Also as promised, another chapter featuring our dear Willowshine! She's freaking amazing. I love her, especially in scenes like this. I'm a little worried I forgot to be adequately afraid, but that's okay, right? Anyways, Willowshine is back!

I don't own anything that appears in a Warriors book. These are mostly my original ideas, so I'd appreciate if no replica fics appeared, but otherwise, yeah, I own nothing but thoughts.

Enjoy!


Chapter 8

The "home of sunbeam," as Dark had called it, was a circular section of flat stone pressed into the earth as if kneaded there. Willowshine followed the foxes down a steep slope and into the hollow, her breath taken away. No trees were here, but they descended so far that the bushes above them may as well have been trees. The sun gleamed down into the hollow, marking one of the many stones that had been lit up around the circular slab. Willowshine at once felt the touch of something that felt very much like StarClan.

Anger took a seat at the fringe of the slab while the reddish she-fox wandered deep into the middle. Willowshine rested on the slope until Dark came up behind her. All of Willowshine's fear had faded away until Anger turned his dark, scrutinizing eyes on her, and then she swallowed and bent low once again. Her body was getting used to this form.

"This is the home of sunbeam," said Dark, standing on the edge of the hollow between Willowshine and the exit. "The sun shows the pack the path ahead. The moon shows the pack the path behind. Snap is alpha female. She knows way of the sun and moon more than any fox."

Willowshine watched as Snap, who she assumed was like the medicine cat, move fluidly around the circle, her eyes half-closed as she glided through the space, touching each stone on the side with the pads of her paws. She returned to the center and tilted her long nose up to the sky. The sun splashed onto her fur in such a way that she actually looked lovely. Willowshine watched, fascinated. It was so unlike StarClan, but she felt that something special was happening all the same.

Then Snap turned and sat in the center of the circle and called out something in a coo. Dark's ears swiveled as she took in the noise.

"Willow Shine, do you see the way of the sun?"

Willowshine did not know how to reply, but she crouched low again and touched her nose in between her paws. She didn't dare touch the slab between the stones. The sun was like the future, right? Or was there something she was supposed to be seeing?

"The home of sunbeam is very nice," said Willowshine. "I see that there is something holy in this place."

"Ho-ly?" Dark sounded out the word.

"From the sky," said Willowshine, not really sure how to explain. "Beyond the living."

"Yes," said Dark, nodding. "Home of sunbeam is ho-ly." She relayed the message to Snap. The alpha female (whatever that meant) murmured something in response. Then Dark tentatively took a step into the ring of stones before turning to face Willowshine.

"I am told to tell you story of pack," said Dark. "We are bound by code of sun and moon. The sun shows the pack the path ahead. The moon shows the pack the path behind. Pack has known this for whole era. Pack once lived in lake, many, many foxes, many sunrise ago. Some of pack stay near home of sunbeam. Some of pack stay near pool of moonbeam. Much of pack stay near grove of sunrise. At grove of sunrise, there are six trees and stone interior. Only those blessed by sun and moon linger. Only those who can see the sun dust can stay. One day, a fox called Justice who could not see sun dust entered grove of sunrise and tore holes in the trees. Tore leaves from trees. Tore roots up." Dark shook her head. "Sun and moon are home of ancestors. To tear roots up is to ruin pack. It is blasphemy. So sun and moon bound Justice to trees, and rain came and swelled grove of sunrise, and instead of grove of sunrise, there was lake. It is ancestor…" She paused, sensing around for the word.

"Tears?" said Willowshine, gesturing her eyes. Dark nodded.

"It is ancestor tears, yes. So sun and moon say to alpha female that Pack must go, Pack must travel many times around world until ashes stirred. When ashes stir, Pack must come back to home of sunbeam and pool of moonbeam."

Pool of moonbeam can only be the Moonpool. Nodding, Willowshine dipped her head.

"I see," she said. "Yes, Pack should return to home of sunbeam. I see that this place is holy."

"Yes, it is holy," agreed Dark, relaying the conversation to Anger and Snap. "And ashes stir, so Pack must return and take lake back."

"May I tell you my story?" said Willowshine. "Of Clan?"

"Of Clan?"

"Clan is my Pack," said Willowshine. Dark asked the question to Snap, who nodded and said something else in her soft voice. Dark stood and walked to the fringe of the slab.

"All teller of story must stand in home of sunbeam, so their voice may be heard by sun and moon," said Dark. "Even you, Willow Shine."

Anger muttered something as Willowshine placed her paws on the slab, and then she carefully walked a few tail-lengths in. Snap did not move as she walked in between the stones. She walked about as far as Dark had been and sat down, trying to see all three of the foxes and the exit. She had to make them understand that their culture was important, too. And she didn't know if there were really fox ancestor spirits in the sun and the moon, but she knew there were cat spirits in Silverpelt, so it did make sense. Not every animal had StarClan, so why not the sun and the moon?

Willowshine thought out the story in the simplest of terms, so Dark could understand and translate. She picked her words carefully and began.

"Many sunrises ago, our Clans did not live by the lake," she said. "We lived in a forest far away, over the mountains." She indicated mountains with her paws. Dark was quietly translating so Snap and Anger could understand. All of the foxes were fixated on her, and the light around her was now dazzling. "Our ancestors stay in the stars. Then came a prophecy: holy words sent by our ancestors. They sent the Clans across the mountain to the lake and showed us the Moonpool. I think it is the same as your pool of moonbeam. The Moonpool was the place where the medicine cats, like me, could drink from and hear the ancestors in our dreams. We gather there every half-moon." She took a deep breath. "Our ancestors moved from the old forest to the stars here, because this is the home they meant for us to find." She blinked. "We must obey their wisdom, so we stay."

Dark finished translating the story, and Willowshine picked her way out of the stone circle. She couldn't explain how she felt, standing in the middle of the stone. Not like StarClan was with her, but like something was. Maybe this was the touch of the fox ancestors. How was she able to meet with them?

Anger said something, and Dark turned to Willowshine.

"Do you say that cats use pool of moonbeam?" Her voice was pitched just so. Willowshine nodded carefully. Anger stiffened.

"But not all the time," she said. "Only when the moon is half-full. When it is half of the moon."

Dark expressed this, and Snap replied.

"What if Pack stay around pool of moonbeam?" she said. "What if Pack stay around home of sunbeam and pool of moonbeam? Pack would not have to bother Clan. Clan would not have to bother Pack."

A crippling wave of relief shook Willowleaf, and she almost broke down in tears. She suddenly realized that it was the home of sunbeam that was making her feel less nervous, because she was afraid. She was very afraid.

"We want Pack to live in land," she said, which wasn't entirely true. "Our Clans will welcome the Pack as long as Pack does not hunt our prey and come into our land." Dark expressed this. Anger said something very quickly, standing up, his fur beginning to rise. Dark turned back to Willowshine, who was starting to feel like she liked Snap a lot better than she liked Anger.

"Anger will not allow Clan to enter Pack land," she said. "Pack will take this land, the land pack is in now. Pack will also take pool of moonbeam and land around it."

"May we send our medicine cats into the pool of moonbeam when the moon is at half?" said Willowshine. She dipped her head low to Snap and Anger, then looked up. "It would be Pack land, but a few cats like me – weak cats, cats that do not fight – would enter to speak to stars. That is all."

She spoke quickly, knowing that her grammar was failing and not really caring. If they understood her request…if they approved her request…Willowshine made a prayer to every StarClan warrior she knew the name of that they would make some sort of agreement with the foxes in the sun and the moon and make this all better. She couldn't believe it. The foxes weren't in RiverClan territory as it well, and if they moved up to the Moonpool, the worst that could happen was that they would very slightly touched WindClan and ThunderClan land. But that was so slight. It wouldn't matter, not if it stopped a war, right? Even the Pack would want that.

Anger and Snap spoke back and forth for a long time, Anger in his shrill voice and Snap in her gentle one. Dark understood, her ears tilting forward, but she did not speak. Willowshine wondered after the hierarchy in this place. Dark had called Snap the alpha female, which had to be like their medicine cat, and Anger was very clearly the leader. But no one else had a place, except Dark and the other translator fox had somehow learned to speak cat. Which was also terrifying in its own right, but at this moment, Willowshine was so grateful for Dark and her newfound love of their simple words like holy and Clan.

"May I ask what they are saying?" said Willowshine in a quiet voice, hoping the alpha and the leader would not hear her. Dark flicked her long ears.

"Anger is alpha male and Snap is alpha female," she said. "Anger does not like cats on land of Pack. Anger thinks Pack should have all land. Snap does not mind letting cats talk to stars."

Go, Snap, win! Willowshine knew that in a debate between Mothwing and Mistystar, in the end, Mothwing would win. Even with Mothwing's beliefs, there was no way to doubt that all medicine cats were chosen by StarClan to be the closest representatives of StarClan there were. So Mothwing would win the fight. She didn't know how things worked here, in the world of the Pack, but she desperately hoped that things were the same. Snap knew the sun and the moon, didn't she? So she had more authority than Anger, didn't she?

In the end, Anger sat back, furious, and Snap flicked her ear and licked the ruffled fur on her chest before speaking. Dark then turned to Willowshine.

"The Pack will have this land around the home of sunbeam, and the Pack will have the land around the pool of moonbeam. Only cats that will not fight will be able to enter the pool of moonbeam, and only when moon is half. Snap will also observe Clan on day of half-moon to watch as cats meet stars."

Willowshine didn't know how to ask for more, so she just nodded and once again bent as low as she could. Snap said something.

"Snap says that sun and moon like Willow Shine," said Dark. "Snap says that Willow Shine is a cat that knows stars, and so Willow Shine is like alpha female, but Willow Shine is also very good at being like weak fox."

"Thank you," said Willowshine. "I will take this agreement back to my leader and discuss."

"Willow Shine is not alpha?" was the next question. Willowshine shook her head.

"There are four Clans," said Willowshine. "My Clan is only one of them, and in it, I am only the younger medicine cat." Dark tried to convey this. Anger asked a question.

"Anger asks if you can make deal?"

"I am the messenger," said Willowshine.

"Messenger?" said Dark. Willowshine nodded.

"I take words from Pack to Clan and words from Clan to Pack," she said. "Messenger."

"Messenger," agreed Dark. She told this to Snap and Anger. Anger stood up from the edge and lashed his tail, snapping his jaws quickly together.

"Anger says you must tell him what Clan says," said Dark. Anger spoke again. "I will meet you at the line between Clan land and Pack land in two sunrises."

"Yes," said Willowshine, although her heart sank at the prospect of having to come back. "I will come."

Anger added something.

"He will not be happy if Clan does not like this," said Dark. "Anger does not want to stay near cats. Anger thinks that Pack could kill all cats." She blinked twice. "Snap will stop him. Sun and moon think stars are holy."

"The stars will think that the sun and moon are holy, too," said Willowshine. She knew she couldn't speak for StarClan, but she was going to try. Dark moved aside to let Willowshine start up the ridge towards the main clearing again. As soon as Willowshine got to all four paws, she realized how furiously afraid she was. Anger thinks that Pack could kill all cats.

"You may go back to Clan now," said Dark. "I will tell Pack to take you back to Clan land."

"Thank you," said Willowshine, bowing low to Snap and Anger again. Then she walked in front of Dark up the slope, hating every second that Anger's eyes watched her travel up to the main clearing. Dark opened the flap for her.

"I should speak for Anger and Snap and not Dark," said Dark quietly, turning back to Willowshine. "But Dark likes Willow Shine. Dark thinks that Clan must say yes to this, or Anger will not listen to Snap. Clan must be…"

"We'll be careful," said Willowshine. She bowed to Dark. "Thank you, Dark."

"Willowshine!" It took all Willowshine had in her not to run to Flametail and Whitefeather. Dark said something to the other foxes, and they began to lead, with the brown-furred translator in the back. They started to leave camp.

"What happened?" said Dawnpelt.

"I'll tell you when we get back," said Willowshine. Dawnpelt opened her mouth to protest, but Flametail pressed up against her.

"I'm sorry," said Whitefeather in a hushed voice. "I should never have let you go in there alone. Mistystar would have killed me if you had died."

"I'm fine," said Willowshine, leaning over to lick her friend's ear. "Just shaken."

"We're all shaken," said Lionblaze. He looked over his shoulder, amber eyes hard and questioning her. Willowshine shook her head. She couldn't have them react until she had told the whole story when they were out of hostile territory. Because they wouldn't like what she had to say, she knew that. And it made her stomach turn to think of what the medicine cats would say when they heard the foxes would take the Moonpool. But what other option did she have?

XXXX

"How much around the Moonpool?" demanded Bramblestar right away, as soon as Willowshine had finished laying out her plans to the leaders and medicine cats of the three Clans that would come. "They cannot come into ThunderClan territory."

"The Moonpool is far away," said Willowshine. "And they just want it because it's a holy place for them, just like it is for us."

"And we can only go on the half moon?" said Flametail. "What happens when we need to name new leaders?"

"We'll figure something out," said Willowshine. She had been thinking over her reasoning for a while, but it was easy: she had been alone in a hollow with three foxes, and that wasn't exactly a good bargaining position.

"Listen," said Mistystar before Blackstar could begin arguing. "Willowshine did everything she could to not be killed in there. We can't say she did the wrong thing just because she didn't get things to work out perfectly." Willowshine was thanking her leader over and over again in her mind. "She's lucky they didn't die."

"Why is this happening?" murmured Bramblestar, shaking his head. "Why our lake? Why these foxes now?"

"It will take some getting used to," admitted Mistystar. "But I don't see what else we could do."

"We could leave the lake," said Flametail quietly. The others looked at him in shock and silence. Flametail sighed. "This place stirs up bad memories for every cat now. We all are stuck remembering the War of Shadows, and now we have to share our land with creatures that could kill us at any moment. I don't think we can be in peace here."

"But if they don't come into our territory, we could learn to live with them," said Jayfeather quietly. His blind eyes fixed in Willowshine's general direction. "Willowshine learned a lot about their customs and their living style. They have their own ways like we have ours."

Willowshine nodded. She had told them about the bowing and showing her belly, and the way their alpha male and alpha female worked, and their sun and moon. It was a start.

"They're intelligent creatures," she said. "And they seemed reasonable."

"Not like the dogs, then," said Mistystar quietly. "They called themselves pack, too."

All the leaders shivered, and the younger cats exchanged knowing looks. They had all heard the stories about ThunderClan's dogs.

"No, these foxes are different," said Willowshine again. "We can reason with them. We can make deals with them. And I think the leader thing is a problem, but once the foxes get used to us and decide they don't want to kill us, we can work on getting them to let us in more often."

"This alpha male worries me," murmured Bramblestar. "He just wants to kill us and be done with it, then. How much control does the alpha female have?"

"Enough," said Willowshine, but she thought of Dark's warning and suddenly wasn't sure. "I think it's like a leader and a medicine cat."

"Which worries me enough," said Bramblestar. "When Jayfeather and I are in disagreement, he wins, because he's closer to StarClan. But if there ever was a feud between us over a war…" He shook his head. "If I really wanted to, I could call ThunderClan to my side, and they would follow." He flicked his tail. "You all know that's how the Clans work. I suspect the pack works similarly."

Willowshine wasn't sure how to answer that truth.

"Well, that's another thing." Blackstar unsheathed his long claws and tapped them into the grass. "We have to be sure that our warriors will even accept the decree when we've told them they can't fight."

"They'll listen to us," said Bramblestar. "They know we mean their best interests."

"Logic hasn't often stood up against the test of fear," said Blackstar. "If nothing else, the War of Shadows proved that."

Willowshine felt her stomach sinking and hoped things would work out, but the blood from her dreams was already beginning to nag at the back of her mind. And she didn't want to see the world where things went wrong.


Yeah, things seem to be going well, huh? Except the truth bombs dropped at the end. And I mean, we all know how this ends...

If you enjoyed this chapter, have questions, want more, or if you just want to say hello, there's a beautiful little comment/review box down at the bottom where you can send words at me! I love words! And also don't forget to fave/follow and check out my other stuff! THANKS, EVERYONE, YOU ROCK!

~Elsi