Disclaimer: I don't own the world of the warrior cats. I do, however own most of the characters in this story.
Chapter Two: Dreamsharing
Deep Waters Where Shadows Swim stretched, grumbling a bit as a cat shook him gently awake. The reasonably young Healer had dreamed of the Telling when he had heard the prophecy about the Golden One. Again he wondered if his father's words were about Rainbow Shimmer Over Lone Star's child, a young, slim cat named Dreamsong Foretelling the Golden Sunset. Dreamsong had grown up with her mixed light gray and dark gray tabby brother Eclipse in the Dark Night . Her black brother Fleet Shadow Darting Across New Snow had been killed by an eagle.
The Tribe of Sunset Fire had not forgotten the prophecy, but after time it had faded from the front of memory, and now many cats rarely discussed it, believing that it would not -could not- ever come to place. They saw the truce between the three Tribes under the Tribe of Endless Hunting as everlasting, permanent. Very few cats realized, now that many of them had taken to wearing mud to be less visible on the rocks, how truly golden, not brown-copper, Rainbow's only daughter was.
But Deep the tribal Healer and Snowwind the Leader had never forgotten. They had only put it aside for the present. He turned to the person who had woken him, and jerked wide awake. It was Dreamsong herself, looking confused and frightened.
"Healer!" she whispered. "Please, I need your help." She seemed so desperate that Deep finally followed her out of his small overhang, and into the open space surrounding the Dew Gathering Hollow's rock, where the prophecy had been told.
Twice had the seasons turned since then, Deep reflected. Two years had passed. So much had happened since that fateful night. His adoptive father Reflection had died, naming him as healer for the Tribe of Sunset Fire, and gone to hunt with the Tribe of Endless Hunting."
The Tribe was small, now. There were fewer litters than there had been in years and fewer kits in them. Without knowing it, he stopped, and looked over towards the nursery where he, Dreamsong and so many, many others had been born.
Would it soon be empty, with no kits or their mothers? Was the tribe doomed to a slow extinction? Deep looked up at the sky and prayed to the Tribe of Endless Hunting to keep these cats alive.
Then he shook himself and turned. It was too soon to worry about that yet. There were many in the Tribe, and he would make sure they had the best chance for survival.
"What is it, Dreamsong?" asked the Healer, leaping up above his overhang and inviting her up with a twitch of his tail. Her golden fur gleamed where the sparse mud didn't quite cover it and he was again, and he thought how lovely her pelt was in the early morning.
"I- I've had another dream," she said, shuffling her paws and remaining standing while twitching her tail around.
It was a dream that had given the she-cat her name, when she had told her mother blithely that there would be a very golden sunset that night, that she had heard a song telling of it in the night. "What was it about?" the Healer said, trying to hide his excitement. Another dream- she had to be the Golden One the prophecy had told of! She sat, curling her tail around her paws and bowed her head, the looked up at the sky, a distant look in her green-brown eyes.
"I sat on a rock, next to a cat the color of moonlight and a cat with a pelt like the earth itself beside me. They were silent, so I kept quiet also. Then the silvery one looked up at the moon; it was in the sky and the sun was setting behind us- as we looked, it made the rocks golden. Under it was the shadow of the other side of the large hollow, and the rocks and dirt were in the shade. Then he looked farther up at the sky, and I looked too- clouds shaped like pure white cats ran with the wind around the sunset-gilded rocks."
Deep looked at the she-cat, but she still gazed up at the sky. "I understand Reflection now," murmured the Healer of the Tribe of Sunset Fire. "Yes, you are the Golden One." Dreamsong turned her head and looked at him sharply.
"What do you mean, Deep?" she asked, frowning, and he realized that she had heard him.
The black-and-gray mottled tom gazed at her for a long time. Then he told her of the prophecy that Wind That Blows the Fresh Snow had told there on the DewHollow Rock. He gazed steadily at her, admiring the shifts in her golden fur under the streaks of mud. He wondered privately why he should all of the sudden now appreciate her lovely pelt.
"Do you think I am the golden cat?" she asked quietly, looking into his amber eyes.
"Have you taken a look at your fur compared to the others'?" Deep inquired dryly. The healer tried to ignore the shiver her gaze caused him, and thankfully she didn't notice it. "Not to mention your two dreams of the future, or the timing of the prophecy's arrival- it did come the same hour you were born."
Dreamsong turned away slowly, absently thanking him, and leapt down distractedly. He watched her go, and shivered happily again at the mere sight of her. Again he wondered just why this young she-cat was affecting him like this now.
