noticed a small shrew and without thinking, he leapt for it. He caught it, but heard a twig snapping. Tigerpaw was suddenly scared as he heard a low growl from behind. He turned around to realize there was a fox! Tigerpaw yowled and tried to run, but he had been pinned by the fox. His hunger had slowed him down, and he couldn't defend himself. He tried kicked at the foxes belly with his hind legs, but failed to cause any major damage. The fox sank its teeth into his scruff and launched tigerpaw into the air. Letting out a screech of fear, loud enough to wake his clanmates from quite a distance away, he landed back down in the snow, in pain. The fox instantly leapt for him again, but this time actually scarring him. Almost instantly he felt a wound in his neck. Stinging with pain, he rolled onto his side, accepting defeat. The fox walked away without realizing he was still alive. With barely any strength, tigerpaw shut his eyes into a rest, waiting for some cat to find him. Accepting he was too weak to move.

“Tigerpaw! Tigerpaw!” A familiar voice called. Tigerpaw opened his eyes to see four figures of cats. Three were fighting the fox that had wounded him, and the fourth was frostpaw. She had come to help. “It will be okay! I promise!” She cried. Lifing him onto her back, she dashed into camp. Pain Bolted Through tigerpaw. He could remember how fierce the fox had been in the fight. Frostpaw raced into the medicine den. CloudMask gently placed him onto a nest. Tigerpaw could see the worry in his eyes, then him scrambling to get the right herbs for treatment. He shut and opened his eyes again to see black seeds placed infront of him. “Eat the poppy seeds” the medicine cat told him. Tigerpaw weakly moved himself torwards the seeds and chewed them till he was asleep.
He dreamed About being washed up on a shore to a very warm and tropical place full of hairy kinds of trees with long, pointed leaves he had never seen before. It was very hot and sandy, but not far there was grass with a small pond nearby. Before he got a drink, he noticed a large group of cats. He could hear excitement coming from them. He padded torwards the cats, and realized it was a ceremony. “Claw, you have trained very hard and proved yourself a worthy warrior of sunning clan” the large tomcat announced. The cat that was being made a warrior had no fur, which weirded tigerpaw out. He had never seen a hairless cat before. Before he could look around more, he felt a paw shaking at his shoulder. “Are you awake?” A voice asked. He looked up to see cloudmask standing over him. “I brought you some food.” He meowed. Tigerpaw looked beside him and saw a blackbird. “Thanks”. He took a bite of the food before realizing how hungry he had been, and just devoured into it. Cloudmask began to speak. “Hazelstar is calling a meeting later” he told tigerpaw. “What about?” Tigerpaw asked. “Youll see”






WARRIORS TIGERSTRIKES RETURN CHAPTER 1