The Next Day: An Unpublished Bonus Chapter 40 From Hollyleaf's Redemption
This would take place shortly before Brambleclaw's leader ceremony which was put at the end of chapter 39, instead of after this in a separarte chapter.
Dawn
The sun was rising. Two days before, the long war with the Dark Forest had finally ended. Bodies still littered the ground along with rubble, though, as there'd been no time to find them all. Most cats were uncertain of what to do, and hesitant as they emerged from their dens.
The sunrise had never been so beautiful. It was full of reds and pinks and violets and oranges. It was ironic, some thought, that so beautiful a sunrise would come so soon after so much destruction, that beauty would shine and illuminate the destruction left to the broken clans, the spilled blood staining the ground, the dead, broken, unburried bodies of fallen friends, kin, and clanmates.
This was what most cats thought. But not what they all thought.
To others it was symbolic. A sign of hope and a new age. A time of terror was now at an end, and the sunrise was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Beauty could come from horror, life could come from death. Love could come from hate and evil.
These were the thoughts Blackstar had as he emerged from his den to see the sunrise.
"This is horribly ironic," he heard a cat mutter. "A beautiful sunrise to illuminate death and destruction."
For a moment, Blackstar agreed with the cat. Until a thought struck him. There was still life, still hope. Not all was lost. They had won, after all.
Not all was lost. Cats had survived, the clans had survived. They now had peace.
"Not all is lost," he yowled, making his way up to the high branch. The ShadowClan cats turned to look at him. "Not all is lost," he repeated. "We still live, there is life yet. And love! This sunrise is symbolic!" he yowled. "Symbolic of a new age! A new time! A peace time! We have won! The Dark Forest is defeated now, our homes safe again!" He looked down at his clan, and watched Petaltail, the only queen in the clan at the moment, reaach the nursery entrance, having brought his kits along with her own to the nursery entrance. The kits were very young still. The hope of the clan now, as all kits always were. "A new dawn for the clans," he meowed. "A new dawn."
And it was. They would recover eventually. It would take time, true, but one day they would be whole again. The wounds of war were deep, but not so deep that they would never heal. One day, the clans would look back with pride at how their ancestors had made a stand against darkness and won. How the six - Five clans and one tribe - had become one under the Tribe of Endless Hunting and StarClan, and had vanquished evil. This day was a new day.
It was a new dawn for the clans.