Warriors #4: Darkness Awakens

Chapter 16

Goldenshine's POV

"Jayfeather, keep it down, or someone, including Snowkit herself, might hear us!" I hissed to the gray tabby tom.

After Snowkit had left with Swiftkit to go play, Lilypetal following close behind, Jayfeather and I had been left to process what had just happened.

Snowkit, who was only a couple of moons old, had suddenly seemed way older, observing Swiftkit's wound and seeming to know exactly what she was observing.

Unless Snowkit has been taking some peeks in here when she's wandering around camp, I thought, there is no way that she would be able to look at a wound and know the difference between a fresh and a healing one.

The first thing I did after a few heartbeats of silence was snort and shake my head slowly. "Might as well call that a small reunion," I joked, "because Snowflight might as well have been in this den a bit ago!"

That comment did not hit well with Jayfeather though, and he had immediately snapped at me. "Are you kidding me?" he hissed, "You still think this is something to joke about?"

It was then that I had tried to get him to keep his voice down and to relax, but as expected, it did not work. Jayfeather was shaking his head quickly and pacing around the den as if he could see.

"Goldenshine, I don't think you're understanding," he began.

I let out another snort. "What could I possibly not understand about this? Snowflight is reincarnated in Snowkit! If anything, that's neat!" I meowed, trying to rationalize.

I then took a step closer to where he was pacing, speaking in a calmer voice, "I know it's hard to process. It is still difficult and weird for me sometimes."

Jayfeather suddenly sat down, not facing me. I could tell he was having trouble holding his temper.

Which isn't new, I realized. But at least he is sensible enough to not want to make a scene.

Jayfeather then muttered, "Goldenshine, this is not 'neat'. Far from it. When I said that I don't think you're understanding, I meant the whole purpose of Snowkit being reincarnated in the first place."

I tilted my head to the side. "Does there even need to be a purpose?" I inquired. Fighting back emotion, I added, "Snowflight was gone too soon, isn't that purpose enough?"

Jayfeather rolled his blind eyes and turned towards me. He snapped, "You could say that for countless amounts of cats who have gone to StarClan! But does StarClan bring them back? No!"

I narrowed my eyes. "Then what are you saying?" I wondered out loud, "Snowflight was brought back for another reason?"

Jayfeather looked up and feigned giving a proclamation, "Great StarClan, I think she's got it!"

"Hey! Give me a break!" I snapped back to him. "I don't live my life communicating with StarClan all of the time. My knowledge base is incredibly different from yours!"

Jayfeather just snorted.

I then spent a few heartbeats processing this new information. I meowed, "So, Snowflight wasn't brought back out of pity. StarClan has more plans for her?"

Jayfeather nodded, his eyes dark. He spoke more calmly, "Precisely."

That's kind of scary, I realized to myself. I wonder what kind of plans they could have?

Before I could ask Jayfeather out loud, I saw out of the corner of my eye, Brambleclaw entering the medicine den. His eyes glittered with amusement.