If you're reading this thinking "this sounds familiar," scope out the prologue, yo ;)

I never anticipated when I started this series that we would get here. This fic has been an utter delight in surprising me about who the real heroes are and what the real story is they are trying to tell. No, this isn't the last chapter, but this is, I think, the one that feels most final to me.

Please, enjoy!

Chapter 37: The Cat Who Saved Them All

For the first few days, his head had been full of knowledge. Little things, like that his mother was Icecloud, and that his father would one day be Lionstar, and that a cat named Briarpaw would die in less than six weeks, and that in many moons he would meet a cat with a stunning soul named Ivychase. He knew that his siblings were elemental, and that the wiggling warm mass beside him would one day lead ThunderClan to awesome victory, while the other three wiggling warm masses beside him would support her absolutely.

He also knew, from the very first moments of his life, of prophecies. And his head was so full of knowledge – from what the cats beside him were smelling and thinking to what they would one day become – that he didn't speak or move. He was the last one to open his eyes, because he knew what everything looked like already. It almost seemed pointless.

And then, with every blink of his eyelids, he began to forget.

First he forgot his own name, which was then given to him anyways – Littlekit. Then he forgot that his siblings were amazingly powerful, then that they were subject of prophecy. He still knew odd and unusual things: that say, at the precise moment he was here with his mother in the warmth of his nest, Lionblaze was on a patrol to the far part of territory looking for signs of trespassers.

But he hung on for several more weeks forgetting things slowly, over time – like how in the end Willowleaf would make the choice not to destroy everything and that Skysong would create New StarClan and Birdfeather would destroy it and Mountainstone would shatter the border. Those sort of indecipherable tidbits of knowledge were no help to a tiny kit that was more interested in rolling balls of moss.

After weeks of forgetting and barely speaking, the knowledge he was left with included his own powers: that he was given two solitary powers. One, of course, was the weird things he knew, although that was going to go away (which he knew as well, of course). The other was that he could take anything he wanted from his littermates. He could swap one of their fates with his own.

This was around the time Petalkit died, and it seemed so much easier to block Skykit from all the evil sad things she was feeling when she thought about it, when her powers had first manifested. Skykit was really powerful – too powerful! It only felt like the best of ideas to take her memories of these events, and to stop her from using her powers anymore, at least for a bit. So he used part of his powers together to take things: he took Skykit's memories and the memories of everyone, really. And he also decided that it was about time to change his fate, while he was at it. See, because his fate, he soon decided, was a stupid, no-good, terrible fate to have. He much preferred a fate like Skykit's fate. She would get to be the leader. He wanted to be the leader. So he decided that he would take Skykit's fate.

But that was no good, either. It didn't seem fair to Skysong, who he really liked, for him to just take her powers. So he decided to take a little bit from everybody: Mountainkit's telepathic link with the other four of them, Birdkit's ability to tell people what to do, and the water part of Willowkit's powers. He had forgotten by that point what sort of a traumatic emotional effect taking each of these things would have. To be entirely honest, they just sounded cool, and he felt great to have them. He was very good at learning powers, because all he had to do was use his powers to steal them. And he liked that he could just do it, and they would not know.

A few blinks later, after splitting his siblings powers, he forgot he had ever stolen their powers. A few blinks after that, he forgot that any of them had powers to begin with.

That made it exciting, see, learning all the new things. He slowly discovered all the powers he and his siblings had right there with them. And he believed absolutely without a shadow of a doubt that he was meant to become ThunderClan's great leader. In the days of the journey and the sickness and even the earthquakes, he had been blissfully unaware of how things had been to begin with. He didn't know what he had ever been capable of.

Then as the earthquakes began, and as Ivypool then Skypaw lost their lives, he felt this strange connection – like he was somehow being tied to these strange events. He knew that Lionstar and Bramblestar had given up some of their nine lives to protect the cats in the prophecies. But it felt absurd to him that he was ever going to be the cat in bright gold that leaped in and saved them…right? He felt things leaking, like inside his mind there had been a dam that was slowly beginning to come unstopped. Water, and information, came trickling out.

Then Mouseclaw had died, and Willowleaf had cried, and in that came the biggest sliver of knowledge yet: that yes, he had the ability to save them. He was the one sacrificing lives for the others. It seemed no problem to let Willowleaf give her life up for Mouseclaw. It seemed to be the right decision. He was beginning to feel a second presence in the back of his mind.

Then, as if some weird sixth sense had kicked in, he knew more: he knew the names of the Clan Founders, he knew what all his siblings were thinking, he knew that he had given up on winning a battle long ago, that he had not saved himself, and that the cat he absolutely had fallen in love with was bearing his kits. Before she even told him herself.

The next night, she arrived in full force, screaming and dragging him into a flurry of strange dreams. All he could watch was an infinite loop of Birdfeather wreaking havoc into StarClan and Willowleaf destroying the earth, changing the entire way the universe worked. He saw Skysong breaking the sky in half – good separate from evil - and Mountainstone doing everything he could to keep the barrier up. He saw the darkness festering and rotting, growing darker and more horrible. He saw everything that could possibly go wrong and had woken up screaming but unable to make noise.

He avoided all of ThunderClan that day, unsure what to think, but sure that she had been there. She was in the back of his mind, weak and connected to him.

The very next night, Littlefalcon stood on the edge of a clearing painted in a blurry monochrome. His eyes flickered back and forth as he searched for a sign of some sort. He knew one was coming, but he also knew he had been somehow invited to this strange, cursed, in-between land. Then from the black and white, flat movements of the world came a cat that Littlefalcon could tell was made entirely of the land's fabric. She was strong and black in pelt, and her eyes were a piercing, dark green. Littlefalcon took a step back and gasped, his ears flattening into his head. He recognized her as the presence that had been in the back of his head. And he knew who she was by name.

"This cannot be," he said, and the words felt strange. He knew this was happening. It terrified him, but he could do nothing about it.

"I don't believe we've met." She smiled at him, exhausted from some sort of long journey, and perhaps from feeding him information through his head. "My name is Hollyleaf. But I suppose you already knew that."

"You're the cat that's been inside my head. And this means…" Littlefalcon swallowed. He knew. He knew that the rest of the things he had forgotten were coming back. He knew that he had forgotten so much, and even though over the past moons, it had been coming back, it was about to hit him full force.

Hollyleaf sighed, staring at him in a way that actually seemed to understand.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I don't need to explain anything to you. I've already given you all the information you need."

"Yes." Littlefalcon knew he couldn't fight this. "By taking up residence in between my whiskers!"

"It was not my choice." She had given up, too. "I'm sorry."

There was a long silence. Littlefalcon stared at the shifting grey grass. Everything seemed so sudden. Every time he blinked, he learned more, he knew more. He remembered things that he had known as a kit but had forgotten since then.

"How much time do we have left?" He meant until the end of his siblings' destinies, but more specifically, until he was left to complete his own.

"Not as much as you or I would hope for," said Hollyleaf. "I'm so very sorry." She shook her head. "Really, I am."

Littlefalcon shook his head. "No apologies can help me now." He stared down at the grass hoping to find answers in the blades of grass. It was a silly hope, since he already had answers. Just not ones he wanted.

"I would have liked to meet under happier circumstances," said Hollyleaf. "But I am, as you know, here for a reason."

"You're here to spell out the end," said Littlefalcon. His end. Their end.

"To offer you what little information you don't already know," said Hollyleaf, nodding. "Are you ready to know?"

"I have no choice," said Littlefalcon.

"There is always a choice," said Hollyleaf, but she got to her paws as if the choice had already been made. Because it had. Littlefalcon smiled. He knew also that if he had done something different, all those moons ago, he could have spared himself from his fate. In trying to be fair to all his siblings, because he loved them, he had only taken Skysong's destiny. He should have taken all her powers and given her a redistribution of those of Willowleaf, Mountainstone, and Birdfeather. That was the only way his powers could have been applied to save himself from his fate.

"I made my choice moons ago," Littlefalcon said. "I will save, even though it will come at great…" A laugh. "Shall we say personal sacrifice?" He couldn't believe how dark he was getting. Of course he would save them. He had always made the best decision – to save his siblings, no matter what pain he endured along the way.

"We all make sacrifices," said Hollyleaf. She began to lead him through the translucent world of shadows. "Do not worry. I'll be with you for as long as I can be."

"I appreciate everything you've done," said Littlefalcon. "But it will not give me what I want, just what I need." The words of her prophecy, Hollyleaf's part of the prophecy and the part that was most haunting, came back to him, making him laugh. Oh, how everything was so soon. There was practically no time left. "Drown in water, drown in air, drown in ice."

"Drown in earth, drown in fire, and then stars will be your truth," said Hollyleaf. Then the two of them continued on through the shadowy land between lands until Hollyleaf swept her tail, and they were gone.

She didn't stay with him long, for they stepped out of one place and into the place of the origin of their prophecy and the hollow where Willowleaf would re-place a gazing pool. Hollyleaf had explained everything: all of her own travels as well as all of the trials they would endure. Then Littlefalcon had been sent back into the world of the living, and Hollyleaf had winked out of his plane. She had promised to return when things were safe once more. And Littlefalcon had lived his life just knowing what was coming and knowing even more that he could not do anything to stop it. That was what the prophecy had done to him: rendered him incapable of changing anything anymore. He could have, if he really wanted to, but who knew what that would have done in terms of knocking things off course? Littlefalcon could have saved himself. But he didn't matter. They mattered: ThunderClan, Ivychase, his family, his guides, his littermates.

XXXXX

"My destiny," said Littlefalcon, standing on the hill where their prophecy had been delivered, "is that I was the one guiding you all along. I was the one Lionstar and Bramblestar gave up some of their lives to protect." He watched as the eyes of his siblings went wide. Skysong took a step back.

"What does that mean?" she said quietly.

"I was never given elemental powers, which you found out," he said, apologetically, in Willowleaf's direction. "I was just given the power to know everything and the power to take and redistribute all our powers."

"How is that possible?" said Jayfeather. Littlefalcon shook his head. How these things had occurred, he wasn't really sure of in fact. Just that they had needed to destroy Old StarClan to start something like a new era. This realm had been rotting. It was out of his control to know why he had been chosen, or what their powers even meant. They were just here to revitalize the hunting grounds of StarClan.

"I could have, if I wanted to and had done it right, made it so I took all of someone's powers. They would have swapped places with me." He took a deep breath. "But I didn't want any of you to die."

"What?" Skysong's voice was brittle. "Littlefalcon?"

"That's what would have happened," said Littlefalcon, sweeping his tail from side to side. "Because you didn't have the power to rearrange things, see. You wouldn't have had a choice. We would have done all of this, and I would have pinned the whole affair on you. All the power stealing, all the pain, everything, would have been your fault, and you would have died." He shook his head.

"But it's okay," said Skysong, stepping closer. Her eyes were beginning to water, like she could see where this was going. "We've forgiven you for all that, and we're done here. We can go home to ThunderClan. The battle's over. New StarClan has a home."

"Our prophecies are coming to completion," said Littlefalcon. "That's true."

"Why are you hesitating?" whispered Skysong. The others had fallen absolutely silent, locked into the same confused tension that Skysong held with her. "Tell us."

Littlefalcon turned first to the older four cats, who sat intently watching this conversation.

"Having powers," he said. "It's a responsibility no cat should have to bear."

"No," agreed Ivypool. Her eyes still rang with sadness from losing her kit. She shook her head. "But we've done good."

"We can defend the Clan," agreed Doveheart, but even in her confident stance was a trepidation Littlefalcon could see.

"What happens now?" sighed Jayfeather, not really talking to any of them. "There really does not seem any need for our powers, since we've accomplished all this."

"I was really just meant to protect the rest of you," said Lionstar, shifting his shoulders and flexing his claws. "And all of us were just here to guide the five of you."

"Great will overcome good," said Jayfeather. "And it has. The Great Five is far more amazing than the Good Four were ever going to be."

"But what does happen now?" murmured Skysong. "Are we keeping our powers?"

"There's really no need for that," said Willowleaf, looking at her paws. Littlefalcon knew in all of their faces the great, aching pain they felt. Each day, living with the power to destroy the Clans lay in their paws. Mountainstone could kill every cat in the forest if he wanted to. Skysong could strangle them all in seconds. Willowleaf hadn't been dreaming of murder for nothing. Birdfeather, too, was forged for destructive power. With their powers, they were going to fall so deeply into despair. So much despair was there: guilt and the push to keep being better and better at every turn.

"It was unfair for anyone to ask you five to do what you've done," said Doveheart. She could see it, too. Littlefalcon knew. It was the utter despair blooming in their hearts that made his final decision so much easier.

Because he did have a choice. In the end, no matter what he said to Hollyleaf way back then, he did have a choice. He could return to Ivychase and his kits and help them grow into great warriors. He could always know the thoughts of the cats around him and help the Clan that way either in battle or just to settle arguments even before they broke out. Knowledge wasn't always a good thing. Neither was power. His poor, poor littermates.

"No," said Littlefalcon. "You won't keep your powers. Any of you."

They all looked up at once, and Littlefalcon held them all fixedly in his mind as he concentrated firmly on what had made their lives so miserable and so magical. None of them were the same: Willowleaf and Birdfeather felt the guilt of killing so many, Mountainstone and Skysong the constant responsibility of helping cats at all times. Jayfeather, Lionstar, Ivypool, Doveheart – they had suffered their own doubts from these prophecies. And Hollyleaf, who still wandered outside his reach – she and Littlefalcon himself suffered from this.

So Littlefalcon saved them.

He felt the water rush into his body first, cold and familiar, this time jagged with ice. The power to mimic everything just like a reflecting pool. Then came the earth, hard and sturdy, able to knock out any enemies. The power to link his family together, to root them in each other. Then came fire: blazing, powerful, passionate, the very thing that tore the skies asunder. A hissing tongue that could turn armies against each other. Then the air, whimsical, chilly, following its own path to the highest of reaches. The power to read into the thoughts of others, slipping in between the thinnest of cracks to cast light upon what lay within. And then the others: going between worlds, flipping sides, darkness; sensing everything at once, peaceful words on dove's wings, light; powerful and unbeatable strength and victory in the lion's roar; the soothing heartbeat next to him of the jay singing a song of empathy.

He felt his body breaking, but in those last seconds, he reached out one more time, to the cat that walked between worlds at will: Hollyleaf. All along, she had been feeding information to them by living in his head, by informing Fountain. Like Ivypool, she could switch realms, but her realms were not those of the waking and the dreaming – but alternate universes. She had gathered information on this prophecy from all across time and space and had been feeding it straight into Littelfalcon's head. She was the reason he knew everything. She had always, always been as powerful as her littermates.

And as he faded, he lassoed in the cat that knew everything into this power, too.

Then nothing.

XXXXX

It was calm, dying. It was the calmest and the clearest Littlefalcon had ever felt. He opened his eyes lazily and saw, standing before him, Hollyleaf.

"Hi," she said, smiling. All around them, hills rolled, and the grass was beautiful and crystal-like and made of the sky. Skysong's paradise. Littlefalcon smiled. "You did it."

"Did it?" said Littlefalcon, yawning.

"You saved them," said Hollyleaf. "And me. And yourself. And all of this." She swept her tail in an arc, and past her, Littlefalcon could see the paradise endlessly folding out beyond them.

"Hollyleaf, Deputy of New StarClan." Littlefalcon dipped his head to her. "I'm sorry you were far away during all of this."

"I did what I had to do," said Hollyleaf. "Fountain and Fallen Leaves were helpful, weren't they?" Littlefalcon nodded. "I'm here now. You brought us back."

He looked around, and cats were approaching him where he stood. Cats he recognized from all Clans. His cats. New StarClan. Hollyleaf smiled from beside him, then slipped into the crowd, winding her tail through her cat's. Fallen Leaves. Littlefalcon felt relieved – he was so old he thought maybe Fallen Leaves would have been caught up in Old StarClan, too.

"Would you like to see what has happened?" Littlefalcon looked up and smiled as Hollyleaf approached him once more. "Willowleaf set up the pool. We can see them now. Go speak with them."

"I want to see them." Littlefalcon nodded. He waved his tail at all those he passed – Briarpaw and Runningpaw, Rustfur and Brackenheart, Lizardpaw and Firestar and Bramblestar and every cat that had died under his watch. And he raced up the hill nearly dragging Hollyleaf behind him, to the pool where he could reach into the world of the living. He saw them slowly waking up and sighed in relief, counting their forms. All but Bluemoon had made it, but she would watch them and protect the core of light that was the moon. This was perfect.

"We did it," said Littlefalcon, barely able to believe it. He laughed. "We did it."

"Yes, you did, oh Littlefalcon, mighty Leader of New StarClan." Hollyleaf grinned at him. "You saved them all."

I kind of had to. LITTLEFALCON. I'm very concerned that I didn't do Hollyleaf well enough, which still makes me cringe, but she's really a background character you didn't realize was there the whole time? I dunno, it's hard to explain her. I think that's why I'm writing this whole other fic about her side of the story...hint go check it out.

There's one more chapter plus an epilogue on this little story, and then that's all. Wow has it been a long time of making this happen.

~Elsi