out of character; Gaaah. This took forever to get enough muse for.

back in character; Duskfury glanced down at the she-cat, rolling onto her back as she bat at his face. A broad smile flashed across his face as he purred, laughing at her childlike nature. If Morningfrost had been his main reason for returning to ThunderClan, Siegefire had been his back-up reason. The she-cat was his best friend. No matter what he did, she always there for him, with a smile and a comforting pat of her tail. “You’re such a loser,” he purred and flicked her head with his tail. “Even after nearly fifteen moons, you’re still like a kit on catnip.” He smirked as she growled, leaping at him. He falls onto his back as a flurry of sheathed paws bat furiously at his head, a scratch of teeth pressed against his shoulder until it fades to a rain of gentle caresses. She falls off him and purrs, rubbing her nose into his shoulder. “Unexpected,” he murmured, glancing curiously at her.

Her head raised, green eyes gazing at him. “I missed you,” she mews quietly, like a small child. In essence, she always was to him. He suspected she might have crushed on him a little, until she realized that his heart had always lain with Morningfrost. But now in her gaze, was a love of a sister, nothing more. He leaned forward and licked her ear in comfort. “You were always like the big brother I left behind, Dusk. You were there for me when Splitmoon raped me; you held my secret, though I could tell it ate at you not to tell anyone. You even ran away with me, despite how much you wanted to make up with Morningfrost. You were my one and only confidant. It’s nice to have you back.”

And there was his best friend, always saying what nobody else could ever speak aloud, always saying exactly what he wanted to hear when he wasn’t sure how his life was going. He hadn’t expected to see Morningfrost, he had doubted that with the way ThunderClan had been heading and the way her brother was turning out she would have left. He had also never expected to scent Bleedingsoul’s scent within the territory. It had been washed by water and mud, faint but lingering. The worst part about finding his scent was finding Siegefire’s next to it. He had feared for her life, but no blood could be scented in the entire area. Dusk smiled; a small curve on the left side of his muzzle. “And why did you ever come back?” he asked quietly, his tail flicking comfortingly against her shoulder. “After all that happened here, what if your somewhat lack of friendship between Morningfrost after she found out what Bleedingsoul was up to, to your rape, and when Bleedingsoul tried to kill you. . . I had figured you’d never, ever, want to come back here. But here you are. I scented you when I first entered the territory. It was faint, but I could smell Bleedingsoul’s scent mingled with yours.”

Siegefire’s head shot up and she blinked, her ears flattening. Envy-green eyes wouldn’t meet his, and his ears twitched once with agitation. “It’s nothing, Duskfu–“

“It’s not nothing, obviously,” he interrupted, his teeth snapping. He may love her as a brother, but he was just as protective. “Look at you Siegefire, you can’t even look me in the face. I thought you had better taste than that. What’s he done, paint some pretty picture about how he went temporarily insane when he attempted to rip you limb from limb? Or did he accidentally think you were a loner that had wandered into ThunderClan territory? He’s a bad seed, he almost murdered you! I can’t believe you, he’s a murderer!”

“Don’t call him that!”

Her voice was sharp and focused, and she leapt back from him, her head ducked, ears slicked against her head, shoulders bristling and her tail lashed at the air behind her. Her eyes were narrowed to slits and her lip curled in a silent snarl. “He’s changed,” she snapped, her teeth clacking together with a metallic click. “You wouldn’t know. You don’t understand, you weren’t there. I goaded him; I knew he would do something. Morningfrost stopped him, and he’s changed. He hasn’t killed anymore and I don’t know where you got the idea that I have feelings for him.”

Dusk flattened his ears at the reprimanding, glancing sidelong at her. “It’s written all over your muzzle.”

She smirked, flushing so furiously it was visible through her white fur. “Don’t change the subject,” she hissed vehemently. “I don’t care what you say, he’s changed. When somebody looks you in the face and tells you something without blinking, you take it at face value.” She remembered that day, way back then, when she had met him in Tallpines. “You're always looking down on me and I can never make you happy! Just because you're so perfect doesn't mean that you have to rub it in my face. Sometimes things don't come as easy as you expect them to." He had been speaking for both of them. She hadn’t expected him to change, she knew that. He hadn’t expected these feelings for her to ever amount to anything, let alone form. But once again, she had never expected to understand these feelings that had developed. Hell, they might have been there even before she had known he had liked her. What he liked bout her, whether it was just the idea of her being that ‘unattainable’ thing or whether or not it was something different, she didn’t know. But she didn’t need that.

Her fur flattened and she glared at Duskfury. “I need to go take a walk.”

Duskfury stared after the ginger-and-white she-cat as she stalked out of the den, not understanding her anger. But then again, he could never understand how Siegefire could have feelings for the tom. His high spirits fading, and his mind settling somewhere deep in his gut, he sighed and curled up in his moss-bed, staring around and trying to figure his friend out. But then again, he never could figure Siege out. She had always been a mystery to him. She had always told him that Bleedingsoul was nothing more than a good riddle she planned to crack, they were probably meant for each other. Destiny or something like that? Duskfury didn’t understand how StarClan could let ThunderClan fall into disarray like this. Without a leader, without a deputy, without light or path or conviction. His tail curled around his body to his nose and he licked it comfortingly, rubbing it against his nose. His ears twitched once, as he yawned quietly, her teeth quivering as his eyes watered before they shut.

It wasn’t a normally dream, he could tell that from the very start.

It was a gale he was standing in. The wind blew his fur in all directions, sending shivers right down to the bone. He shivered, pulling his tail close to him as he opened his eyes. It was night, where ever he was, and it didn’t look like a very pretty night. It was pitch-black around him, but he could scent the smells of many cats, old, young and from all the different Clans. He could scent snow around him as well, though his body did not feel wet. Bright cerulean eyes glared into the darkness, his nose scrunched up against the cold that blasted him in the face. Finally, his eyes adjusted and he leapt to his feat and backed up with a cry. The mighty Mothermouth rose up before him, looming like a shadow in the night. How had he gotten here?! He had not been to Mothermouth since he had come on his apprentice journey that every apprentice had to take before they were made a warrior.

Had he died in his sleep, or something?

“Would you enjoy death?” a calming, yet mysterious voice asked from somewhere around him. His head swung and he glared to his right, unsheathing his claws if he needed to fight. It was a large, dark calico she-cat that sat calmly next to him, her wide amber eyes staring needles at the Mouthmouth. She was almost as large as he, which was strange for a cat – seeing as he was large himself, and then she was a she-cat. Her ears flicked once before she glanced sidelong at him. “Death is but the function that every living creature must go through, why do we fear it so? You believe in StarClan, I can tell, yet why, when you came to the conclusion you must have died, did your fear scent increase and did your heart start to race?”

“Ignore her,” another voice, this one soft and reproving, instructed. This one was closer to him, and he needed only to glance out of the corner of his eyes to see the long-furred calico she-cat with piercing yellow eyes staring at him. “She’s far too philosophical for her good.” She swept her tail towards the other she-cat and then towards the Mothermouth. “You need to go inside.”

“Of course I believe in StarClan!” he spat, shaking his head. The she-cats were giving off a distinct scent of ThunderClan, mixed with the bitter, pungent smell of herbs and spices that almost seemed to overshadow their ThunderClan scent. He had never seen any of these she-cats in all his time at ThunderClan. Duskfury’s eyes widened and he stared at her. “Who are you?!” he demanded, first and foremost, his tail lashing behind him in fright. “Why are you here?” Then he glanced at the Mothermouth, shadowed in all its glory and couldn’t believe this. Go in there?! He had to get out of this, before something crazy happened. “I’ve never been inside the Mothermouth, not even on my apprentice journey, I don’t know the way.”

“My name is Gracestorm,” the second she-cat purred, nodding her head slowly, soothingly, as though she attempted to calm him by mere movement and voice. Sombrestorm was peering at him as though he were sickening for something, her eyes narrowed and gazing into his sharply. He felt compelled to look away, yet found he could not. “She is Sombrestorm. We are, we were MedicineCats of ThunderClan. Back in the Golden Age of Rainstar. Loyal followers of StarClan, sundries really compared to the leaders we lived amongst, but loyal nonetheless. We will walk with you, but this vision is for you to see.”

“Vision?” he asked.

Sombrestorm glanced at him and nodded, getting to her paws and flicking her tail towards the entrance to Mothermouth. “Walk down an you will find out.” She lowered her head slightly, as if bowing to something, before padding into the darkness and disappearing.

Gracestorm touched his shoulder with the tip of her nose, and he felt a soothing warmth spread through his body like fire. He met her eyes and felt a sense of calm through the storm. He padded forward, glancing up at the looming shadow of the tunnel before plunging inside. He had never been inside the Mothermouth, that had been left to the warrior that had accompanied Sedgestar when they had gone. The tunnel seemed to swallow him. His eyes didn’t adjust once. The tunnel twisted and turned and the only thing that kept him from bounding his nose so many times into the wall was that Sombrestorm kept the tip of her tail touching his shoulder at all times. When she turned, he turned, and Gracestorm meowed words of encouragement up from behind him. The tunnel twisted and pressed roughly against his sides, and the way the air seemed to slowly be getting thicker and thicket until he could barely breathe. And then it suddenly came out into an alcove, and he sighed.

“We wait here until moonrise,” Sombrestorm said from somewhere beside him, he couldn’t tell where. The den of sorts seemed to echo and he couldn’t keep track of where everything was. “Shouldn’t be too long.”

“How long is ‘shouldn’t be too long’?”

A bright flash of white light seared through him and he shut his eyes tight, grinding his teeth together tightly, though he could see it through his dark eyelids. When it finally dulled, and the pain in hi eyes seemed to not be so sharp, he opened his eyes. A bright, silver-gray stone sat in front of him, shining the light that the moon provided. So this is the Moonstone, he thought in awe. Gracestorm sat on his left, Sombrestorm sat a bit away on his right. They stared at the stone as though the light didn’t faze them at all. “What do I do?”

Sombrestorm glanced sidelong at him. “Put your nose to it.”

His eyes drifted towards him, he was unsure what this was about, but he paced towards it slowly, leaned down on his haunches and pressed his nose against the cool, cold stone.

His eyes shut automatically, and images danced before his vision.

He saw Fogstar, pressing his nose against the Moonstone as he did now. He saw the ghosts that came up, though different ones. Rainstar and Sedgestar were not amongst them, he could even feel Fogstar’s hesitation that the two previous leaders weren’t present. A lean, black tom-cat introduced himself as Onyxstar and told Fogstar to send the next in line. He wasn’t chosen, wasn’t the right cat for the job. Duskfury felt a rage building inside him. If Fogstar – Fogpelt – was not leader, who was? Goldencloud had disappeared. . . His question was answered when Goldencloud appeared before him, this time a gray, cold-eyed tom appearing before the deputy and introducing himself as Stormystar, and said that the she-cat was not worthy of her leadership position. His heart sunk.

Suddenly, he was pulled back and he turned and glared at the she-cats, his body stiff. “So what’s this supposed to do?” he asked harshly. “Give us no hope? Nobody’s worthy of StarClan?” He shook his head. Sombrestorm slapped him with a sheathed paw.

“No, retard, you are worthy to lead ThunderClan. That is why we gave you this dream. Fogpelt should have chosen somebody else when he found out that Goldencloud was not the right she-cat to lead the Clan either, but he left the Clan, unable to deal with the idea that his entire dream was gone. He didn’t even say good-bye to hismate. You must fill his place.” She glared at his face and then flicked her tail to Gracestorm. “When you wake up, go call a meeting. Tell the cats what you have seen. Trust me, if they do not accept you at first go to the Moonstone and get your lives anyway. They will soon see. Basilstorm should be able to notice right away.” Sombrestorm turned and followed Gracestorm back into the tunnel.

Back in the real world, Duskfury woke up.