They trudged through the snow, their legs almost swallowed up by the cold flakes. Stopping to hunt, Oliver and Cinder made their way into the woods and split up. Oliver looked around, his ears pricked. He heard a faint scuffling sound, and silently and lightly crept along until he found a woodmouse. It was gathering up the last of the nuts it had collected. Oliver snuck up, then pounced, snapping the mouse's spine with his jaws. He stood up and turned around, sitting down and dropping his mouse at the place he and Cinder had split up.
A couple moments later, Cinder pushed his way through the trees, a shrew grasped in his mouth. Settling down beside Oliver, he set his catch down and took a bite, with Oliver quickly doing the same. They ate in silence, then stood up and trotted out of the woods, picking their way across the fields. A mountain loomed over them, casting a long shadow over the ground. They walked around the mountain, not getting too far away from it, but not getting too close either. Cinder turned to look at the mountain. It was very tall and steep, and snow, that usually capped the top of the mountain, almost coated it all the way down.
Studying the base, he noticed a darker patch that looked like an opening. As they padded along in that direction, he realized that it was an opening; in fact, it was a huge, gaping hole.
"Look!" Cinder meowed as he flicked his tail at the hole in the base of the mountain.
Oliver turned to look at what Cinder was gesturing to, his tail flicking up when he noticed the opening.
"That looks like it would work! Do you want to go check it out?" The smaller cat asked, the tip of his tail twitching.
"Yeah!" Cinder exclaimed as he dashed off to the cave, with Oliver right behind him. Cinder stepped into the mountain-side cave and gasped. "It's so pretty!" The gray cat breathed as he walked further in.
"It is!" Oliver stepped over to a pool of pretty, ice-blue water. He dipped his muzzle down to drink, and jumped back. "It's really cold," Oliver meowed, his eyes wide.
"It's Winter, Oliver," Cinder said as he slapped a purple crystal with his paw.
"You would think that it would at least be somewhat warm if it wasn't frozen in weather like this," Oliver meowed, turning away from the pool.
"There's more space in here!" Cinder mewed, running into a walkway that led into a slightly smaller room. Oliver scrambled after him.
"This place is perfect," He meowed, turning back around. "C'mon, Cinder, let's go get the others." Oliver whisked around and padded out of the cave. Cinder followed Oliver until they got to the shed.
"We found a home!" Cinder said, taking the caution tape off his tail.
"Already?" Cinnamon asked, jerking up to her paws.
"Yeah! It's really cool," Cinder said. "Let's go right now." He yowled as he ran. Caustic quickly got up and followed with Cinnamon beside him. Cinder's hat flew off into the wind.
"Woah!" Caustic gasped when he set his paw in the cave, putting Spice and Pinstripe down as Cinnamon put Spyke down next to the kits as they cried. Cinder hopped into the cave.
"Isn't it cool?" Cinder asked, his fur fluffed up from the excitement of finding a home.
"I want to live here," Caustic said as he looked at the glowing crystals. "There are spikes, but they're too tall for us to reach without jumping," He meowed to Cinnamon.
"They're pretty, too," Oliver added, splashing into the pool of water.
"Very," Caustic mewed.
"Are there any holes my kits could fall in?" Cinnamon flinched as she imagined her kits plummeting to their death.
