#Showing up to protect his DF apprentice's child

[bonefall]

thought that crossed my mind while reading some of your posts:

whats darkstripes role in your rewrite? whats he doin?

what da dog doin tho

If Hawkfrost's arc wasn't so important and redeeming him wasn't so deeply meaningful to me, I would have done the same arc to Darkstripe. I actually have an undue amount of sympathy for the guy.

But as-is he's just another Dark Forest lackey, not much different from canon besides the fact that his mother is now Dappletail, making him the nephew of Thrushpelt.

However.

He won't be getting double-killed by Firestar in Rootspring's body. I don't think it makes sense that Firestar was somehow able to astral-project into the Dark Forest and beam himself into the body of Root, who was being imprisoned, when he clearly has to PHYSICALLY enter the forest as a StarClan warrior later.

I think it makes for much cooler implication that Hawkfrost's double-dead spirit is what makes a cameo here, implying there's something even beyond the afterlife.

[bonefall]

Sorry if you've posted about her before, but have you any plans for Icewing? What with her being Beetlewhiskers mother, both of them trained ij the dark forest and the Erins didn't have her react to his death, plus the scene where she protects fellow trainees frok showing fear so they don't get hurt? This woman has SO much potential!

A fellow Moonkitti Enjoyer I see

Yes, though! Ice is getting an expanded role in my rewrite. She is the child of Skyheart and Reedtail with her sister Pinefur, and the cousin of Reedwhisker!

She was an apprentice on the Great Journey, during which she ended up falling for a Tribe paw. Mint was chased out of RiverClan along with Storm and Brook during the Thistle Law surge that followed WindClan's Rebellion, but came back after the sudden death of Leopardstar.

Ice has always felt like something was suspicious about that death. On one paw, the death of Leopardstar returned her Mintflower, on the other hand... how can it possibly be okay that she had her skull bashed in and Mistystar just becomes leader? With so little investigation?

Skyheart is still around, too, to whisper things in Ice's ear. That Mistystar punished all of Leopardstar's old allies by shuffling apprentices, calling her a tyrant, not to trust her.

She turns to the Dark Forest because Leopardstar is there, and she wants to learn more about her. And she brings Beetlewhisker too.

From there the story is similar; I just built a lot in the blank space. Her son dies and she can't forgive herself for it. She protects other trainees as much as possible.

Though there is a change for two reasons:

Brokenstar is not in the DF for this Rewrite and thus did not kill Beetle. See: Firestar's Quietus

The Dark Forest is not as objectively evil and a lot of the demons are less enthusiastic about attacking the living than canon, so Icewing was speaking for some of them too. Not just younger trainees.

After the Great Battle, Icewing is actually unable to have kits again. She is taking it as a curse, a punishment for endangering Beetlewhisker. Nightkit and Breezekit were stillborn.

Her role opposing the impostor is unchanged, though, her collaborator Harelight is becoming a light in the mist! His name is probably going to be an Honor Title for it; I'm thinking he was called Harefur for AVoS and TBC before that.

(Mistystar likes to name families using matching suffixes. Softpelt, Dappletuft, Harefur. Gorseclaw is cut.)

I don't rewrite arcs until they're complete, so Bonefall ASC is still undecided, but you can see I'm giving Icey-Wi LOTS of setup in preparation.