A/N: I really like Yellowfang. She really didn't deserve what happened to her. ;;
--------------------
Title: Yellow as the Sun
Characters: Yellowfang
Genre: Angst
---
More than anything, Yellowfang was proud.
Strong in body and weak in mind, she had entered self-desecration as a ShadowClan cat; defiling the purity that StarClan gave to all medicine cats. She wasn't the first, but her sorrow was one unsurpassed by any.
Years passed as she watched Brokenkit grow strong and ambitious under his father's steely gaze, the son that the dark leader had always wanted. Birthing the kit was difficult and painful, her anguish augmented as she watched two of them wither away and die soon after even as she watched the third thrash about and cling to life with a rigidness that mirrored his leadership later on.
A fighter even from the beginning.
She remembered how she felt when Brokentail finally ascended to leadership after an outing with his father had gone wrong, a fate for Crookedstar that she predicted long before Brokentail's eyes cast hungrily upon his father's den. As the rest of the clan mourned brave Crookedstar and praised the newly crowned Brokenstar, Yellowfang retreated to her den and celebrated outside herself while her emotions wracked with turmoil.
She was shocked when Brokenstar brought the kits back to camp, dead and cold, a warrior's bite in each tiny neck. A training regimen gone terribly wrong, turned into a cold-blooded escapade of a medicine cat gone terribly wrong. But what, then? Another mourning period? Oh, sorrow and wickedness of a cursed offspring, she cried out to StarClan on her first night in exile.
After that, it wouldn't take long for reports to spread like greencough among the clans of a kit-killer, a murderous, gray-furred, she-cat prowling in the shadows and feeding on hapless kits who wandered off too far.
Yellowfang coughed and released the elder's scruff, choking on the thick black smoke that permeated the cracks in stone and reached the two shaking cats even in her den. The old one wouldn't last much longer, and neither would she. The only thing now was to wait for Fireheart to find her. She knew he would.
However it was she expected to be found, it certainly wasn't by being jumped on by a big-headed apprentice. He was Firepaw then, still orange like fury but considerably more stupid, she had to admit. There was something in him she admired, though. Even after being stepped on for his past, bitterness never came, only a determination so powerful that sometimes it made Yellowfang smile and purr, but only when there was no one around to listen.
Punishment for Firepaw meant elder duty, and in that time, Yellowfang grew unusually attached to the young cat. She could see something in him, a destiny that not even he knew himself, and more than anything, she wanted it to be true. Maybe then, she could rest in peace at night, knowing that for once she had done something commendable.
A tragedy brought her to the position of medicine cat. How ironic, considering a tragedy brought her here in the first place. Maybe good things really did come out of bad situations.
Her pride was always strong, always kept her alive. She always had pride in herself and her abilities as a medicine cat, but now she had some other cat to be proud of, Fireheart. Watching him become a warrior was the greatest moment in her life, and her joy during his ceremony was so great she thought her old chest would burst. What was this?
Now she knew.
The death of Crookedstar's child affirmed it. The death berries made quick work of that cat's offspring and with his death came peace at last to ThunderClan and the other Clans of the forest, at least for a little while. Now a fire ravaged the forest, stripping ThunderClan bare of its protection and marking a new beginning for all of them.
Most of them, anyway. She knew her body couldn't take much more smoke, and with every breath, a little more of her spirit fled to StarClan. She would wait, though. She had to tell him when he came to rescue her. She had to.
Yellowfang released the dead elder's body and lay down beside it to wait for her son.