and yet life still [carries on] .[open

[Amberstar]

<sub>Carry on. That's what life was all about, right? After the war, the clan had seemed to lapse into a quiet and solemn state, barely maintaining the basics to survive. So many had died, so many had slipped out of life but never out of memory.

The amber she-cat was curled into a tight ball on the face of a slab of rock. The cold weather had hit Tree-clan hard, leaving them with little cover high above. The higher parts of the territory had frosted over, and Amberstar was only glad that their camp rested towards the base of the high hill.

The rock appeared to be draining her of warmth, and she shuddered before opening her bright eyes. She flicked her ears and rose to her feet. Her back arched as it she shed the cold air off her back, her tail curling over her back.

With a final yawn and shiver, she surveyed her camp with dim eyes, ears flicking. Not many seemed to be out and about on this cold afternoon. She could see Colt partly hidden away, his gold eyes burning cooly from the shade. Amberstar looked up.

The sky was stone grey, almost threatening snow storms. She sighed then glanced around for someone to go hunting before it came down on them.</sub>

[Blackheart]

Carry on.

That was, indeed, exactly what Treeclan could do in the time following the war. Carried on. In that span of time, the old deputy – once so severely injuried – recovered his strength. Although his midnight coat now carried yet more scars, traces of a battle he would never forget. But he had beaten those odds stacked so high against him, and survived. Unlike so many that had fought in the war it seemed, Treeclan had taken significant losses.

That was one of many such thoughts that swirled through Blackheart’s mind as he padded into the clan’s camp, refusing to bow down and shiver and allow Mother Nature to win when a cruelly cold gust of wind carried through the area. Ugh. He did grumble, characteristically loud too, as his yellow eyes flicked and glanced around camp.

Aside from the glint of fur he though may be Colt, and the clearly lazily lounging Greed to his right – there looked to be no one in evident. Oh, and Amberstar – the leader glancing up towards the looming sky above, but Blackheart made a show of not paying any attention to her. They had always been close, he and the she-cat he once called ‘Young Leader’ so many moons before – but since the war, and knowing that as he grew older his strength would fade, he tried his best to impart all his knowledge and strength on to her.

There was another cat; he wished to do the same. Two really, but Mapleheart had vanished so long ago he was left with only Onyxdart – a worthy warrior. Time called, he could feel it every morning as he rose for his daily duties, the ache that burned in his shoulders – made worse by an active life. Never did the proud tom mention a word to his two friends, nor even the clan’s medicine cat, as he was still doing well enough on his own.

Well now.

Blackheart finally decided to cross over to his leader, looking somewhere between bored and faintly amused, “Do tell me, was there something up there I’ve missed?” Gruff humor from a tough cat, but the old deputy shrugged and chanced to sit down beside Amberstar, tail flicking then curling languidly around his front paws. “It’s been quiet lately.”

[Onyxdart]

Wind whistled and whipped through the leafless trees, bringing winter with them. Onyx, claws dug in to the branch on which she was purring, turned her head so she was face into the wind. The little she-cat sometimes got the oddest of notions- right now she seemed to think she was a four legged furry crow.

Rather than go down the tree trunk, she jumped to another branch further down, and another after that, until she was close enough to the ground to jump out of the tree altogether. She dropped down right next to Blackheart and Amberstar, and flicked her tail in hello.

"I think it's going to snow. It smells like snow the further up you go," she commented. Once uncomfortable being up the big trees, Onyx now used them to her advantage, and was half the time to be found up one sleeping or looking out or trying to dig a sleeping squirrel out of its winter hole. The squirrels did not approve.

She looked around, noticed Colt and Greed, and watched the rest of camp for a moment before looking back at the other two.

"I think everyone else is in staying warm. That may make the three of us crazy. Makes me crazier, 'cause I was going to go hunt," she remarked dryly to her two friends. Her whiskers went forward as she half-smiled, perfectly happy to be in the company of the two other cats. Then she stood, flicked her tail at the two, and bounded off to go hunt.