#Brightheart decides to keep her name as a special request

[bonefall]

Better reasons that all the scarred cats are named like that

Casually making scars, injuries, and congenital abnormalities points of pride in the WC universe by changing the reasons they have those names

Crookedstar

After breaking his jaw, Rainflower refused to feed him. Between the neglect and the injury, the clan did not expect him to heal, let alone make it to his warrior name ceremony. Stormpaw surviving his kithood and his apprenticeship was a sign of strength, resourcefulness, and blessing from StarClan. His warrior name, Crookedjaw, is a mark of pride.

Deadfoot

Born Hopkit and later becoming an excellent hunter named Hoprunner, it wasn’t expected that he would ever be a good fighter. That would be perfectly respectable, but ambitious Hoprunner had his eyes on deputyship. In order to have that position, he needed to be an exceptional warrior in both hunting AND fighting.

So at first, he trained to ‘overcome‘ his twisted paw. It wasn’t working, until he realized, it didn’t HAVE to be a weakness to overcome. In a fateful battle with ShadowClan, he used his ‘good‘ paw to distract his opponent, reared up, and clobbered them with the dead foot like a club. Upon becoming deputy, he was renamed to Deadfoot in honor of the battle move he’d founded.

Elders

When a cat becomes an elder, it’s customary for them to name something they’ve “given“ to their clan in exchange for finally being allowed to rest. She’s given One-Eye, he’s given Half-a-Tail. This is optional, and goes in and out of popularity between generations.

Additional cats for fun:

Clawface = Was Duskfur, renamed for an injury sustained during a very bloody fight with WindClan, to raise Clan morale

Ratscar = Was Meltpelt (because it’s fun that he’s Melt and his sister is Snow). Survived being literally buried in angry rats at the carrionplace.

Shredtail = Was Thornstripe, lost his kits to a mother badger, lost his tail while getting revenge slaughtering the badger’s kits in turn.

Redscar = Was Redberry, a warrior turned medicine cat. For the life he’d lived before medicine, his proud mentor gave him a new name once he was fully trained.

[imincathell]

I’ve been thinking about “the three grow up in different Clans” AU and I wanted to give my own take on it. So, here’s my ideas for how it might go.

(Disclaimer: I haven’t read po3 and oots in forever, so my timelines and information etc. etc. might be totally off. Also, I’m keeping the three’s names the same, with some ideas of what they could be otherwise. And I’m not taking cat genetics into account when it comes to pelt colours.)

First off: Hollyleaf, who is a WindClan cat. She is Nightcloud and Crowfeather’s daughter, and Breezepelt’s brother. Crow doesn’t have a fling with Leaf, and tries to love Night but is still grieving for Feathertail. Instead having a black pelt like the rest of her family, she’s more of a mottled lighter grey, and looks kind of like Feather. Because of this, Crow absolutely dotes on her, and is sometimes convinced that Feather’s spirit lives on in Holly. Just like in the canon, Holly abides strictly to the warrior code, and believes there is no higher honour than serving her Clan. She and Heatherkit/paw/tail are very good friends. Breeze, however, hates Holly, since Crow rarely ever spends time with him because he’s always with Holly. Night still loves her daughter but grows colder towards Crow because he pays no attention to Breeze. I haven’t thought too much of what Holly’s power could be, but I thought if she were to have one it could be the power of suggestion. It’s not like she can control cat’s minds, but along with being very loyal she’s an extremely good speaker, and is good at convincing cats to do what she wants. I don’t think Crow would name her Feather-, but he might request her warrior name be Hollyfeather or Hollytail.

Now, Jayfeather. Jay was born in RiverClan to Primroseheart (Mistyfoot/star’s daughter I’ve decided to not kill off) and Streamfoot (a tom I’ve made up because every Clan who isn’t ThunderClan has a pitiful number of cats.) Jay could or couldn’t have siblings, doesn’t affect the story either way (though it’d be cute if he had siblings who were really supportive of him.) Jay is a light-brown colour, not an important change but English jays are brown so. Jay is still born blind. Leopardstar doesn’t know what to do with him, and tries to convince Mothwing to take him as a second apprentice along with Willowpaw. Jay really doesn’t want to train as a medicine cat, as in the canon. Thankfully his mother and his uncle, Reed, and even Misty, are dedicated to helping him become a warrior. Reed is his mentor and during Jay’s first Gathering, Reed asks Brightheart if she could help train Jay. Bright is hesitant but agrees, and says Longtail might be able to help them too. Thus begins some occasional secret meetings between Bright, Reed, and Jay (sometimes Primrose and Misty tag along as well.) It takes him longer to become a warrior, but eventually he gets his warrior name. He has the same power, being able to walk in other cat’s dreams and see in his dreams. I really like the name Jaystep for him, but it could also be Jaysplash, Jaybright, or Jaypebble.

And now for Lionblaze. Lion is born to Tawnypelt, and has the build and face-shape of Tigerstar but looks like Goldenflower. In this version, Tigerheart doesn’t exist. We don’t need him. Lion quickly and easily proves himself a strong and eager warrior. He has a much stronger character than he does in canon po3. Lion is fiercely protective of his siblings, and wants ShadowClan to have a better reputation. He doesn’t like that they’re seen as secretive and manipulative, and believes his Clan is better than that. When he begins to realize he can’t be hurt in battle, he begins to wonder if he should reveal his power and use it to take over ShadowClan and rebuild it so it can reach its full potential. He never goes through with it, since he’s still a really sweet and loyal guy and just tries his best to fix ShadowClan as a warrior. Lion’s other names might be Lionclaw, Lionheart, or Lionstrike, but honestly I really like his canon name.

The three meet each other at Gatherings, speaking in passing but never becoming very good friends until later in their apprenticeship. By then, most of them have begun to notice their powers. All of them gradually notice that something is “off” with the other (Holly notices that Lion has no wounds, even though she knows Shadow and Thunder/River had a skirmish he was involved in; Jay notices that Holly can offhandedly tell a cat what to do and they’ll usually do it; Lion and Holly pick up that Jay knows more about cats and places than a blind cat should, etc.), until they all realize the other two are the two from the prophecy and confront each other (at this point the three have each separately overheard the prophecy and figured out that they’re one of the three. Also, the prophecy will have to be changed but I’m not sure what it would be.) 

Somewhere along the line, the three are visited by StarClan, and get the prophecy about the fourth cat. Now, we get Dovewing. Dove’s story stays almost exactly the same, she’s born in ThunderClan to Whitewing and Birchfall, and Ivy is her sister. She and Ivy are exceptionally close. When they’re young apprentices, Dove mentions something about what’s happening in another Clan, and Ivy is shocked. Dove realizes not every cat can hear and see like she can, and becomes paranoid in keeping her secret. Ivy supports her however she can, and still loves her sister a lot, but is jealous of the ability she has. Hawkfrost still tricks her into training in the Dark Forest, but she soon picks up on the fact that this place is evil as hell. Ivy doesn’t tell Dove, but spies on her own, learning whatever she can about the Dark Forest and their plans. The three figure out from the prophecy that Dove is the fourth cat, confront her at a Gathering, and Dove admits that she does have special powers. 

From there I imagine Ivy eventually tells Dove once she pieces together that the Dark Forest wants to attack the Clans (she listened in on the DF cats plotting multiple times,) Dove gets upset that Ivy never told her, Ivy feels bad but doesn’t really apologize, Dove tells the three that the DF exists and that Ivy’s been spying on them, the three tell Dove to tell Ivy she needs to keep spying on them and Dove lets Ivy in on the prophecy. Ivy gets upset at Dove for getting mad at her when she was keeping a secret when she was keeping one of her own, and nearly considers betraying the four to the DF, but she realizes that the DF is far too big a threat and that the four are the Clans' only hope. 

I really want to further explore the idea of Holly being Night and Crow’s daughter and looking like Feather, and her relationship with Breezepelt because of it. She definitely kills him during the great battle, though, there’s no way Holly would let Breeze live after she finds out he’s with the DF. I like to imagine she kills him once he’s in the DF too, just as a final “fuck you.”

I think Holly would become leader after Onestar, and lead her Clan well for many, many moons before eventually dying peacefully of old age. Somewhere along the line Rowanclaw dies, and Tawny is made deputy. Blackstar dies sooner than he does in the series and Tawny becomes leader (and makes her son, Lion, deputy.) Lion may or may not become leader, depending on how much longer Tawny lives, but she makes a fantastic leader, as would Lion if he ever became one. During the great battle Bramble dies as well as Firestar, but Firestar lives a couple days after the battle ends, eventually succumbing to wounds, but appoints Ivypool the new deputy. Ivy also leads her well Clan for many seasons, and probably dies valiantly saving her Clan in battle. Since Ivy and Holly are leaders for pretty much the same time, ThunderClan and WindClan enjoy many seasons of (most of the time) peaceful coexistence. Jay has never aspired towards leader, but is always a voice of reason to whoever is leader at the time. He lives a quiet life snarking at his Clanmates, whom he loves dearly. Dovewing makes friends with some of the cats at Twolegplace, and a couple of seasons after the battle, tells Ivy she wants to leave to be a kittypet. Ivy is extremely surprised and almost disgusted that her sister would want to live a soft life, but she loves her nonetheless and visits her from time to time.

This is a pretty disjointed idea but I’ve never written any ideas/AUs for warriors and I wanted to try my hand at it. If anyone has any more ideas for this AU feel free to share!