Prologue: Rusty
"Fireheart! Fireheart!"
The chants rang in the leader's ears, and he smiled.
They were only echoes, of course, and he knew it. But that didn't make him any less nostalgic about it. It was the same with the visions—He was walking through a forest, beside a river. And there was a ridge and stones toppled upon one another...
ThunderClan's rusty leader closed his eyes and let the memory swallow him whole, like prey. The faces around him, anxious, upset, miserable already, dissolved as he walked through the old forest, before the Great Journey, before the threads of so many stories and so many cats had gotten tangled in each other, when he had been just a stressed deputy, a worried warrior, an eager apprentice...
They watched him as he curled more tightly, and his voice escaped him, rasping and rusted, as if his words had been sitting in the sun for too long.
"Cats..." he began, smiling again to himself as if sharing a private joke, "Of ThunderClan..." He gave a rasping chuckle. "I gathered you here today to tell you how... honored I have been to lead you. You haven't been submissive minions who carry out my dirty work... and for that I am unendingly grateful. You always managed to pose the other side of the argument and make me think about things first, and even when I wanted to slit your throats, that was a like gift from StarClan.
"But it wasn't a gift from StarClan. It was a gift from you. There are no cats I'd rather have had fighting beside me, and now that the end of this journey has come, I can thank you all properly," he sighed, and closed his eyes. The eyes of the cats watching were wide and sad, their shoulders low and their tails limp on the ground. None of them had known a ThunderClan without this rust-colored tom woven into the fabric somewhere. Now that certainty was getting shaken and toppled.
Firestar knew it, and he opened his eyes again to stare at the cats surrounding him. Absorbing them all. They were nothing like any of the cats he had known when he'd been a kittypet. They were nothing like Smudge or Harry...
He smiled at the odd way his mind was casting back to the very beginning now, at the very end of nine lives...
"This last battle," he continued in a rasp, "left us all beaten. Some of us beyond the point of return. Myself included. I know that our deputy feels up to the task of leadership," he said, flicking his tail vaguely at the tom. Absently he wondered why she-cats were never deputy in ThunderClan. Only Bluestar had ever... "Since we lost... so many of our number... it has been hard... and... I just wanted you all to know... and to remember... always... that I hope StarClan will light your path... but it is you who sets your paws on it in the beginning."
Murmurs swept through the circle, sad ones. He relaxed then, and just before closing his eyes, he watched his deputy. A proud, strong warrior, ready to face the leadership approaching him. Once, Firestar might have considered him young, but he had no doubts now.
And yet, in a sea of faces, that tom was the only one whose head was not bowed. And he was the only one with a faint trace of a sneer lurking around his whiskers.
But then the darkness swallowed him entirely.
He didn't know, of course, it came too quickly. He did know, on the other hand, that he was now falling.
Into something deep and endless, he tumbled, calm and accepting of his fate in the future. He wasn't approaching any future anymore, he decided, but whatever was going to happen to his spirit, he was ready.
Or so he thought.
Black. Dark. Empty. That was what he was falling through. Or so he thought.
"Wrong again!" squawked a voice. His spiritual stomach clenched. "Wrong, wrong, wrong Firestar!" it shrieked. "Guess again!" It was the voice he had hoped so long to forget. How had it followed him here?
"What do you mean?" ThunderClan's former leader demanded, swiveling his head as the nothingness rushed past him. "Why do you keep coming back? Have I done something wrong?"
"Yes!" cawed the crow, flapping close enough to Firestar's spirit that he could feel the creature's wings near him. It was too dark to see. "You answered all the questions wrong! You thought wrong! You didn't even think! Can't you see?" It wasn't cackling like it usually did. It sounded angry, disappointed, even hurt. "Can't you see? I've been trying to warn you!"
"About what?" yelled Firestar, a knot of panic twisting inside him. Where was StarClan? Wasn't he supposed to go there?
"Not to get all nestled in!" it shrieked. "Not to get comfy! I tried to test you, send you the nightmares, make you insecure! So you wouldn't get attached! That just makes it hurt more when you find out!"
"Find—out—what?!" snarled the leader, lashing his paw out.
"You'll find out soon enough," it said, and Firestar heard the wings pull away and the haunting caws vanish one last time, "Rusty."
Firestar's eyes widened. What?
Then he hit the ground.
The ground was hard and slippery, rubbery on its surface but very firm. And it hurt. That didn't make sense. He was dead! what would—
Suddenly, it hurt a lot more. He writhed, feeling like something was pulling him together from the inside, compressing him. It was like drowning, shoved down and unable to reach the surface again.
Slowly, the feeling passed. He felt weak and beaten, and there was a light pressing against his eyelids. Bright. Slowly, Rusty opened his eyes.
Author's Note:
This one is going to be confusing, and yes, it is supposed to be. Also, it will be short. It includes many a spoiler for all of the books up to Long Shadows, and also my predictions for the coming books. I'm not so sure about this one, so remember to review and let me know what you think.
Thanks, Mo0ny
