Chapter 2- Prologue
Moons had passed since the clans had disbanded, leaving few cats to wander the forest without allegiances. There had been a sickness, a severe one, which reduced the clan cats to a mere fraction of what they once were, to the point that nobody quite protested when they started to fall apart.
It was Windclan first. Although, according to Silver's mother, sometimes it was Shadowclan that fell first. Silver's mother, Dove, never could quite remember that story correctly. She was a kit when the clans collapsed, leaving her mother to rename her from Dovekit to Dove, in honor of their new loner status. Dove's mother tried to instill in her kit the values of the clans, and in turn Dove tried to do the same for her three kits, SIlver, Stone, and Cloud. The stories would get messy around the same time Cloud died, at two moons old after battling an illness for half a moon. Dove's sanity died with her second fallen kit, Stone, who went not long after his brother, leaving Silver as a virtual orphan for a few moons, then a literal orphan when Dove starved to death.
She didn't hate her mother for it. Resented her, of course, as many young cats would. Why wasn't she enough for her mother to want to survive? She needed her mother too! And so, Silver cursed the night sky, where Dove had told her all their warrior ancestors were, for taking her mother so soon. But Dove's three kits were weak from their birth. Dove was much too old to be having her first litter, and it was nothing short of amazing that one of them made it out alive.
Due to all of this, Silver taught herself to hunt. Taught herself to fight as best she could with no formal training and no partner to practice with. She prided herself on surviving all on her own, with no help from any clan or her siblings or her mother. Just her. Or, so she thought.
The cats that lived in the stars, aptly named Starclan, had been with her all along. They had been watching her, silently guiding her so that she would live long enough to fulfill her destiny. Eventually, they no longer silently guided her, as they started infiltrating her dreams. At first, Silver didn't believe these long dead cats who offered to train her new and advanced fighting moves, but by the second night she was eager to learn. She woke up feeling more exhausted than when she went to sleep but was always ready for more training. The cats of Starclan usually gave her a night or two off in between training sessions, as she did need rest, even if her training was constricted only to the dream world. Eventually, the training sessions developed into learning about the clan life in general. The warrior code, the ways to speak and call meetings, how to understand and emphasize with other cats. Silver, still being quite young herself, always chalked these lessons up to anecdotes, much like the kind Dove used to tell her and her kits when they were younger. Of course, they were applicable to her waking world as well, such as when she was incredibly sick, worried she would end up like her littermates, when in a dream some old Thunderclan cats had told her to go to a specific twoleg nest to find a special herb that would help clear her cough and rough throat. It worked, obviously, and Silver was very grateful to the wise cats. At that point in however it was relatively accepted of the Starclan cats to guide her in that way. What wasn't as expected, however, was when they told her to meet a group of four other cats on the island.
"Why?" She asked Firestar.
"All of this training we've been giving you, the knowledge bestowed upon you, it was for a reason," He mewed in response.
"You have a destiny to fulfill, Silver," Firestar's daughter and once-deputy, Squirrelflight, added.
Silver looked them square in the eyes, "Why me?"
"If not you, then who?" An old medicine cat, Yellowfang, asked.
"We are restarting the clans, SIlver," Bluestar said gently.
"And you want me to be in them?" Silver asked.
"To be in them, yes," Bluestar said.
"To lead Thunderclan, Silver." Firestar said with a tone of formality that prevented the young she-cat from arguing, "You must go to the Island to meet these four other cats. They will be the other clan leaders. Much like the original leaders were once told, you must unite as five clans once again...Or die without them."