#In my next draft I hope to incorporate thyme as an accessory more

[bonefall]

what you’re doing with sparkpelt is really interesting :) any specific plans for better bones alderheart? 👀 i know he doesn’t do a whole lot in canon but i still have a soft spot for him…

[ID: Better Bones Alderheart. He is a dark ginger tabby with wide, scared amber eyes. His stripes are thin, blotchy, and he displays the characteristic 'raptor claws' of BB!Tigerkin.]

My favorite Canon Alderheart scene is when his best friend Velvet says, "Wow you're an anxious wreck, have some cat prozac anmd go home."

Admittedly, I am more interested in Sparkpelt My Beloved, but Alderheart is still important too! However, his POV is scrubbed from AVoS to rework it into a Kin-centric arc, and his perspective is contained completely in the SE Bramblestar's Thorns.

Design wise this one's prone to change, I'm not super satisfied with it. Those funny eyes are staying though. I'll eventually do his parents Jessy and Bramblestar and then re-visit this one.

His anxiety is a larger part of the character and this is not going away. I plan for him to actually medicate for this, there will eventually be an herb guide for anxiety, and a second one for depression.

He's a bit more snappish than in-canon, more tired. Prone to catastrophizing. He gets insomnia when he's particularly stressed.

When he was only a few months old, Jessy and Bramblestar had a massive cat divorce. Alder chose to stay with his mother, and was taken back to the big twolegplace close to the sea, Hengest. (Note: My map is reworked, I chose to move this twolegplace to this location. In-canon it is elsewhere.)

Kittypets have much reduced freedom compared to wildcats, so Jessy was very careful introducing her kit to her twoleg. Thankfully the twoleg readily accepted him, naming him "Louie" after a singer they like a lot.

His childhood best friend was Velvet, but he didn't have too many other friends besides his mother.

When he started to have visions, Louie really didn't want to go back. He wanted to stay with Jessy... but his 6th month was approaching, which is often a time of tumult for kittypets.

Many are brought to new homes at that age, or neutered. Jessy was frank with him that there was going to be uncertainty either way, and if he was taken, he may never have the chance to get to the bottom of his visions.

So... he went back to ThunderClan. She walked with him, confirming for herself that there was no returning. Though she misses her friends and the connectivity of Clan life, Sparkpaw was looking at her with barely-bitten back anger, and she was reminded of how bad her relationship with Bramblestar was.

Bramblestar changed his name from Louie to Alderpaw, the name he had at birth. Alderpaw wasn't fond of this, or the way it felt like Bramble wanted to erase his life up to this point.

Unlike canon, all of ThunderClan isn't goddamn horrible to Alder. He has a really strained relationship with Bramblestar, gets caught in the middle of Jayfeather's complicated feelings towards his ex-dad, and tries to rekindle his innocent closeness with his sister, but he has allies too.

He becomes very close with Lilyheart and Icecloud, in particular. (shuffled, now part of the post-Great Battle generation. Lily does not have kids, Larksong is combined with Hollytuft and is the child of Fallenleaf and Cinderheart.)

Sandstorm becomes one of his favorite elders,

Eventually, Alder ends up becoming the primary guardian of Twigkit. It felt wrong to watch her get separated from her sister the way he was, and he hoped he would be able to make her time growing up easier than his own.

A lot of this part I'm still working on. AVoS is definitely one of the harder arcs for me, imo, a lot of it is under construction.

He was a supporter of SkyClan's place at the lake, especially since this time, they helped to destroy the Kin. He faced accusations of only sympathizing with them because their ranks were full of kittypets like himself, though.

Alderheart eventually finds his place, confident from the support of his friends, beloved by Twigbranch and seen as her dad, having settled into a tense peace with his sister and father.

At the end of the SE, he has a final trip to Hengest with Sparkpelt, to gather catmint and other garden herbs.

He shows her places he's outgrown, she's open with him about feelings she's kept hidden about their mom, their dad, themselves.

They check in on their mom and see she's doing fine.

Eventually he visits with Velvet again, and she gifts him a juicy sprig of thyme to show she still keeps him close to her heart.

And that's what I've got for him, so far. I have a pretty 'neat' little bundle of story, hopefully it makes up for him no longer being a main character.