"So when are we telling the clan about this?" Tinyflame directed the question into her ear with a low murmur. Cheetah pricked hers to listen.

"We'll wait quarter moon, maybe... at least a few days." It was all she could come up with, since she couldn't safely assume that every cat would accept the power.

"Why?" Cheetah probed, her golden gaze curious. "Won't they have no choice not to argue, since it was Starclan's endowment and not yours?"

"Some cats still aren't going to like it, at first..." Crescentsky trailed off uncertainly. "Not that I care. It'll just give me time to figure out how to use this. Defend the camp with this power, I mean. I need to see what it's capable of. What I can do, what I can't, and how I can handle it." She kept her voice low, since they were already well beyond Riverclan's scent-line.

She hoped it was the right decision. After all, they knew almost nothing. What if Tinyflame was onto something earlier, and she'd had a point? Could the wolf's brain really alter her intellect if she was in its body for long enough?

Will I stay myself?

She had to find out the answers to those questions before she told the clan.

"There's too much we don't know yet. When they start asking us questions about this, we won't have any solid answers." Crescentsky padded along with her shoulders hunched. Each time she took a step, pain radiated through her limbs all the way to the ends of her paws.

Cheetah nodded, agreeing.

"And it could make you look like liars if you don't. Or just not experienced enough to handle the gift." She seemed to understand Crescentsky's choice now.

Tinyflame inclined her head and glanced at them. She hadn't expected that much of an insightful response from Cheetah.

"Makes sense. But it's going to be hard, trying to keep two secrets at once." The lithe black she-cat shuffled along on weary pawsteps.

"Cheetah, make sure to keep your blabbing on the down-low. And that means don't mention anything about our missing claws, or Crescentsky's...-" Tinyflame seemed at a loss for words.

"-ability."

"I haven't. And I won't!" Cheetah nodded seriously. The spotted fur along her back was amber-yellow with the pre-dawn wash of light. The topmost the tree-branches held twittering birds and flitting insects, but it was still relatively drab on most of Riverclan's forest ground below.

Are we going to take the lie about our missing claws to our graves? It didn't feel right, keeping Cheetah in their lies for so long, and so often.

But she couldn't see any alternative. If we tell the clan, that could throw a standstill into things. They already think I'm dishonest for sneaking off all the time.

Then Crescentsky half-wondered if it would be better to tell them the whole truth at one time, like ripping a burr from one's pelt. But it would surely cause more drama, and therefore more of a reaction.

The warrior stifled a sigh. They were mere fox-lengths from the Riverclan camp now. Crescentsky knew she'd be pestered with questions that she could only give half-truths to. It was kind of her own fault, though, and she knew that.

After they made it to camp, they slipped past Lagoonstripe on guard. The silver tabby she-cat was fuming, her pinned ears making her head look flatter than a fishes.

"Crescentpaw!" Her voice boomed. "Stop right there at once! I have the nerve to claw your ears off!"

"Sorry, sorry." Crescentsky felt harassed as the warrior chewed her out. She lowered her head, avoiding Lagoonstripe's condemning gaze as the she-cat's tail lashed through the air.

"Really, Crescentpaw? Really? Right after I told you to warn some cat!" Her tone grew incredulous.

"Right after I told you that you could die without any cat ever finding you. All of you could have!" Her hackles was high as she lectured them.

Sheepishly, Crescentsky ducked her head beside the camp exit even further. Cats inside of their dens were waking up and emerging, their eyes bleary and their pelts ruffled from sleep. Houndspots was the last to emerge from the warriors den, taking tiny steps as if he were still in pain.

"I should postpone your mock-assesment!" Lagoonstripe's voice raised into yowling again.

Why would you even bother in the first place? She wanted to challenge. A mock assesment would've led to nowhere at a time like this. But the Riverclan warrior knew she ought to keep her mouth shut.

"We didn't need you on the Starclan quest. We needed you here, being an apprentice. Hunting and dragging out old nests, assisting in the dawn patrols and training beside your peers. You-"

Crescentsky wasn't gonna stay silent anymore. Annoyance sparked a flame that couldn't stay contained within her closed jaws.

"You wanted me here dragging out old nests like an apprentice when I surpassed twelve moons a half-moon ago!" She interrupted.

"I'm a warrior now. My name is Crescentsky." The Riverclan tabby narrowed her eyes.

Cats are gonna start taking me seriously now.

"How?" Quietdew challenged. She was one of the cats at the forefront of the emerged crowd. Opaque clouds floated high above their heads, lightening into a pale blue as the sun seeped over the edge of the horizon.

Crescentsky didn't feel much delight in the new day, though. Despite the fact that none of her clanmates appeared to be missing, her meows hardened into a defensive growl.

"Tinyflame and I named each other as warriors beside the Moonpool. We had a self-proclaimed assessment just before that, where we caught some prey along the way." She lifted her chin in front of Lagoonstripe.

"Then I visited with Starclan. They affirmed our warrior names by mentioning mine as they spoke to me."

"Crescentsky! Crescentsky!" Trufflefur and Emberfawn called her name, while Houndspots and Raccoonstripe called Tinyflame's.

A few of the standing cats lifted their tails, mouths opening as they meowed their glee. It'd been so long since anyone had heard from Starclan.

"What did they say!?" Jadestar called from the crowd, but Crescentsky ignored her.

"I'll hear nothing of cats questioning my warrior name. Or Tinyflame's. Got it?"

Her meow was assertive rather than agressive. She let her eyes sweep the small gathering, and then settled her gaze on Lagoonstripe again.

Lagoonstripe dipped her head. Crescentsky was faintly surprised by the lack of argument.

"Congratulations, Crescentsky. I'm sure that no cat here has qualms about your Starclan-approved name." Her tone was reassuring. The warrior's silver-tabby pelt gleamed under the dawn-lit sun.

Rowanpaw, standing beside Alpinefog and Trufflefur, looked as if she wanted to argue. Saturated orange light lit up one side of her fluffy brown face. However, the she-cat kept her jaws shut with a frustrated glimmer brimming in her eyes.

"But what about-" Sootface began, but he was cut off.

"Just know that your punishment will be cleaning out all the old nests," Lagoonstripe went on. "As well as those who followed you." Her gaze hardened when Crescentsky opened her mouth to argue.

"You should know that I had that planned before finding out you became a warrior. Racoonstripe ratted you out. He said that Cheetah and Tinyp- Tinyflame had gone with you to the edge of Riverclan's border, but that neither had come back."

"Fine." I suppose there's worse punishments than that. What she had wanted most was to keep their warrior names.

"You can have some prey and a rest before you get started." Lagoonstripe shook her head disapprovingly, sitting down.

"Though you shouldn't have done this in the first place, and I should make you all stay awake. It's quite tempting..." she sighed, looking towards the skies with an exasperated expression.

"In fact," The sleek silver tabby pricked her ears.

"You'll all stay awake long enough to tell us what Starclan told you."

Beside her, Tinyflame groaned. Crescentsky silently shared her dismay. I'm too tired to even eat. But she had no choice other than to comply.

"Don't worry, you'll get a good rest after this." Lagoonstripe waved off the complaint with a paw.

🐈‍⬛

After the she-cats told the clan most of what had happened in Crescentsky's Starclan dream, and after; including their narrow escape from the wolves- they dragged their paws to their nests.

"I did my best to answer their questions," Crescentsky said, yawning with her jaws stretched wide.

"-but I'm just too tired."

She recalled twisting some of the story into a slightly different version, like telling the clan that they'd swam the stream because there wasn't any trees close by. That hadn't necessarily been true. There was a hawthorn closer to the Moonpool that Cheetah could have climbed, but the spotted she-cat had chosen not to.

Their reaction to the Starclan news had been a lot stronger.

"Starclan didn't say anything about appointing new clan leaders," Crescentsky remembered saying. "They only said that we'd get a medicine cat sign for Riverclan, and that we shouldn't move territories just yet. Not right before leaf-fall and the oncoming leafbare."

Natrually, a lot of cats had asked her to elaborate.

"Without a leader, Riverclan is doomed. Starclan had better appoint one soon, or get our new medicine cat to do it." Quietdew had fussed.

"I don't know if that's because my dream was cut short, or because they aren't willing to appoint new clan leaders yet." Crescentsky answered what she could and shrugged tiredly for the rest.

Then, of course, there was Starclan's faculty. Crescentsky had left that part out completely, so that by the end it felt like she didn't have much to tell.

The Riverclan warrior also didn't mention Nighthowl. She'd found it unnecessary, and she had wanted to get to her rest all the sooner.

"I hope we don't sleep all day." The tabby she-cat flopped into a dusty nest near the backend of the warriors den. No cat had complained when Cheetah followed them in.

"I don't care if I do." Tinyflame stumbled into a nest as well, kneading her paws a couple of times and then wrapping her tail around her nose. Crescentsky watched her fall asleep within seconds.

"If Lagoonstripe even lets us sleep all day." Cheetah meowed, not sounding too bothered either way. She purred as she fell into her moss.

It was dark in the den, but a thick sliver of milky dawn light poured in through the entrance, and some parts of the worn-out den roof glowed. Crescentsky pulled the moss closer around herself and burrowed into it. Her throbbing muscles relaxed, and she felt relief.

"Goodnight, Cheetah." The tabby she-cat murmured before she laid her head down. She heard her friend meow it back before they fell asleep.

A/N:

Q1: Who do you think is the new medicine cat, or who do you want it to be?

Q2: Which background/side/minor characters do you want more development of the most? Besides all of them lol 😊 which trust me I am currently adding as much as I can before book 2!

Q3: On that note who's your favorite one? Or even just the most memorable so far!