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Three kits were born to Moonflower.
There weren"t supposed to be three kits born to Moonflower. There were only supposed to be the two she-kits. The ginger tom wasn"t supposed to be here, not here, not yet.
He was supposed to come from outside the Clan. A kittypet, probably. Goosefeather wasn"t certain, no, but he"d seen a young ginger tom entering the forest beside an older blue-grey she-cat, the spitting image of his sister - the spitting image of what one of the kits suckling beside him would look like when grown.
Moonflower had even given him the right name. Well, naming a ginger kit Firekit - or Firepaw, as it should have been - was to be expected, if a bit ambitious, but she hadn"t thought of naming him Flamekit or Orangekit or even, say, Grasskit or Fernkit or something like that for his eyes. No, it was Firekit.
And he wasn"t supposed to be here. He wasn"t supposed to be born for seasons upon seasons, and when he was, it wasn"t supposed to be in the Clans. Yet here he was. Goosefeather had had visions of just about everything under the stars; couldn"t StarClan have seen fit to mention this?
And this was one of the very few times there were no dead cats hanging around in the ThunderClan camp for him to ask about it. How convenient.
Moonflower had only been supposed to have two kits. He"d been very sure about that. He was not the medicine cat for nothing; Cloudberry had trained him well. And he"d had visions, too, one of his few happy ones, visions of Moonflower curled around two healthy kits, of her playing mossball and catch-the-tail with them, of her telling them stories. He"d had no visions of Moonflower with her daughters past kithood, but he didn"t think to wonder about that, not yet.
And yet Moonflower had been giving birth to her two daughters, and then suddenly there had been another one. Goosefeather had recognized him instantly, even though they had never been meant to breathe during each other"s lifetimes. Yet here he was.
Well, this was going to mess things up. And what was he supposed to do about it?
No one would believe him if he said anything, not even Featherwhisker, and especially not Moonflower.
If there was one thing he had bitterly learned at this point, it was that no matter, what he saw, he couldn"t change it. His visions would happen no matter what he or anyone else did. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it.
But this wasn"t a vision. This was a cat being born in the wrong place and the wrong time.
As his own nephew, too. Lovely.
If anything, this would do more to prevent and change more of the visions and prophecies he"d seen than anything he"d ever tried. Which honestly, wasn"t saying much, but even so. The lake will run red with the blood of brothers, leopard and tiger will feast on your bones, rivers of blood....Yes, it would be nice if some of those never came to pass.
But if they would never happen, then why had he seen them, if they were now no longer the future? Had they ever been the future? Would they happen anyway, somehow? Many of them had been intrinsically linked to Firekit, who would now most likely never become Firestar, but if Firestar was born generations earlier...well, perhaps fire would save the Clan in an entirely different way, before the prophecy had ever been given. Was Goosefeather supposed to give the Clan that prophecy now? Was he now going to have a whole set of new visions and prophecies about what the future for his Clan looked like now that Firekit was in it? He was not looking forward to his next visit to the Moonstone. This was confusing.
And of course, he was lacking any helpful visions of StarClan that might explain anything. The one time he"d welcome a vision or two....
Goosefeather was going to have words with StarClan when he next saw them.
Okay, so maybe Cloudberry didn"t deserve to be yelled at the next time she decided to pop in from StarClan to check in on him and Featherwhisker, but he thought he deserved an explanation, and at least he"d waited until they were both alone in the medicine den so Featherwhisker didn"t have to do damage control.