CLOSED Sunmist, Cloudfeet, and Company

[Longstorm]

Sunmist and Cloudfeet, warriors of DarkClan, were leading the DarkClan scouting patrol and a TawnyClan queen and her kits up the mountainside. They had come from the flatlands below the mountain, out from the wide field of tall grass where the Blood Stones lay.
Back there, the cats of DewClan and TawnyClan waited for the cats of MudbloodClan to fall on them - their odds didn't look good. DarkClan realized this. And so DarkClan had withdrawn from the lowlands.

Silverpaw fought to keep up with her half sister, Sunmist. The mature warrior kept a steady pace up the mountain even though she had spent half a day and night running and then hours infiltrating enemy-infested territory. This most certainly was a warrior who had spent nearly a year in treacherous territory, Silverpaw recognized. Sunmist had been one of the warriors who was almost always out in the dangerous ice forests high up within the Dark Mountains while Silverpaw, young kit, had stayed inside the Ice-Shell Willow, safe and warm.
Silverpaw admired Sunmist. (OOC: hahahaha it's so self-serving hahahahahah!)

Trailing Sunmist was Hollowstripe, the young deputy of DarkClan. Also with them were Sorestare, Mustardstorm, Bronzepaw, and Strikefast of TawnyClan with her two kits.
They had twice now rested briefly, hidden in the rocky underbrush and the dried, curved clumps of yellow grass that made up the sloped landscape. Some of the cats snagged a short nap, even. A few bits of small prey were snagged along the way, but hunting was still pretty scarce on the lower slopes ever since the smoke had scared off a lot of the better game. So everyone was eager to return - or visit for the first time - to DarkClan territory.

They were making good time, Cloudfeet said. They would be back with their Clanmates only a few shifts before sunhigh. The cats of DarkClan were expecting them, he explained to Strikefast. "We have our full force out in our hunting grounds. All of us, ready for battle."

[Longstorm]

Time continued to pass; the air was growing crisper as the cats ascended into DarkClan territory, where the air was thinner.
The cats who grown up in DarkClan territory knew that the rolling green and yellow hills with its pines and brush, would eventually be covered in snow after green-leaf ended. In the mountains, the seasons of leaf-fall and leaf-bare were rarely ever considered separate.
The kits were fussy about the weather and maybe Strikefast was unhappy with DarkClan, with leaving the cats of the other Clans far below in the lowlands - but what she was really thinking, no cat knew.

The cats were taking an interesting route. Cloudfeet and Sunmist were making certain to give the general area of the traps a wide, WIDE berth, just in case. Who knew how far down the teams had gotten while they had been gone.
But Sunmist expected to be spotted soon.

And they were.

OOC: leaving that open because the rest of DarkClan isn't caught up and I want everyone to be on the same page but the topic is basically done