After Leafpool finished a nice steak and potatoes, she and Sandstorm walked through the halls.

"I don't understand why you're all being so kind to me, after all you're all just as trapped here as I am. Don't you ever want to escape?" Leafpool murmured.

"The Master's not as horrible as he may seem. Somewhere, deep in his soul, there's a prince-! Of a fellow-" Sand corrected herself. "Just waiting to be set free."

"Greystripe mentioned something about the West Wing, what's up there that I'm not allowed to see?" Leafpool questioned.

"Never you mind about that. It's mostly just rubbish." Sandstorm meowed. "Off to bed with you poppet."

Leafpool padded up the stairs, but instead of going to the East Wing, she went in the opposite direction.

She entered the dark eerie halls as her curiosity grew, and soon came across a room with a bunch of covered objects. But there were two things that sat in the open, covered in dust.

The first thing she saw was a painting of a young one-month old tom, with sparkling blue eyes and dark grey fur. It had claw marks torn through it as if some cat had scratched it.

The second thing scared the living daylights out of her.

It was a painting of the same tom, but much younger, maybe six months old, and...

Her.

She had her front leg around his shoulders, him doing the same as they grinned at the painter.

And at the bottom written in messy writing was "Blackbird and Audacieuse, best friends for life!"

Confusion rose in her chest as she wondered who this cat was and why she didn't remember him or this event.

She walked out and padded into another room where she saw the glass bell jar with the glowing red rose. But as she grew nearer, Crowfeather came in and saw her.

"Hey! Get away from there!!!" He shrieked as he ran and jumped in front of her. She hissed and stepped back, before turning and running out and down the old steps, and out the doors.

The others called for her to come back, but she jumped on her horse and rode out.

Crowfeather had gone and stopped at the doorway, guilt rising in his stomach.

"Crowfeather! Look what you've done you scared her off! Now she's probably going to be attacked by wolves unless you go get her!" Sandstorm scolded.

Crowfeather huffed before flapping his stuff wings and shooting into the air. He stopped and looked around and saw Leafpool, with wolves surrounding her.

He dove and went barreling down at the wolves and scaring a few off, but three stayed and attacked him, he fought, telling Leafpool to run, but she didn't, instead she unsheathed her claws and scratched one wolf across it's eye.

Together, the two fought off the group of wolves, but Crowfeather had been fighting most of them, and was severely wounded. He collapsed to the ground.

Leafpool thought for a moment about leaving, but decided to help him instead. So she shook him softly, he squinted up at her, exhaustion clouding his vision.

"I need you to stand. Help me." She whispered.

Crowfeather managed to stand up on shaky legs, grunting as Leafpool led him to her horse. He got on Phillipe and collapsed once more. Leafpool led the horse to the castle and managed to help him to bed where she tried cleaning Crow's wounds with a sanitized rag. But Crowfeather let a roar as the alcohol on the rag stung on his wounds.

"Hold still!" Leafpool hissed.

"It hurts!" Crowfeather growled.

"Well if you stopped moving it wouldn't hurt so much!" Leafpool snapped.

"Well if you hadn't run away none of this would have happened!"

"Well I wouldn't have run away if you hadn't yelled at me!" Leafpool felt her nose scrunch up. "Besides, you didn't have to save me."

"Well Sandstorm would've been devastated if I hadn't." He muttered under his breath.

"Why?" Leafpool cocked her head.

"Nothing you need to worry about!" Crow snapped.

Meanwhile with Pinestar, Tigerclaw, Darkstripe, and Fireheart:

Fireheart was looking around, trying to find the path to the castle, but could barely see anything. But then he saw the tree that had fallen, but it was now back up and standing normally.

"That's the tree! Lightning struck it, but now it's upright! By some magic... or other..." He said.

Pinestar rolled his eyes at the tom that had jumped out of the cart. He turned to his son, whispering;

"Alright, get the rope and we'll tie him to a tree and leave him here." He jumped down.

Fear pulsed through Tigerclaw, and he jumped out of the cart and stepped between his father and Fireheart.

"No, Father you can't do this!" Tiger hissed.

"Do what?" Fireheart raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"He wants to leave you for the wolves." Darkstripe growled.

"Tigerclaw it's for your own good!" Pinestar growled. "If you want to marry Leafpool you must-"

"NO!" Tigerclaw snapped. "I don't want to be with Leafpool I want to be with Darkstripe!" Then the realization of what he'd said hit him like how the lightning had hit the tree. And he immediately shut his mouth in horror as his father's eyes narrowed into blood red slits.

"You WHAT?!" Pinestar exclaimed, his ears flattened and his eyes burned with boiling hot rage.

His head slowly turned to glare at the black tom behind him, Darkstripe's breath hitched as Pinestar leaped at him, claws extended.

Tigerclaw's claws slid out and he jumped onto his father's back, clawing at his shoulders to hold him back.

Soon the two brown toms were fighting, scuffling across the leafy forest floor, hissing and spitting at each other, clawing at one another's throats, as Fireheart and Darkstripe watched in horror.

But to Tigerclaw's terrible luck, Pinestar managed to push him against a tree, and Tigerclaw could feel his lungs giving in and he blacked out.

Pinestar then managed to tie both Darkstripe and Fireheart to the tree, as much as the two struggled, they couldn't beat the battle experienced tom.

Pinestar picked up his knocked out son by the scruff of his neck, and pulled him into the cart, leaving both Darkstripe and Fireheart to be eaten by wolves.

Hours went by, and Darkstripe and Fireheart soon could barely feel their tail tips. But then Brightheart padded into the clearing looking for catmint, but when she saw the two freezing toms she immediately united them and brought them both back to her camp, her mate Cloudtail, and Cloudtail's mother Princess had been waiting.

"Look who I found." Brightheart laid the toms down on a cloth sheet as Cloudtail's eyes widened.

"Is that..." He whispered.

"Yes." Brightheart meowed, shuffling through her herbs.

Soon the three cats nursed their newfound guests back to health, Fireheart blinked his eyes open as a drink was held to his lips.

"Drink, brother." Princess murmured, and Fireheart obeyed, shocked to see his sister.

"Where... how...?" He coughed and Princess shushed him.

"It doesn't matter, just drink."

Soon Darkstripe awoke and the three cats explained how Brightheart had found them tied to a tree in the woods.

"Gah!" Fireheart growled. "That was Pinestar's doing! He left us to the wolves!"

"And all because he wanted his son to marry Leafpool..." Darkstripe meowed sadly.

"Well let's take you back." Brightheart meowed as she stood up.

Later with Pinestar and Tigerclaw:

Tigerclaw opened his eyes as he recalled what had gone on previously, and he jumped up as his father pulled the horse pulling the cart to a stop.

"WHERE AM I?! WHERE'S DARKSTRIPE?!" Tigerclaw panicked.

"I left him and Fireheart to the wolves." Pinestar smirked. "But don't worry, now nothing will stop me from making sure you marry Leafpool."

"You monster!" Tigerclaw growled.

"Oh no, Tigerclaw, I'm much, much worse than that!" Pinestar drew his tongue along his fangs, grinning devilishly at his son.

Tigerclaw jumps down from the cart and races inside the bar to tell everyone what had happened.

But when he ran through the doors, he skidded to a stop when he saw Darkstripe and Fireheart by some of the authorities.

"Darkstripe?" Tigerclaw breathed as confusion and relief welled up in his chest.

Darkstripe immediately turned and grinned at him, but then one of the villagers interrupted the two lovers' reunion.

"Pinestar, is it true you tried to kill Darkstripe and Fireheart?"

Tigerclaw then turned and saw his father standing in the doorway, a mixture of confusion and fear at the sight of his victims alive.

"Fireheart! Darkstripe! Why we've been spending the past five days trying to find you!" Pinestar meowed, gripping his son's shoulder as his claws sank into Tiger's flesh. "Haven't we son?"

"N-"

"Haven't we?" Pinestar hissed threateningly.

Tigerclaw felt fear draining his throat of words. What would his father do to them? Tiger felt the need to say yes, so that his father would stop trying to hurt him, but as he glanced at Darkstripe, he thought about how his father would most likely send him and Fireheart to a mad house, where there were countless psychopaths, just waiting to find another cat to drive mad.

That idea alone made Tigerclaw glare at his father and pull away.

"Yes." He hissed. "Yes he did!"

Gasps filled the room, and Pinestar glared knives at his son. "You've gone mad!" He growled.

"If anyone is mad it's you!" Tigerclaw hissed.

"Oh Tigerclaw, it's one thing to tell me you're gay, it's another to accuse me of attempted murder." Pinestar said.

More gasps echoed the previous ones, and Tigerclaw could feel the disgusted looks being thrown at him. He flattened his ears and looked down, trying to convince himself he was in some kind of horrible nightmare.

"Lock all three of them up!" Pinestar meowed, and the authorities began dragging the three toms to a cart used for prisoners to be taken away.

1660 words!