Omen of the Sun Book Two: Snowfall ✅

Chapter Twenty Three

Sunpaw grabbed the acorn from Shadowfur and whirled, turning away. She caught a quick glimpse of where Moonpaw and Gingerpaw headed off to before she turned to run.

She had no plan. But that was alright.

She bounded through the snow that must have fallen the night before. She felt fresh flakes fall on her face. She wondered if it would snow for real thist time. Before, there had been little to no snow when she thought she had scented it.

She shouldn't worry about that now. She hurried away into the trees.

Maybe she could hide the acorn up in a tree! Shadowfur had never said anything about that. Technically, it was still allowed.

Sunpaw looked around to try and find a good tree. Where is a good one? She was beginning, already, to get a little annoyed with the acorn in her mouth. It rattled around like nobody's prey.

Suddenly, she also remembered that the full moon was the next night. She hadn't gone to any Gatherings since the first one, and she hoped that she could go.

She shook her head to clear the distracting thoughts from it and continued looking for trees. She realized she was kind of heading towards the huge cave that Skypelt had shown her before, on her first or second day in the Clan, back when she was still Sun. Those days seemed so far away, even though it had only been about four moons.

Perfect! Sunpaw thought as she spotted a tree. It was a tree that didn't look any different from the others, exceot it had slightly thicker limps. It was also tall, and looked hard to climb. It looked a bit like Sky Tree, except smaller.

Sunpaw launched herself at the tree, digging into the soft bark with her claws as she hauled herself up. Climbing wasn't her greatest skill (swimming was, due to her power), but she was good enough.

When Sunpaw reached a branch she thought she would be able to jump down from, she was about to stop, but then had a brainwave. Why not go a little higher, then just jump down from the top onto the other trees? It would be a bit of a hard landing, of course, since there were no leaves on the tree, but she could deal with that. She had tough pads.

Sunpaw noticed that there was a small owl hole in the tree. She hissed, praying that it was empty. When she heard no answering hoot from whatever owl might be in there, she stuck her head in cautiously and sniffed. It was pitch dark, and small. The scent of owl was extrememly faint, though.

Sunpaw pulled her head back in. How can I let them see the acorn? It was in the rules to let the other team see it, just a little, so it wasn't too hard.

Then she had an idea. A thin layer of snow covered the branch. She scooped it up in her front paws, ignoring the tingling in her paws from the cold, and shoved it in the hole. She repeated that a few times, sometimes having to stretch up to other branches to borrow their snow. Soon, though, Sunpaw had filled in the entire hole.

She grabbed the acorn, which she had left on the branch, and nestled in the soft snow. Then she allowed a bit of the moss dangle out, a bright green spot in the grayish-white landscape. They would see it if they looked up.

Sunpaw leapt down from the tree. It was time to go on the offensive, which she was also good at doing. She was going to win. Together, Gingerpaw and Moonpaw had an advantage- one could scout ahead to find the acorn, and one could stay to defend their acorn.

Sunpaw quickly remembered that her scent might be at the tree and groaned inwardly, then prayed that it was too cold for the smell to be left on the tree. Or that it was too wet out. Like when she splashed through a puddle and her scent didn't reappear until she was out of the puddle and dry.