(Outdated) Warriors: Clouded Skies #2 - Frost

Prologue

Heavy rain poured down onto a quiet forest, coating the ground with mud and hiding the soft footsteps of tiny creatures searching for food in the dark forest. A small, skinny young ginger she-cat was stalking through the woods, her eyes narrowed and ears back to protect herself from the rising wind pressure.

A tiny mouse was clamped in her jaws, so small she could swallow it in one quick bite, but she wouldn't dare. She didn't need this mouse, her young kits did. Almost all of her food went to her kits, so in the quarter moon since they had stopped feeding she had only eaten a mouse tail from the last mouse she brought in.

This made her skinnier than even most BatClan cats, with her pawsteps uneven from her weak body barely able to stay standing. But she continued to push through the wind, heading for a small cave she had hid in just a moon ago before her kits came. Her mate had gone off before the kits were born and never returned.

He'll come back, she told herself countless times, but her hope was beginning to dwindle.

Her thoughts were cut off when she heard a faint growl beside her. She tried to sniff, but the rushing rain covered her weak sense of smell. She turned her head to see a pale tabby tomcat approaching her with bristling fur. "Give me your mouse before I take it," he growled in a husky meow over the rain.

"Please, I need it for my kits," she murmured through the small cooling body. She wanted to flee, but she knew she had no chance to outrun him—her only hope was to reveal her kits and plead him to allow her to keep her cheap kill.

His hard eyes didn't flicker. "Did you hear me? I said, give me your mouse!" He gave a fake lunge forward, but it was enough for the poor young mother. She dropped the mouse into the wet and fled, her legs burning in pain and her body thrown around from her uneven gait.

She finally stopped, her chest burning and heaving with effort when she reached the entrance to her cave. She stumbled inside and into the back, where her two young kits were curled in a makeshift nest made from old moss and weak twigs. A light ginger head rose from the nest, and the she-cat found herself staring into the yellow eyes of her daughter, Maple. Curled up next to her, Tumble slept on, tiny sides moving slowly and weakly.

"Violet?" Maple asked softly, her eyes blurry in the dim light. "Mother, is that you?"

Violet forced a soft purr. "It's me, darling," she meowed, trying to ignore how the wind picked up, ruffling her fur and sending chills down her spine. Tumble mewled in his sleep and threw his small ginger paws around. His mother instantly went forward, curling up around her kits to keep them free of the cold, despite her soaking wet fur.

Suddenly, a faint scent filled her nose, steadily getting stronger. Even with her dying sense of smell, she knew what it was: a fox was approaching her den, following the scent of a warm-blooded creature—Violet herself.

"I'm cold," Maple murmured, her mew husky and dry.

"It's okay, darling." Violet gently licked her daughter's ears. "Just close your eyes, everything will be alright." She heard the fox's claws scrape against the ground of her cave.

Violet closed her eyes, curling herself over her kits protectively and lovingly. She could feel the fox's breath on her back. "Everything will be okay, just sleep, little one. It will be all right. Everything will be all right..."

There was a sudden flare in Violet's neck, and everything went black, with her last thoughts of her beautiful, wonderful kits.

I know, short Prologue, and pretty sad, I think.

Question #1: Why do you think this certain story was chosen as the Prologue?

Question #2: What do you think this will do with the plot?

Question #3: Did you read the first book, and are you excited for this one?