"So you've come. The raven."
Ravenstar's eyes had the exact same expression as Larkstar, and the two cannot look different when faced by the same situation.
"I-I thought that Midnight was here..." Ravenstar meowed, her voice poorly hiding the shock that reeled in her eyes, making them seem a different green than before.
"Of that you shall learn later." The cat before her asked, and indeed, it was Larkstar.
"What is your question?" The mirror image of Ravenstar asked, touching her nose to Ravenstar's briefly.
"Will the Clans ever return to be as they once were?" Ravenstar asked, her voice quavering, unwittingly taking one step deeper into the flame.
"When the feathers fall and the cycle begins again, it will." Larkstar responded, as the moonlight faded away until it was a tiny sliver, and Ravenstar was staring at her camp in the pouring rain.
"What-how?" She whispered, her eyes filled with a deep confusion, darker than night, lighter than the sun.
"Remember the memory..." The whisper faded away on the wind, leaving a sense of hollowness that Ravenstar had only felt once before, right after she had become a warrior.
The rain beat down on the silent figure, never moving, never even flinching when hail came dropping down from the heavens.
Her whispers would seem like nonsense to an ordinary person.
"You can't escape backwards...You can't escape backwards...You can't escape backwards..."
She jerked her head up, her eyes reflecting the dim moonlight.
"You can't escape backwards...You can't escape backwards...unless...unless you're the ice. It creeps backwards, to where it came, in order to simply escape.
"Ice..." She whispered, then shook her head, staring blankly at the ground.
"It coming. I''m falling. Our ancestors are fading. They only show themselves at night...and we shun that night." She murmured, her voice rising softly.
"We can't fight it...unless...unless we do our best...and fight...with the power of the stars in our paws. With the burning fire. With the messengers. With...with the Roaring Lion, the Jay's Wing, and the Flying Dove. But we need someone...someone who will fight until she fades into the blank darkness of the night, never to speak with her friends...her family...never to hope. Ivypool, you've got to help us, you're the only one who can fight hard enough...hard enough to win." Ravenstar meowed clearly to the sky, although thunder rumbled and lightning cracked, while the den came pouring down and the hail came down sharp as claws.
he black she-cat stared up at the sky, looking at the sliver of a moon that could be seen, although she knew that it was almost full.
"Night." She meowed strongly, her voice strangely deep.
"I accept thee, the time of my ancestors, embedded deep into the sky, like the hope of the moon.
Thunder shook the air, lightning forked all around the sky, but it did not fade away. It left thin marks in the sky that faded away after a few moments, as the rain blinded the young leader, and the sharp hail fell into dens.
She did not move.
She stayed as she was, staring into the rain, as if she had found something there greater than greatness.
"A heart as bright as the sun...a wing as white as snow...a pool filled with ivy...a storm of sand...they are the strongest. The roaring lion thinks himself strong, yet he is as frail as a kitten. The blindest jay wishes to fight, yet he cannot take to the wing. The smallest dove wishes to fly, ye she has no wings. Those powers left when they died...they won't know how to fight." She whispered, her voice seeming simply like a whisper of the rain hitting a rock, and pouring away in tiny streams, with ripples spreading over the ground as it sank away into the ground.
The rain began to lessen as the sun began to fight for control, pushing away the dreary clouds and showing a clear, yet still dark blue of the sky as the brilliant colors of the sunrise turned the clouds into beautiful rainbows of color, turning it pink, orange, and purple as the sun slowly rose as a burning ire into the now clearing sky, turning the dim night into a sunrise that Ravenstar had never seen such as that beautiful sky; rosy with the great, lovely colors.
"Its...its so beautiful. Why has no one ever looked upon the new sky of day before?" She asked no one, her eye still looking at the distant horizon; as it shone with the joy of generations.
"You know, don't you?" A sliver of a voice said beside her, that she would know in the midst of a thousand others.
"Sparrowpaw. You have already decided your fate." She told the brown tabby icily, glaring at the small she-cat.
"Oh, I know that, but what will become of your body, I wonder." The apprentice responded with a careless flick of her tail, as one might comment on it looking like rain, not hinting about murder of a clan leader.
"Sparrowpaw. You can't beat me." Ravenstar hissed, although she knew that was simply a weak lie she told herself in order to keep that-that lunatic away.
"I think I can, Ravenstar. I don't think you know me, Ravenstar." The name she spoke was with scorn as her pupils seemed to turn into sharp shapes of leaflets.
"Your fate is decided, Sparrow." Ravenstar told the tiny she-cat sharply as the clan began to stir.
"I'm not going to be seen with you." Ravenstar hissed, standing up and walking away, stopping at about three fox-lengths away.
Sparrowpaw's mouth moved faintly, as if she we're saying something without words.
Ravenstar looked at the mouth as it moved, trying to make sens of the soundless words she was speaking, over and over...over and over...
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."