Chapter Text
1
…“Brambleclaw?”
“Are you sure we wouldn’t destroy the Clan?” he growled.
“W-what do you mean?”
“Of course we wouldn’t!” Squirrelpaw rounded on Brambleclaw in anger and confusion.
“Not on purpose,” Brambleclaw meowed. “But it’s us, isn’t it – fire and tiger – who want to lead the Clan away from its home and on a long, dangerous journey when we don’t even know where we’re meant to be going?”
-
As Squirrelpaw padded back to the makeshift camp at Sunningrocks, her mind and heart were heavy. She’d been so excited about the journey and the prophecy, about all of it, in the beginning. And even as she’d experienced loss and hardship, she had still held onto that hope. But now, in spite of her best efforts, she could now only think of Brambleclaw’s words. “Are you sure we wouldn’t destroy the Clan?” he has asked.
Her reflex had been denial, of course, because hadn’t they gone on their journey to save the Clans instead of destroy them? But then he’d explained his thoughts, and she’d found that she hadn’t actually had an answer to them. She knew how real the risks of journeys like theirs were – and Feathertail’s loss was something she doubted she’d ever forget. So who was to say that by leading the clans away from their ancestral home, they weren’t leading them to a similar fate?
Part of her knew that it was a ridiculous perspective to have. The Clans had to leave. The twolegs were destroying everything. But at the same time, she knew that there was no way to tell how the Clans would fare on the journey ahead. Maybe they wouldn’t find a new territory, and fall apart squabbling amongst themselves. Maybe they’d never make the journey – maybe hunger, or twolegs, or even hungry twolegs (twolegs didn’t eat cats, did they?) would bring the clans to ruin before they would be able to find a new home.
She didn’t know. And that scared her more than anything.
Dropping her thrush onto the meagre fresh-kill pile, she scanned the camp. Leafpaw was approaching Cinderpelt and Mousefur, probably to talk about medicine cat… things. Brambleclaw almost looked like he was in a daze as he stepped away from the fresh-kill pile and began to wander from one side of Sunningrocks to the other. She stared after him, worried. His misgivings, the idea that they’d lead the Clan to ruin – had he been struggling with that the entire time? If not, then for how long? And how had she not seen it?
Brambleclaw had always been a worrywart. She knew that. Perhaps this was just how he went about life. If that was the case, she couldn’t stand it, and felt a wave of sympathy for him roll over her. Eventually, she turned back around and padded wearily to the closest thing to a den she could find, ignoring the voices of her clanmates as they talked more about the prophecy and their impending doom. She decidedly, suddenly, that she was tired of that. Deciding to lie down and try to get some sleep, she hoped that things would seem less complicated the next morning.
…She should have been so lucky.
When she came to her senses, she was not where she had been a moment ago. She’d awoken in a flat, grassy plain. Behind her was a forest, but in front of her was a field awash with moonlight. She took several cautious steps forward, looking around. She hadn’t seen this place before, and certainly had no idea how she’d gotten there from Sunningrocks. In her sleep.
Just as she was beginning to figure out what was happening, a figure emerged from what seemed like out of nowhere. A cat with a pelt so silver it seemed to almost glow – and her fur was dotted with tiny stars. Her eyes, blue as a cloudless sky, were wide with alarm as she bounded out of the grass.
“Squirrelpaw!” She called. Squirrelpaw recognised the voice. It was impossible.
“Feathertail?” She hissed in alarm. “You’re dead!”
“I know.” Feathertail came to a halt in front of Squirrelpaw. “I- believe me, I know.”
“How are you…” Squirrelpaw trailed off as she scanned her surroundings a final time. “…This is a dream, isn’t it? And you’re being sent by StarClan?” She remembered the first StarClan dream she’d had, when Spottedleaf had shown her where her sister was being held captive. She hadn’t expected to be visited again so soon.
“Yes.” Panted Feathertail. “Yes, it is, and I don’t have much time.”
Instantly, Squirrelpaw was alert, a shudder of anticipation and fear running through her. “What is it?” She asked, craning over Feathertail’s shoulder as if she was going to see danger right behind her. Upon seeing this, Feathertail mrrowed in amusement before shaking her head as if to focus herself.
“Listen, Squirrelpaw.” She mewed, suddenly. Her voice had a strength to it that it had never had in life, and Squirrelpaw found herself compelled to pay attention for once. “There are some phenomena that even StarClan cannot control, and cannot prevent. The twolegs in the forest, they’re one example, but something else is happening as we speak.”
“What?” Squirrelpaw forced herself to stay instead of darting back into the woods and trying to wake up. “Something else-?”
“Yes.” Feathertail nodded. “You ought to be safe, and you ought to return eventually, but there is nothing we can do to prevent it from happening.”
“Prevent what?” Squirrelpaw begged. “I- Feathertail, you’re not making any sense!”
The she-cat’s face contorted into an expression of pity, and she hesitated before speaking again. As if what she wanted to say and what she was saying were two different things.
“All I can tell you is this: you cannot change the future.” She meowed. Her words rang, hitting Squirrelpaw’s ears like physical blows. “No matter what action you take, your future will remain as it is when you return.”
“What do you mean?” Squirrelpaw tried again. Instead of an answer, the wind around the two cats began to pick up, and Squirrelpaw felt herself be physically pushed backwards by the breeze. She gazed up at Feathertail a final time – the other cat was unaffected by the wind, and stood and watched Squirrelpaw struggle with a pained look on her face.
“Feathertail!” She called a final time, before being pushed back into the undergrowth. Her vision of Feathertail was cut off, and from then, she saw and felt nothing more than darkness and the howling wind.
She awoke with a start, panting heavily. It felt as though she’d been dropped back into her body for a great height, and there was a pain in her chest that forced her to stay where she was and pant instead of get up and find someone to talk to. Was that-? That had been a dream. A StarClan dream. She wondered idly if Brambleclaw and the other cats of the prophecy had had dreams as stressful as hers had been. It certainly would explain a lot. And Feathertail- oh, Feathertail! Instead of giving her closure, seeing the silver cat of the tribe’s prophecy again had just re-opened the wound. She bowed her head and stared at the stone beneath her paws as she tried to gather her thoughts.
“Feathertail… what were you trying to tell me?” She mused, before rising with a hiss. Her stomach growled in hunger. Blinking away sleep, she padded out of her den and jumped down to the base of Sunningrocks, not giving much thought to her actions. And it was then that she noticed something: there was no other cat there. Sunningrocks was deserted.
She began to look around. Cautiously at first, and then frantically, as panic began to overtake her. None of the clan was there – her father, her mother, Leafpaw, Brambleclaw, they had all seemingly disappeared into thin air. More than that, there was no sign that any cat had been there at all. The dens were empty, and the fresh-kill pile was gone. Squirrelpaw could only gaze in horror. What had happened? She didn’t know, but she felt very small. And very, very alone.
Panic seized her. Barely paying attention to what she was doing, or where her paws were taking her, she wheeled around and fled from Sunningrocks, paying no attention to the forest that looked as though it had miraculously restored itself from the damage inflicted upon it by the twolegs. Her instinct was taking her to the one place that, even now, she associated with safety.
The ThunderClan camp.
-
This was their vigil – the night when a new warrior guarded the Clan and reflected on his new name and status. Until last night, Fireheart had been known by his apprentice name of Firepaw…
Between the battle that he had fought in the previous day, and the night-long vigil he had sat through in the biting cold of air with no sun to warm it, Fireheart was so ridden with fatigue than it took moments longer than it normally would have to pick up on the sounds that were quickly drawing closer. Ears pricked, he straightened himself up, focusing on the rustling sounds indicating that something was heading directly for their camp.
He wondered for a moment if he was just being overly-suspicious – with only him and Greystripe, his best friend and ThunderClan’s other new warrior, on guard, he had been straining to detect anything out of the ordinary for most of the night. Perhaps he was being paranoid, and had simply heard a piece of prey straying too close to the camp. However, as the noises came closer, his suspicions were confirmed. Whatever was moving towards them, it sounded too big to be prey – it was probably a cat, even if it sounded as though there was only one.
Glancing at Greystripe, he saw that his friend was already alert as well, claws unsheathed and hackles raised as he stared at the camp entrance. Behind him, Fireheart could just make out the shapes of his clanmates in their dens. One or two were moving, but most were still asleep. He felt a rush of determined energy. “I will protect my clanmates”, he promised to himself before turning his attention back to whatever was coming from the forest.
The leaves rustled a final time, and then bursting through the entrance to the camp came a small ginger she-cat, who stumbled to a halt as she entered the camp and stared around with wild green eyes. Not willing to waste a moment, Fireheart leapt through the air and onto the intruder, trying to pin her down – but whoever she was, she wry and strong despite her size, and Fireheart soon found himself kicked away as she fought back with an indignant shriek. As his back slammed against the ground, he heard Greystripe yowl in alarm, and just had time to wonder if it was against the warrior code to call for help while on vigil before he was pinned to the ground by the snarling she-cat.
“Back off!” She hissed, eyes burning with a fury that made him pause. “I don’t know who you think you are, sneaking around in… ThunderClan… territory…” she trailed off at the end of her sentence. Fireheart couldn’t understand why, but he wasn’t going to question his enemy losing their motivation mid-fight. He was about to throw her off when she choked out:
“Father?”