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There is a prophecy about me.
Larkwing stood there petrified, forgetting even to breathe. An invisible paw seemed to be squeezing her lungs. Numerous thoughts whirled around in her head like foliage carried away by a leaf-fall breeze.
From one moment to the next, her sharp tongue disappeared. Instead, her mouth felt as dry as a sandy cave, her throat as scratchy as thorns. So she could do nothing but stare at Sunray's dishevelled head fur with her front paw slightly raised and her lower jaw dropped.
It sounded far too crazy to be true. Larkwing had only been a warrior for one moon. She hadn't even got used to not being called by her apprentice name yet.
And now, out of the blue, she learnt that she was part of a long-unfulfilled prophecy.
Cold fear crawled up her trembling legs and spread throughout her body. She wanted to object. You must be wrong! I am nothing special.
The silence between them since Sunray had spoken the meaningful words only fuelled Larkwing's panic. She forced herself to turn around. In the faces of her travelling companions she saw surprise, confusion, but also fear and horror, which secretly calmed her.
Full of despair, Larkwing searched for the right words. She felt like a mouse being chased by a hawk - small, vulnerable and with no chance of escaping the danger.
Then she recalled what Sunray had said. A cat with dissimilar eyes would come...
"You..." she began in a terribly croaky voice, "you think th-this prophecy is about m-me because of my eyes?" Suddenly meowing was so exhausting that she had to gasp after every word.
Sunray still didn't look away from the ground as she replied in an awed tone, "It must be. The last Guardian of the Ancient Stone died so long ago that her name and the memory of her have long since turned to dust. Since then, we have waited moon after moon, season after season, generation after generation, for the next cat with dissimilar eyes to be born. She never came. We almost gave up hope."
"But maybe we've always just been looking in the wrong places," the black and white spotted tom added, also facing downwards.
There was a snort, and as Larkwing turned to look for the source of the sound, she discovered Crowshadow had stepped forward and was looking down at the Skyden cats with narrowed eyes. It was truly a strange sight. As a native SnowClan she-cat, Crowshadow was blessed with a huge, bulky, muscular build. Larkwing had actually gotten used to the sight by now, but seeing the old, black warrior compared to the lanky Skyden cats reminded her once again of the uncanny size of the SnowClan cats.
"You said 'she', not 'they'," she meowed, her muzzle wrinkled thoughtfully. "Why? Are you saying that this prophecy must explicitly refer to a she-cat?"
For the first time in ages, Sunray lifted her head. She did it carefully, though, as if she were balancing a fragile bird's egg, and kept avoiding Larkwing. "That is true," she confirmed. "She-cats with eyes of more than one colour have always been considered to have a special influence and destiny. These are very different depending on the colours and their distribution. But only those whose eyes each have their own colour are destined to become Guardians of the Ancient Stone."
