(Who r these cats if u know?)

When Lagoonstripe finally left her alone, the dark tabby-and-white Riverclan warrior started her day with a slow groom that stretched far into the break of dawn. When her pelt was shiny and gleaming, she stepped out of the den stiffly and made for the fresh-kill pile.

Crescentsky said a sparse hello to the other cats mingling around camp. She felt worse off than she had yesterday.

She was still confined to Riverclan's camp walls. Especially since Lagoonstripe now knew that one of her wounds smelled of infection.

The tabby warrior was cleaning the festering injury in the pebbly creek-bed, lowering herself to submerge the red welts with clean river-water, when Rainstrike approached.

"Hey! Guess what? Caught a minnow yesterday. I know, it took me forever. I tried it and it didn't even taste that bad." Rainstrike laughed.

She seemed more confident now that she had already established a friend in Crescentsky.

I like this version of Rainstrike- where she isn't so subdued, hiding behind her mother and afraid to say what she thinks.

"That's great," Crescentsky purred enthusiastically, tail waving.

"So, I was just wondering." Rainstrike gave an almost sort of sly grin as she pried.

"Do you like either of the young toms in your clan? Emberfawn and Raccoonstripe— is that their names?"

Crescentsky explained that no, she didn't.

I don't really think about things like that, anyways.

"I've never had a crush on any other cats. I feel like I'm more focused on clan type of ambitions."

"I'm sure the right cat just hasn't come along yet."

"Maybe," she said.

"I hope I have kits one day. Not right now obviously, but after I'm older and the clans have moved to new territories." Rainstrike sighed dreamily, and Crescentsky giggled.

"Trufflefur said you liked fighting. I wouldn't expect such a thing of you," the Riverclan warrior chided.

"Why not? And I do," Rainstrike retorted. She splayed her paws and crouched, flattening her ears in a mock-fight.

"Because you'd be confined to the nursery and out of action for a while, wouldn't you?" Crescentsky asked.

Rainstrike brushed that off with an amiable paw movement. "Nah, I would just make my mate kitsit while I fight in the battles. I could still patrol and hunt, too. When the kits aren't hungry.

But as soon as you're healed, it's on! It would be fun to fight a cat as big as you. Sootface always goes easy on me."

Crescentsky grinned. "I won't go easy on you. Just you wait!"

Rainstrike straightened, and Crescentsky took the opportunity to ask her a question.

"Have you ever thought about becoming leader one day? Like your mother."

"No. I don't want any of that responsibility stuff. I think being a warrior is just great." Crescentsky nodded.

"Well I have. And I do."

"Why?" Rainstrike's asked her to elaborate.

"I know it would be a lot of responsibility, but after I'm older and I've grown with my clan a little bit more, it would be great to make the right decisions for the benefit of Riverclan. And the other clans around the lake." She focused her gaze on the river's shimmering surface.

"Besides, it's not as if you would lead a clan alone. You'd make final decisions, sure, but your medicine cat and deputy would be there with you every step of the way. Somehow, I like the idea of being such an integral part of the clan, but also the fact that my clanmates can console me on what's best for Riverclan; just as well as I can console them. Being a leader, to me, sounds like being the heart of the clan. Your clan should trust you, and should they do so; then you would have a true family rather than just clan-mates."

Oops.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to give you a speech."

"It's alright." Rainstrike was studying her. Her whiskers twitched as her eyes shone with intrigue.

"Clan life sounds like your calling, despite your missing- well, you know." Rainstrike clipped her own voice and peered around the sunlit-lavished greenery edging Riverclan's camp. A couple of cats were sunning themselves close by.

The conversation carried on briskly, as Crescentsky and Rainstrike relaxed beside the paw-deep creek bed. Nobody had heard them.

Cattails twitched and swayed in the breeze, while thick swathes of tall-growing reeds threw a cool belt of shadow across the latter half of their backs. Some red-brown leaves were tugged across the earth by the wind, then thrown up into a swarm near the bottoms of tree trunks. Leaf-fall would soon befell them, and Crescentsky was grateful it was still warm.

"I'll catch a real fish eventually. It's just hard because my paws are smaller for climbing along the tree-trunks of Skyclan's oak trees."

Some Riverclan cats had extra dewclaws for gripping the slimy fish that they pulled from the waters. Crescentsky was not one of them. Racoonstripe had extra dewclaws though, including odd-looking ones on his back paws.

Tinyflame's paws are smaller as well, and she's always struggled with gripping the bigger fish. Crescentsky thought, about to open her jaws and reply.

Rainstrike's paw broke through the shallow water as she brought it down, swiping at the minnows. The splash that it created made an arc for Crescentsky's face.

Don't shake it off don't shake don't shake don't shake. If only her pelt weren't practically itching for a shake-out right now.

"My bad!"

"It's alright. I can teach you how to fish when I'm healed, by the way." Rainstrike pricked her ears as Crescentsky went on.

"Has Jadestar given up arguing against your warrior name yet?"

"No." The blue-gray she-cat's expression turned sour. She backed away from the glimmering water.

"Jadestar won't let me out of camp alone still. I'm not allowed to stand guard by myself..." Rainstrike lowered her voice.

"And I still can't see Trufflefur alone, unless it's in camp and no cat is watching."

Crescentsky bent forward to take a drink from the lapping waves. A few threatened to ripple over her muzzle.

"So nothing but your warrior name has changed?" She asked when she was satisfied.

"Yeah, exactly." The she-cat sat down in a huff, gazing at her paws bitterly.

This is getting so old. I'm sick of it, which means she has to be.

Crescentsky turned her head in order to search for Jadestar's mottled-grey tortishelle pelt. When her gaze landed on the Skyclan leader, she found that Jadestar had already been watching them.

Surely she can't want her daughter to sit there and suffer. Whether it be mentally or physically.

"I'm saying something." Crescentsky rose up and stalked toward the she-cat on determined pawsteps.

"This has gone on for too long."

Rainstrike flattened one ear uncertainly, but did nothing to stop her.

"Quit robbing your daughter of the rights that clan life has to offer." Crescentsky lifted her head and snapped.

"Being a warrior is about responsibility, but also freedom. Freedom to help and serve your clan, to pick and have a mate, and to choose the cats that you get to be around!"

Jadestar blinked a few times, clearly taken aback. She had been sharing tongues with Pepperpelt beside a clump of gorse while watching them.

"You have no right to lecture a clan leader!" Pepperpelt snapped. The speckled grey she-cat was on her paws now.

Crescentsky's ears flattened. "A cat as blind as a mole could see that Rainstrike never gets to be happy!"

"Pepperpelt's right. Get on with you. Junior warriors in Riverclan have no authority in telling me how to run my clan.

And you had no right trying to name Rainstrike and Oatpaw behind my back, either. Don't think I don't know."

Jadestar curled her lip, a growl lacing her tone. She made to step around Crescentsky.

Crescentsky blocked her way, so that they were nose to nose now.

"You don't just get to walk away this time. Not until you make equal allowances for Rainstrike." The Riverclan warrior raised her voice.

"The same ones that we all have! Yourself, and Sootface! And the Shadowclan apprentices. And me! You're hindering your own clan. Skyclan will die out this way. You're-"

The breath was knocked from her lungs as Sootface carried her off her paws. Tinyflame appeared from the dirtplace entrance just then, her face aghast before she raced up to them. The she-cat started spitting.

"How dare you! Get away from my sister!"

Sootface backed off immediately, his tail low and swishing as he fought to flatten his bristling fur. Crescentsky was still lying on the ground, stunned and getting her breath back.

"How dare she! I just wanted her to shut her mouth!" His growl was loud and defensive, but the dark tom glanced nervously around the clearing, as if he was scared of being reprimanded.

"She's injured!" Tinyflame rebuked. "And this is our camp."

Crescentsky finally stood up, swaying for a second on her lame hind-leg. By now, other cats who were still in camp were watching the scene. Oatpaw was held back by his mother's tail, which he could've easily hopped over.

"Stop fighting my battles for me!" Jadestar yowled, stepping in-between them.

"But I'm your deputy..." It seemed Sootface wanted to say more, gazing across at Jadestar pleadingly. Crescentsky took that chance to jump in.

"You two can't run your clan together. And that alone is affecting ours." She stayed where she was, narrowing her eyes at Jadestar from afar.

"I can run whatever Starclan puts in front of me to run!" The leader snarled. She raked her claws into the ground, lashing her tail. Clearly taking it personal.

"I'm sick of living with Riverclan. Cats throw a fit over the littlest things. Nobody here can take orders, there's no real structure or else the dens would've been repaired by now, and for some reason there always has to be drama.

As if we don't have enough of that from the wolves alone!" The fur along her neck was risen twice past its flattened height.

"It is not wrong to protect my last surviving kin, nor Pepperpelt's of her own accord," she snapped.

"It is not wrong to preserve what's left of Skyclan!" She yowled. "And just because my ways are different—"

Jadestar was interrupted by a thunderous, clamorous boom as lightning split the air between all of the standing cats. Its beam of electricity hit the ground mere fox-lengths from Jadestar's paws. Crescentsky saw radiant, blinding light reflected in the eyes of all of the cats facing toward her.

At first nobody spoke. The variable pulsating rod was gone quicker than it had reached down and zapped into the earth.

The cats who were closest to its strike zone, like Jadestar and Tinyflame, had spiky fur standing straight out on one side of their bodies. A whoosh of heat from the shockwave had blown some of their whiskers back.

"Great Starclan-... What?" Jadestar's jaws were still open from her previous sentence, and she didn't try to close them now. Her gaze was disbelieving as she started at the spot where the lighting had struck.

Crescentsky was doing the same. The image of the fizzling white line was still ingrained into her vision. She blinked a few times, still shocked by what she had seen. Her ears were ringing, so that the gasps and mewls of fright from the surrounding cats were fading in and out.

Crescentsky bent her neck to look up at the sky. There was no stormy grey clouds, no fitful fallen rain. Nothing that you would expect to be accompanied by a lighting strike.

Thankfully, her hearing returned quickly.

"What was that?"

"But it's mid-morning! And there's no clouds above us!" Some cat sounded frightened.

Alpinefog spoke up, his hearty voice deep and reassuring. "It's a Starclan sign. It had to be! No weather like this could produce lighting like that."

"It's a Starclan sign that Jadestar must leave," Tinyflame hissed. "That's why it came while she was speaking."

"No. Look there!" Emberfawn, a reddish-brown tabby tom, had his neck craned to look at something. All of the cats crawled closer to see it.

The spot where the lighting hit had blackened, bare earth all around its vicinity. If Jadestar had been just a few strides closer, she would've been hit by it.

But that wasn't what Crescentsky cared about right now. Inside the ring of burnt, charred grass, she saw a teeny tiny flame burning on a single green blade, placed right in its center.

The medicine cat sign that Starclan promised us...!

"Tinyflame is the new medicine cat!" Oatpaw exclaimed.

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Q: Did you expect it to be Tinyflame?

A/N: Stay tuned for a Tinyflame Bonus Chapter