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forestclan-clangen · 10 days ago

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MOON 8 (Part 1)

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Cloudthunder is pregnant! This surprises a few cats, but they always knew her to be adventurous. Cloudthunder grooms herself bashfully, feeling pressured to explain herself, but Redstar decides to step in. She reinstates a law that she knew existed before Lakestar's reign - the Queen's Law. No parent has to disclose the parentage of their kits, if they chose not to. Cloudthunder is relieved.

(Cloudthunder, warrior, female, 41 moons) (Redstar, leader, female, 66 moons) (Hopechase, warrior, female, 90 moons)

Cloudthunder won't say it out loud, but deep down, she wonders if she could just...pretend it wasn't happening. That way it won't hurt when the woods come for the kits. Iciclepool sits down next to Cloudthunder quietly, providing support that didn't require any words.

(Cloudthunder, warrior, female, 41 moons) (Iciclepool, deputy, female, 64 moons)

Branchkit is asking Tree interesting questions, and the warrior is happy to entertain her. Branchkit thinks that Tree is really cool!

(Branchkit, kitten, female, 3 moons) (Tree, warrior, non-binary, 39 moons)

Perchkit keeps comparing herself to Morningpaw. Morningpaw thinks that Perchkit is acting increasingly annoying and uncomfortable, and she tells her off firmly. Perchkit doesn't understand, and doesn't like that Morningpaw yelled at her.

(Perchkit, kitten, female, 3 moons) (Morningpaw, apprentice, female, 10 moons)

Redstar is stress from being bound to camp with her broken bone, the wound getting infected. She can't keep wasting time. She knows the woods need to be fed. She should be out there, not in camp. In her anger, she makes snide comments at Tree and hisses at Cloudthunder about what kind of sire would want to give a Clan cat kits. Both cats are taken aback, given her usually kind nature. [STRESS EVENT: MELTDOWN]

(Redstar, leader, female, 66 moons) (Cloudthunder, warrior, female, 41 moons) (Tree, warrior, non-binary, 39 moons)

Windfur and Shiverpaw get into an argument that leaves them both feeling tense and upset. Neither of them apologize. Windfur is afraid that Shiverpaw isn't being honest with him.

(Windfur, medicine cat, male, 22 moons) (Shiverpaw, medicine cat apprentice, female, 8 moons)

---

"And you're adamant that you didn't touch it?"

"No, Windfur," Shiverpaw repeated defensively.

Windfur felt a twitch of annoyance surge through him. "Are you absolutely certain?"

"I said I was sure!" Shiverpaw protested, her voice angled with frustration. "Why are you so mad about this?"

"Because they cause hallucinations, Shiverpaw," Windfur retorted. Shiverpaw shrunk under the harsh emphasis of his words. "Talonpaw said you came into contact with the Nature's Mockery. For everyone's safety, I need to know if something happened to you during it."

"Nothing happened, Windfur! We found it and Talonpaw said we had to go back to camp. I swear that nothing else happened!" Shiverpaw pressed, her blue eyes filled with anger.

Windfur's tail twitched. He bit back on a hiss and stopped himself from saying that she was lying to him. He wanted Shiverpaw to confess what Talonpaw had told him - that she was stuck in a trance and muttering something that he didn't catch.

This wasn't the first time this happened, and while he hoped that it was all just a coincidence, a kit's hyperawareness of the forces around them, now he was getting anxious. First, Shiverpaw seemed to be aware of things she shouldn't have known when she was a kit - reports from Redstar and Talonpaw where she knew that Living Tendrils could force their way into dens, and there was a hungry eye she was worried about. Then, there was the night Warblerkit was taken. The entire camp was in heavy disarray, and Windfur had just finished looking over Olive's condition and removing the water that flooded the nursery. Shiverkit stared at the dark, rainy sky. Her eyes held an intensity that bore through the fabric of the sky above, as though she could see beyond the veil.

He would never forget her final words - whispered and unnaturally cold.

"The vessel floats into the maw. The jaw unhinges."

He wanted her to tell him what she saw and felt. He wanted some kind of reassurance that her words were from StarClan, or were her own. But still, she denied it. And that scared him.

StarClan did everything in their power to shield ForestClan from the Iris' gaze, but what if it had found a loophole? What if it found a way to observe them in the waking world? Did it even have that ability? Could Shiverpaw have somehow become the beacon? Did he just doom ForestClan by agreeing to take her on as an apprentice, allowing something to see into StarClan? Did she even know? Was she aware that it was happening? Which answer was worse - ignorance or deceit?

He must have been giving Shiverpaw an intense stare, as the young cat's ears flattened and her tail was tucked between her legs. "W-Windfur?" Her voice was meek.

Windfur closed his eyes and turned away from her roughly. "Just…nevermind. Forget it. Sort the herbs you collected."

The tense silence that followed unnerved and upset him. It took everything in him to ignore Shiverpaw cautiously tip toeing around him with a basket in her mouth, then removing and sorting every herb as though they were delicate, newborn birds. He should've enjoyed the silence, but he didn't. He liked silence. He liked working alone. Now his silence was filled with the permating presence of a child who may or may not doom the entirety of ForestClan, and it would be his fault if she did.

A foreign emotion broke from its seed, and sprouted. He was reminded again of his dead mentor, of how she seemed to know just what to do, and felt like he was left with nothing and no one to rely on. In his den, right now, was possibly a threat to all of ForestClan, and he was alone with determining the truth.

He couldn't do it. Windfur stormed out of the medicine den and found himself heading towards the gates.

Hopechase was standing guard this time, and as he approached, she twitched her ear.

"Going to the graveyard," he grumbled.

Hopechase merely nodded at him before letting Windfur stride past her.

He journeyed past the west of camp, scaling up the slope of cold ground and dead leaves. He stepped on every leaf in his path, not caring about the noise he could possibly make. He just didn't care anymore.

Finally, as he crawled up the top of the hill, he stared at the large clearing around them, lined with stones and one, singular oak tree branching out to shield the graves in dark shade. Windfur stared listlessly at the tree's large trunk, with rows and rows of scratched lines engraved into its bark, encircling it over and over. After the storm, he had scratched one more line for Olive's unnamed kit. One line for every unnamed cat and unknown stranger whose bodies were lost to the woods.

A monument to all of their pain and suffering.

Windfur stared at the towering oak for only a moment longer, before his eyes fell on a dark, slated stone with dried chicory resting upon it.

With a heavy heart, he padded towards it and sat down.

"...Hi, Chicoryglint."

Only the wind replied to him. Windfur's dark blue eyes locked themselves on the grave. A squirrel shuffled up a tree in the distance. For a moment, Windfur let himself sit with his thoughts. He failed to parse them into separate subjects. Why was he even doing this? This wasn't going to help. A grave wasn't going to tell him what was wrong with Shiverpaw. So why?

You're here to confess your failures, he thought.

"...I've made a horrible mistake, Chicory. I really have." Windfur's throat tightened. "I…I brought something into StarClan's skies. I thought after the last moon, that maybe, Shiverpaw was normal. Maybe she just…had a stressful episode during greenleaf. Maybe she had potential, and she could have a good bond with StarClan. But…" He trailed off into silence, his thoughts swarming around him like gnats.

"...Look, I know…I know you don't like talking a lot. I…I get it, I'm the same. But, I could use my mentor right now."

Chicoryglint wouldn't answer him. Not at a grave…and not in his dreams. Even after moons of waiting for anything from her, after they held a vigil, and ate her favorite meal, and shared their memories…

He had visited the Half-Moon Dome ten times since her death. Ten times she could've visited him.

"Look, I know I've driven us all into fox-dung, the least you can do is tell me how to fix it!" He lashed out all of a sudden, his tail thrashing. "I've brought StarClan some kit who may or may not be linked to…to that thing up there, and you won't even bother to tell me if she is, or isn't, or just - "

Windfur spiralled and started snarling when he realized what he was doing. This wasn't about Shiverpaw, was it? He thought it was, but maybe it never was.

It had been ten moons now. Ten moons since Chicoryglint was seen alive. Ten moons of silence. Ten moons of her not visiting him at the Dome.

Why? Was he a failure? Did Chicoryglint see a prophecy that spelled him as a harbinger? Was she ashamed of him?

"Why won't you see me, stars damned it all!" He yowled and furiously scratched at the gravestone. He felt his eyes stinging with pain. "I don't want to fail us! I can fix it, if you would just tell me! What is wrong with her? Is she connected to the Iris? Have I brought the Iris into StarClan's abode?"

Windfur glowered at the gravestone with pale scratch marks now stretched across it. The dried chicory was now crushed, the petals scattered. The woods were silent.

"At least my father told me where he was going when he left," Windfur hissed. "At least he asked me to join him. He gave me a choice. I…I turned him down. I stayed, because you asked me to. And then you left. You just gave me my full name and…died." Windfur stopped. A feeling of dread crawled up his legs and surrounded his heart. "...You…you died."

An intrusive memory broke through his defenses. Iciclepool was speaking to Redstar in her den. Windfur had just brought back herbs and passed under the High Rock. He was going through the motions, not thinking, not feeling. He couldn't accept that she was truly gone. And his ears picked up on something that made his blood turn cold - more than any monster or beast of the woods could ever inflict on him.

"She isn't dead, you know."

He froze. He wanted to keep moving. He didn't. His ears strained to listen.

"Redstar, we don't know that."

"I was a part of their little in-group for moons, Icicle. She was a walking contradiction. Unwilling to hurt others, but willing to protect her own life more. Windfur's story about how she told him to head back to camp and she'd catch up…how she had given him his name before vanishing…"

Windfur bristled. He couldn't turn away. He couldn't leave.

"You're suggesting she ran."

"I am."

"Why didn't she leave with everyone who abandoned us when Lakestar died, then?"

"The same thing that's always motivated her."

Windfur clenched his teeth. He felt the taste of bile and dandelion.

"Fear."

Windfur yowled as he broke free of the memory. He slammed his paws into the dirt and started digging, his claws dragging every inch of grass and mud that housed Chicoryglint's grave. He dug until he felt the stone wobble uneasily. He ripped it out of the ground, and he felt like it held the weight of a mountain. He sobbed, his face burning with indignation.

"Tell me you're dead! Tell me you're actually dead! I don't care if you're mad at me! Just - " Windfur's dark blue eyes stared at the stone pleadingly, as though it held all the answers. He closed his eyes firmly, and bit back a screech.

He hoped. Pleaded. For so many moons that she would show herself to him when he went to the Half-Moon Dome.

But he realized something.

He realized that if he died tomorrow, even if Shiverpaw was linked to the Iris…he would have visited her, at least one last time. One last time to say that he was sorry, and that if she really did doom cat-kind, it wasn't her fault, it was his. It was his fault for agreeing to mentor her and bring her to StarClan's abode. It was his fault for not figuring it out sooner, and not stopping it.

He would still visit her, and he didn't even know her.

Windfur pushed the rock with his head, shoving it over every other gravestone and monument with his paws. He hissed as he kept getting snagged and stuck, and eventually he grasped the flat rock in his mouth, ignoring the pain of the stone dragging down on his teeth. Finally, he made it towards the edge of the clearing, which gave way to a sloped hill.

He dropped the stone and watched it tumble down thrashing against every branch and tree before finally landing flat, dragging a layer of dead leaves and flattened twigs with it.

Windfur stared at the stone at the bottom of the hill. Pain throbbed in his paws and teeth. He felt numb. As the sun continued its path, shifting the shape of shadows below, Windfur focused on the rise and fall of his chest. His anger cooled, and he stared sadly at the stone thrown across the forest floor.

A drop of guilt sat at his paws.

That was still his mentor. His teacher. The one who sang him rhymes and taught him the value of patience and precision. The same skills he was trying - maybe failing, but still trying - to teach his apprentice.

But he still felt betrayed.

“If,” Windfur swallowed, “if you come to visit me. If you apologize. If you tell me what to do, I’ll bring it back up. I’ll put it back. Do you understand?”

He heard the sound of dead branches falling from a tree somewhere.

He breathed deeply, then slowly turned away and padded back down the hill, back to the only home he'd ever known. He felt the pain jab at his paw pads. He stared at them briefly, and saw bruising. He scowled as a melody for soothing bruises appeared in his head, and he pushed it aside as he allowed the pain to anchor him to reality.

He was an adult cat now. He wasn't a fresh, young apprentice. He wasn't a newbie healer. He was ForestClan's sole medicine cat.

He...he couldn't keep doing this. He couldn't keep relying on the memory of someone he thought he knew.

If only it was easier on his heart to embrace. If only.

---

Talonpaw clears up a misunderstanding with Shiverpaw. He only told Windfur about the Nature's Mockery, and doesn't know why Windfur is acting out. Shiverpaw believes him. Unfortunately, Talonpaw lied - he did tell Windfur about the trance Shiverpaw had. Talonpaw feels really guilty, believing that he got her in trouble. But...what else was he supposed to say? Shiverpaw scared him.

(Talonpaw, apprentice, male, 12 moons) (Shiverpaw, apprentice, female, 8 moons)

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warrior-cats-rewritten · 2 years ago

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Missing Kits, Part 2/?

Part 1

Dragonflykit - Greenflower's son, now surviving greencough. Dragonflypaw is mentored by Grasswhisker, and becomes Dragonflynose. However, between Firestar's Quest and Midnight, before the Forest starts getting ripped up, Dragonflynose slips off to the Moonstone and transitions, becoming Dragonflywing! She looks a lot like her mom.

Duckkit - Now a dark tortoiseshell molly with a small tail, Duckkit does still pass, but Greenflower is seen getting reassurance from Mudfur that he saw her in Starclan, running around with a moss ball.

Featherkit - Now Dappletail and Stormpelt's son. His death is now retconned. He was deaf, yes, but he wasn't a strong kit to begin with. He passed from fading kitten syndrome, but had a nice life before that, and was starting to get interested in herbs.

Cricketkit - A blue-gray tom like Bluestar, but with yellow eyes. He was apprenticed to Russetmoth, Willowpelt's father, and named Cricketfang. He is mates with Longtail's sister, Heatherwish, and now the father of Cinderpelt and Brackenfur.

Sol's siblings are brought up but they're for another post, as are Cloudtail's and Firestar's.

Quietkit - Now a dark brown tabby molly with brilliant blue eyes. She has made it through her sickness! Her mother has been renamed from Ashheart to Gravelheart. She is currently apprenticed to Russetfur. I have bumped her up to have been born a few moons before ITW, but she should NOT be an apprentice right now, this is much too early. Thankfully, Russetfur is good to her. Her warrior name will be Quietfeather.

Her siblings are under the cut!

Turtlekit - Now a dilute tortoiseshell molly with one green eye and one yellow eye, Turtlekit is Gravelheart's second born child, and is currently apprenticed to Blackfoot. She is also too young for this. Her warrior name will be Turtlesong.

Rubblekit - Another rare prefix, a lot of these kits gave prefixes never seen before. Now he is a small gray tabby tom with (as a reference to his wiki sprite) bright green eyes! He is illegally apprenticed to Nettlespot, who thankfully acts tough but is very gentle with him. His warrior name will be Rubblefang.

Cherrypaw - Originally Robinwing and Fuzzypelt from long ago, appearing in Spottedleaf's Honest Answer. Well Robinfuzzy is getting destroyed and SHA no longer exists, so Cherrypaw is getting moved away from that and is now bulky ginger and white molly with amber eyes, and a child of Grayflower (OC) with her littermates Dustpelt and Ravenpaw. She was made a warrior early due to fighting off a boar! Her mentor was Frostfur and her name is Cherryshine.

Chestnutkit - He was bumped down to be Frostfur's littermate as Brindleface is no longer her sister, he was mentored by Snowfur, and he is also now a skinny pale brown tabby tom with a white chest and blue eyes named Chestnutwing. He will mentor Elderpaw after Russetmoth dies.

Lavenderkit - Now a rose-cream mollynwith deep blue eyes, Lavenderkit survives her illness and is apprenticed to Volewhisper. She becomes Lavenderpool, and is mates with Blossomclaw.

Smokepaw - Nightwing's boy, the apprentice that falls. He is a HUGE part of The New Prophecy! A main character now! He will still fall, but find his way home, and he is featured in WCR!Graystripe's Adventure, found by Graystripe and Cody. His name will be Smokeheart.

Talonpaw - Now pale gray with large white feet, the attack from the kittypets nearly killed him, and he collapsed unconscious when he dragged himself back to camp. He would lay in effectively a comatose state, being given a Dying Warrior Ceremony from Blackstar. He woke up during the end of Sunset, and was shocked to hear cheers of his new name: Talonshine.

Nightwhisper - Nightwhisper would not become Darkflower's mate, but instead brought his young daughter to be nursed by Queens who could help. Kinkfur was that kit. She is, for all intents and purposes, half Bloodclan.

Pouncetail - To avoid same names, this man had been not only hit with the Gender Beam, but also a cool new name. Meet Muntjactail! Now has an itty-bitty tail, a lighter chest and belly. She is mates with Stoatrunner (1 half of Stoatfur, who is now split into 2 cats) and is the mother of Beenose!

Since Wolfstep is dead, the lean tabby tom and tortoiseshell queen with 2 kits are now Rubblefang, and his sister Turtlesong. He is giving her loving support. Wetfoot has just died, he was the father of her kits. Ivykit (Ivytail) and Whitekit (Whitewater).

Crowfrost - Dawncloud now gets together with Picklewish (OC, kinda. One of the names from the Fan Vote that Wafflepaw won. He joins Shadowclan during the Journey) and has Crowfrost. He will also be surviving AVOS! She also has them a little bit later than canon.

Spiderfoot - Crowfrost's brother, a cowardly little guy who leaves to become a kittypet. His kittypet name is Socko, and he is loved.

Swallowtail - Now a skinny gray-cream molly with darker legs and amber eyes. Born to Vixenleap and a posthumous Swancall a few weeks after the Battle for Bloodclan, Swallowtail may look like a Windclan cat, but she is a shining star in Riverclan. She even earned her name early and was trusted with an apprentice before anyone else! She has secret kits with Rainwhisker!

Wait, what?

Pebblefoot - Now a mottled pale brown tom with bright green eyes and small paws, Pebblefoot is an alright enough guy. He had a bit of a celebrity crush on Ashfoot when he was young. His mentor is no longer Mosspelt, but now Heavystep, who is no longer an early elder. He gives the next Riverclan Leader a life after his death during The Hopeless Storm.

Minnowtail - Oh, I have BIG plans for this girl, should all go well with ASC. That's far away for now, but just know that us Mouse x Minnow fans are EATING.

Tumblekit - Now a chubby little boy. I am deeply sorry for anyone who likes this little guy and wanted him to live. He was never meant to survive. I tried to think of how I could spin him, but his death is a Canon Event for Minnowtail.

Mallowtail and Grasswhisker - Grasswhisker is now a trans tom who might later realize they're actually a tolly! That isn't set in stone, but what is is this relationship! But, since he and Mallowtail cannot have kits of biologically, they get help from a sire. Who, you ask? Well that's private! (a loner) after Mallowtail gives birth, they are shocked to see that one of their kits, Beechkit, looks VERY much like Grasswhisker! The other is Rippletail. Mates of Gorsetail and Petalfur.

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