Post by Tigerfur on Nov 3, 2007 12:32:51 GMT -5
Tigerfur: Well here it is, the last part of the story. I'm pretty sure Sunsetfur is grateful for all of your wonderful comments and support. So heres the final part of the story, enjoy! ;D 
Sunsetfur: And here...is the final part of Gray Skies, Black Dawn. :'(It's been a long road, all, and I hope you've enjoyed it. Don't expect The Fire Within Us for approximately a couple weeks, unless I get a massive stroke of inspiration, which actually isn't that unlikely. I'm working out what I think is a great plot.
Epilogue
Infinite Stars and River Song[/u]
The third generation has begun. First me, then my kits, and now theirs. Perhaps they will have their own adventures, as Tigerflame had hers. Or perhaps history will repeat itself, as it always does, and they will live in sorrow as I did. Whatever their fate or doom may be, the Clans will remember them, as they are the kin of Tigerflame, the cat who helped save the Clans from disease.
I flitted through the starry paths to the skies above, shapeless, light as…well, light as nothing. The forest of StarClan was so phenomenally strange: it came unlooked-for, and I was suddenly in it without seeing the trees approach from a distance. The many, countless spirits of the dead Clan warriors conversed as usual in the quiet shadows, hardly looking up as I glided among them. Cloudfeather spotted me, however, and she called out a greeting to me. I nodded absentmindedly back at my old mentor, searching for the scent of one cat.
And then he was suddenly behind me, breath on my ear, murmuring, “Hey. Did you talk to her?”
“Yes,” I meowed, turning around to smile at him.
“How is she?”
“She’s all right. Have you looked at her kits yet?”
“Yes,” he purred, guiding me over to a sprawling swath of delicate yellow flowers and settling down. “I saw them briefly just after they were born. Do you know their names?”
“Of course, I heard her name them. There’s a gray one like me, just like me, actually, who they’ve called Moonkit. And a gold tabby tom, named Sunkit.”
“Sun and Moon?”
“Yes. And the third looks like Gorsethorn, and it called Eaglekit.”
“Eaglekit?” His yellow eyes clouded. “Why did they call him that?”
“In your memory, Hawkwing, of course. Tigerflame’s grown up. She’s become wiser through her journey—all of those Twelve have, even the ShadowClan apprentice—even though she’s young.”
“Well,” he continued, shaking out his fur self-consciously. “At least we can watch them grow up together. They’ll be incredible cats, I can tell you right now.”
“Obviously. They have my blood.” I threw him a mocking smile.
He rose, his face amused. “I should like to look at them again. Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” I meowed happily. “I could spend days watching them.”
And together we bounded down through the path of starlight and daylight, emerging quickly into the bright world of the living. There was the RiverClan camp, bathed in soft golden light, and rippling in a lazy breeze. Hawkwing stole through the entry tunnel, the curling tendrils of thorns having no effect on his spirit’s flank. I followed swiftly, feeling as I usually did when walking among the living: strange, unwelcome, and unnerved.
“Where’s the nursery…? Ah.” He glided over to the opening, and the purrs and quiet voices of Dawninglight and Tigerflame meeting my senses. I crept in after him, feeling so terribly weird to be standing right in front of two cats and having them not notice you at all.
Hawkwing sighed long and deep. “So that’s Moonkit…your copy, she looks like Glowkit too…and Eaglekit, like the father…and Sunkit, he looks like my father, he was golden too.”
“I’ve never met your father,” I commented, shooting him a furtive glance.
“’S all right. I never knew him well. Solitary type. Who on earth is that?”
Another cat had entered the nursery from the other opening. A she-cat, clearly, with ruffled and ragged dark brown fur and beady, mistrusting eyes. Her eyes lit up when she saw my daughters, however.
“That’s someone they met in the Mountains, Hawkwing, you mouse-brain. She helped them find the Starpath.”
“Oh yeah. I remember. And there’s her irritating little son. Not so little anymore, is he? What’re their names again?”
“Jasper and Songbird,” I replied in a resigned tone.
“Well, they’re rogues, why aren’t they off and gone already?”
“Maybe they like the Clans?”
Hawkwing shrugged, scattering stardust across the ground. It glittered faintly for a moment before fading away into the trampled terrain. He watched it without really focusing on it.
“What about Dawninglight’s kits, now?” He continued, turning his head to peer into the black and silver she-cat’s nest. “Only one of them looks like her. Good. The other one looks like me.”
“No he doesn’t, he looks like Barkpelt.”
“Barkpelt? Is he her mate? I’ll be watching him.”
“Good thing Dawninglight can’t see or hear you. She’s a feisty one, and would claw your ears off if she heard that her father was hanging on her mate’s every movement,” I chuckled, flicking his muzzle with my tail.
Hawkwing watched the scene for a few minutes. I listened to Songbird chattering away to the two queens about where she had set up camp with her son. He had grown much, and was a tall tomcat now, with handsome brown fur accented with ginger.
“What are you thinking about?” I meowed, touching Hawkwing’s shoulder with my tail and guiding him out of the nursery. He cast a careful glance at me.
“I don’t know,” he answered dully, walking out of the camp and in the river’s direction.
“Tell me. Of course you know what you’re thinking about,” I persisted.
“The future,” he relented, his yellow eyes turning upon me as we halted on the shore. The river song danced in my ears, seeming surreal.
“What about it?”
“I looked into the Seeing-water yesterday,” he confided swiftly, his words bumping hastily into each other.
“The Seeing-water?” I repeated, surprised. StarClan cats rarely looked into the pool of prophecy, the source of glimpses of the future and mortal cats below. It was in this pool that Firestar’s legacy had been foreseen and the four cats who went to the sun-drown place had been chosen. “What did you see?”
“I saw…” He halted, searching for the right words. “I saw a cat like Eaglekit, I guess. He was small, apprentice-sized, and had brown fur like his. He was bending over the Moonpool, and there were shapes of other cats beside him.”
Surprise flooded through me. “Is he destined to become a medicine cat?”
“I don’t know,” Hawkwing meowed wearily, closing his eyes and listening to the sounds of bird and wind and river. “Perhaps something more important than that.”
“I don’t want him to have a fate like ours,” I mewed in a whisper. “Or even like Tigerflame’s, or Dawninglight’s. I want him to live out his life in happiness…normally.”
“I know,” Hawkwing sighed. “Maybe he will live happily ever after, Silverpool. Not all heroes are doomed.”
I shrugged halfheartedly, watching the sliding river that had gone on through battle, sickness, sadness, heat, cold, despair, and hopelessness. And it would go on forever.
“Listen to the river song,” Hawkwing quietly meowed, reaching out and letting the water pass through his weightless paw. “And take comfort from it.”
“I always do,” I purred, closing my eyes for a moment before taking a great leap into the sky. The blue dome of this world concealed the countless stars upon the dusky void. I climbed higher and higher, passing clouds and wind currents in heartbeats, feeling the exhilaration flow through me like liquid fire. Hawkwing’s golden-brown fur flashed beside me like a dull comet adorned with starlight.
“You can’t catch me!” I laughed into the star-speckled skies, bright and shining like a dark dawn.
He quickened his flying pace, and called out into the sky, “I’ll race you to the stars.”
Sunsetfur: And here...is the final part of Gray Skies, Black Dawn.
:'(It's been a long road, all, and I hope you've enjoyed it. Don't expect The Fire Within Us for approximately a couple weeks, unless I get a massive stroke of inspiration, which actually isn't that unlikely. I'm working out what I think is a great plot.Epilogue
Infinite Stars and River Song[/u]
The third generation has begun. First me, then my kits, and now theirs. Perhaps they will have their own adventures, as Tigerflame had hers. Or perhaps history will repeat itself, as it always does, and they will live in sorrow as I did. Whatever their fate or doom may be, the Clans will remember them, as they are the kin of Tigerflame, the cat who helped save the Clans from disease.
I flitted through the starry paths to the skies above, shapeless, light as…well, light as nothing. The forest of StarClan was so phenomenally strange: it came unlooked-for, and I was suddenly in it without seeing the trees approach from a distance. The many, countless spirits of the dead Clan warriors conversed as usual in the quiet shadows, hardly looking up as I glided among them. Cloudfeather spotted me, however, and she called out a greeting to me. I nodded absentmindedly back at my old mentor, searching for the scent of one cat.
And then he was suddenly behind me, breath on my ear, murmuring, “Hey. Did you talk to her?”
“Yes,” I meowed, turning around to smile at him.
“How is she?”
“She’s all right. Have you looked at her kits yet?”
“Yes,” he purred, guiding me over to a sprawling swath of delicate yellow flowers and settling down. “I saw them briefly just after they were born. Do you know their names?”
“Of course, I heard her name them. There’s a gray one like me, just like me, actually, who they’ve called Moonkit. And a gold tabby tom, named Sunkit.”
“Sun and Moon?”
“Yes. And the third looks like Gorsethorn, and it called Eaglekit.”
“Eaglekit?” His yellow eyes clouded. “Why did they call him that?”
“In your memory, Hawkwing, of course. Tigerflame’s grown up. She’s become wiser through her journey—all of those Twelve have, even the ShadowClan apprentice—even though she’s young.”
“Well,” he continued, shaking out his fur self-consciously. “At least we can watch them grow up together. They’ll be incredible cats, I can tell you right now.”
“Obviously. They have my blood.” I threw him a mocking smile.
He rose, his face amused. “I should like to look at them again. Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” I meowed happily. “I could spend days watching them.”
And together we bounded down through the path of starlight and daylight, emerging quickly into the bright world of the living. There was the RiverClan camp, bathed in soft golden light, and rippling in a lazy breeze. Hawkwing stole through the entry tunnel, the curling tendrils of thorns having no effect on his spirit’s flank. I followed swiftly, feeling as I usually did when walking among the living: strange, unwelcome, and unnerved.
“Where’s the nursery…? Ah.” He glided over to the opening, and the purrs and quiet voices of Dawninglight and Tigerflame meeting my senses. I crept in after him, feeling so terribly weird to be standing right in front of two cats and having them not notice you at all.
Hawkwing sighed long and deep. “So that’s Moonkit…your copy, she looks like Glowkit too…and Eaglekit, like the father…and Sunkit, he looks like my father, he was golden too.”
“I’ve never met your father,” I commented, shooting him a furtive glance.
“’S all right. I never knew him well. Solitary type. Who on earth is that?”
Another cat had entered the nursery from the other opening. A she-cat, clearly, with ruffled and ragged dark brown fur and beady, mistrusting eyes. Her eyes lit up when she saw my daughters, however.
“That’s someone they met in the Mountains, Hawkwing, you mouse-brain. She helped them find the Starpath.”
“Oh yeah. I remember. And there’s her irritating little son. Not so little anymore, is he? What’re their names again?”
“Jasper and Songbird,” I replied in a resigned tone.
“Well, they’re rogues, why aren’t they off and gone already?”
“Maybe they like the Clans?”
Hawkwing shrugged, scattering stardust across the ground. It glittered faintly for a moment before fading away into the trampled terrain. He watched it without really focusing on it.
“What about Dawninglight’s kits, now?” He continued, turning his head to peer into the black and silver she-cat’s nest. “Only one of them looks like her. Good. The other one looks like me.”
“No he doesn’t, he looks like Barkpelt.”
“Barkpelt? Is he her mate? I’ll be watching him.”
“Good thing Dawninglight can’t see or hear you. She’s a feisty one, and would claw your ears off if she heard that her father was hanging on her mate’s every movement,” I chuckled, flicking his muzzle with my tail.
Hawkwing watched the scene for a few minutes. I listened to Songbird chattering away to the two queens about where she had set up camp with her son. He had grown much, and was a tall tomcat now, with handsome brown fur accented with ginger.
“What are you thinking about?” I meowed, touching Hawkwing’s shoulder with my tail and guiding him out of the nursery. He cast a careful glance at me.
“I don’t know,” he answered dully, walking out of the camp and in the river’s direction.
“Tell me. Of course you know what you’re thinking about,” I persisted.
“The future,” he relented, his yellow eyes turning upon me as we halted on the shore. The river song danced in my ears, seeming surreal.
“What about it?”
“I looked into the Seeing-water yesterday,” he confided swiftly, his words bumping hastily into each other.
“The Seeing-water?” I repeated, surprised. StarClan cats rarely looked into the pool of prophecy, the source of glimpses of the future and mortal cats below. It was in this pool that Firestar’s legacy had been foreseen and the four cats who went to the sun-drown place had been chosen. “What did you see?”
“I saw…” He halted, searching for the right words. “I saw a cat like Eaglekit, I guess. He was small, apprentice-sized, and had brown fur like his. He was bending over the Moonpool, and there were shapes of other cats beside him.”
Surprise flooded through me. “Is he destined to become a medicine cat?”
“I don’t know,” Hawkwing meowed wearily, closing his eyes and listening to the sounds of bird and wind and river. “Perhaps something more important than that.”
“I don’t want him to have a fate like ours,” I mewed in a whisper. “Or even like Tigerflame’s, or Dawninglight’s. I want him to live out his life in happiness…normally.”
“I know,” Hawkwing sighed. “Maybe he will live happily ever after, Silverpool. Not all heroes are doomed.”
I shrugged halfheartedly, watching the sliding river that had gone on through battle, sickness, sadness, heat, cold, despair, and hopelessness. And it would go on forever.
“Listen to the river song,” Hawkwing quietly meowed, reaching out and letting the water pass through his weightless paw. “And take comfort from it.”
“I always do,” I purred, closing my eyes for a moment before taking a great leap into the sky. The blue dome of this world concealed the countless stars upon the dusky void. I climbed higher and higher, passing clouds and wind currents in heartbeats, feeling the exhilaration flow through me like liquid fire. Hawkwing’s golden-brown fur flashed beside me like a dull comet adorned with starlight.
“You can’t catch me!” I laughed into the star-speckled skies, bright and shining like a dark dawn.
He quickened his flying pace, and called out into the sky, “I’ll race you to the stars.”
