For Swift;

Briarlight's Mission

Who am I, Briarlight thought as she stared death in the eyes, to think that I'd ever make it any farther?

The Dark Forest had won, and were cleansing their conquered prisoners of what they considered filth. From the oldest elder to the tiniest kit, none was safe from their scrutiny. Even StarClan had been helpless against them, killed and held prisoner in their own territory.

Of course they've won, Briarlight thought. They were unstoppable as death itself.

Ever since she was a tiny kit, warmed by her littermates at her mother's belly, death was always waiting around the corner, just longing to sink its poisonous teeth into her scruff and yank her to its dark home. It had often come close, but whether it was her own foolhardy determination or pure luck, Briarlight only barely managed escape.

Greencough, where she thought her tiny kit lungs would collapse from coughing, surrounded by the stench of sickness as she tried in vain to get milk from her ailing mother. Where she witnessed her first death- Firestar, as a ghostly life floated away from the ginger tom.

Next was when she was stronger, a kit who'd fought off a deadly illness. Camp was safe, right? How naive of her to believe that the same camp that brought sickness would be safe from anything else. The snake sprang from the crack, scales glimmering in the midday sun. It had fangs dripping with poison, ready to sink them into tender flesh. It was surely the end for Briarkit. But at the last moment, Honeyfern darted in front of her, and the snake lodged itself into her shoulder.

The screech the golden she-cat gave rang in Briarkit's ears, and there was the second death- convulsing, groaning, then stillness.

Surely no more tragedy would befall her, then Briarpaw, two times was enough. But just like there were three cats with the power of stars in their paws, three littermates, three nights in her entire life that she'd seen a shooting star- a third attempt on her life had to be made.

As the wind howled in her ears, Briarpaw had raced back into the stone hollow. She heard her mother Millie faintly, yowling at her, but she pressed onward, despite the storm's gusts nearly blowing her off of her paws. Images of Firestar and Honeyfern's painful deaths flashed through her mind. She wasn't going to let it happen again. No more death.

She saw Mousefur and Longtail, then heard a loud groaning. Lightning flashed, lighting up a massive tree, teetering over the edge of the hollow.

"NOOOOOOO!"

Mousefur let out a yelp as she was shoved aside.

Briarpaw extended her paws toward Longtail. The tom gasped.

Then something slammed into her spine, and the darkness crept in, Briarpaw saw the light leave Longtail's blind eyes.

And when she woke up, she couldn't cry, only stare numbly at her dead legs.

Useless. How much longer until it's my vigil? She had thought.

It looked like it could be any moment now.

The flat-faced dark forest cat called Brokenstar raised a heavy paw over her head, eyes gleaming with glee. He would relish her death, she knew it.

Behind her, Millie struggled as more Dark Forest goons held her back, screeching for her daughter.

"No, please! Let her live! Take me instead!" Her mother screamed, writhing wildly.

This was the result of the Dark Forest's victory- all cats who refused to bow to their will, who they considered impure or weak- they'd kill them all. And Briarlight's kittypet blood as well as her broken spine guaranteed that she'd be the first to go.

Briarlight knew she wanted to see her mother's face one more time, but would it really matter if she couldn't remember it? She'd be stuck in StarClan, held hostage by dark warriors, useless still. She blinked slowly, staring up at her incoming doom. She accepted it. It was a small mercy this way. Then, she didn't have to see the rest of her family die.

Brokenstar's paw crashed down on her head, and she saw nothing.

"There will be three, kin of your kin, who have the power of stars in their paws."

Four StarClan warriors stood around a shimmering pool, voices raised in argument.

One was a blue-gray she-cat. She was important, wasn't she?

"I can't help but worry," She confessed, her brow furrowing with concern. "That it won't be enough."

"What do you mean?" An old flat-faced she-cat growled, bristling. "This power comes from beyond us. We have no choice but to trust the judgement of the Ancients."

"But we don't even know who they are." A golden tom with thicker fur around his throat meowed. "I'd also like to put faith in the Ancients and their judgement, but what I believe is making it difficult to trust is the fact that the future remains unknown." He stared distantly into the pool. "We don't know what is coming, only what is coming to address it. The Three." He looked around at the gathered warriors questioningly, unsure how to continue.

The fourth cat at the pool seemed more relaxed, and he licked a sleek brown paw before speaking.

"If you're so distrustful of the prophecy that is concerned with the cats of your clan, why don't you create a failsafe?" His cool green eyes seemed to rest particularly on the blue-gray she-cat, and she bristled.

"You know that this will concern all of the clans, whatever is coming-" She hissed, blue eyes blazing.

"Wait. Hear him out." The golden tom interrupted, sighing at the she-cat. The old flat-faced she-cat meowed in agreement, sending an amused glance in their direction.

The sleek brown tom sighed. "Right. A failsafe. Create our own portion of the prophecy, strike a deal with the Ancients, whatever, just in case their foolproof plan doesn't work."

"What exactly are you suggesting?"

"Hmmm." The tom hesitated.

"See?" The blue-gray she-cat hissed. "He's always been the same. All talk. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. A complete and utter waste of time listening to him."

"Now wait a moment." The brown tom's tail flicked in irritation. "Inspiration is just as important in devising a plan, right? Otherwise you wouldn't have any ideas right now."

"Pure rabbit fluff! That's all your ideas are!"

"Like you had any idea other than stirring up needless concern about a prophecy we know nothing about!"

"Which is exactly what the problem is!"

"Greetings." A new voice joined the group. All four StarClan warriors looked up with shock. A huge badger stood before them, dark eyes radiating wisdom. "I hear concern. Little trust in Ancients, yes?"

All the four could do was nod slowly, still shocked at the badger's sudden appearance.

"...Can… can you help?" The blue-gray she-cat asked slowly. "And… how?"

"I know many creatures." The badger answered. "Many Ancients. They send me, hear your concerns. Want to fix them."

"How will they 'fix' them?" The brown tom asked skeptically.

"A promise." The badger answered. Her voice grew into a deep rumble, eyes half closed. "If the three should fail, another will come: paws of stars, time in stride, to undo the Clans' doom."

"Time?" The golden tom meowed. "What do you mean by it?"

"More importantly, who will this cat be?" The flat-faced she-cat growled. "This doesn't quite solve our concerns."

The badger bowed her head respectfully. "Failsafe has been granted to you. That is promise."

The StarClan warriors wanted to say more, but…

She knew there was more.

…

Say something else?

Please?

Something was there, important about this, she could just reach it…

…

….

…...No. It was gone.

Like her.

Wait. No, she wasn't.

She was here. Here. Here?

If she were aware, she wasn't gone, right?

What was weird, was she couldn't remember her name.

A name. What something is called, right?

Or someone.

"Are you thinking about something?"

"GAH!"

"Sorry."

She was trembling in a small ball of fur, then she realized: fur.

I have fur! And nice brown paws. Plus a tail. She examined herself a little longer before realizing she should probably address whoever or whatever had just spoken to her.

Slowly she looked up. A ginger tom with nice green eyes stared back at her, though she could barely make him out. He looked somewhat… wispy. Wispy was a way to describe something that wasn't all there, right?

"Who are y-" She started to ask, then mentally kicked herself. Why in the name of StarClan would she be asking him that when she didn't even know who she was?

Then of course that's when the memories came flooding back. She pressed her forepaws to her head, gritting her teeth as she tried not to screech aloud.

All the joy. Laughter. Pain. Sadness. Anger. Helplessness.

Everything came back in a torrent of pictures and emotions, noises and words, her mother murmuring to her or her littermates yelling across camp to her.

Millie, Bumblestripe, Jayfeather and Blossomfall. Graystripe, Leafpool, Longtail, Mousefur, and Thornclaw. All the names of her clanmates.

And her own name.

Briarlight.

The ginger tom had been waiting very patiently while Briarlight lay twitching, recovering from the onslaught of memories that had just consumed her. When it was finally over, she looked back up slowly, blinking apologetically at the tom.

"Um, sorry to keep you waiting." She meowed, embarrassment washing over her pelt.

"It's fine. I was certain you'd recover eventually." The tom responded nonchalantly.

Though I'm not sure "recover" would be the right word. Briarlight thought grimly. Her most recent memories hovered menacingly in her mind. The Clans' defeat. The Dark Forest taking over. Her death. Her eyes widened. Wait, so was she dead? If so, where was StarClan? Despite their defeat to the Dark Forest, wouldn't they still exist? She gulped as another dark thought hit her. Or, even worse, had StarClan been destroyed?

Briarlight looked at her surroundings, and was immediately more confused. There wasn't really… anything. She (and the ginger tom) seemed to be hovering in a shapeless void, like mist, yet somehow she stood steady on her paws. Now, she turned to the tom questioningly.

"I don't suppose you know where we are right now?" She asked. Then she gasped. And how about that scene? That was clearly in StarClan, right? "Did you see what… what I saw earlier?" She felt a little bad about bombarding this tom with all these questions, he looked about as confused as she was.

"If you mean the StarClan warriors speaking with the badger, then yes." The ginger tom responded with a nod. "But no, I'm not sure where we are either."

"Okay." Briarlight's mind whirled as she assessed her situation. I guess I can start from there, then. "Do you by any chance know what they were talking about?" She barely dared to hope that he did.

The tom licked his nose thoughtfully. "I believe so."

Briarlight's ears sprang up as hope sparked in her chest. She tried not to rush the tom, already she could sense he was slow to speak and she didn't want to distract him from potentially important information.

"The prophecy was speaking of the Three, who failed when the Dark Forest won, correct?"

Briarlight nodded. She wasn't sure how the tom knew this, but let him continue without any protest.

"Then like they said, if the Three should fail, a fourth cat was prophesied to be the failsafe, a cat who could undo the clans' doom." The tom nodded at her. "I believe that cat is you, Briarlight."

"Me?" Briarlight nearly fell over in astonishment. "And how do you know my name?"

"Uh, because you're Briarlight." The ginger meowed, confusion flickering in his green eyes.

Of course he couldn't offer a reasonable response. Meanwhile, Briarlight again felt overwhelmed. Why in StarClan's name would they choose her to succeed the Three? If the ginger tom was even telling the truth. She was just the broken warrior who laid in the medicine den. She wasn't important. She could say that simply, it was a solid truth in her mind. And she'd accepted it. Maybe it still bothered her, but she knew by now that she'd never be able to change it. It was easier to keep believing that then opening her mind to believing that she could be special. Part of a prophecy. Her hopes would only be crushed.

"I… I don't believe you." Briarlight growled, glaring at the tom, who stared calmly back. "How would you prove that, anyway?"

"Simple." The ginger tom responded. "Because you're here, instead of dead." He offered her an almost apologetic smile. "But not quite alive, either. Sort of like me."

Briarlight frowned. "Then who are you? Why wouldn't you be the prophesied cat? You're here too."

The ginger tom hunched his shoulders, and such an empty sadness suddenly washed over him Briarlight felt herself grow cold. "I think I was. Once. But now I'm just a guide, what's left of me."

"What do you mean?" Briarlight asked, eyelids getting heavy. In an unreal place such as this, why would she suddenly feel a normal feeling like exhaustion? Yet it was such a familiar feeling in her life, her old life, now. Endless exercises so her chest wouldn't fill with liquid and make her drown on land. The effort alone of dragging herself around camp to the dirtplace or get freshkill, to at least feel normal, leaving her panting in her nest.

So… so… tired.

The light where Briarlight woke up was so real and tangible it was overwhelming. Sweat coated the bottom of her paws, chin, lips and nose, as if she'd fought several battles in stifling greenleaf weather. Still laying in the soft moss, she stretched luxuriously, then froze mid stretch. Slowly, she wiggled her forepaws, then her back ones. A thrill of joy washed over her pelt. Was she imagining it? Could she really…?

Without hesitating a moment longer, she opened her eyes, and slowly clamoured to her paws. Her legs were steady beneath her, all four of them. She marveled as she pranced around the sunny clearing, wondering what it could possibly mean. Then her spirits sank.

There couldn't be any other explanation then. She really was the prophesied cat, probably healed so she could perform her task of undoing the terrible events that ended the Clans. She clawed at a blade of grass, staring around the clearing. Then she sat down with a thump. Where even was she? The surroundings seemed as if they should be familiar. It looked like a typical patch of ThunderClan forest, with birds flitting about in the branches overhead, singing joyful in the greenleaf warmth. There was a thicket of brambles to her left, and the faint rustling she heard indicated the presence of small prey, like shrews and mice.

She hadn't been out in ThunderClan territory for so long, so it made sense that it would be unfamiliar, but… she just couldn't pinpoint it. Something was off.

Think, Briarlight, think. There were the trees, a mixture of maple, oak, willow…

Oh! Where was the lake? The lake! One consistent factor, no matter where she was back in her old home, was the lingering scent of the lake, a clear, sometimes murky, scent. The scent of its sandy shores and reeds, especially right after a large storm, sometimes was overwhelming. But here, it was gone. Just woods.

She walked in a tiny circle, looking around the clearing. One of her blue eyes twitched. If only that odd ginger wisp-cat were here! He seemed to know at least a little more than she did about… everything.

She opened her mouth to call for him.

"Were you looking for me?"

"AAH!"

"Sorry."

Briarlight's shoulders slumped. She turned around to face the ginger tom. But when she got a good look at the ghostly tom, she let out a little gasp of excitement. In the context of a more familiar realm, she recognized him.

"You're- you're Firestar!"

Firestar blinked. "...More or less."

Briarlight tilted her head, excitement draining. "What do you mean?"

He stared at his wispy paws. "Well… it's not the best story."

"What could be worse than the Dark Forest killing me and my entire family for having the blood of traitors and kittypets?" Briarlight replied cheekily. Then her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth with a paw in shock. What was she thinking, saying that to the clan leader?

But he didn't react at all to her statement other than becoming lost in thought. Finally, he looked up with more clarity in his green eyes.

"What I think happened… is…" He struggled to form the words he wanted to say. "To put things simply, leaders have nine lives, which you know. But what you don't know is that every time a life is lost, it goes to StarClan, and roams as a ghostly pale cat."

In a flash, Briarlight remembered when she was a tiny kit sick with greencough. When Firestar had lost his life, she thought she'd seen a ghostly version of him leave his body, floating up out of the abandoned Twoleg den and into the sky.

"Eight of my lives were already in StarClan." Firestar explained. "But…" He looked pained, and closed his eyes briefly. "They… they killed them."

Briarlight's blood went cold. "What?"

Firestar nodded, bristling. "They killed my other lives. So when I died… I was the only life left. So I'm like this. I'm not Firestar anymore, not really."

The two cats sat silently in the clearing for a while, while the birds chirped happily around them. The air tasted sweet on Briarlight's tongue, and she would have felt a thrill of delight at the bright greenleaf day had it not been for the sadness that floated in the air.

She gritted her teeth. The Dark Forest… they'd destroyed so much. Everything and everyone she loved. Red began to build on the edge of her vision, remembering the slain bodies of her clanmates strewn across the battlefield, the cries of kits whose mothers lay quiet and still. The blood bubbling up as dying cats struggled to hold on to the final scraps of life, only to succumb to death moments later.

Her claws dug into the ground mercilessly. She was so tired of it. Of death. Stealing what was most precious in her life. But now, there was a glimmer of hope, wasn't there?

She turned to Firestar. "So, if I'm really part of this prophecy, the one with… with time in stride, that means… that means I can fix this. What happened to you, to everyone- it shouldn't have happened. But if I'm really chosen to undo the damage done- I'll do it." She bowed her head to the ginger tom. "I accept."

End of Part 1