Well, here it is, the epilogue, out before my new story. Shows how hard I'm working on that one. I just need to sit down and do it tonight, get through the plot and whatnot and figure out the themes I want to explore. But I digress. Yes, I leave this story open for a sequel. Will there be one? Well, I'm pushing around an idea, but it's not going to be the next story that I do, and maybe not even the next story after that. In fact, I'm planning on this story not even being necessary to be read in order to enjoy the sequel. But you'll find out about more of that later.
This epilogue take place many, many years in the future, at the least, twenty-five years in the future, and is from the POV of someone that we kind of never had before. Kind of. You'll figure out what I mean when you read it. We find out what happens to Reedpaw in this chapter, and what change he decides to bring to the forest and get hints of just how powerful he really is. But I'm just spoiling it. Go on and read, enjoy, and review.
I can't remember a time there wasn't war.
My mother used to tell stories of four Clans in the forest, four leaders, four medicine cats and four deputies. She said they used to be named RiverClan, ThunderClan, WindClan, and ShadowClan, and each had their own identity, the RiverClan cats could swim, the ThunderClan cats were great hunters, the WindClan cats were fast, and the ShadowClan cats were ferocious. But all I know, all anyone know nows, are three of each, and their names are always changing.
When I was little, we were still called RiverClan, but I hardly remember that. The cats we fought against were nameless for the most part: We called them 'the enemy' or 'the wrong ones.' I believed that they were wrong too. But now that I'm older, I'm not so sure. In fact, now that I see the world through different eyes, I don't think that anything I've been taught was completely true.
Soon after I was born we became the Forest Clan, because we had taken both sides of the river and destroyed one of the opposing Clans. But the remaining cats from that Clan banded together with the cats who were once called WindClan, and together they became LionClan. Soon the Clan across the thunderpath had to join them, because my Clan forced them out of their home as well.
Afterwards it seemed as if any three cats with ambition could band together to create their own Clan, and slowly, LionClan began to fall apart because of this. There was DarkClan, WildClan, RageClan, RevengeClan, and other ridiculous Clan names. My Clan changed at around this time from ForestClan to simply 'The Clan,' and we began raiding the moor territories, and the territories of these tiny Clans that rose and fell like ripples in a pool of water. Slowly we began to gain ground on these cats, until we controlled most of the moors, and all of the other cats in the forest feared the Clan.
And then at that time my father changed.
My father was the leader of the Clan, the last true leader in the forest to receive nine lives and the name Reedstar from the ancestors he called 'StarClan', and he often said that he would be the last. I always remembered him as a just, fair leader, with a strong mind and strong body, he would lead attacks and patrols himself, and though was merciless in battle, was gentle with cats within the Clan. He would often tell stories of cats from his past that no one remembered, of how they taught him so much, and how they helped him become who he was today. Once, he even mentioned that we were named after them, and that he had decided our warrior names when we were no more than kits. But he refused to tell us until our warrior ceremony.
We were the last new warriors the Clan would ever know.
I remember that night like it was only moments before. My father standing high on a rock that served as the meeting point for our Clan. It used to be the center point for another Clan's camp – I can't remember which, and my father had taken the hollow below it as his own. He called the Clan together – there were over forty of us, the largest amount of cats in the Clan that had ever been, and spoke of a dream he had had many years ago, and how he believed it was time for him to share the dream. But before that, he called us forward, and gave us our warrior names.
I had three siblings, but the one I loved the most was my brother Cedarpaw. Even as kits my father used to talk about how he would put Ashpaw and Firepaw between us, but Cedarpaw would crawl over them until he was nestled up against my side and only then would sleep or nurse. He insisted to our mentors that we trained together, and we become closer to each other than we ever had with Ashpaw or Firepaw.
That night he called us by his little nickname for us – his Causes, the reason he fought so hard for his Clan, and then renamed us. My gray-and-white patched sister Ashpaw became Ashfall, my black brother Cedarpaw became Cedarsong. I became Whitebird, and my mute, red-eyed brother with white fur became Firestorm.
After he had touched each of us on the forehead with his muzzle, and we had moved to join the warriors where they sat, Reedstar told the Clan that we would be the last warriors that would ever be given a warrior name by him. A ripple of shock ran through the Clan, and I looked up at Cedarsong, confused. He didn't understand what our father meant either, and pressed close to me, frightened.
My father spoke of change, of how the forest needed it more than ever, and how the world would be better once this change had commenced. He spoke of one final battle against an enemy that we could not see, and stated that if the Clan wanted to be happy, and if the world wanted to be fair, we would have to face this foe, no matter who it was. Of course, the cats of the Clan raised their voices in approval. We had run to so many battles and won so many wars, how could this one be any different? We were the Clan, we were the strongest force in the forest, no one could stand before us without falling!
And then my father told us who the enemy was, and the world grew silent.
The enemy was the Clan.
My father held us, transfixed, as he outlined what was wrong with the Clan, how the Clan could never be perfect, and how this many cats were never supposed to live in the same area at the same time. He told us that he knew many of us wanted to leave the Clan, surprising many cats, and that they were now free to go. Rippletail would no longer be our deputy, my father would no longer be our leader, and Willowshine would no longer be our Medicine Cat, we were free cats, free to leave, free to do whatever we wished.
Of course there were protests, if we were free to leave, after all, and free to do what we wished, we could stay and keep the Clan together. But my father only shrugged and said that he would not lead them, and that they would have to pick a leader themselves. The cats began to argue, Rippletail claiming he should be leader and many cats agreeing with him, but no cat knew where to go in order to gain the nine lives my father had, and many did not accept Rippletail because of this. My father vanished soon after this, and try as we might to find him, we never could. Reedstar, the last nine-lived leader of the forest, was gone.
Things fell apart from there. Rippletail was an old warrior at this time, and was soon killed by a young, ambitious warrior named Longfoot. Longfoot styled himself as Longstar, but most of the Clan left, disgusted that he killed Rippletail in order to lead the Clan. Some tried to form their own Clans, much like the remnants of LionClan, but these two fell apart or began to war with each other. Ashfall was one of the first to leave the Clan, ashamed that our father had done this, and Firestorm vanished shortly after with no hint of where he would g. Only Cedarsong and I stayed together, at least until our mother died, and by then Longstar had been killed by his own deputy, Stormheart.
Soon after we fled, Stormheart wanting to take me as a mate, and my brother and I escape across the river, where we hid in caves by the gorge. Stormheart searched for us incessantly until his leadership began to crumble as well, and finally gave up. Cedarsong and I lived for a long time in those caves, always cold, always wet, and always confused. It was during this time I almost died from a chest infection, but Cedarsong treated me until I grew better, and hunted for the both of us in the waters by the gorge and the forests on our side of the river. Many cats would come to our cave to rest or hide, some hostile and others friendly, and many searching for suitable mates, but Cedarsong and I always rejected them or made them leave. We wanted no company save our own.
In the Clan, it was taboo to take your sibling as your mate, and though I loved Cedarsong more than I loved any other cat, I had long been resigned to the fact that we would have to be no more than siblings. But even when I was an apprentice I loved him more than a brother, and decided that if I could not have Cedarsong as a mate, I would have no mate.
But when we were free of the Clan, we were free to be mates, and when I was healthy again, we became mates. I grew heavy with kits, and Cedarsong doted over me and protected me while I was pregnant. It was during this time I began having dreams of being at the place called Fourtrees, only the oaks were still alive and the rock was not split down the center, and I remember fighting and a cat that almost looked like Cedarsong trying to protect me while I fell asleep. They were strange dreams, yes, and I thought little of them afterwards, my attention focused more on the three kits we had to feed.
But when my father returned home, things began to change.
He arrived at our den once while Cedarsong was gone and, despite him being my father, I was terrified of him. He was far more dangerous now, he was in possession of four lives still even though he was old, and there was a dangerous gleam in his eye. When Cedarsong returned that evening with prey, he dropped it and demanded to know why Reedstar was there. And that was when Reedstar told us everything.
He told us about the time he was an apprentice, how he was the Catalyst who would change the world and how the three Causes – and one other – had died for him. He told us of the warrior Ashfoot and her broken heart, or Firestar and his grief-driven insanity, and he told us about the young couple in a forbidden love, named Whitepaw and Cedarheart.
We didn't need him to tell us that the same souls of Whitepaw and Cedarheart now lived inside of us, and we didn't need to tell him of the emotions that rushed back, the memories of the battles and of death, of being reborn and finally being able to be together again. They were who we were named after. Because we possessed the same soul. We were here to be given another chance in this free world, and Reedstar wanted us to know that. And then he asked us if we were happy. It only took a moment for Cedarsong and I to answer.
We had never been more miserable.
It was nice that we could be mates and have kits of our own, but we missed the feeling of being a Clan, we missed the feeling of being a part of something greater than us, missed working to be the best we could be and serve something to the upmost of our ability. As loners we had to fear every cat who dropped by, and be suspicious to the point of paranoia. Were they really dropping in for a rest? Or were they planning an ambush to take our home? He had to fight for everything we had, without a moment's rest, and our kits could easily get sick and die because we had no Medicine Cat. Ashfall had run away because she was so ashamed of what Reedstar had done, and Firestorm had vanished. We enjoyed each other's company, yes, but we wanted our siblings back, we wanted our family back.
When we finished, Reedstar said nothing but curled his lip, stood, and left. We thought that was the last of him, but we were horribly wrong.
Half a moon later, Firestorm returned to us, somehow finding us. He had gone blind in one eye, but could not tell us what had happened, being mute. We treated him as best we could, and he helped train our kits to hunt and fight, and about that time Ashfall returned to us as well. We were together again, and we all raised my kits as a family. It was another two moons before my kits were decided to be strong enough to play without us supervising, and about that time I became pregnant again.
And that was when the storm struck.
It was a storm like no other, lightning seemed to fall more often than rain, the thunder never ceased and the rain was relentless. My small family was trapped inside of our cave, hungry and cold for what would become almost a full turn of the moon. Cedarsong and Firestorm hunted for Ashfall and I during palls, but what they brought back was never enough, and they never spoke of what the saw outside.
When the storm finally broke after nearly thirty days of constant rain, I ventured out and climbed the cliffs of the gorge, and felt the world shake when I saw what had befallen the forest, what Reedstar had done to the forest. I don't know how I knew that he did it, but I did.
The river had flooded the entire forest, the rain and wind had beaten down the trees. Lightning had struck so much of the forest that I could see it was patched like a mangy pelt. The ground had cracked, redirecting the river deeper into ThunderClan territory and splitting the territory in half. Much of the moors had collapsed into the gorge and blocked it, creating a dam and waterfall, and the swampy lands in ShadowClan were now a marsh. But the massive change of the land wasn't the worst part of this change. The worst part was what happened to the cats.
My father had changed every cat in the forest. Instead of kind travelers stopping by for a rest, all my family could expect now were vicious rogues trying to kill us. We heard them fighting often, over nothing, over prey, over the right to mate. He had changed them into beasts with bestial minds and set them free to roam the earth just to spite us. We had not liked his change, so he gave us one that was even worse.
Ashfall was killed by a rogue not a moon after the ground split and the storm ended, and Firestorm was badly wounded soon after that, and never fully recovered. Our cave became a place too easy to find, and we had to move deeper into the gorge in order to hide from raiding cats. My kits were no longer safe outside, and weren't allowed to play. Reedstar had taken back his gift at a second life, and given us back hell.
Now I am old, ancient even in the eyes of the young cats. I have seen my own kits leave and take mates and have seen their kits take mates and their kits, and I have seen many of them die. Cedarsong left me long ago, and Firestorm vanished again without a word. The cats of the forest are rogues now, not a single warrior if left among them, not a true warrior at least. I have hope for one cat whose blood remains pure, but I see no chance for him to rebuild the Clans, they are long dead, and even I can hardly remember all of them. My sight is failing me, and I can hear in the distance the voice of Cedarsgon, telling me that it is time to leave this wretched place. But at the same time, I can hear something else.
A song.
The song is without words, without tune or melody. But it is a song nonetheless, and it brings tears to my darkening eyes. There is hope, our ancestors have not betrayed us, we can rebuild the Clans. We will rebuild the Clans. I see the future just as Cedarsong has come for me, and is telling me it is time to leave now, and my breath is caught in my throat.
The future has red eyes.
Dunnno where that last sentence came from. I mean, "The future has red eyes"? I'm going to have to do some brainstorming to figure out what the hell I meant by that. Didn't plan it. Didn't plan any of this chapter, actually.
So, what is there left to talk about? Graystripe became Graystar, and I had him choose Dustpelt as his deputy because, well, I thought he would choose Dustpelt. But Dustpelt isn't one who deserves to be deputy, leading to... ta-da! Brackenfur! Brackenfur should have been made deputy instead of Brambleclaw, I will always hold that over this stupid series. Brackenfur should have been made deputy, fuckers! He should have!
I'll spare you my rant and keep on going on. But what else is there left to say? A sequel is being tossed around, but it won't be out for a while, and I need to buckle down and push out a few more chapters, because soon I'll be heading off to college and, before that, I'm going to be on a road trip for three days. I'll finish the chapters early and upload them one at a time, but it might be a little difficult, we'll just have to see.
The next story I am working on is And Who They Would Become, as I mentioned before, which features Brackenfur and Cinderpelt because FUCK YOU Erins, I LOVE Brackenfur. I'll try and get at least three chapters of that before I leave, and then have two more in store. It's going to be longer than this story, but how much longer I'm not sure. Reeeeealllly need to figure these things out.
And lastly, thank you to all of my readers and reviewers for getting through this first story with me. I plan on having a lot more in the future, so don't forget to kick my ass if I'm being lazy!