The Frozen Forest

[Cover credit to @hollyhockfang!]
[Inspired by the WC:UE 2023 winter event!]

The Frozen Forest - a secluded, frozen landscape. Winter in perpetuity. A place full of mystery and ancient history lost in time, where two opposing groups live struggling for prey and survival against both each other and the forest's other deadly, strange inhabitants. But there's something.. off about it. Things that don't quite seem to add up, or make sense.

Something the forest is trying, and failing, to conceal things from the cats living within it...

---

Charredpaw is four moons into her apprenticeship, and looking forward to her warrior ceremony. She's everything she needs to be for her clan; strong, dependant, loyal, selfless and full of energy in her youth - much unlike the soul-crushed older warriors, who've grown tired of their difficult lives after witnessing so much.

But soon, this all becomes redundant when she meets a she-cat from the other group out in the forest, and they.. get along? Finally, she has someone new and interesting to talk to!

But she's beginning to question certain aspects of her icy home, wondering why it's suspended in eternal cold - isn't there anything else out in the big wide world? She craves a change of sorts, and begins to notice things; things which have been hidden for endless generations of her clan, and are starting to slip. She has no idea who to go to - who would believe her if she were to explain what she was discovering?

But luckily for Charredpaw, her new friend is willing to listen.