Sunrise Until Sunset…Dusk Until Dawn

Prologue ~ Jayfeather's Introduction

I am a cat of ThunderClan. I am known as their sole Medicine Cat. There were two of use, myself and Leafpool. But, something terrible happened, and Leafpool forced herself to retire from the spot of medicine cat. She is a warrior of ThunderClan now, and I, Jayfeather – her son – have taken the permanent spot as our Clan's Medicine Cat. Usually, Medicine Cats are not allowed to have kits. There are a few cats that I know of, that have broken this unwritten law of the Clans.

One of them would be my mother, Leafpool. This was most recent, not that many seasons ago. She gave birth to myself, and my two other littermates, Hollyleaf and Lionblaze – who even has his own apprentice, Dovepaw. She didn't mate with a cat of her own Clan, though. She chose to mate with Crowfeather - and he is for who I was named – a WindClan warrior. Crowfeather has one other kit, Breezepelt. He is the son of Crowfeather and Nightcloud, a WindClan she-cat. Breezepelt doesn't like our Clan, for what his father did. He thinks that Leafpool betrayed his father, and thus, he hates myself and my siblings the most out of all the ThunderClan.

To make matters worse, her and her sister – my aunt – Squirrelflight lied to the whole Clan about our birth. They lead the whole Clan to think that we were the children of Brambleclaw, the ThunderClan deputy, and Squirrelflight. Brambleclaw never even knew about us not being his kits, until Hollyleaf revealed it at the Gathering a few moons back. I can still remember the reactions of all the cats there, like it was a sunrise ago. It was the most shocking thing that I know of, and I still wish Hollyleaf hadn't done it.

The other cat is Yellowfang, the old Medicine Cat of ShadowClan, exiled by Brokenstar, who turned out to be her son. Yellowfang was first a prisoner of ThunderClan, found by our leader, Firestar, when he was just an apprentice, namely Firepaw. The Medicine Cat before Yellowfang was Spottedleaf, a kind and very gentle tortoiseshell she-cat, and she was killed by Clawface of ShadowClan, when Brokenstar and his warriors attacked. In a nutshell, Brokenstar was taken prisoner by his mother, and that's where he ended up dying – by his mother's own front paws, and some deathberries.

When Yellowfang became our Medicine Cat, she didn't have an apprentice. Then along came Cinderpelt. That's another story all on its own. She started out as Firestar's apprentice, but, then got hurt along the Thunderpath, and wasn't able to use her hind leg properly (to train, hunt and other things like that) ever again. She began to train under Yellowfang, and then became a full Medicine Cat when her mentor died trying to rescue an elder from a fire.

Leafpool trained under Cinderpelt, and they were very close. After Cinderpelt died trying to defend Sorreltail's newborn kits from a badger attack, she was reborn right then and there as Cinderheart, then Cinderkit – one of Sorreltail's tiny kits. To this day, Cinderheart does not know about being the reincarnation of Cinderpelt, and Leafpool and I are the only ones that do know. Leafpool felt that Cinderheart didn't need to know about her former life, and that it might have hindered her warrior training. Now, Cinderheart has her own apprentice, Ivypaw.

For once in a long while, the prey is running really well in ThunderClan and the Clan is very well feed. Thanks to Lionblaze and Dovepaw of ThunderClan, Tigerheart and Toadfoot of ShadowClan, Petalfur and Rippletail of RiverClan, and Whitetail and Sedgewhisher of WindClan. They were the eight cats that had traveled – it's too many fox leaps to count, so don't be asking how far - past ShadowClan territory to find the water – which was being blocked by something that Lionblaze said were called beavers. Ugly brown things with very thick and stiff tails, from what I've been told – and they are much worse than badgers, they say. The beavers were the ones that were blocking the water. To add to the problem, it hadn't rained for what felt like moons.

All journeys must come to an end, though. Sadly, one warrior's life came to an end very early. Too early to know the path that StarClan laid out for him. Rippletail's life ended way to early, killed by a beaver. Or so I'm told. I don't know if it's true. StarClan have not shared this with me – or any of the other Medicine Cats. I would have known if they told Mothwing or Willowshine about it.

The reason I say that, is because I can walk in a cat's dreams. I'm not part of StarClan, yet, somehow, I have been blessed with this power. As far as I know, there aren't very many cats that know about my power. Hollyleaf, Lionblaze and Leafpool are the only ones that know in my Clan. There are StarClan cats that know, but, that's not important.

There's something else I should mention, now. There was a prophecy. It was given to Firestar by an elderly cat, on his deathbed. What that old cat said, is "There will be three. Kin of your kin, who hold the power of the Stars in their paws." I thought that it would mean myself, Lionblaze and Hollyleaf. However, we were wrong.

When Hollyleaf died, I noticed that Dovepaw and Ivypaw – who are Whitewing and Birchfall's two daughters, and they were kits back then – were still kin of Firestar, though Whitewing, daughter of Cloudtail, Firestar's nephew and son to our leader's kittypet sister, Princess. Her mother is Brightheart, my former mentor. I'm not going to explain the whole story as to how I became Leafpool's apprentice and no longer Brightheart's…but… To make it short and sweet, I followed Leafpool to the Moonpool one night, and that where Spottedleaf told me that it was my destiny to become a medicine cat.

Now, it's just me in the Medicine Den. I thought that Toadstep would have shown some interest in becoming my apprentice, but, I guessed wrong. I'll have an apprentice of my own one day, but, for now… I have a lot of time to help my Clan. StarClan will give me an apprentice when they feel that I'm ready. Not that it really matters to me, though. It's peaceful without a hyperactive young apprentice bouncing around.

But, I have a grave feeling that this peace will not last long. There's something coming, and I think that the forces of the Dark Forest – where all the evil and ill-intentioned cats, including Tigerstar, Hawkfrost and a few others go when they die. I think that they have recruited Breezepelt and even Dovepaw's sister, Ivypaw, as I've seen her pull off moves that only Lionblaze had known about, and he didn't tell anyone. It's coming, and one day, all 4 Clans will need to unite to destroy the oncoming threat.