Right before the very last part, Tinyflame turned to fix Crescentpaw with a monuments gaze.

"From this day forth, your name will be known as Crescentsky. Starclan honors your spirit and determination, and I welcome you as a full warrior of Riverclan."

The silence felt loud after that. There was no crowd of clanmates there to cheer her name. Despite this, Tinyflame stayed silent as Crescentsky thought about the change.

I didn't expect that. It's unique.

"Do you like it?" Tinyflame eventually asked.

"I love it," Crescentsky stated. Then Tinyflame cheered.

"Great! Crescentsky, Crescentsky! You deserve it." Her sister head-butted her in the shoulder, and Crescentsky playfully batted at her ear.

"Shh, not so loud. But so do you, Tinyflame. With a tongue like fire at times, the name's fitting."

Tinyflame took no offense. She gave a half-smile, her eyes glowing beside the still-water Moonpool.

"We musn't forget our warrior vigils when we arrive home." Crescentsky waved her tail as she settled next to her littermate, facing towards the slope that led away from the Moonpool.

They celebrated by sharing Tinyflame's cuckoo bird. The warriors left the mouse for Cheetah, plucking out the feathers with their teeth.

Somehow the urge to fall silent after that was natural. The two she-cats kept a watchful eye on the eastern slope, where the forlorn wolf-scent predominately flowed from.

Crescentsky licked her jaws clean and then began grooming her fur. She wanted to run all the way home and announce for her warrior name, but there was more important tasks that needed done first.

"It's Moonhigh but that cursed cloud won't move," Tinyflame said awhile later with a scornful glare up at the obstructed crescent moon. Behind them, ferns shivered in the night breeze.

"It's drifting across it, though. Give it a moment. Finally, after this there'll be no more cloud."

The second that wispy cloud passed, the Moonpool began lightening into a brilliant radiating glow. The edges were a glimmering shade of aqua, and the claw-scratch moon was reflected in its darkest, stillest waters.

The crescent was blinding white, glistening in the surface of the pool with a distorted shape.

Tinyflame and Crescentsky met each other's gaze. Somehow this was more urethral than they had expected.

The two she-cats were lit by a soft blue light. Crescentsky nearly forgot the wolf-scent flowing down from the mountain, and Cheetah watching out for them up in her sycamore tree.

"Hurry!" Tinyflame lept to all four paws, her tail stuck straight up behind her.

"You have to touch the Moonpool now. The pathways for visiting Starclan aren't always open."

"You're not coming?" Crescentsky lifted a paw, taken aback. "I thought we were going together."

"There's no point in me coming with you. You'll need eyes behind you and on the ground, in case I have to wake you up."

"..Alright." She swallowed.

Visiting Starclan by myself seems like a big task... but the clans need help now more than ever.

What if they don't accept a visit from an ordinary warrior, though? Who was just an apprentice moments before... anxiety halted her pawsteps.

Crescentsky shook out her fur and lifted her muzzle.

It's not as if I didn't plan to come by myself in the first place. I can do this.

Hesitating no longer, she strided forward. At the edge of the Moonpool's sandy shore, she crouched. Crescentsky dipped her head lower and lower, until it tapped the Moonpool's glittery surface.

By the time the ripple of her nose-touch reached the moon-reflection in the center, she was asleep.

🐈‍⬛

The black-and-white tabby was still crouched on the earth when she awoke. Within the blink of an eye she had exited one world and entered another.

Crescentsky rose on trembling haunches and gazed around. Starclan had starshine outlined in every swirling willow tree, river swell and grass-blade. White pebbles rolled beneath her paws, as she turned to look towards a chattering brook. Stones climbed a grassy hillock that was split to make way for a tiny waterfall. The glade she stood in was ringed with stringy sedge-bushes and lush reed stalks.

As the water crashed down into the flat mossy stones below, sparks of starlight seemed to fly out. Mesmerized, the Riverclan she-cat searched for Starclan warriors.

The moon was a glowing orb above them, enchanting and still. Its light illuminated a white she-cat sitting on a rocky outcrop. From across the grove, she turned glittering green eyes onto Crescentsky, who stood there observing.

"Hello," the she-cat dipped her head formerly. Crescentsky crossed the grass toward her.

The ground feels soft as cobweb, she thought admiringly. She felt as if she could have a luxurious nap, if she just laid down under the pelt of stars.

But she kept moving, until she was all the way at the foot of the she-cat's rocky mound.

"Hi..." the Riverclan warrior began awkwardly. I don't belong here.

The she-cat jumped down with well-aimed leap, landing directly in front of her. However, she began padding around Crescentsky, examining the she-cat's solid build.

"My name is Whiteleaf. We've been waiting for you."

Crescentsky straightened, looking around. But as far as her eye could see, there was no other cats in the starlit glade. Whiskers of grass and frosty-looking bluebells twitched, distracting her for a second. But when she looked closer, no one was there.

The air was still but not quiet. Crickets chirruped in the spindly grass stalks. She could hear a vole digging through the soft soil along the lakeshore behind her.

"I've come to ask how we restore the lost clans," the Riverclan warrior said grievously.

"We need new leaders and medicine cats. And we need to flee the territories... or whatever you think is best."

Whiteleaf's studied her, leaning close. Crescentsky held her breath while the she-cat looked close into her eyes.

"Wise questions." She seemed to be searching for something in Crescentsky's gaze.

"But we cannot give you the answer to everything you ask for."

"Why?" She opened her jaws to retaliate.

"So I came here for nothing? All hope is lost?" Her meow was despairing.

Starclan can't do anything?

"My clans need help! I need some way to help them," Crescentsky's mew was a half-growl out of pure desperation.

"Slow down!" The she-cat explained.

"I didn't say that we can't help." Whiteleaf sat down, her eyes twinkling like tiny little stars. Her white flanks glittered like sunlit brimstone. On such a clear, lovely night, Crescentsky felt herself relaxing. She could tell that it was safe here.

"The clans have never before seen such mass tragedy, within my memory." Her voice quavered like splintered ice.

The frosty she-cat paused.

"The truth is that if we send who's left to search for new lands, enough would not survive to carry on the legacy of the clans."

"Why not send just a few cats?" Crescentsky asked, trying to sound patient.

"It is not so simple," Whiteleaf meowed. Her tone was cool but authorative.

"We've had the idea to send just a few cats. We can foresee the probabilities of that future. And it doesn't end well." Whiteleaf's voice was direct as she carried on.

"With leaf-fall encroaching, and the long leaf-bare moons coming soon after, those journeying cats would die. And the wolves would scatter who's left waiting around the lake before they had a chance to return, if they could."

The Riverclan cat's bones chilled. A sense of foreboding gathered in her heart, temporarily swamping her thoughts.

"And Starclan would be disconnected from the clans. We cannot wander with you. Starclan must find hunting grounds in the skies, as well as each clan needing to find their own territory down on the earth." She sighed lamentably.

Once we leave, we wouldn't have access to Starclan until we either return or find the new territories. The realization shocked her. Not to mention having to find a new Moonpool or some other variation, at that.

"We have sent out cats to look from the stars, but we have not found so much as a partly suitable territory for all five clans yet."

Everything Crescentsky was hearing sounded bad.

But they're trying. Starclan has been trying as hard as I have. That tiny fact only brightened her optimism.

"There is a couple of other things we can do to help restore what's left of the clans," Whiteleaf rushed into saying. "But really, it will be up to all of you."

Whiteleaf's eyes sparkled with hope as she said this to Crescentsky.

"It will not be easy. The task will be tedious and challenging." The thin she-cat was leaning forward, as if she couldn't wait to get to the good news.

She really does want to help. Whiteleaf's triangular white ears pricked, and starlit speckles flung down her pelt as she moved.

"We'll start by choosing a medicine cat for Riverclan."

Crescentsky purred ecstatically, practically melting into her own fur with relief.

"Oh, thank you. Thank you, Whiteleaf. Thank you, Starclan." Crescentsky's tail was waving eagerly. There was still no other cats that she could see.

Starclan was oddly dark at night, as well as light. The moon seemed to light up the grass with an abundance of starlight, and the rippling riverbed waves were sapphire blue.

"So who's the new medicine cat going to be?"
Her eyes were full of wonder as she squinted across the shallow river-bend, where hanging ivy stems trailed between emerald, moon-lit spruce trees.

"Now, now." Whiteleaf patiently consoled her.

"It's not that simple, once again. I can't just tell you here and now," the she-cat muttered dryly, but there was amusement in her tone. Crescentsky's whiskers twitched.

"Tell your clan they will receive a sign." Whiteleaf's gaze narrowed intently, and Crescentsky blinked in understanding.

"You may receive it when least expected. But you will know when you see it." Her tone resounded with wisdom and experience.

"The chosen cat will be trained by a Starclan medicine cat in their dreams. I'm afraid we have no other way around that."

She nodded. There was so many things that the tabby she-cat wanted to say.

Whiteleaf leaned back, satisfied, but she still wasn't finished.

"Starclan's next course of action affects you and you alone."

Crescentsky felt confused, but she was smart enough not to question yet. Her gaze widened while she listened.