Chapter Three: Four and Four

After Yellowfang's rather… unconventional departure,the four of them were quiet for a moderate stretch of time, each mulling over all the new information they'd received. Finally, though, Dovepaw- no, Dove- spoke up.

"So, Jay, what did Yellowfang tell you before we got here?" she asked softly, picking at a slump of grass thoughtfully, as though testing out her brand-new fingers. Looking up, se added, "Spottedleaf didn't tell me much more than that there was another… another world, is what she said, in danger, and I needed to help it, and that I would be part of a four-member team."

"Yeah," agreed Lion. "Feathertail didn't give me much more to go on than that."

"Tallstar wasn't overly talkative, himself," muttered Breeze.

Jay blinked. "Well," he said, "she told me that… there are clans and villages here. Clans are actually big families, and villages are more like our Clans. There are five- the Village Hidden in the Sand, the Village Hidden in the… Clouds, I think, the Village Hidden in the Mist, the Village Hidden in the Rock, and the Village Hidden in the Leaves… which is where we're going, I guess." He thought for a minute, then said, "And the threat that we're supposed to be helping them with isn't fighting among the villages, it's this… force, is how she described it, that they're all fighting against, together. And she also told me that they don't need fighting strength, but a 'push in the right direction'," he added.

Lion nodded slowly, thinking that over. "All right," he said. "What's that thing she gave you, then?"

"Oh!" Jay exclaimed, reaching down to pick it up from where he'd set it on the ground. In truth, he'd forgotten all about the little roll of cloth. He unrolled it quickly, not knowing what to expect. What he saw was not the human markings he knew; rather, they were symbols of some sort, composed of many intersecting lines, some curved and some straight. For a little while, as he sat staring, they appeared random gibberish, but then something inexplicable and magical happened: the gibberish began to sort itself out, as though pieces of a pattern were linking together, and he realized that they were words, put into writing. And then he realized which words they were, and began to read- for he realized also that this was reading, as Yellowfang had said.

He took a deep breath and began to read it aloud.

"Four and four must face the night;

Four and four will win the fight.

Find the four, you gather might;

Loose the four, your end's in sight."

"It's a prophecy," Lion marveled.

"And then below that, there's two sets of four… names," Jay added.

"Then read them!" snapped Breeze. Lion growled at him, but Dove gently put a hand on her mentor's arm and shook her head, telling him to let it go. He relented, but cast one last glare in Breeze's direction as Jay began to read.

"All right, all right!" he grumbled. "The first set is 'the Sightless Sage,' 'the Biting Flame,' 'the Flitting Third,' and 'the Restless Dreamer.' I guess that's supposed to be us, then," he said, looking up. Lion nodded, but Dove looked confused. "Really? You think so?" Lion opened his mouth to speak, but it was Breeze who replied, in a surprisingly low, non-confrontational tone.

"Yes, don't you see? The 'Sightless Sage' obviously refers to Jayfe- Jay," he amended hastily, "Lion is the 'Biting Flame'- a lion bites, and 'flame' and 'blaze' can be synonymous, you three-" he indicated the others- "spend so much time together that calling you 'third' makes sense, and the 'flitting' bit is a reference to your personality. Which leaves me to be the 'Wandering Dreamer'… which also fits," he finished, his eyes flashing darkly.

The Three blinked at each other. "Yeah, what he said," muttered Lion (a bit enviously if we are truthful, dear reader.)

"Okay…" said Dove slowly. "Then I guess the other four are the ones we're supposed to find- the ones Yellowfang said we could tell?"

Jay nodded. "Which means one of them is this Sakura Haruno person."

"Yeah, that makes sense," agreed Lion. "So what are the other names, then?"

"Um," said Jay, glancing down. "It says, 'the Blazing Kitsune', the 'Dancing Cherry Blossom', the 'Masked Hunter', and the 'Crimson Sand'."

"I would be willing to bet that this Sakura is the 'Dancing Cherry Blossom'. It's definitely the most feminine of them," commented Breeze.

"Feminine?" said Jay, frowning at him. "We don't even know if… they… are a female or not! And even if that's the case, there could be more than one girl among the four."

"But Breeze's sort of right," argued Dove. "'Sakura' does seem like a kinda feminine name to me, and besides… doesn't it sort of remind you of cherry blossoms, somehow?"

They were silent for a moment, thinking about that (or rather, Breeze, Jay, and Dove thought; Lion just sat there looking enraged that someone had defended Breeze's argument.)

"Now that you mention it," said Jay slowly, after a short time, "it kinda does."

"Yeah," said Breeze, who himself looked more than a touch surprised that one of the ThunderClan cats had agreed with him willingly. "Yeah, definitely."

"…I guess," muttered Lion mutinously after the other three turned to stare at him, Breeze with perhaps a bit more taunting in his gaze then was absolutely necessary.

"All right, then," Jay said after a moment. "I guess we'd better get moving- looks like it's about sunhigh, so we should get going if we want to get anywhere soon."

Lion nodded, and he and Dove walked up a slight incline to the path they'd been told to follow. Breeze followed a ways back and stood at a distance. Hay rolled the cloth with the prophecy back up and, without anywhere else to put it, opened the pouch on his leg to place it there. That was when he noticed that the pouch was already occupied.

"Wow," he marveled. The he called out to the rest of the group, "Hey! Come over here, check these out!"

They came back over and began to look over the things in Jay's hands with amazement.

It looked somewhat like a glove, only made of leather straps, but that wasn't what made it special; rather, I was the metal claws that were the subject of the intrigue. They were silver, shiny, and protruded from the knuckles of the gloves.

"Amazing," breathed Lion, eyes wide. He appeared to have forgotten his annoyance at Breeze as he gently took the glove from Jay. "It's amazing! It must be to replicate having claws! If we fight right, this should be no different from fighting as cats, in the front at least. The legs'll be a little different, but… where did you find this?" he asked Jay, his voice breathless with wonder. (Breeze rolled his eyes at Lion's open awe, but kept his thoughts to himself.)

"It was in this pouch," Jay replied, patting the black bag on his thigh. "There's another one in there, as well," he added, as Lion eagerly handed the thing back and searched his own pouch. "Yes!" he crowed, finding his own pair safely packed away.

"I have a pair, too," announced Dove after a quick check of her own pouch. "What about you, Breeze?" she asked after a moment. He just nodded.

After Lion had calmed down enough, they all packed back up (with Jay putting the cloth in on top of his claw-gloves) and began walking east, as Yellowfang had indicated. The Three walked a bit ahead, with Breeze trailing silently behind. Lion and Dove talked animatedly, chattering and laughing. Jay one the other, was quiet, preferring to spend this time pondering what Yellowfang had told them. Eventually, he let the other two push ahead until he was walking next to Breeze, where it was certainly much quieter. From the looks of it, Breeze was more surprised than Jay that they weren't bickering at each other, but rather walking together in something that was almost like… comradeship.

.x.x.

At sunset, they hit a forest. It was a lot like ThunderClan's forest, in fact, as compared to, say, ShadowClan's; deciduous trees, bushes, and the like.

"Lion," Jay called as the forest darkened around them. His brother and Dove stopped, and he and Breeze halted when they reached them. "What is it, Jay?" Lion inquired.

"Well, don't you think we should be stopping soon? It's nearly dark, and we know how to rest- and find food- in a forest better than anywhere else we might reach later on," he pointed out. "Besides, I'm tired, it's been a very… eventful… day."

Glancing at the setting sun, Lion sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. But, speaking of food… how are we supposed to hunt? We're so big it's laughable to consider using our normal techniques."

"And besides that," added Dove, "we'd need to make a fire and cook it."

They all turned to stare at her like she was crazy.

"What? Why?" asked Jay, surprised. Dove frowned. "I don't know, it's just… this body wouldn't take raw meat very well, it would hurt it somehow. I can feel it… almost like an instinct. Maybe it's part of that stuff Yellowfang was talking about, those skills and knowledge they gave us."

Breeze nodded slowly. "Yeah, she's right, actually. I do kinda… feel something. Huh."

"Well, the humans we've seen in our territory, the ones that come with the… tents," Lion said, sounding surprised at knowing the word, "the ones with the tents, they cook over little contained fires. I wonder if StarClan taught us how to make those?"

They were quiet for a moment, each trying to locate the skill. Finally, Jay shook his head. "No, I don't think so… but actually," he said, recalling something, "I've seen the humans eating berries and things, too. Maybe I could find some edible berries, instead."

"That's a great idea!" enthused Dove, smiling brightly at him. And then Jay experienced a most peculiar flash of feeling: his cheeks quickly heated, and he looked down consciously doing so. But then is was gone as quickly as it had come, and he found Dove continuing.

"Why don't you and Breeze go gather berries, since he doesn't know much about making camp in a forest, and Lion and I will go find a place to rest the night?"

"That sounds fine, but how will we find you? Humans don't have good senses, remember?" he reminded her. That was something he'd listened to her and Lion discuss in length on the trail.

Her brow furrowed. "Hmmm, that's right… well, we'll stay pretty close to the trail, okay? So just find your way back to the trail and you should be able to find us." Lion smiled proudly at his apprentice's resourcefulness.

"All right, then," Jay replied. "See you in a bit. C'mon, Breeze," he added as he turned and walked into the forest.

"I'm coming! I'm not some mousebrained kit," snapped Breeze, but he followed Jay into the woods all the same (if a bit sulkily).

"Hmmm, what to look for?" Jay muttered as they trekked through the undergrowth, keeping their eyes peeled for prospective bushes. "Juniper berries are certainly edible, but I don't see any juniper bushes around… hey, what are these?" he said in surprise, looking down at a bush he'd found. The berries were red, perhaps a bit purplish, and what looked like a cluster of berries was actually one fruit. Glancing around, he spotted another bush nearby with the same berries, only black.

Plucking one of the red ones from its bush, he sniffed it. To his human nose, at least, it smelled perfectly innocent- nothing like a deathberry or some other poisonous plant. But then again, he doubted a deathberry would even smell like a deathberry to his inferior human nose. So he began examining the bush for signs that other creatures had been eating it and the berries, a sure sign of edibility. And sure enough, there were several clumps of the berries that had been clearly nibbled at, and places that looked as though they'd once held berries but were now empty. So, he carefully popped the berry he was holding into his mouth.

When he didn't immediately fall over dead (and even found it quite tasty), he proclaimed the berries and their black counterparts edible and called Breeze over. "Pick as any of the and those black ones over there as you can," he instructed the other boy, who nodded and began picking the red berries. Jay headed over to the black berry bush and began picking as well.

Ten minutes later they had gathered as many berries as they could carry, even putting some in their steel-claw pouches, and so they made their way back out to the trail. Walking a bit farther down it, they easily found the other two: they'd made themselves at home in a little clearing just off the road. They'd even worked quickly enough that by the time Jay and Breeze arrived they'd had time to make four little pillows of assorted leaves and moss.

They divided the berries evenly among themselves, and thought it wasn't enough to fill their bellies, it was delicious and they were comfortable after their long, busy day, and so no one complained, and once again they were peaceful together, and even Lion and Breeze were, if not friends, then comrades. Clanmates, in a way.

They would need that if they hope to survive the war they were about to be pushed into.

.x.x.x.x.

Whew! That was a tough one. :P Do you know how hard it is to describe raspberries and blackberries without being able to call them raspberries and blackberries? I do, now. And I'll tell you one thing: I have new respect for the Erin Hunters. I really, really do. xD

Well, this was bombshell chapter no. 1… sooo, what did you guys think of the prophecy? That was harder than one might imagine to come up with… eventually I just decided to go with a poetic/rhyming thing just because it actually simplified it for me. Poems, especially rhyming poems, just come really naturally for me. 'Course, that certainly doesn't make it without difficulty… but what was actually really hard was coming up with the "four and four" names, as I call them. Hopefully you've at least got theories on who they are? I mean, the Naruto ones, of course, since we already saw the cats dissecting theirs. I tried to do it so, if you knew the characters, it would be pretty easy to figure out… well, hopefully, lol.

Sooo, I think I'll leave off with that… please, do review if you haven't! I'd love to know what you all think! :D

'Cha!

-Dawnstep