1A/N: I am aware that there is another story featuring a Sunkit. My story is completely disconnected from that one. I began writing this before I knew that a story already featured a Sunkit. So...any resemblance between my Sunkit and the other one is entirely coincidental. And, obviously, any plot resemblance is coincidental.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Warriors. I do, however, own the characters in this fanfiction.
Summary: A new prophecy has risen in the forest. On the day a half-blooded kit is born, StarClan makes the proclamation; are the birth of the kit and the prophecy connected? As she grows, Sunkit finds she holds abilities beyond those of the ordinary...
Sunkit.
That was what her mother had named her. Her pelt shone golden-red, flaming as the sun as it descended in time for twilight. Many of the cats of ThunderClan commented that Sunkit, even as a youngster, looked like the great Firestar when he lived. Even her eyes, a deep, shimmering emerald-green, mirrored those of the cat whose name was passed down generation to generation.
But Sunkit was not given the honor that Firestar received in his lifetime. Rather, for much of her early life, she was shunned. In that way she was also like Firestar; many of the other cats were prejudiced against her. But Sunkit was no kittypet; no, she was half ThunderClan.
And that was why they shunned her.
Her mother was Roseleaf, a small tortoiseshell queen who had been born in ThunderClan. Roseleaf was a skilled warrior before she moved into the nursery, and she was known among the other Clans for her efficiency in battle. Despite her small size, Roseleaf possessed strength enough to bowl over a warrior half again her size with a blow from one forepaw. She was well-liked in her Clan, and had rigidly followed the warrior code from kithood.
Until she took a mate outside the Clan.
All ThunderClan knew about the tom who had fathered Sunkit was that he was a long-bodied, thin gray tom. A loner. Why a loner had chosen to father a kit he would most likely never set eyes upon was unknown to ThunderClan. He kept hold over a swath of territory a little beyond the borders of the Clan's new home, the home beyond the mountains. He had been present when Roseleaf gave birth to her single kit, because the queen had crept out of the nursery, across ThunderClan territory, and to the edge of the Clan's border. Snowwind, a long-haired white queen also in the nursery, had been first to notice the absence of Roseleaf. When the patrol found the she-cat, she was on the very edge of Clan territory, a thin gray stranger by her side, a red-golden kit nestled to her belly fur.
The loner had fled before the patrol could chase him off, licking Roseleaf on her cheek and whispering in her ear before he turned tail and ran. Then Roseleaf picked her kit up by its scruff, and, holding her head high, led the three-cat patrol back to the camp. Her amber glare had dared them to even mew, and so they followed after her in silence.
Once in camp, all had been explained to Lightningstar by Roseleaf. The kit was permitted to stay, as was Roseleaf, but Lightningstar could not tell the Clan how to feel about either of them.
The kit had been born at sundown, the time when the sky was painted in fiery reds and blazing golds.
;-;-;-;
On the night following the birth and naming of Sunkit, a dark gray tabby tom lay curled in his nest. The tabby was Treeshadow, ThunderClan's medicine cat. His orange eyes were shut tight in sleep. He dreamt of running through the forest, racing with the fleet wind. Ferns danced as his body hit them-a body with as much muscle as any warrior. Flecks of moss flew behind him as his claws, extended for better grip, ripped through the thick patches. He slowed his pace, twisting his neck up to see through the leafy oak boughs. Stars glimmered in the sky.
The dream changed. He stood alone, in a vast cavern that yawned on and on with unending blackness. Fierce, biting winds pummeled him from all sides. He was aware of the presence of the StarClan warriors standing around him, and slowly they became visible. Visible, but still translucent. Ears pricked, Treeshadow leaned forward to listen as they whispered to him.
His fur bristled with unease. "What do you mean?" he hissed to his ancestors. "Do you speak of the kit?"
But his ancestors would not answer. They pushed him with their noses, urging him back to the living world.
Treeshadow jerked his head up. He clambered out of his den, which was made from a fallen tree's thick, entwined branches forming a hollow. He shook scraps of grass from his coat and glanced skyward. It was past moonhigh. Should he wake Lightningstar now, or wait until dawn to tell him what StarClan spoke of? Unease pricked his fur, and he made the decision to wake his leader now.
Padding across the camp, a wide circle of sweet grass surrounded by towering oaks. He paused at the entrance to Lightningstar's den, which was a sheltered space created by overhanging, thickly twined branches of a weeping willow tree that grew alongside the stream. The stream murmured with its recent release from the leaf-bare ice.
"Lightningstar," he hissed, poking his head through the long branches.
At once, a head lifted from a nest. Eyes glowed unearthly green in the moonlight that fell through the branches. "Yes, Treeshadow? I hope this is important."
Treeshadow nodded. "Yes, Lightningstar. Quite." He padded under the willow. "StarClan spoke to me."
Lightningstar's ears pricked. "What did they say?"
"A prophecy." Treeshadow swallowed. It had been a long time since a prophecy had risen in the forest. "They told me, 'Shadow, ice, and fang will come together and form a darkness that can be penetrated only by the fire of the sun.'"
Lightningstar frowned, and his black-and-white coat rippled as he sat up. "By 'fire of the sun', do you think they mean Roseleaf's kit? You heard what she named her."
The gray tabby shrugged. "StarClan did not explain it to me," he mewed. "I will go to the Silverstone at the quarter moon. Perhaps then they will elaborate."
As the two friends sat in silence, wondering, a flaming comet blazed overhead, and StarClan watched a newborn kit, golden-red in color, as it slept, nestled against its mother's belly.
StarClan watched.
;-;-;-;
And the stars shining through the darkness,
Falling in the air.
-Enya, Fallen Embers