Omen of the Sun Book Three: Dusk

Chapter Thirty-Six

Sunpool

Sunpool tried to go swimming the day after Rainpaw, Briarpaw, Fernpaw, and Emberpaw came, a little bit before she was due to set out for Goldleaf.

'Tried' was a good word for it. There was a small lake near the camp, nothing like CloudClan's massive lake behind the camp where she had told Goldleaf she would stay in the Clan, but a lake all the same. Sunpool was feeling oddly stressed out, so she decided to take a dip into the water and see how her power was doing.

The only thing was: her power wasn't there.

She had been feeling strangely light in her lungs, like she did when she held her breath on land, but she just put it down to being out of practice, and opened her mouth to take a large gulp of water, knowing all the oxygen she needed would be somehow placed into her lungs and she would just drink all the water.

But she choked on the water, and rose to the surface awkwardly, gagging on water.

What had happened? She hadn't been able to breathe underwater like she always had before. Why? Had something changed in her that had forced her to lose her power? Or had it faded away from lack of use? She had used it every time she went fishing in deep, swimmable water, but when most of the lakes and rivers had frozen over, she hadn't. Leaf-bare had been about five moons long. Had it faded because she hadn't a chance to use it? That's not fair! She wanted to shout. What was she supposed to do, duck her head into puddles?

Then she remembered something that Lilycloud had said to her, moons ago. She had realized that the prophecy said she was going to die, and Lilycloud had told her that she had the power to change the prophecy.

Lilycloud had said that her willpower would save her. Her willpower would help her change the prophecy. Her willpower would keep her alive. Maybe that was her power: maybe the ability to breathe underwater was gone from her now.

She shouldn't be upset, she thought. She wouldn't be able to use that power in battle (unless it was in the water, and those battles barely ever happened), and it was a little impractical. But it was the thing that had brought her to the Clans, to the life she wanted to live, and it had been a new power. Nobody, she knew, had ever had it in the history of powers, and that had made her unique. And she could prove she had a power, too.

Now, she had the ability to change one part of a prophecy. Which, while incredible, just wasn't her power.

Her power was gone, and not coming back.

-=-

That evening, she called a meeting. She and Cheetahstar had been using a tree stump in the center of the camp as their meeting point, so she stood there as the cats gathered around her. Cheetahstar shot her a look; she hadn't told him what they were going to do, and she was only going to give him the brief explanation she had prepared for everybody else. Taking a deep breath, she said, "Tonight is a very important night. I, going to get a very old fr-" -her throat caught- "friend," she tried again, "and he's going to join this Clan. He lives a bit away, so I have to go and meet him. Lightningfeather and Cinderstorm also have to come: he has said he'll only come if they're there, and we need him on our side for this, because I believe that he knows how to beat Applestar."

Silence met her words, but she added, "we'll be leaving in a few minutes, and Cheetahstar will be in charge. It'll be like we're out hunting. Just for a really long time."

She hopped down from the stump, and the crowd began to disperse. It wasn't as if they were used to new surroundings and such, and one new cat from their leader's past wasn't really anything to do with them except they would be gaining a new camp member, so they went off. Enamel and Fern were talking with Wasp and Eagle and Mistpaw, and some of their words floated over to Sunpool: "Back home, it was kind of like this, but a lot more organized, and we had more cats," Mistpaw was saying. "Being in a Clan was amazing."