Chapter Seven

"What are you thinking?" Shadowlion startled Darkstar out of his thoughts. He had been sitting on top of the camp watching the sun rise.

"Just thinking about us, the humans we used to be. How we all used to play and laugh as we carelessly wandered our little town. How we used to play silly games and they never really meant anything. But then we had to try going that one step further, playing a warriors game out in the woods." Darkstar sighed. "And then everything changed."

"Maybe so," Shadowlion conceded. "But the spirit never died. Any of the humans turned cat would still do what you asked them, simply because it's you asking. This was true before we turned into cats and you became leader and it's still true now, even for the Winterclan cats."

"Do you really think so?"

"Of course I do." After a moment, Shadowlion stood and shook the chill from her fur. "Come on, let's get some sleep." Darkstar walked her to her nest but stopped her next to it with a touch of his tail.

"Will you, share my nest. I get cold, sleeping so close to the exit." The heartbeat that Shadowlion hesitated before answering felt like an eternity to the anxious Darkstar.

"Alright." Shadowlion shrugged but she also smiled and followed Darkstar to his nest at the front of the camp.

Darkstar woke, rested and happy, just after sunset that night. Shadowlion was still asleep and he spent a moment watching her flank rise and fall gently with each breath, the tips of her dark fur catching the last of the light.

As he slid carefully away from Shadowlion, Dawnbranch approached him.

"Darkstar?" She asked.

"Yeah?"

"A couple of Thunderclan cats found my patrol along that border today and said that they wanted to talk to you. I told them they'd have to come back after sunset and we agreed that they'd wait by that big oak tree. They called it the Ancient Oak."

"Alright. I guess I ought to go meet them then." He stretched and shook out his fur before looking around. "Hey, Sandpelt!" He called as the odd-eyed tom stood up.

"Hmm?"

"We're meeting some Thunderclan cats on the border."

"Who's 'we'?" Sandpelt asked as Darkstar approached.

"You, me, and Cloudpaw."

"Okay. Why?"

"I'm not sure yet but we'll see." Darkstar poked Cloudpaw with a paw while he spoke. Once the apprentice was awake, Darkstar led them out to the Thunderclan border.

As Dawnbranch had said, two cats were sitting underneath a large oak. The gray and white tom was crunching on some small land animal; a mouse or vole, and the dark cream she-cat was sitting up straight and staring into Fireclan territory. Her ears pricked up and she muttered something to her clanmate when Darkstar stepped out of the shadows.

"You asked to talk to me?" Darkstar asked.

"I'm Rosepetal and this is Mousewhisker. Millie said that you told Graystripe's patrol that Thunderclan cats could come here to train?" The cream-furred cat said.

"That's not quite what I said but yeah. I take it the two of you wanted to spar?"

"These days, any extra training seems like a good idea." Mousewhisker responded.

"That's true. My clan could always use some more also. We'll have to figure out a schedule, however, as there are certain clan duties that need to be done periodically."

"Of course." Rosepetal replied. "Would you be willing to train now?"

Darkstar glanced back at his clanmates to check their response. When neither objected, he returned his focus to the Thunderclan cats.

"I suppose we could." He agreed. Sandpelt sat back to watch as Darkstar and Cloudpaw fought with the two Thunderclanners but after a while he began offering suggestions to both sides. Not long after that, rustling in the undergrowth on the Fireclan side caught everyone's attention.

Shadowlion and Dustpaw stepped forward from behind a large bracken fern.

"Dawnbranch told us that you'd gone to meet some Thunderclan cats. I wanted to make sure there was no trouble."

"Thanks. But we're fine. They just wanted someone new to spar with. You remember the border fight Badgerswipe and I got into yesterday? Apparently my comment afterward was carried back to the Thunderclan camp."

"Okay. Just, do be careful."

"We are." Darkstar said, understanding her double meaning. Before he could return to the fight, four Thunderclan cats arrived. Brambleclaw led a dark brown tabby tom, a pale silver tom with black stripes, and a gray and white she-cat into view.

"What's going on?" Brambleclaw asked Rosepetal. She licked her lips slowly and Darkstar recognized this as a way to give her time to think of a response.

"We were sparring." He told the Thunderclan deputy. Brambleclaw glanced at Darkstar to acknowledge his answer before focusing on Mousewhisker. Mousewhisker looked away.

"Are your clanmates not enough to train with? Was it necessary to show a rival clan our tactics?"

"We didn't show them any more than they would have learned in a real battle." Rosethorn argued.

"They didn't need to learn even that much." The dark brown tabby scolded her.

"But Dustpelt–" She began. Brambleclaw cut her off.

"Come on. We're going back to camp."

"You know," Darkstar called to him. "We have no problem with training with cats from other clans. As long as every cat is careful, no secret attacks need be revealed and no one need get hurt. I find that if I only train with a specific few cats, I learn how they'll react to me and they learn how I react to them. Doing it that way, none of us gets any better. It's helpful to have new cats to train with every now and again."

"Be that as it may, the decision lies with Firestar; not with our younger warriors." Then the Thunderclan cats were gone and Darkstar was left alone with his clanmates.

"Sandpelt, d'you want to take the apprentices and hunt?"

"Sure." Sandpelt agreed before leading Cloudpaw and Dustpaw away.

Shadowlion and Darkstar took a circuitous route to camp and didn't get there until a little before Sandpelt, Cloudpaw, and Dustpaw. Badgerswipe approached Darkstar as he and Shadowlion walked in.

"I found out why we found the scent of the gray-furred Thunderclan cat on our territory."

"Oh? How come?"

"She and a Shadowclan tom were meeting each other just outside the border opposite the lake."

"Alright. Well, them meeting each other is between them and their leaders but if anyone finds either of them on our territory, we'll chase them back to their own."

"I'll spread it around." Badgerswipe promised.

"Thanks. What does the tom look like?"

"He's a dark brown tabby with amber eyes."

"Tell our clanmates that also. That way we know what to look for."

Badgerswipe twitched her tail in acknowledgement and wandered off to talk with Crimsonclaw. Nightshade looked up as Darkstar sat in his nest to groom and meandered over to him, stopping to talk to a few other cats on her way.

"What's up?"

"I found out more about our past family."

"Cool! What'd you find?"

"Lavenderflame had a sister named Silverflame. Sunfish's mate was named Beetlenose and he had two sisters; Petaldust and Voleclaw. Beetlenose's parents were Hailstar and Echomist. Voleclaw was the mother of Minnowpaw, Brighttalon, Silverstar, and Wolffang."

"So Brighttalon, Silverstar, and Wolffang are our sort of cousins?"

"Kendra also, yeah."

"I knew Brighttalon was too much like family to not be."

Nightshade purred a laugh before responding. "I can't say I ever really knew him well enough to think that. Do you think I should tell Silverstar that Wolffang used to be her brother?"

After some thought, Darkstar finally figured out how to respond. "Do so at your own discretion."

"All right. Well, I'm going to try to get some more sleep before dawn."

"'Kay. Good night."

"Night."