#It might be pretty funny to have Pinepaw watch his dad take several Ls in Darkstar's Commandment

[bonefall]

Are you going to keep Goosefeather's curse? If so are you going to change anything about it? From my memory the book was... depressing.

It will probably get rolled into Pinestar's Crusade, building it up into an SE rather than just a novella. There's actually a lot going on in that specific moment, and it makes sense to go over it all at once.

So to answer your question, yes, most of Goosefeather's Curse is staying. Most of the Crusade Generation have depressing stories to tell. If the Thistle Period is defined by the fact that Thistle Law metastasized and went terminal, and if the Campaign Era was when it was newly born, then the Crusade Era was when it was first conceived.

I've been thinking about Pinestar's Crusade idly and mentioned it a few times, but here's my fragments so far;

PINESTAR'S CRUSADE (Fuses Pinestar's Choice and Goosefeather's Curse)

We start in the Crusade Era; there is now more focus on 3 major characters, though it's still built around Pinestar as the POV

Pinestar, Goosefeather, and eventually Pinepaw's apprentice Speckletail.

Pinepaw is born into the start of the Crusades, a bloody period where the Clans are invading Chelford and brutalizing cats in the hopes of appeasing StarClan. He only begins to learn the full story of what happened in Darkstar's Commandment once he begins going to Gatherings as a warrior

The truth being that Oakstar came up with this idea because he couldn't take an L

But even as an apprentice, it becomes quickly apparent to him that what they're doing is evil. They were brutalizing kittypets who aren't trained to fight back.

During his first raid as an apprentice, he allows a ginger-and-white mother and her kittens to escape

This came back years later, when that queen, Crystal, forms BloodClan in response to the Crusades.

Pineheart watches Oakstar die barely a year later to the queen he saved, using early claw extenders to cut right through him. Even if he hadn't been on his last life, it would have ended him.

But, Crystal lets Pineheart go, recognizing the Clan cat who had saved her life.

Watching his dad die along with several friends, and countless more innocent Chelford, plus being released by Crystal, is a Formative Moment.

Doestar continues the Crusades in the name of revenge for Oakstar, but now that BloodClan exists and is ARMED, the easy raids become bloodbaths.

They slowly peter out, not with a bang but with a whimper. She never announces an official end, eventually she just stops organizing them. No one gets closure, especially not Pineheart.

But the 'peace' doesn't last. Just before Heatherstar takes power from Smallstar and begins the Campaign to take the Mothermouth Moorland, ThunderClan deals with the Great Hunger

Pineheart and Goosefeather become very good friends, part of a little buddy group that also included Tawnyspots and Pheasantfeather (who will become One-eye later)

Pineheart was given his first apprentice, a rowdy little one and the niece of Doestar, Specklepaw. He's tasked with helping her fill the pawsteps of greatness she's destined to walk in.

Just like canon, Goose predicts the Great Hunger... though, he is an adult this time around because of some timeline changes.

And, like canon, it fails. They couldn't stockpile enough food to last an entire year of famine, a scorching summer and a frozen winter, they end up losing a huge stock of their food as if it was destiny.

Goosefeather was forced into a role he hates, given horrible visions of the future, and argues ferociously with Pineheart; if they hadn't tried to stockpile, they wouldn't have lost all that food to begin with.

It is in this moment, he comes to realize that every time he's fought back and used his visions like a warning, it's backfired.

So, perhaps, they are instruction.

But, meanwhile, Pineheart can't loose his apprentice or his friends. While others were hunting desperately, he was keeping cats alive through scouting for grubs, foraying into other territories, and...

Every bite of kittypet food he took for himself was a morsel in someone else's mouth. But this... this he kept quiet.

It started a "bad habit" he could never break.

Having lost the previous deputy to starvation and on her deathbed, Doestar nominates Pineheart to the position. He was shocked and upset by this, but he was the obvious choice.

Son of Oakstar, Hero of the Hunger, the cat who had kept Specklepaw alive when all the other kits and apprentices starved.

But, Pinestar took the helm to extreme controversy.

Everything Pinestar's ever done that worked was nonviolent. He's never seen battle do anything but bring harm, and the thought of leading people into war... it makes him feel sick.

But the rest of the Clan can't see what he sees. They yearn for the glory days (even though they were not glorious at all), itch to die for a cause, and leave this old, disgusting subsistence survival behind them. ThunderClan wants blood and Pinestar just wants peace.

Taking back Sunningrocks is an example of this. To avoid losing Clanmates, he proposed to Hailstar that they would have a Joust, instead.

ThunderClan's strongest against RiverClan's strongest. Adderfang vs Mudfur.

It didn't go well.

The problem with those sorts of situations is you have to abide by the deal. RiverClan took Sunningrocks for 6 months. It was humiliating for ThunderClan.

Even the cats he'd saved from the famine were furious with him

The only things that DID seem to please the Clan was when he would throw them fully into battle. Such as Goosefeather's prophecy that WindClan's herbs needed to be destroyed...

Every time a situation like that happened, where Goosefeather would phrase things as a Holy Struggle, Pinestar was thrown right back to the Crusades

Terrified eyes, screeching, cats begging for mercy, his father dead at his paws and feeling horror and relief swirling

Sitting vigil for old friends killed in these horrible fights, like Moonflower, it made him feel like how he felt the day he buried Oakstar.

And the bile rose in his throat, remembering that Oakstar was not there at his Leadership Ceremony, damned to the Dark Forest.

A thought was born, here. What does StarClan truly want? What do they expect of him? If they will send the architect of the Crusades there...

What of a cat who stayed fed on human food and fed grubs to his Clanmates? Or a leader who never knows the right thing to do?

When Mumblefoot retired and Sunfall became deputy, the Clan seemed to love him more than Pinestar. He found himself just... sitting back, and allowing Sunfall to call the shots.

It was towards the end, when Leopardfoot proposed an Honor Siring. He was from a glorious legacy, she wanted kits... and on his end, he wanted the peace that raising kittens could bring.

The warmth of human dens was calling him, but perhaps the warmth of love for children could keep him home.

UNLIKE CANON; Nothing about Tigerkit was born evil.

There was no StarClan vision of Tigerstar; Goosefeather knew full well that Thistlestar was the Leader of Prophecy.

But Pinestar would never give Thistleclaw an apprentice in time. Nor would he ever give his own little son to a cat as vicious as him.

Goosefeather never hurt anyone... but Pinestar just needed a push.

Pinestar was already anxious, unhappy, clinging to the goodness that was his little kits. Even as two of them were lost to minor illnesses, shortly after receiving their names.

It wasn't a lie. It was just half of the truth.

"Pinestar... you have a choice to make. StarClan has given me a vision of blood and war, and Tigerkit will have a role to play in it."

He DID have a vision... of Thistlestar. Not Tigerkit. But that was enough for Pinestar, his fear and trauma took the helm from there.

He'd seen his friends, his apprentice, the kits who had been born and died in his rule, all of them turn into the monsters Clan Culture demanded

Nothing he did ever seemed to work, why would THIS moment be different?

How could he prevent Tigerkit from becoming like that too?! Was StarClan telling him to KILL his son??

Pinestar's never had a vision from StarClan. He doesn't have the aptitude like a Cleric... what he has is a nightmare, of Tigerkit growing so large he crushes the whole camp under his claws

After a week of agony, Pinestar unknowingly creates a prophecy of his own,

"Can only the death of a child break fate?"

Sensing he was close to victory, Goosefeather dipped his head, not denying his question.

And it's the last straw.

And that is the climax of Pinestar's Crusade. Broken from his experiences, every turn taken for peace causing him more pain, the idea that he might have to hurt his own son plaguing his mind, he makes the choice to leave.

It wasn't hard, he'd still had that old bad habit of taking bites of kittypet food, a couple friends on the other side. But what he doesn't know is that by leaving with his life... he prevents Sunstar from acquiring his own.

Sunstar had ONE single life, StarClan was not able to give him more with the previous leader still alive. For leaving his Clan, for unknowingly preventing the transfer of power, and for dismissing the Warrior Code, Pinestar is sent to the Dark Forest after his death.

He can choose to walk there, or spend time in the mortal plane as just a spirit, but StarClan offers him no place in the cosmos.