Though it was honestly silly, Foxstar felt better confronting her so-called family with her deputy and senior warrior at her side than alone.

Foxstar cautiously approached the little camp Wolfclaw had allowed the rogues to live in, a bunch of bushes a good twelve tree lengths south of the cabin and only a stone's throw away from the southernmost Thunderpath. Their branches weren't woven together like the barriers of warrior camps, but if they were really warrior cats, they would solve that problem soon enough – if she allowed them to stay.

She couldn't believe she was considering allowing them to stay. Her knowledge of their history no doubt would make her blind to whatever threat they posed to her Clan now. When everyone else saw them as threats, she could see them as threats, too.

But what created them?

A long time ago, she gave her powers to StarClan. Her powers could make any dream a reality. StarClan deemed it too dangerous for anyone who needed sleep to have them. Because of this, she now could only dream of StarClan. Her powers brought her into the world of the warrior cats books, and she was never able to dream herself back.

Since she first gave herself the name Bark, she hadn't thought about her original characters. The original Barkpaw had been a brown tabby she-cat with no white or red and a small frame. She'd been normal.

Foxstar looked anything but normal. In fact, Foxstar looked very fox-like, from the oriental skull shape to the unusual ginger rusting and black-brown pointed and white spotted coat pattern. On top of that, she had two six-toed forepaws, a gift from and reminder of her past life.

Hollowfrost did not look fox-like and didn't have her six-toed paws. Neither did her parents. Foxstar had never heard of a normal yellow-brown and white tom and a black she-cat producing a golden-eyed, sable Burmese like herself.

True, every other family she had encountered obeyed the real life coat colors, to the point where canon cats were born to the wrong parents. It could be both of her parents carried the recessive Burmese gene, and the recessive polydactyl gene, and recessive long-hair gene.

But thousands of cats were black and white with rusting backs, all from a great variety of different families. The physical similarities between her and them were superficial.

Foxstar doubted it. Her obsession with cat coat colors made her extremely aware of what was common and what had to be force bred to be widespread. Recessive genes rarely showed in wildcats and had to be carefully cultivated across generations to create rare coat colors, and both Thunderbird and Shadowfall had been created to be normal wildcats. It wasn't in their pedigree. If it was, then Foxstar had no idea if their claim about being SkyClan descendants was true or if anything else they said was true.

Her eyes landed on Littlefang, the tortoiseshell tabby tom, the living confirmation of how little she knew. It made her more suspicious of everyone else.

"Mother? Father?" The words felt foreign on Foxstar's tongue, and she tried not to think of her real parents.

Foxstar stopped, wincing at the sight of three sleeping cats; Snapwhisker and Shadowfall with her short-haired sister nestled between them. The cream-colored tom looked frail and scraggly beside his sleek mate, Hollowfrost.

"Barkpaw?" Thunderbird, the yellow and white tom, stepped out of the shadows, a cautious look in his eyes. "Or is it Barkstar now?"

"Foxstar," she corrected. "I earned my warrior name, Foxshadow, when I joined ThunderClan. I left to rebuild SkyClan, like you once tried to do."

"The needles don't fall far from the pine," mewed Thunderbird softly. After a long pause, he dipped his head, and for a moment she felt like she was back in ThunderClan among true warriors. He looked up at her with awe. "I'm proud of you."

Foxstar flattened her ears. "Thunderbird-"

"I am proud of you. I have dreamed of being leader of a Clan for so long – of rebuilding SkyClan even! I never dreamed you or your sister would. I tried to find a way to gain nine lives–" He paused. "You have nine lives, right?"

Foxstar nodded. "I gained my nine lives before joining ThunderClan."

"Before?" echoed Thunderbird, eyes wide. "But how?"

"I found the Moonstone." Best to keep the lies simple. Foxstar jerked her head back at her deputy and warrior. Freezepelt looked confused, and Wolfclaw had a perfect stoic face. "I had to gain nine lives if I wanted to rebuild SkyClan."

"It's nice to meet you," mewed Freezepelt, dipping his head incorrectly towards Thunderbird. The yellow and white tom's whiskers twitched in amusement. Freezepelt didn't seem to notice. "I'm the deputy of Foxstar's Clan."

"It's nice to meet you," mewed Thunderbird, bowing correctly back, from one deputy to another. He looked sideways at Foxstar, an unreadable expression on his face.

"It's a lot of hard work," mewed Foxstar carefully.

Thunderbird murmured softly, his voice somehow echoing in the warm den. "You've made a wonderful Clan here. SkyClan deserves a strong leader like you, Foxstar."

Such a warm compliment felt so wrong coming from this stranger. "This isn't a Clan. Not yet. We have a long way to go." Foxstar glanced back at her deputy and senior most warrior. "We've been looking for a medicine cat for a while. We can't return to the gorge without one."

"Medicine cat?" echoed Thunderbird, tilting his head quizzically. "What is that?"

Foxstar felt like her whole world had started to spin. "You don't know?" Foxstar blinked owlishly.

Thunderbird blinked. "I… have never heard of a medicine cat before."

At first, Foxstar felt relief but it rapidly spiraled into disappointment. She had created Thunderbird so he lacked certain Clan knowledge, so this wasn't entirely unexpected, but she had still hoped he might know enough to help her find a medicine cat.

"A medicine cat shares dreams with StarClan and heals the Clan when ill or injured. They even help cats give birth."

Thunderbird looked at his mate, Shadowfall. Foxstar could tell from her breathing that she was only pretending to be asleep. Thunderbird had love in his eyes, making them look warm and soft like a blanket trying to wrap around her very being, and she felt both uncomfortable because it wasn't directed at her and a deep longing for her mate, Dustpelt. He always looked at her with those eyes.

"Sounds like a medicine cat would have helped her a lot back when she was pregnant with the two of you. You were so large back then – and look at you now! You're almost as big as your mother."

He sounded so sincere and honest, talking about her like she was somehow a member of his family. Foxstar wished she could believe him. A life with these cats sounded a whole lot better than a life with her twoleg parents.

"I am glad to see you both again," mewed Foxstar honestly.

"I'm surprised you do," mewed Thunderbird. "You we so angry with us when we left the gorge. You acted like we had destroyed your dreams of becoming a warrior."

Feeling awkward, Foxstar licked her chest. "Yes, well, as you can see, I have achieved all my dreams and more."

"But you still won't return to the gorge and rebuild SkyClan properly until you have this medicine cat," mewed Thunderbird. "Why are medicine cats so important?"

"Medicine cats commune with our ancestors in their dreams, but also at special places like the Moonstone." She paused, before adding carefully. "They are the Clan's link to our ancestors in every way. If I were to die permanently, they would be able to commune with the stars and tell the living if it was okay to send the deputy or some other cat to recieve their nine lives."

It was fundamentally untrue. The Clan didn't need a medicine cat for the leader to gain their full nine lives. They only needed the Moonstone for that. But Foxstar had told her Clan that same lie already a million times. The former BloodClan cats understood the importance of a leader having nine lives. In BloodClan, leaders had to be strong, and now they understood it made her strong.

It would eventually make them strong, too, but that was a whole can of worms she didn't want any of them thinking about – not until she had a medicine cat here, ready to reject whatever potential leader had secretly slashed open her throat in the middle of the night.

"That does sound important," murmured Thunderbird, a touch of sadness in his soft mew. "Perhaps if we had one of these medicine cats, we might've been able to have a real leader, and maybe we wouldn't have fallen apart."

"Perhaps," mewed Foxstar, fighting the urge to add: If only StarClan was infallible.

Thunderbird studied her closely. "Do you really have nine lives?"

Foxstar nodded. "I have some lives left. It has been several harsh seasons since I last saw you."

Thunderbird's eyes grew wide. "Is this true?"

Wolfclaw snorted. "Of course it is. We saw her die and come back before our own eyes. Right, Freeze?"

"Yeah… Wolfclaw." The ever nervous and unsure Freezepelt did not look like he appreciated being called by his old rogue name very much. "She died. Mountainfrost, Wolfclaw, and I all saw it."

"Flamefoot saw her die, too," mewed Wolfclaw, almost dismissively, "at another time."

Foxstar's flicked an ear sharply at him but decided what they said was fine for Thunderbird to hear. At the very least, it proved her point.

"I never thought…" Thunderbird looked like someone had rocked his world. "I wish I had known about these medicine cats sooner. Maybe SkyClan would still be alive. Maybe Windbreeze and Riverstream would still…"

Foxstar blinked at the names. Her… so-called uncle and aunt. Windbreeze was fast on land, with a flexible spine like the kind WindClan had, which gave him a boost in speed. Riverstream was large with long-hair and webbed paws, a true silver black tabby Maine Coon, and a sister to Shadowfall.

"It would have made no difference," she assured him. "The medicine cats must be properly trained and chosen by StarClan itself. Without a place to visit that connects us to StarClan, we could not have a true medicine cat. Unless… you found such a place?"

Thunderbird shook his head. "No."

Foxstar stared unblinking at the tom. "I'm struggling to remember, father… where did we live?"

"In the forest, of course. Between three twolegplaces." Thunderbird looked like he hated the taste of the word on his mouth and didn't want to talk more about it.

"Were there caves down in the gorge?"

He blinked. "Yes, but we never went there. It was dangerous. Too many rats." His snout wrinkled.

Foxstar nodded. If they hadn't searched the gorge properly, then of course they could not have found a way to reach StarClan. "I'm sorry for all the questions, father. I… have a bad memory of before the Clans."

Thunderbird's eyes grew soft with concern. "Did something else happen to you? Did gaining our nine lives make you forget about us?"

Foxstar did not look him in the eye, instead of looking over at her sister. She inhaled deeply to settle her surging emotions and realized with a start that someone here was pregnant. The smell of milk carried on the air, reminding her of her own pregnancy and Blackclaw, the RiverClan elder who taught her to recognize the smell of a pregnant cat. Even if they wanted to leave, these cats wouldn't be safe anywhere else. "I wanted to offer this place to you and the others. You can make it into your own camp for the time being. Maybe you can help me rebuild SkyClan, too."

"Oh, none of my plans ever worked out," mewed Thunderbird softly, muzzle wrinkling in a wry half-smile. "I was so lucky your mother stuck with me through it all, and we were lucky to find Littlefang. Without him, we wouldn't have found you."

Foxstar's gaze drifted to the odd tom. "Who is he?"

"A normal tom, despite his looks," mewed Thunderbird. "He saw you headed this way moons ago and remembered your unusual colors."

Foxstar felt a stab of disappointment. "That's unfortunate." A part of her had hoped he might be a medicine cat.

Thunderbird's whiskers twitched in amusement, and he bowed his head deeply. "We appreciate your generosity, Foxstar."

Foxstar blinked away thoughts of ThunderClan. It felt nice being among real warriors again. "It's good to see you again, father." For some reason, she could not bring herself to leave. "You know, I was wondering… maybe you could help me train some of the cats here."

"Train?" Thunderbird blinked. "It's been a long time since we trained anyone… Hollowfrost was our only successful apprentice." He grimaced and flattened his ears. "I'm sorry."

Foxstar dipped her head. "I believe you're training would benefit these cats. They were not originally from the Clans, unlike us. They don't even understand warrior culture. Freezepelt, my deputy, still struggles with bowing properly to the other Clan leaders. Unfortunately, as a leader, I don't have as much time as I would like to help train everyone."

"I will consider this." Thunderbird looked unsure.

"I understand if you're both ready to retire," Foxstar mewed. "Perhaps you could be our elders today or maybe when you're done?"

He snorted, amused. "You drive a hard bargain." Thunderbird paused, studying her carefully for a long moment. "You really have changed so much."

She dipped her head. "I'm sorry."

"Don't," he mewed, chest swelling. "I'm proud of you."

Foxstar stopped herself from apologizing again and simply swallowed the remark. "Let me know what you decide as soon as you can. In the meantime, the territory here is yours to keep. Hunt with us, make camp and share your stories. Maybe you could even join us for the Gathering."

Thunderbird's eyes grew round but he dipped his head. "We would be honored to join you at a Gathering."

Foxstar dipped her head. "We would be honored to have you, although the other Clans will find your presence harder to swallow."

"Other Clans?" echoed Thunderbird before he blinked. "I mean, of course, the other Clans. How many of them are there?"

"Yes, there are four total. ThunderClan, RiverClan, WindClan, and ShadowClan."

His eyes narrowed. "Thunder, River, Wind, and Shadow? How is that possible?"

Foxstar flicked her ears. "What do you mean?"

Thunderbird blinked at her. "Our parents told us legends of the Clans. A TigerClan, LionClan, LeopardClan, and PantherClan. Each had special powers. PantherClan could walk through shadows, LionClan could roar like thunder, LeopardClan could run like the wind, and TigerClan could swim through the swiftest of rivers. It's what we were named after." He glanced pointedly at Shadowfall.

Foxstar couldn't remember any of that. She had just named them after the Clans. This myth just reminded her of TigerClan, LionClan, and LeopardClan, and those three Clan myths seemed to have been forgotten by canon after the first series… and the two Clans which had been named after them.

"It sounds like you have many good stories to tell," Foxstar purred. "My Clan will appreciate them and your wisdom."

Thunderbird gave her a funny look, but she avoided his gaze.

"I must go," she mewed. "Have a good night, father. I will be back in a quarter moon to check on your health… and the new kits."

"Kits?" Thunderbird looked baffled. "We're not expecting..."

"Tell my sister congratulations for me," mewed Foxstar, whiskers fluffing in amusement. "I am sure the kits will be wonderful."

As Foxstar lead her warriors away, she wondered what Firestar's reaction would be the next time she arrived at a Gathering with the two new elders. It filled her with a sense of unease. She wanted to leave the borrowed territory now before ThunderClan might come up with reasons to be less than generous. With so many new apprentices, ThunderClan would be aching for any scrap of territory they could find and would no doubt turn on her fledgling Clan if push came to shove.

"Foxstar," mewed Wolfclaw, "what is an elder?"

"Elders are warriors who suffer great injuries, grow too old, or otherwise can no longer perform their duties. Like kits and queens, they are treated with utmost respect and fed first in the Clan. They tell stories to the next generation of the many lessons they learned and even advise the leaders on decisions they make for the benefit of the Clan."

Foxstar looked at Wolfclaw, who seemed like he was seriously trying to understand, and Freezepelt, who seemed like he wasn't quite sure he wanted to know.

Wolfclaw frowned. "Do they still hunt and fight for the Clan?"

"Of course not," mewed Foxstar.

Wolfclaw snorted. "Then what use do we have for them?"

Foxstar sighed. "A cat does not need to fight or hunt to be of use to a Clan, Wolfclaw. Besides, when you grow so old that you can no longer defend yourself, wouldn't you want someone you trust to look out for you and protect you? Someone who won't stab you in the back or cut out your throat?"

Wolfclaw looked like he was trying to swallow a stone. His nose was wrinkled, and he stared at the floor hard.

"I would," mewed Freezepelt, shuffling nervously on his paws. "Would ThunderClan make me an elder?"

Foxstar stared at him before looking away. Wolfclaw growled.

"Of course not!" Wolfclaw glared at Freezepelt. "You're an enemy warrior. What have you ever done for ThunderClan?"

Freezepelt flattened his ears. "But my son-!"

"Doesn't even like you!" Wolfclaw glared until Freezepelt looked away.

Foxstar mewed softly. "ThunderClan values loyalty above all else. All Clans do, of course, but ThunderClan more than any. They'll accept anyone who will serve the Clan loyalty and faithfully, even if they are a kittypet."

Freezepelt looked relieved. "Then there might be a chance."

Wolfclaw just looked disgusted.

"Freezepelt," Foxstar mewed, "could you check in with Antlerfang? I may want to call a meeting soon, but I need to know if the apprentices are ready to come back to camp."

"Yes, Foxstar." With a bounce in his step, the spiky white tom vanished into the undergrowth.

Foxstar waited until his pawsteps could no longer be heard. "Wolfclaw, if you ever become leader, never choose a cat like that to be your deputy."

Wolfclaw huffed in agreement. "I've always wondered why you picked him."

"I knew him better than the rest of you," Foxstar mewed. "He's the main reason I've been thinking of creating a new line in the warrior code. Maybe we need to create a council of senior warriors to decide the next leader… someone who is not a member of the council, of course."

Wolfclaw's whiskers twitched. "Of course, of course," he mewed dryly.

Foxstar kept her ears on Wolfclaw but kept walking. A prickly berry bush combed through her fur, unable to claw all the way through to her skin because of the dense winter coat she'd started to build. "I was originally thinking of adding it in case the deputy and leader died, but I'm not convinced Freezepelt will even want to be the next leader."

"He certainly does not have the intelligence for it," growled Wolfclaw.

Foxstar emerged out of the undergrowth into the pale yellow light of the cabin porch. She shook herself, turning her head to pull out twigs with her teeth.

Wolfclaw paused beside her, frowning at the empty porch and the twoleg's shadow in the window. "Why do you like those things?"

"The bark-den or the twolegs?"

"…the twolegs."

Foxstar stretched her limbs one by one, closing her eyes as she enjoyed the hardness of her own muscles. When she looked up, she was eying the gutter and remembering when she was up there trying to escape a rabid dog. "These twolegs saved my life." She tried not to think of the long years she spent as a human before waking up in the warriors' universe.

"It's more than that," mewed Wolfclaw. "Did you used to be a house cat?"

Foxstar blinked. "Aren't house cats the only ones who refer to themselves as house cats?"

The gray and white tom was still as a statue.

"And no, I was not a house cat." Foxstar wrapped her tail around her paws and sat next to him. "I was a stray, but I was close to them. I understood them. They… fed me for a long time before I joined the Clans."

"Do you feel like you owe them something?"

"I owe these twolegs my life," mewed Foxstar. "But all the other twolegs… I would have to say, 'No'."

Wolfclaw licked his chest. Foxstar was finding it hard to read him, but he seemed relieved. "You'll be leaving them, then?"

"Eventually," she agreed. "They're safe enough to be around for now. With our new members, we'll need new territory to move to. Something big enough to accommodate everyone."

Wolfclaw rose to his paws, tail twitching. "Will you need someone to scout around for you?"

"Yes," she mewed. "There's a thunderpath south of here with a cornfield on the other side. If you could lead a patrol across there and look for a camp, that would be great."

"I'll take Flamefoot."

Foxstar growled lowly. "Don't. I need Flamefoot here to learn some proper respect the warrior way before he decides to claw a mouse out of a kit's mouth." She paused, humming thoughtfully. "How long has it been since Tigerpaw went on a patrol with you?"

Wolfclaw tried to hide the flinch but his shoulder fur twitched.

"Take him with you," mewed Foxstar firmly. "Teach him how to find mice in the cornstalks."

Wolfclaw dipped his head and begrudgingly mewed a quiet "Yes, Foxstar."

She pressed her nose into his shoulder for a heartbeat and pushed him away. "Thank you, Wolfclaw." She turned to finish her grooming.

With a huff, Wolfclaw padded away, skirting around the yellow light and vanishing under the porch. No doubt to tell Flamefoot the bad news.

She yawned, feeling exhausted. She started for the yellow light, unconcerned, but paused when she noticed a red tabby dart out towards the porch. He cut through the yellow puddle of light, seemingly unafraid of being spotted by humans, but hurried as if hoping to somehow avoid notice. Flamefoot disappeared under the porch.

Foxstar waited long enough for him to settled down before she followed at a more sedate pace.

Underneath the porch was not the pitch-black darkness, like the leader's cave in ThunderClan. It wasn't as dark as the warrior den, either, at least not for the first couple of tail lengths. Because the cabin was small and set on top roughly sixteen cinderblock pillars, there was enough room for her Clan to walk without having to crouch and crawl. Moss had been dragged in to cover the hard unforgiving packed earth.

The entire place reeked of shoddy, rushed craftmanship. Perfect for lumbermen in the daytime and the occasional late-night work shift. Not so perfect for cold winters.

The promise of cold futures ahead made her want to leave the cabin behind. A bush full of warriors was much better at containing the heat, and they didn't have to constantly trade air with humans.

The smell already made some of her cats uncomfortable, and she hated the idea of the apprentice growing up with that smell. They'd be nose blind to danger, and they would be more willing to stay in twoleg homes.

She shook herself and padded deeper into the camp. It was massive. A ThunderClan cat would be generous and claim it was one tree length in all directions, but it was only twenty feet long and wide. That was more than enough for twelve cats, and just enough room for forty-one cats if ThunderClan they ever decided to cram in.

Foxstar licked her chest and reminded herself that Firestar was too soft to attack her cats, but the thought brought her sadness instead of comfort.

A snoring heavily scarred she-cat jerked awake and stared at her, sniffing the air timidly. "Foxstar?"

Foxstar bowed her head. "Scarstripe."

The queen shifted, looking ready to dart. She was too uncomfortable to blink. "H-how are you?"

"I am well," Foxstar mewed evenly. "Have you considered my proposal?"

Scarstripe spoke softly but hurriedly. "Yes. I haven't spoken with Antlerfang yet."

Foxstar nodded. "Take your time."

Instead of waiting for Scarstripe to turn away, Foxstar turned and slowly padded away. Sometimes, Scarstripe worked up the courage to call after her, but it usually took time. Foxstar gave her as much time as possible before she turned a corner and found herself in her den. Once she was out of sight, Foxstar knew Scarstripe couldn't mentally call out to her anymore. Fear drove Scarstripe to silence, a fear that Scourge might appear if she spoke up too loudly.

With a soft sigh, Foxstar collapsed on her moss nest. The four cinderblock columns around her only gave a little bit of privacy. Over the last couple of months, she had brought a couple of bushes down with her in an attempt to give her more privacy, but they usually died from lack of sun. She usually ended up curled tight with her tail over her eyes to give herself total darkness.

The familiar smell of marsh filled her nose and mouth, warm and thick. She felt someone shift beside her. When she blinked open her eyes, the room was lit by a pale gray gloomy glow.

A dark brown battle-scarred tabby with ragged fur sat beside her, overlooking a vast marsh far below.

"I sometimes wonder what ShadowClan would be like if you had joined them instead of ThunderClan," mewed Raggedstar. "We could have used your wisdom and strength."

Foxstar relaxed briefly, letting the tension of the day pass through her harmlessly until she felt as liquid as a real cat. "They would be boring, dull, and painfully loyal to the warrior code."

Raggedstar hummed in agreement. "The perfect Clan."

Foxstar lashed her tail at him. "What are you doing here?"

A long time ago, Raggedstar had told her that she had the power to make her own dreams a reality. She had given that power to StarClan when it began to affect the world too much and that same power had transformed StarClan's hunting grounds into something truly beautiful and alien.

The great grasslands had become a perpetual misty fog that glowed softly a pale white color. A single great tree hovered on the distant horizon in the direction of Fourtrees, with five great roots arching out from its base and high overhead the real territories below before descending into the heart of each territory, directly into their camps. The leafy boughs were so far away that they looked like fog, each leaf shining brightly like a star. Nighttime and daytime did not exist in StarClan, only a permanent foggy twilight with the full moon and the sun fixed high overhead.

The root over ThunderClan territory forked once, the second tip burying inside of what used to be SkyClan camp. Foxstar and Raggedstar were seated at the highest point of the fork, looking down into a misty land which looked like the treecutplace through one eye and a grand tall and ancient forest through the other. It was the only glimpse of the original SkyClan territory she would ever see.

"I came to give you a warning," mewed Raggedstar.

Foxstar stretched and turned away, padding towards the trunk. "If it's about the destruction of the forest, I already know."

The land of the living took on the qualities of a mirage, flickering, and rippling. In one eye, she saw the ancient hunting grounds that the original Clans had settled in. In the other, she saw the current hunting grounds. If she crossed her eyes, she almost saw the future, a land of desolation and houses.

"It's about your new friends."

Foxstar stopped and looked back. "You are usually more observant than this, Raggedstar. What makes you think they are my friends?"

The former leader of ShadowClan flicked his ears ."Your… 'creations' then."

The closer they came towards the trunk, the more the tree and the root began to warp strangely. The trunk unraveled, expanding on all sides, becoming the ground, and tiny trees and bushes started to sprout out of the ground. Tiny, until she realized these were normal-sized trees. They had reached the heart of StarClan's hunting grounds.

A quintet of ancient warriors waited in place that looked just like Fourtree's, an empty valley with a large stone at the center. They looked larger than life, almost like big cats… which was abnormal for the founders of the Clan.

A line of freshly dead spirits and ancient dead spirits lined the valley rim, some of whom looked like they had just crawled out of the Dark Forest. A white tom with a single pink scar down his back was murmuring quietly with a strange wispy gray ghost that looked like they had never set foot in StarClan or the Dark Forest. All of them were waiting to have their lives reviewed and their post-mortem sentence finalized by the founders and herself, the only solid gold spirit in all of StarClan.

"Before you start your duties here," mewed Raggedstar, "let's discuss them."

A few more seconds with Raggedstar wasn't going to hurt anything. A night with StarClan always felt like longer, especially considering how many cats she had yet to judge and how quickly she usually judged them. She had lost count of how many had ended up in StarClan, how many others would be sent to be reincarnated, how many others would be returned to the Dark Forest, and yet how many more had ended up in some other place. It didn't matter where the spirits came from as long as each finally received the trial they deserved.

"All right." Foxstar sat down and turned to lick her shoulders.

"Are you sure they come from SkyClan?"

Foxstar blinked in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"They do not look like SkyClan cats." Raggedstar gestured at a pale gray tom, the founder of SkyClan. He had the long legs, short fur, and oriental face of a true SkyClan cat.

"Neither do I." Foxstar did have long legs and an oriental face, but her hair was long and more lion-like.

Raggedstar gestured at another cat, a gray and white tom, the last living leader of SkyClan, Cloudstar. "He didn't recognize any of them."

"That is also not a good enough reason." If she remembered correctly, only Thunderbird and Windbreeze had been directly descended of SkyClan cats, the great grandkits of the last survivors who had joined the twolegs and somehow not had their children sold across country, never to be seen again. "It is unlikely he would have had a chance to meet any of the current SkyClan cats."

Raggedstar shook his head. "Skywatcher. Leafdapple. Echosong. Those are the modern SkyClan cats. These cats have no real claim."

"Why? Yes, I admit they look weird," Foxstar mewed. "More like each came from one of the Clans than all of them being descended of SkyClan. I look weird as well. That doesn't mean we don't have SkyClan blood - or that they need SkyClan blood to rebuild SkyClan. It's the culture that matters, not the physique."

"Bloodline matters too," argued Raggedstar.

"Did your father tell you that?"

The silence felt more than a little uncomfortable. Foxstar licked her chest. "I'm sorry, Raggedstar, but your argument makes about as much sense as there should only be as many Clans as there are trees at Fourtrees. That kind of thinking is what doomed SkyClan in the first place. We have to be more open-minded."

Raggedstar sighed. "You have a point, but we have to draw a line somewhere. None of them have had any real SkyClan training. They do not know how to act around Clan cats, nor do they understand the warrior code."

"They know how to bow," mewed Foxstar, frowning. "They are not as hopeless as you are making them out to be."

"You only know about one of them," he pionted. "What do you know of Shadowfall and Hollowfrost? Snapwhisker and Littlefang are basically rogues."

"They can be taught."

"They will resist." Raggedstar looked deep into her eyes and nodded. "You already know this."

Foxstar licked her chest, feeling ruffled. "It is true, they had bad experiences with re-building SkyClan, but so would any other cat if they tried to hunt without any training. They were starting from nothing, but now I have a foundation for them to build off from. They may not understand that yet and they may never want to understand, but they are not hopeless. I will let them join if they so wish."

"Thank you, Foxstar," Raggedstar dipped his head. His grizzly whiskers bushed up in a smile. "I thought it best to explain myself since you hate prophecies so much."

Foxstar returned the grin and bowed her head. "Thank you, Raggedstar. Now, if you could excuse me, I have a long night ahead."

A/N: Updated 12.16.2021