A short while after the end of The Rescue, Leafstar watches her kits play, reflecting on how perfect they are. Sol has also been fitting in well with Clan life.
Not all is perfect, however. There's currently a drought, and due to poor hunting and unbearably hot weather, the Clan cats are arguing amongst themselves frequently. One particular debate gets heated enough that Leafstar has to step in... only to be distracted by her kits, who are wailing because Harrykit's hurt his nose. Leafstar feels the strain of being both a mother and a Clan leader, but thankfully Billystorm and Sol take care of the kits so Leafstar can sort out her quarreling warriors.
They decide to save hunting for evening, when there'll be more prey out. This doesn't completely work, however, since that's also when foxes and badgers are more active - Ebonyclaw gets a bad bite on her leg. They decide to send two patrols of eight cats each so that they can fight off any predators. Half of Patchfoot's patrol doesn't return, and Leafstar initially worries, but Patchfoot reassures her that Sol had an idea and that he wanted to split the patrol. Whatever his idea was, it must have worked, since his cats come back with more prey than the Clan has eaten in moons. Sharpclaw feels that something is wrong there, so Leafstar offers to join Sol's patrol the next day. He shows her his "hunting technique": stealing a fox's prey as it goes into its den to bring the cubs out. When they get back to camp, Leafstar and Sharpclaw tell him that it's wrong, and they all agree to put it behind them. During a training session that day, Leafstar notices that Sol's hunting skills aren't all that great, and resolves to help him out more.
That night, a pair of foxes attack the camp, having followed the scent trail the patrol had left behind after stealing prey from them. During the fight, Leafstar notices that her kits have come out of her den and want to help fight. She calls to Sol to take her place so she can get her kits to safety, but Sol freezes in terror. Leafstar has one heart-stopping moment where she tries to choose between her kits and the rest of her Clanmates, but then Lichenfur runs in and brings the kits back to the den.
After the battle, Sol apologizes to Leafstar, and explains why he wants to be a warrior so much... His mother, Cinders, didn't have much patience for her kits (who she hadn't bothered to name), but they would behave whenever she told them stories of the "sky warriors", who grew as big as lions when they were angry, fought with the fierceness of tigers, and ran as swift as cheetahs. Sol's early life wasn't easy, and it was made even less so when Cinders' mate came to her and announced that he was leaving her for a new mate that didn't complain as much. Finally, Cinders couldn't take it any more, and left each of her kits at a different Twoleg nest. He never saw her again, but he also never forgot his dreams of the sky warriors - a dream that has a chance of becoming a reality, now that he's found SkyClan.
Leafstar gives Sol a private battle training session. He isn't very skilled, but he improves by the end of the day. At the Clan's Gathering that night, Leafstar comments about how SkyClan is doing better. They've fought off the foxes, and rain is coming to end the drought. Sol jumps in and says "And now you have a new warrior! Right?" Leafstar awkwardly explains that that's not quite how it works, but Sol doesn't listen; he snaps that Leafstar was just trying to humiliate him, and he runs away. At that moment, a bolt of lightning flashes in the sky, and a downpour starts. The Clan rushes back to the dens to shelter. After some time, they discuss evacuating the lower dens, since water is collecting down there. And then they see it: a wall of water on its way to wash through the gorge. The entire Clan flees to high ground and waits out the flood. After the water recedes, they begin to assess the damage to the camp. The camp is messed up, yes, but that's not the worst: Lichenfur has drowned. The Clan, including Sol, gathers to sit vigil for her.
Looking around, Leafstar silently asks StarClan why they sent the storm. Billystorm reassures her that they can fix up the dens and get through it - that SkyClan will survive. Leafstar isn't as certain, and hopes to StarClan that he's right.
Tropes appearing in this volume:
- Abusive Parents: Though Sol's father is bad enough as he is, his mother Cinders has shades of this. While she was decent enough to bring her kits along and tell them stories in order to help them behave, it does little to balance out her overbearing personality. She was a defeatist who bemoaned any adversity that befell them, scolded her kittens for accepting food from twolegs, and often vented her worries onto her children.
- Alertness Blink: Leafstar gets an exclamation point over her head when she notices her kits leaving the den during the fox attack.
- Baby Talk: Leafstar's kits talk like this on occasion; for instance, calling squirrels "skirrels".
- Colorization: SkyClan and the Stranger was originally drawn and released in black-and-white, in three different volumes. James Barry later colorized it and it was re-released as a single volume.
- Confused Question Mark: Billystorm gets one when noticing Leafstar trying to decide between helping her crying kits and sorting out an argument between her warriors. Leafstar also has one later when looking for a cat to replace her during the fight against the foxes.
- Crying Critters: One of the kits pricks his nose on a thistle and begins to wail, complete with tears.
- A Day in the Limelight: The manga trilogy is Leafstar's, aside from SkyClan's Destiny.
- Ear Notch: Rockshade was given an ear notch in the full-color rerelease.
- Fake Action Prologue: The first panels focus on swiping claws and biting teeth. Turns out it's just Leafstar's kits playing.
- Foil: Leafstar is everything Cinders never was. Cinders was a fatalist who pessimistically complained about her adverse life and treated her mate and kittens with impatience. Leafstar on the other paw is a good mother, a caring mate and a proactive leader who thinks of her cats' well-being, puts aside her own issues for the sake of others, and lovingly nurtures her kits.
- Freudian Excuse: Sol had a father who neglected his kits, and a mother who always told them stories about SkyClan cats and was upset with her life. Because she couldn't take care of them, she gave them all to Twolegs. Sol thought that, if he was a SkyClan cat, his mother wouldn't have given him away. When he later did join SkyClan, they didn't make him a warrior, and from his view it was unfair prejudice rather than his own incompetence.
- Honor Before Reason: At one point during the flashback, Sol and his siblings helped themselves to canned cat food left out by kindly Twolegs, but Cinders scolded them and said they were too good for "kittypet food". This establishes that she was so full of pride she would've rather her kits starved to death than have food in their bellies and live another day.
- Inconsistent Coloring: Fallowfern. She appears in this volume as a she-cat the same warm brown color as Clovertail, but with a tuft of fur on her head, blue eyes, and no white chest. (She had this appearance once in the first volume while sitting with her mate Waspwhisker, and in this volume she has this appearance when she mentions her kits Nettlesplash and Plumwillow.) In other scenes in volume 1 and 3, she's a pale sandy yellowish color with tabby markings on her face and no fur tuft.
- Ironic Echo: "Why do things like this always happen to me?" First it's Sol's mother, Cinders, in a flashback after her mate leaves her because she complained too often, and Sol was devastated. Later, in the present day, Sol says it himself when he wants to be made a warrior at the Gathering and he thinks Leafstar deliberately tried to embarrass him by refusing for the time being.
- Irony: Sol's father brought Cinders, a rather shrewish cat, a shrew to eat. It doesn't help that she reacts to the meager spoils by angrily complaining about it.
- Kick the Dog: Cinders has her moments of cruelty towards her kits, but her crowning moment takes place after Sol's father left her for another mate. As she mopes over his leaving them, Sol tries to console her and ask for another story of the Skyclan cats. But in a fit of anger and frustration, she snaps at Sol and tells him Skyclan cats don't exist.
- Monochrome Past: In the full-color rerelease, Sol's past is shown in washed-out sepia tones compared to the colorful rest of the book.
- The Noun and the Noun: The trilogy name, SkyClan and the Stranger.
- Origins Episode: This trilogy, particularly this volume in it, show the origins of Sol.
- Parental Abandonment: Sol's parents. Sol's father didn't like his mate, Cinders, or his kits; he rarely visited them, and brought them very little food. Eventually he ends up leaving them for a new mate who didn't complain as much as Cinders. Cinders, who also never particularly liked her kits, ended up abandoning them at different Twoleg homes.
- Ruler Protagonist: Leafstar balances her responsibilities as leader with raising a litter of kits.
- Spoiler Title: Like SkyClan's Destiny, the trilogy title spoils the fact that there's a long-lost Clan out there for those who have not read Firestar's Quest. However, by being named after the Clan rather than the viewpoint character, it avoids spoiling which member of the newly founded SkyClan becomes leader at the end of Firestar's Quest.
- Team Title: SkyClan and the Stranger.
- Thunder Equals Downpour: SkyClan is at a Gathering with the full moon shining down between a couple sparse clouds, and the cats comment on how the drought might end since the air's cooler. An argument starts, Sol runs away in anger. Next panel: lightning flash and a KABOOM! Next panel: Downpour. The rain is even enough to flood almost the entire gorge that same night.
