The end! Can you believe it? I only started this story in July 2013, and barely a year later I'm done with it. Thank you all for supporting Colorful Sky until the end. Keep a lookout for the sequel, Colorful Bliss- all OCs submitted will be in it.
Who was your favorite POV- Redfur, Yellowglint, Greeneyes, Bluepelt, or Blackfang?
Enjoy this chapter, and see you all at the sequel or at any of my other stories on this profile!
Blackfang shuddered. What in the name of StarClan just happened? He stared down at Bluepelt, who had slumped on the ground, breathing rapidly. Well, at least she's alive.
Yellowglint, Greeneyes, and Blackfang crowded around their friend, gently shaking her awake. Bluepelt's cobalt eyes lolled in their sockets as she croaked, "I-I…"
"Yes?" Yellowglint hissed, anxiety making her fur ripple.
Bluepelt did her best smirk despite the pain she was in. "I hate lightning."
Beetlewing tended to her, and announced that Bluepelt would be fine, except for her smoked tail.
The RiverClan medicine cat sighed as he looked at Bluepelt's friends. "I'm afraid I'll have to bite off the very tip of her tail. It's completely singed."
Greeneyes winced. "Do you really have to bite it off? Won't it just fall off on its own?"
Beetlewing frowned. "Yes, eventually, but would you rather it be gone now, or accidentally step on it after it breaks off while we're travelling?"
Blackfang tried not to feel sick at the thought. "True," he admitted slowly. "I suppose you should do it now."
"I drugged Bluepelt with two poppy seeds and thyme, just so she's asleep and won't feel much shock from any remaining pain or when she sees she has no tail-tip," Beetlewing explained. He started to lean down toward Bluepelt's blackened tail, and Blackfang turned away as he heard Beetlewing's jaws close together. Unhurriedly, the ShadowClan warrior turned, glimpsing the brown tom spit out a small clump of ash. "That's it?" he asked, surprised.
Beetlewing nodded. "I don't think any bone was damaged from the electrocution. So it'll be barely noticeable, you can tell Bluepelt once she rouses."
Yellowglint stuck out her tongue as Beetlewing padded away towards the stream. "Well, glad that's over," she mumbled, stroking her tail down the RiverClan she-cat's spine.
"It was worse for Beetlewing," Greeneyes pointed out. "How would you like to nip off burnt fur and skin?"
Blackfang growled, "Let's just not talk about it," he pleaded. "Look, what she said before she collapsed… I don't think that was her."
"It was StarClan," Yellowglint decided immediately.
Greeneyes shook his head firmly. "StarClan wouldn't send down something to harm a cat."
Blackfang shrugged. "Whatever. All I know is I smell squirrel."
The ThunderClan tabby scowled at him. "How can you think about food right now when-"
"I don't smell squirrel," Yellowglint argued. "Unless…" Her eyes widened. "Bluepelt really did give you a power, Blackfang, when she was possessed by that lightning bolt! Now you have supersonic smell or whatever."
Greeneyes beamed. "Oh, this is great," he purred. "Except something else Bluepelt said."
Yellowglint cocked her head. "What?"
"'You and four others will restore the Clans to peace'," Greeneyes recited hesitantly.
The WindClan warrior rolled her eyes. "She said four. We're the four."
Blackfang bared his teeth somewhat playfully. "No, mouse-brain, she said you and four others. Meaning me, and four others. There's a fifth cat."
After a restless sleep for the remainder of the night, dawn arrived, casting milky, cream-colored claw scratches across the black canvas of a sky. Blackfang awoke to this, watching as his namesake was drowned out by bright cream tinged by red. Yellow, Green, Blue, Black… what color could we be missing?
"Wake up, cats," Ivystar yowled, bounding around the clusters of passed-out felines. "It's time to move on."
At this, the majority of the cats sat up. "Already?" one moaned.
"Yes, already," Dovestar mewed briskly. "Up," she ordered, flicking Grayfur's ear with her tail. Blackfang pondered. Gray? The sky can be gray, if it's a misty morning…
"Ivystar, Dovestar, and I have a feeling that we are close to our final destination," Lightstar announced, weaving through the final couple of drowsy warriors. "And if we just push a little more, we can make it before there are any more interruptions."
Interruptions as in deaths, Blackfang thought, following a few cats' gazes toward where Slashstar was buried. Or births, he added to himself, glancing at where Roseleaf and Reedstripe were sitting by their kits. Scarletblood was crouched over Weakkit beside them.
Streamtail trotted up to the three leaders, looking perplexed. "What about the rogues? They never came back from hunting for us."
Dovestar lifted her nose and lashed her tail defiantly. "Then they didn't return the fresh-kill to us in time and cannot join our Clans."
Hesitantly Stripepelt walked up to Ivystar, Dovestar, and Lightstar, nodding in agreement with the ThunderClan leader. "Yes, we mustn't stall or hang around just for a trio of scrawny rogues," the gray tom stated, the black stripe down his back glinting in the young sunlight. "If we get going now, and we're gone long enough, then hopefully they'd have forgotten us."
"We're not that stupid, you know," a powerful voice boomed, and the Clan cats, startled, spun around to find Caesar, Cinder, and Tammy, an enormous pile of prey at their paws. It was a good assortment of squirrels and lizards, even some fish, Blackfang realized as he picked up the shiny scales reflect the sun.
"We each tried to catch the prey that would match the Clan we wish to join," Cinder explained quietly, his voice a bit louder thanks to the note of smug pride in his tone.
"So I got rabbits and some birds, a couple squirrels," Caesar meowed with a simper, casually placing a light tabby paw on a rabbit particularly thick with meat.
Tammy ducked her head. "I got squirrels, birds, and mice."
Cinder spoke again around the fish he had picked up in his mouth. "Countless fish, and a sizeable school of juicy minnows!" He swiped his tongue around his jaws. "I tried a few."
The Clan leaders were clearly shocked. As Ivystar and Dovestar counted Caesar and Tammy's catches in speechless awe, Lightstar chided Cinder. "If you want to join RiverClan, you must know that queens, kits, and elders are fed first, before warriors and apprentices. Never eat prey while hunting; wait until you are told you may feast."
The dark gray rogue shrugged. "Of course. Understood."
"Fourteen!" Ivystar staggered backwards in shock. "He got fourteen!"
Dovestar blinked at him. "I counted seventeen here." She looked back at Tammy. "Impressive. You took your time-"
"All night, to be exact," Tammy said.
The cream-colored female twitched her whiskers, but didn't scold her. "But you did very well. Thanks to you and your friends' efforts, every cat will eat well tonight, including you three. Welcome to the Clans."
Blackfang couldn't remember the last time he felt full, but now he believed he would never have to eat again after ingesting three small frogs and half a squirrel, which he split with Greeneyes. He looked up at the cloudless greenleaf sky, wondering, if Tabbystripe were still alive, would he be sharing everything with her, and not with just a friend?
With full bellies, the cats set off again with the three new members. Blackfang stuck with Yellowglint, Greeneyes, and the slightly limping Bluepelt the whole remainder of their journey. Being the quiet one, he walked behind the she-cats with Greeneyes, listening to the tabby's mostly one-sided conversation.
The big group approached a forest with leaves already turning red and golden for leaf-fall. Blackfang liked the look of it; it wasn't his old pine forest by the lake, but it was tree cover. And if this isn't the place, we can always turn around, he thought, recalling happily the great tree with the forest behind it a while back now. It wasn't that bad. It just didn't seem right, but I'm sure we could make a home of it if we had to.
They came to a sudden halt, however, and Yellowglint demanded Blackfang to go up to the front and see what was wrong. Meanwhile, she turned back around to fuss over Bluepelt's tail.
Blackfang slid in behind Beesting, shuffling up until he was at the senior warrior's shoulder. Now they were directly facing the leaders' rapidly-flicking tails.
"There's a scent-marker here," Ivystar said worriedly, stating the obvious.
"It's weak," Dovestar pointed out. "The cats who put it here obviously aren't very healthy."
Lightstar ground the earth with his claws. "I say we wait for a patrol to take us to their leader."
Stripepelt flattened his ears. "I doubt it's a Clan. Probably just a filthy band of rogues wasting good forest when they could be in a dirty Twoleg city," he snarled.
Dovestar sighed. "Even if it's just rogues, they can have structure. Some cats must come by here eventually. Let's just wait and see if anyone comes, and if not, then we'll enter their territory."
They waited for a good amount of time. Just as Blackfang, who had returned to his friends to tell them the news, was getting ready to go up to the front again, he heard interaction, and went ahead to where the leaders were standing at the border.
A mammoth, burly tabby tom was glaring down at the small-framed Ivystar, who was somewhat shakily clarifying the Clans' plans to him with a hint of his old stutter. Next to the tabby was a brown, apprentice-sized tom as well as a red-furred male cat with glimmering amber eyes. Blackfang met those eyes, and felt a strange sensation deep within him. Why do I feel like I know this cat?
"… a- and we just wanted to pass through your territory, I- if we, um, if we may," Ivystar finished with wide eyes. He was acting like a cornered mouse, and Dovestar shouldered him aside with an eye-roll.
"Look, what's your name, Mr. Scary? I'm Dovestar," she mewed. "We might as well know, just in case you capture all fifty of us."
The tabby stood on his tiptoes, though he hardly had to, and viewed all the cats. For a split heartbeat, Blackfang's and his gazes locked, and a tremble slipped down his spine. "Hardly looks like that much. And I'm Snakestripe, leader of SkyClan." He narrowed his eyes even further as he eyed the light-colored she-cat. "Dovestar? Just what Clan are you from?"
Dovestar, usually nonchalant and smooth, suddenly looked very pale under her fur. "Did you say S- SkyClan?" she demanded.
Blackfang was very shocked himself. SkyClan? Why did that sound so familiar, yet so strange to him? He leaned forward, watching the big tabby- Snakestripe- with a new fear.
"Yes. And let me guess, you're from ThunderClan," Snakestripe drawled with a snort.
Dovestar looked very scared now. "I am," she meowed. "How- how-"
The red tom bounded up to stand next to Snakestripe. "I'm Redfur," he swiftly introduced himself. "And we know about the other Clans. Long ago, two cats from a ThunderClan, Firestar and Sandstorm, helped reassemble SkyClan. Thanks to your supposed ancestors, SkyClan is here today."
"Just barely," the brown apprentice mumbled.
Blackfang was amazed by Redfur's little speech. This is the real long-lost SkyClan? A fifth Clan… what about that…
The ThunderClan leader looked very pleased. "It's a pleasure to meet a real SkyClan cat," she purred. "Firestar is in my bloodline. I am named after his nephew's granddaughter, Dovewing." Dovestar twisted to look at all her cats, then looked back to the three toms. "I am here with my Clan, as well as ShadowClan, WindClan, and RiverClan… or at least, what's left of us. Our home at a lake far away didn't suit us anymore, and we were forced to flee. But- but now that there's another thriving Clan-"
"We're not thriving," Redfur cut in. "At all. I would be ashamed to tell you how much our numbers have decreased. But you are welcome to stay with us for as long as you need."
Snakestripe curled his lip. "I think I make the decisions here, Tiny," he spat. "And you're not even my deputy."
Redfur glanced at the striped tom without even a wince. "Then why has Kit refused to travel with you to get your nine lives?"
"She's not a real medicine cat, she's still just a filthy kittypet," Snakestripe scoffed. "And I'm about to go there myself, anyway." He returned to applying a death glare to Dovestar and the other Clan cats. "Just come with me. If my Clan is in favor of you all staying, you may stay. But if not, then I suggest you get a move on fast."
He swished his tail, and with that the leaders followed the SkyClan patrol into their territory.
The heartbeat Blackfang set his paws on Clan territory again, he knew he was in a good place again. Not home. But almost.
Did you like the extra-long chapter? :DD
Bai~