Wait until it is dark and the night sky is full of stars. Can you hear them? Do they whisper to you of secret places and adventures? Follow the path of the moon through the forest. Feel the bracken crackle under your paws and the wind ruffle your fur.
Mist curls around you and blurs the familiar shapes of the forest.
Press through the ferns until you come out into a clearing.
Towering over you are four giant oaks, massive and dark, outlined by the moonlight. In the center of the clearing, on the Great Rock, I will be waiting for you.
I am Lionheart. I was a ThunderClan warrior. In a fierce battle, I died defending my Clan. Now I belong to StarClan, a Clan of the spirits of our warrior ancestors.
Yes, you are dreaming. We often walk in the dreams of those we watch. Don’t be afraid. I know it looks like a land of mist and shadows, but I promise there is enough light to warm the darkest of hearts.
From here, we watch over the Clans we have left behind.
The saddest moments are when kits come to join us, whether through illness, predators, or unexpected disaster. But we love it when new kits are born, and my heart swells with pride every time a ThunderClan apprentice becomes a warrior.
Sometimes we can sense the destiny of these warriors. It is clearest with new leaders. When Firestar became leader of ThunderClan, I could see that he would lead the Clan through terrible times with courage and wisdom. When Tigerstar rose to power in ShadowClan, we all knew that darkness lay ahead.
Sadly, we cannot change what will happen to the cats we watch.
I would have done anything to prevent the fire that swept through ThunderClan territory or to save my Clanmates from the dog pack. But the lives of warriors are filled with tragedy, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. All we can do is warn our descendants with signs and prophecies and hope that they listen.
The cats with the closest bond to StarClan usually become medicine cats. Spottedleaf had a particularly special connection to us; Firestar’s daughter Leafpool does as well. Firestar himself often has prophetic dreams—he even had them when he was a kittypet.
These cats meet us in their dreams. They can read the omens we paint in the sky or the leaves or the water. They know the meaning of a falling star or a strange cloud pattern. We need them to understand us, so they can keep our Clans safe.
There are sacred places too, which inhabit both the world of living cats and the world of dreams. Here leaders may come to receive visions and seek our guidance. We also grant them nine lives and their star name.
We most often speak to cats of our own Clans. Yet, sometimes, we reach out to cats of other Clans. I understand the other Clans better than I did when I was alive. I wish them well, even the cats I fought. We need all four Clans to survive.
Cats who have caused great pain in their lives wander a strange forest of darkness in death. We sense this distant place. Tigerstar, Brokenstar, Clawface, and Darkstripe are there, exiled from the Clan of their ancestors, of no comfort to one another.
There are other skies where other cats walk as well. The Tribe of Rushing Water have ancestors of their own, and while our questing cats were in the mountains, we could not see them clearly. They were in the territory of different spirits, where we couldn’t go.
On the journey to the lake, we had trouble reaching our warriors. We had to travel ourselves, through unfamiliar sky paths, to find our new home. We could not have found it without them, and they could not have found it without us.
Are you wondering how we can be here, at Fourtrees, if the forest has been destroyed by Twolegs? Don’t worry. Fourtrees will always be in our hearts. It is a part of StarClan too, wherever we are.
Now return to your den and your peaceful dreams. Thank you for visiting StarClan. Remember, keep your eyes and ears open, watch for anything unusual, and you too may see the signs we leave in the world around you.
My name is Snowfur, and I am now one of the warrior ancestors. I came to StarClan as a young warrior, killed by a Twoleg monster while I was chasing ShadowClan intrud-ers out of our territory. I mourned along with my Clan, but not for my own life. I only wished I could have stayed until my son became a warrior. Of course, I watched his ceremony from the stars, a few moons later. Whitestorm was so excited, so brave, and I was so proud of him. I think he knew I was there with him during his vigil.
It was not long after that when we learned that my sister, Bluefur, was having kits. I wished we could just be happy for her, but she had broken the warrior code, and I knew it was going to bring her much sorrow. The father of the kits was not ThunderClan. He was the RiverClan deputy, Oakheart.
“A kit is coming to join us,” Brambleberry, the former RiverClan medicine cat, meowed. “Half ThunderClan, half RiverClan.”
“Half-Clan!” spat a ShadowClan warrior.
“It is an innocent kit,” Brambleberry meowed with fierce anger in her voice.
The cats of StarClan were gathered at Fourtrees, which was blan-keted by snow just like the whole forest in the world of our descendants. It was a bitter leaf-bare, and many cats were starving. More cats came to StarClan every day, and we were all feeling frustrated that there was nothing we could do to help.
“This kit did not have to die,” hissed Moonflower. She was my and Bluefur’s mother, but she did not approve of what my sister was doing. “It is Bluefur’s fault for falling in love outside the Clan in the first place. And now she is dragging her three helpless kits out into the snow with her! Of course one of them is going to die. I’m amazed the other two will make it as far as RiverClan.”
“But they will be safer there than they were in ThunderClan,” meowed a RiverClan spirit. “RiverClan has more prey than any other Clan. If Oakheart will take them in, they have a better chance of survival than they did before.”
“We don’t know that,” Moonflower meowed. “If she had kept them safely in our den, all three of them might have lived to be warriors.”
“And what else lies along that path?” meowed Owlstar, one of the oldest ThunderClan spirits. “Study that future carefully, Moonflower.”
“It is too dark to see it clearly,” she protested.
“But we can guess,” Owlstar murmured. “If Bluefur stays in the nursery with her kits, Thistleclaw will become deputy instead. He is an ambitious, violent cat, and we know it. He would lead his warriors to attack other Clans—the last thing this forest needs right now.
Would you rather see more warriors coming to join us because of his bloody leadership?”
“So a kit’s life is the price to be paid for the warriors whom Thistleclaw might lead into death,” Moonflower growled. “I know that Bluefur believes Thistleclaw would be the wrong leader for ThunderClan. But how do we know that being deputy wouldn’t make him a better cat?”
“We don’t know,” Brambleberry meowed. “And neither does Bluefur. She must make her choices based on what she thinks might happen. I don’t agree with what she’s doing… I would never endan-ger innocent kits… but I can see why she’s doing it.”
“It is for the good of the Clan,” Owlstar meowed.
“But not for the good of the kit,” Moonflower spat.
“We cannot change what will happen to Mosskit,” Brambleberry meowed. “We can only make sure he is protected on his journey to StarClan.”
“I will take care of him,” I spoke up. The others all looked around at me. “I was a queen when I died,” I pointed out. “My son, Whitepaw, had only recently left the nursery. I remember well how to care for kits… and I miss it. I would be a good mother to this kit.”