Can Medicine Cats Sense How Many Lives Leaders Have Left? A Warriors Theory by Jaypaw

Jaypaw shares an interesting theory about the medicine cats in the Warriors universe.

Hello BlogClan! Today I want to talk about one moment that has always stood out to me in the original series.
SPOILER ALERT!
Bluestar is on her last life, and Yellowfang knows. She tells Fireheart that medicine cats can sense this sort of thing.

This seems like a really cool ability for medicine cats, but we never really see it being used. No medicine cat apprentices are ever seen being trained on this, and full medicine cats never know how many lives leaders have, so so let’s assume she was lying. But why, and how did she know?

Option 1: This is an extension of Yellowfang’s Power
If you’ve read Yellowfang’s Secret, you know Yellowfang has the ability to feel the pain of other cats. This could extend to feeling how many lives leader’s have. This would explain why she lied to Fireheart. She can’t tell every cat about her power! Maybe having only one life left is a sort of emotional pain that Yellowfang’s spidey senses – I mean superpower, can pick up. But she never felt a thing like that with Cedarstar, Raggedstar, or Brokenstar, or at least we don’t see it.

Option Two: Yellowfang saw Bluestar’s lost lives in StarClan
In OoTS, Jayfeather sees Firestar’s lost lives in StarClan. After Firestar loses a life, he sees it again and the shape is darker. It’s possible Yellowfang saw Bluestar’s lives in StarClan, and noticed how dark it was. She might not have told Fireheart because it would take a while to explain and it would take away from the focus of the moment. This one is possible, since Yellowfang’s a medicine cat, but the moment happened soon after Bluestar lost her life, and I don’t think Yellowfang had time to visit the Moonstone. Also, she wouldn’t’ be able to tell the exact number of lives Bluestar had lost, so not a lot going for this one.

Option Three: Bluestar told her
Bluestar knows how many lives she has, so she could tell her medicine cat. We see plenty of other leaders telling deputies and medicine cats how many lives they have, so that seems realistic. But Bluestar was at a very low point at this time, and trusted only Fireheart. She only told him about her lives, and might not trust a new ShadowClan medicine cat. And we still have no idea why Yellowfang would have lied.

Option Four: She didn’t lie.
I find this one intriguing, if not likely. If Yellowfang didn’t lie, why didn’t future medicine cats learn the skill of reading leader’s lives? They lost the skill.
From here on out, we only see the POV of ThunderClan medicine cats, besides Flametail for only a few chapters in NIght Whispers, not long enough to read leader’s lives. None of these ThunderClan medicine cats can do it. The skill must have been lost at one point. Cinderpelt’s point. She wasn’t really meant to be a medicine cat, so she might never have grasped the skill. If she never learned it, she can’t teach it to Leafpool, who can’t teach it to Jayfeather, and so on. The only problem I find is that we don’t see Yellowfang learning the skill in her super edition.

So there you have it! Which one of these do you think is most likely? Do you have any other ideas? Tell me, if so, or I will die from not knowing the answer.
-Jaypaw