Hokai. So this fic takes place after Sunset. I haven't figured out exactly when this chapter happens but at least six moons after the Prologue since Sun and Star are both apprentices. Or in Star's case a to-be… but whatever. And the Prologue happened before Stormfur and Brook left the Tribe. OMG I'm really sorry if the timeline is confusing! Really! But it will all make sense. I hope.
Disclaimer: This is an original story based off the series Warriors by Erin Hunter. I do not own Warriors, but this fanfic, its plot, and any original characters or locations I add in I do own.
Chapter One: Dreams
Sunpaw padded through the sun-dappled forest, stalking a fat squirrel he had scented near the abandoned Twoleg nest. This was the first time he would be hunting, ever, since his apprentice ceremony had been the day before. The young cat was excited and he didn't want to lose this squirrel. His mentor might be displeased if he made a mistake and Sunpaw didn't want to upset Ravenfeather on the first day of training.
He saw a bush at the corner of his eye shiver and scented the air. He was downwind of the squirrel so it didn't scent him but he could smell it in the bush. He dropped into the hunters crouch and followed the scent into the bush going silently so the squirrel wouldn't hear him and run. Sunpaw emerged from the bush to see the squirrel was with his back to him, eating a chestnut. He was about to spring when a cat emerged from the sunlight at the other end of the small clearing.
It was larger than any cat he had seen, much larger. Its fur was striped with black. But it was made of sunlight and shadow, mixing to create the pattern on his fur. Was he getting a vision, like the ones the medicine cats got? He was frozen to the spot as the vision cat padded towards him on its huge paws. He looked at the sky and saw that the daylight had turned to stars. They were coming closer and closer spiraling toward him – or was he flying upward to meet them? The cat was close to him now, watching him with its eyes like liquid gold. On its forehead the stripes on his fur spiraled together to make a mark like a flame, almost identical to Sunpaw's. A voice echoed in the young apprentice's head.
As the Ice moon rises, the Fire will fall from the sky.
Sunpaw woke panting in the apprentices den. He was in his nest – it had been nothing but a very vivid dream. A dream that had been happening more and more often, always the same. It was a memory of his first day of training. He had hunted a squirrel but seen that vision, and while he was frozen his prey had bolted. The dream was an exact replica of what happened, but why? Why was it happening to him? Why did the dream keep repeating? Was it trying to tell him something? He'd heard of medicine cats getting such dreams from StarClan, but he wasn't a medicine cat. And Leafpool only got visions once, after all. Maybe he should ask her about it when she woke up.
Sunpaw tried to go back to sleep, but his mind kept looping back to the dream and the cat. Hadn't he heard of those cats in his mother's tales? They were one of the noble species of cats that came before cats like Sunpaw. The cat was a…tiger?
Far, far away from where Sunpaw puzzled over his recurring dream, another cat slept in a cave behind a waterfall, deep in the mountains. Star where Spirits Rest had expected to be anxious about her to-be ceremony tomorrow, but she slept as soundly as she ever had. With the waterfall's sound in her ears, Star began to dream.
She was walking across the snow-covered ground of the mountains. The snow was up to her haunches and she shivered. Blizzard winds swirled all around her, forcing her ears back against her head. She narrowed her eyes against the stinging pieces of sleet and plodded on.
Suddenly the wind abated and the snows stopped. She was on a mountaintop that poked through the clouds. It was covered in glittering snow. The stars seemed closer than ever before, and streams of light weaved slowly across the sky like the waves of the legendary ocean. Her mother, Brook where Small Fish Swim, had told her of these lights. They appeared only in the far north, and were where the spirits of all those who died went to watch over the living.
The wind picked up, swirling snow around a certain part of the mountaintop. When it died down, Star saw a cat standing there, across from her. But it was not an ordinary cat like the ones from the Tribe of Rushing Water. It was enormous; its fur white as the purest snow, but it was covered in spots like liquid night. Star noted with wonder that it was not solid – it was made of the snow and ice particles and the moonlight that shone from above. Its eyes were pure icy blue, and on its forehead there was a mark just like the one on Star's forehead that Brook had named her for – a star. The cat began speaking. Star didn't know how she knew it was, because its mouth had not moved. Its voice seemed to echo in her head.
As the Ice moon rises, the Fire will fall from the sky.
Star woke in her nest. The familiar roar of the waterfall was in her ears, as well as the sleeping breaths of the other cats in the Tribe. The dream had come again. The spirits of the dead cats were giving her a message, but what? Did it have something to do with her to-be ceremony? Surely not. Why, then would she be in the far north? And who was the cat across from her, the one made of snow? She got up and padded to the cave entrance and stepped out onto the ledge behind the waterfall. She followed it until it emerged onto the cliffside and leaped down the rocks to the banks of the river.
Amid the churning water she found somewhere still enough so she could examine the star shaped mark on her forehead, as she had done many times before. But this time, when she looked in the water, her face was framed by a halo of moonlight. It danced on the water's surface. As Star looked on, her reflection changed into the face of the cat from her dreams.
She jumped back in alarm. The cat…she had become the cat. No, not a cat. A snow leopard. Her face had turned into the snow leopard. She sprinted back up the rocks to the cave and settled into her nest. As much as she needed to sleep for tomorrow, she had too much on her mind to even think of it now.
As the Ice moon rises, the Fire will fall from the sky.
A/N: So…weird dreams. Because what kind of Warriors fic would this be without weird dreams? And not the kind of weird with llamas eating Bleu cheese and singing the Badger Badger Badger song, the Prophecy from StarClan kind of weird! And who are those two cats whose marks are exactly like Sunpaw and Star's? And what's that that sounds like a prophecy at the end of their dreams? Oooh, le plot thickens…