#Ul-arramew

[bonefall]

What are Tallstar's thoughts on how things play out? Now that his surprise pick kicks of a civil war and ends up not mattering in the slightest, probably gonna be a awkward conversation between him and Onestar when he dies

He regrets it massively. A change that I think is major but everyone else will probably consider minor is that Tallstar will never "reassure" Onestar that he was correct.

Tallstar quickly vanishes after his death, he goes to StarClan briefly but then leaves. In truth, he's gone to be with Jake, but it's a mystery to everyone else. All Onestar knows is that when he receives his nine lives, Tallstar's life is short and feels almost like a platitude, and then he is bizarrely absent from dreams and omens.

(If he even stays THAT long. It's still a bit up in the air but I think I'm going to have him catch the sabotauged muirburn, Mudclaw's trial and damnation, and Onestar's nine lives)

It's finally sinking in now, that everyone he's given power and personally brought into the fold of the Clan has been ruined by it.

He returned to WindClan and left his mate, Jake. His son Flytail became his political rival and snapped a ShadowClan warrior's neck in cold blood. He lost so, so much family in the WindClan Massacre. And now his hasty choice has caused THIS.

Tallstar wants peace but was never willing to do anything TRULY hard to get it. He was still going to keep the Mothermouth Moorland that WindClan had fairly won. He never campaigned to bring back tunneling. He saw Mudclaw's xenophobia earlier but didn't change his popular deputy in a "hard time." He has always been reactionary, not proactive...

And there's a thread there, between him and Onewhisker. Friendliness and the desire to be the leader that your Clan wants you to be.

So how would he DARE to ever be angry with Onestar? After what he did to him?

Tallstar checks in as a spirit frequently, especially when Jake's descendants (NOT Firestar in BB they are unrelated) wander around the area. Onestar doesn't know it, but the old leader IS watching him, protecting him even. When Onestar dies, Tallstar finds him before the fetcher does, and invites him to come along on a wander.

But most importantly, in that moment, he apologizes. He thrust a weight onto Onestar's shoulders that never should have been there, and he's had to pretend to be strong for too long.

[troutfur]

Tonight is Writer's Choice night because I said so and because I binged the whole of the new book over the course of my day off and it gave me ideas.

Tomorrow we're back to taking prompts from the audience, in accordance with my guidelines, but as a clarification since I've got more than a handful: Mapleshade's Vengeance is in fact one of the books I haven't read. And I'm not sure it's a book I even want to read. After the whole "yeah it's totally a good idea to write an article telling kids that if they don't jump into a flooding river to save someone else they're going to Hell, just get social media to shut up" fiasco from last year it just has left a sour taste in my mouth.

Preamble out of the way, enjoy Sunbeam's ThunderClan polycule, feat. pfurr dynamic worldbuilding:

On the night Nightheart went missing, Sunbeam went into her new nest feeling dejected. The whole of ThunderClan had been buzzing with a celebratory atmosphere but hearing her mate had left had her double-guessing herself at her decisions so far. The cryptic reassurances from StarClan Squirrelstar conveyed to to her had for sure not had remotely close to the intended effect. With no clear reason why he was gone she was left wondering if Nightheart’s wenwi --his maternal grandmother-- was even telling the truth or just trying to save face for her awbyyo --her bloodline.

As she settled in to sleep, Sunbeam felt a paw prodding at her side. “Hey.” Sunbeam raised her face to see the tortoiseshell face of Nightheart’s sister.“I know you haven’t officially joined the pfurr, but... would you like to sleep with us? At least until my brother’s back.”

“I...” Sunbeam was a bit taken aback. She turned her face towards two other cats cuddled with each other, their faces expectantly towards her. Those must be her empf --her nestmates-- Sunbeam guessed. “I thought Nightheart slept alone. He did mention you but with how he spoke I thought he was a--”

“Oh no, no!” the molly was quick to interject. “StarClan no, he’s not nearly bad enough to be a hug’koo.” In their language that was a word meant ‘cuckoo’, but it could also mean a cat that had been expelled from a nest. “He just has fallen into the habit of sleeping on his own. Being made a warrior late and all.”

“But he left his Clan to court me,” Sunbeam protested. Having let that slip out she wanted to swallow back her tongue. Berryheart would certainly have thought that an offense grave enough and she hoped upon reconsidering Finchlight wouldn’t agree with that view.

“And he’s not going to lose his place in his birth pfurr from that,” Finchlight said with a shrug. “You just try again the other way ‘round. The elders may say it’s disrespectful but I’ve always thought it was jus the smart thing to do.”

“It’s not like I have a sibling to share a nest with who I care about offending,” Sunbeam mused, rising to her paws as she followed Finchlight back to her nest.

“Really?” she asked. “An ul-arramew? You don’t very much act like one.”

“No, it’s not like that,” Sunbeam said. “I have two brothers in fact. But one of them took a SkyClan mate and the other was not very pleased. And so...”

“Oh,” Finchlight said. “I’m sorry I pried.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Sunbeam said. “What’s the courtship period for if not for meeting your soon-to-be mate?” The word she used there was empf for in their language there’s no distinction between one’s romantic partner and any other cat one share a nest with.

“Settle in,” Finchlight offered as she carved her space between alongside the other two cats, a golden tabby tom and a pale brown molly, who were already settled on their nest. “It should be enough for all four. We had it expanded for Nightheart forever ago but since he insists on being by his lonesome.”

“Hey,” Sunbeam greeted with a flick of her tail which the other cats responded to in kind. Though everyone in the nest was cozy and fit rather neatly the atmosphere didnt’ seem yet conducive for actually going to sleep. “So... Nightheart never mentioned any other empf other than her sister. When did you all start courting?”

Myrtlebloom and Bayshine went wide-eyed in surprise for a moment before clarity dawned on them and they gave an amused purr.

“We didn’t court,” Bayshine --the tom-- clarified. “We’ve just... kinda always shared a nest.”

“Pryyp?” Sunbeam piped up.

“Our wipfurrs” --that means mothers-- “were always close. And Sparkpelt had not been in the right mindset to nurse or take care of Finchy or Nighty towards their first moon or so. So they nursed with us and the habit of sharing a nest just kinda stuck.”

“Did he never tell you?” Finchlight asked.

“No, he didn’t,” Sunbeam said in surprise. “That’s lovely of her and lovely of you. When he spoke of ThunderClan he always stressed other things.”

“Typical,” Bayshine said with an eyeroll. “Such a complainer that Nightheart. There was once towards the beginning of our apprenticeship when he...”

The nest continued gossiping about their missing member until sleep overtook them. As she drifted off into sleep, with her head rested on the soft fur of her soon-to-be empf she began to give off a purr. There may be a piece of their nest missing but now she could work on loving and being loved by the rest of them.

[troutfur]

On the Social Importance of the Cat Pile: The nest as social unit and default polyamory.

(Many thanks to my friend @bonefall​ for helping come up with the Clanmew words used here! These are not to be taken to be canon to his worldbuilding but as an important concept in mine I thought it’d be neat to have words for it in the conlang I helped make. Do feel free to take these alongside the worldbuilding concepts if they so catch your fancy!)

The pfurr (nest) is the most important social unit for a Clan cat. Whether it is delaying a much needed retirement or passing up on the opportunity to apprentice under the Clan's oracle, a Clan cat would do just about anything to avoid being separated from their empf (nestmates/close kin). They are much more than simply cats who sleep together, they are the core of a cat's social circle.

A cat's first empf are, naturally, their kikshpfurr (littermates). From the nursery to the elders' den, this grouping forms the most important part of a pfurr. When a cat leaves the pfurr of their kikshpfurr and joins another it is usually in pursuit of a romantic relationship. It is a common stereotype that ul-arramew (singletons) are affection starved due to their lack of kikshpfurr and desperate to get into a relationship to plug that hole.

In order to incorporate into a pfurr, a cat must be accepted by all its members. In the case of romantic partners seeking to move into the same pfurr, to try again with a rejected partner's original pfurr is seen as a grave insult to the pfurr originally attempted to obtain entrance into. In the event of a double rejection, establishing a brand new pfurr with one's partner is extremely scandalous.

A cat is presumed to be in a relationship with all members of their pfurr who they are not directly related to. This is not always the case, plenty of empf are merely friends to or even just cordially tolerate each other. But it is true often enough that it is a safe bet to make. This assumption is the reason why it's taboo for apprentices to share nests with non-kikshpfurr.

Clan culture recognizes two parental roles, the wipfurr (mother), which is the yaow (dam) that gives birth to a kitten, and the pipfurr (father), which are all the other members of the wipfurr's pfurr.

A yaow is free to confirm or to deny which member of her pfurr is the ssuf (sire), conferring exclusively or stripping away the claim to fatherhood, but she does so at the risk of gravely offending everyone snubbed. Many a pfurr has collapsed over such a slight. A confirmed ssuf is known derrogatorily as pipfurr-ul (lone father).

Clan culture recognizes two kinds of myem (siblings) other than kikshpfurr: eerpfurr (mother-siblings), and myempfurr (father-siblings). The former are cats born of the same wipfurr while the latter are cats born of a different yaow within their wipfurr's pfurr. Typically, a cat feels closer to the former than the latter, although both kinds are considered empf.

Cats recognize their nyams (distant kin) in an uneven manner. Although grandparents, auncles, and cousins are always recognized on a wipfurr's side of the family, for a pipfurr's family members to be afforded the same they have to be exceptionally close to their children. It happens most often with two-cat pfurr.