Welcome to the Messenger Code
Tigerheart: Hello! Nightstar told me that you'd be visiting today. Come in. watch out for the thorns at the entrance, they've grown faster than ever with the warm rain we've had this moon. Sorry, did that one scrape your fur? I have marigold leave if it cut you. No? Good. My name is Tigerheart, by the way, and I am CloudClan's Medicine Cat – but I expect that you knew that already, didn't you? I forget how well known the Clans have become, even among Loners and HouseCats.
Sit down, please, and make yourselves comfortable. We have many things to talk about.
Nightstar said that you want to learn about the Messenger Code. I can see how it would fascinate you, born and raised outside the Clans. Does it seem as if our lives are governed by strict, ancient laws? Your lives must feel free as air in comparison; you can hunt when you like, eat what you catch, and choose friends and enemies whenever you please without having loyalties and responsibilities forced upon you from when you're a Kit. I can see by the gleam in your eyes that you sometimes pity us for the Code that binds us like tree roots to our Clanmates, our territories, and our long dead ancestors. However, the Messenger Code isn't like that. If you're born into it, raised in its nurturing paws, it feels as obvious as breathing.
You hunt for yourselves, right? But what would you do if you got injured or sick? In the Clans, the strongest cats, the Warriors, hunt for all of us. And when it is their turn to have graying muzzles and trembling paws, new Warriors will catch prey for them until they walk with HeavenClan and hunt like young cats again.
So you think the Clans hate each other and fight all the time? It's true we live so close to the other Clans, and that can lead to tension, but we also unite against common enemies – you heard about the Fox attack right? We would have been destroyed if SkyClan hadn't come to help us.
Being part of a Clan means knowing that you'll never be truly alone. The life of a Clan surrounds you and stretches into the distance as far as you can see. You follow in the pawsteps of your Clanmates born before you and those after you will follow in your pawsteps in the moons to come. You will always be part of your Clan, even when you walk among your ancestors in the heavens.
You're still uncertain? No matter. Wait until you hear how each part of the Code came to be. No, I am not going to tell you stories. Relax your mind and together we will travel back through many moons, through many generations of cats. Each Code was come across from the Clans' daily lives as a way of ensuring that every cat is safe, nurtured, and fed from its very first breath. You will see that while the Messenger Code is still for the good, for protection, and balance among the Clans, many cats have challenged it – for it can bring terrible conflict to individual lives.
Are you ready? Let's begin with Code One…