#and does he try to get nine lives from the moonstone as a result

[vickorydickorydock]

The Ravenpaw as Scourge aus are awesome but hear me out: Tallstar as Scourge au.

I can see this going two ways:

One, Talltail decides to stay with Jake. He makes an effort to live Jake’s lifestyle, but he really isn’t built to be a kittypet. He loves Jake, but when he can’t handle being in the house or around Twolegs anymore, he spends a lot of time exploring and getting used to Twolegplace. He ends up meeting the strays and alley cats that live there, and he’s appalled by the way they’re forced to live.

Some cats band together, and some cats control territories like Jay and her crew, but it’s mostly every cat for themself. The old and sick don’t have anyone to turn to, and there are constant fights over scraps. Talltail left to get away from Clan life, but he ends up introducing clan ideas. He makes allies, then friends, and starts to (accidentally) build his own clan where cats look out for each other. Cats look up to him, and life for the strays of Twolegplace becomes a lot less short and miserable.

He takes Tiny under his wing when the time comes, and wrecks Tigerstar’s shit when he comes sniffing around. Talltail and Jake live happily to ripe old age.

Two, the much darker option. Talltail does kill Sparrow, but it doesn’t fix anything. He still feels angry and lost, only now he’s alienated the visitors and Jake, and feels he cannot go back to his clan. He spends several seasons just wandering alone, struggling to survive, until eventually he winds up back in Twolegplace near the clans.

He’s a trained fighter, with a skill-set that makes him a fierce enemy, and he quickly gains a reputation. He acts as a vigilante almost, hunting down despicable cats and doling out his own brand of justice to those who "deserve it," because he hates seeing cats like Sparrow get away with things. He's like a vigilante avenger turned scary urban legend. This eventually goes much the way of Scourge’s path, with Talltail gathering a following and killing any cat who gets in his way, except he believes he's doing what is right.

Tigerstar, not knowing they’re led by a former clan cat, recruits the fearsome Bloodclan to help him take over the forest by telling Talltail (going by Scourge?) that the other clans are evil and need exterminating. Talltail seems to agree, but Tigerstar doesn't realize he's playing with fire. When Tigerstar's crimes are revealed, Talltail brutally murders him.

Windclan (and the rest of the forest tbh) is in for a shock when Barkface recognizes Talltail.

[one-mopeyboi]

ANOTHER WARRIORS AU

Changes

Spottedleaf is evil because she was manipulated by Thistleclaw

THERE IS NO ROMANCE BETWEEN THISTLECLAW AND SPOTTEDLEAF.

Tigerclaw is good

There is no silly rule about a Queen unable to become deputy.

Mosskit lives and is ThunderClan along with their brother and sister.

Fireheart is Clanborn and littermates with Sandstorm.. THERE IS NO FIRE X SAND IN THIS AU AND HE WILL BE PAIRED WITH A DIFFERENT CAT

Alright let’s go!!

Snowfur died and Thistleclaw was heartbroken and even more driven to be leader. He befriends Spottedkit, who takes to him like another father figure

Pinestar, feeling like he could do more for his family, hunted more and more to feed Leopardfoot and his kits. Mistkit and Nightkit thrived on the extra food and survived.

His final act as leader was to name Tigerpaw, Mistpaw and Nightpaw apprentices and tell them that he loved them very much but unfortunately could not stay because he could not live a Clan life any more. He surrenders his nine lives at the Moonstone, causing Sunstar to get a full nine.

Spottedkit is encouraged to be a medicine cat apprentice and he manipulates her into faking signs from StarClan for him to be deputy

Thistleclaw is named deputy because of the false sign

Bluefur keeps her kits and raises them with Thrushpelt, who she befriends

Tigerpaw mistrusts kittypets because of that, yet refuses to hurt Tiny because he was small and reminded him of Nightpaw. Thistleclaw finishes the job by breaking Tiny’s neck

Quince finds out Tiny is dead and swears vengeance on the forest, renaming herself Queen to be queen of the Twolegplace cats.

Bluefur is enraged and horrified, and asks Sunstar to exile him. Sunstar does, Bluefur is named deputy and assigned as Tigerpaw’s new mentor

Spottedpaw is quietly seething on her own because she is mislead into believing that Thistleclaw, her kind father, could not kill a kit. Out of the misunderstanding, she plans to undermine Sunstar.

As a result of Bluefur’s firm guidance Tigerpaw grows ambitious but kind to those in need, and not to mention patient. He is close with Redpaw, Spottedpaw’s Changeheart (trans) brother.

In the seasons that follow, Sunstar dies and leaves Bluestar as leader. She names Redtail deputy. Redtail has two kits with Tigerclaw, Firekit and Sandkit. Due to deputy duties Redtail asks Tigerclaw to take care of them, but the two kits love both of their dads very much.

Tigerclaw becomes a nursery queen and decides he likes this life. This intimidating tom is surrounded by little bouncy babies all day and is very happy.

Spottedleaf gets the Fire Alone prophecy but does not tell Bluestar

Firekit grows up and is named Firepaw along with Sandpaw and Greypaw.

Redtail dies in the Sunningrocks battle by the rock fall, trying to save Oakheart’s life (not killed by Tigerclaw.) He is unsuccessful, though, and Oakheart goes to StarClan as well.

Firepaw, Sandpaw and Dustpaw are very sad. Sandpaw and Dustpaw bond closer with the grief, while Firepaw feels as if he’s drifting away from his sister.

Thrushpelt, an elderly cat but Bluestar’s most trusted friend, is named deputy.

TBC

[gem-quest]

[QUEST o1. - E N T H R O N E D]

(written by @bebemoon)

. . . Quest 1 .

. . . T O U R N E Y . A N D . F A I R . I N . W I L D F L O W E R . M E A D O W . . . L E V E L . O N E . . .

Neddy gazed up at the lighted announcement slipping across the sky of level ten like a scrolling billboard ad in Times Square.

She was squarely amid the Prince's bursting gardens, headed in the way of her "nest" as she liked to call her homebase, when the lights of the announcement banner had drawn her eyes skywards- twinkling gold against cornflower blue.

"Jack!" Neddy called ahead of her on the garden trail. When there wasn't an immediate response, she started forward again, stumbling a little as her eyes were still pinned upwards. "Jack!"

Finvarra's gardens, where Neddy had taken up residence since the incident, was a knot of overgrown mazes whose centre was a raving-mad fairy party thrown by the hedonist fairy Prince Finvarra- an npc with far more brides than scruples. He and his brood made the argument to players traveling through that it made far more sense to lay about and drink honey wine with them than it did to slog through level after level, narrowly escaping death at every turn, with the ambition of returning to a world of "imminent catastrophic death" and until then, "inescapable boredom".

"Would you not, my dear, much rather Partake?"

Enticing though the notion may have been, Neddy, at the time of clearing the level, had been able to refuse the Prince because she had had someone to stick with-  

But that was before. More and more she felt the lure of the sweet meats of the fairies' forbidden feast.

Neddy arrived back at her nest on the outskirts of the gardens, far from the clamour of the Prince's ceaseless bacchanal. She hurried up the short twiggy ladder and into the leafy alcove of her self-made refuge. It was little more than a hovel of bent branches bound together in the shape of an acorn's cap, but Neddy enjoyed the green smell of it and the fact that it was well out of the way of most players who traveled through ten. In the beginning, she really relished the isolation.

"Jack?" Neddy repeated in sing-song, half-preoccupied with locating her player-plexus. She knew full well that the creature wasn't inside the nest- he was much too large. But she hoped he was nearby since she wanted to leave soon and didn't dare go into any other floor without him now that she was alone.

She got on her hands and knees to reach the plexus- which was just a thin, quartz-y screen no bigger than a tablet in the real world- beneath the cot of sewn-together rose petal bed clothes on which she slept.

Neddy tapped the crystal screen, swiped into her Inventory, scrolled downwards through the list of items, and selected a 'Drink Me' potion. The concoction appeared like magic, hovering above the plexus screen in an illumination of blue until she took it into her fingers and gave the tiny, glass bottle substance. She tucked it into the hip pocket of her wafer-thin robe.

Overhead, Neddy could hear the beat of Jack's flower-skinned wings on the air. It was time to go.

-

< < < Spell used: I C T U I U M > > >

Jack was never pleased about being shrunken down to the size of a Lhasa Apso or being carried in a reed basket on Neddy's back, but (most of the time) Neddy wasn't looking to cause havoc by having a fully-grown dragon in tow. When travelling through peaceful levels, making him a less threatening size seemed only right. Such was the case in revisiting level one.

The flowering meadows outside of Yue City conjured all kinds of unwanted images in Neddy's mind. It was the initial spawn point for all players, and the last she had seen of it, she had been with her boyfriend. She had been with their entire party, in fact. Even Bloodbriars, a pale vampire mage-knight, who shared Neddy's love of dance . . . among other things.

The meadow, very unlike the last Neddy had seen of it, was lifted with the roaring voices of crowds of players surrounding the lists and brimming with every manner of species from every guild milling between the colourful tent stalls topped with snapping banners in red, blue, black, and yellow. The aroma of cooking meat (well-cooked unlike fae fare) was in the air.

Some other players materialised behind Neddy and shoved past her on their way towards the tourney- as if there wasn't open space all around them.

"Ogres," Neddy muttered. She hefted the reed basket further up onto her shoulders. "Keep your eyes peeled, Jack. If you see /him, say so."

The dragon yawned poisonous gas into the air before curling back into the basket bottom with a sigh. Once he took on the size of a lap dog, he promptly became one in spirit too.

As to just why she wanted to see him, even she was unsure. She'd had days of isolation to ponder her own feelings on the situation- nothing of note had surfaced. Neddy decided her heart would tell her what to do once she laid eyes on his face.

Of course, the trick was finding him. And the tourney- because violence was assured- seemed as good a place as any to start searching.

Neddy gravitated towards the closest jousting list, which was set with proper bench seating, but was so swarmed with onlookers that a lot of players were forced into sitting or standing on the barriers. NPCs in neutral-claim colours made up the King's box, as expected.

She forced her way into a press of on-looking players to get herself against the balustrade for a good look at the current match-up. Squeezed sideways between a pair of brutish types (one was clutching a pole through which a full cooked pheasant was spiked upon, now partially eaten), Neddy was able to see the action- At one end of the list, a Moonstone rider in glistening silver armour was waiting mounted upon a winged snow-white steed, and at the other end, an Obsidian rider in a void of black armour was hefting themselves onto a massive black boar. Once the Obsidian rider was in place, they were given a brutal-looking lance of what, to Neddy, looked like charred bone.

The trumpets resounded and the crowd erupted in fevered roars as the two riders set off towards the tilt barrier- towards each other. A few heartbeats and it was over- the Moonstone rider was violently unseated by a crushing blow to the head. The result had been so extreme that Neddy half-expected the body of the Moonstone rider to dissolve as dead players' bodies did, but they were apparently somehow still alive.

Then, just as the Obsidian boar-rider was starting the stadium wave, a pair of legs came into view as someone boosted themselves up onto the balustrade over Neddy, semi-blocking her view of the list.

"Excuse me?" she demanded, flicking the offender's fish-netted calf. "You can't just-"

"Hey, what’s up? You’re Neddy, right?"

Neddy looked up, surprised because she recognized the voice. "Inferna?"

The face that belonged to the legs peered down at Neddy through a curtain of candy red hair. Inferna beamed down at her and offered her a hand up.  

Neddy accepted her gloved hand and was easily drawn up from the ground and onto the balustrade beside the red-head. She grabbed onto an overhead beam to keep her balance.

"View's better up here," said Inferna on a wink.

Inferna then seemed to notice that Jack was on Neddy's back because she released a strange little noise of excitement- not unlike the noise she'd made when first encountering him in the gardens. "God, Jack is so freaking adorable! Does he still like sugar cubes?" she wondered, reaching deep into one of her pockets.

Neddy was barely listening- she was stunned to see the girl again. "How are you faring out there?" she asked, concerned.

“It’s been pretty chill on my end,” Inferna replied easily, giving Neddy a cheeky grin. “Haven’t really done anything exciting, besides get some blueberry scones from the Tearoom the other day; they’re amazing. I was at Level 39 the other day, but fighting the dragon is so much work, so I fucked off after a few minutes.”

Neddy shuddered. She'd heard of Mawrgawse, and she wasn't looking forward to facing the beast.

Inferna clenched one of her eyes shut as she dug further into her pocket and then drew out a sugar cube as well as a tiny tube of red liquid. The red-head pulled the top off of the tube with her teeth and then proceeded to dump the liquid contents directly onto the sugar cube. “Ooh, fuck, Jack is so cute. Here, you’re a good boy, aren’t you?” she said, tossing the sugar cube in the air and clapping with delight when Jack caught it in his mouth.

The boar-rider was mounting up for a second go even though an opponent had not yet appeared. A thrill of excitement rippled through the assembled crowd of players.

Inferna turned back to Neddy, still grinning. “What about you? Got anything fun going on?”

"Nothing quite as exciting as thirty-nine," Neddy replied. "I've just gotten through floor twenty-nine by the skin of my teeth. Mermaid Cove won't be easy for me since I'm currently, you know, on my own."  

Inferna nodded. “Oh, yeah, that level’s a pain in the ass if you don’t have a party. I think I got through it by just finding a group that needed an extra person who didn’t care about Angel’s Breath. Aydina - that’s the NPC you go up against - is kind of a cunt, too. Like, I get that it’s just pre-written dialogue, but the lady could be nicer while trying to fuck us over with that dodgeball of hers, you know?”

When Neddy first met Inferna, after stopping her from Partaking in Finvarra's feast, she was concerned for her given her thoughtlessness about the food. However, it became clear, after hearing all that she had to say about her progress, that the red-head was someone who could too easily tear through the floors even though she was alone. To Neddy, that was enviable- she, too, wanted to help her guild win- she wanted to get out of the game and move on with her life, leaving behind the old for good. This living in Gem Quest was like being trapped within a bad memory. She had to do whatever necessary to help Moonstone escape. Trouble was, she was Enthroned, a weak fairy-kind dancer, and not Inferna, a flame-wielding hellion who (at least in Neddy's mind) kicked in doors and destroyed private property in the real world.  

It occurred to her to ask for Inferna's help when they first met, but she never screwed up the courage. After all they came from different guilds so they couldn't fashion themselves into a party. What was the point other than to make herself look weak and pathetic?

Still. Aydina would be tough. And dodgeball was stupid.

"I'm not very good at dodgeball," Neddy put in. She glanced sideways at Inferna, hoping she wouldn't have to outright ask.

“It was my favorite thing in gym, when I still had to take that bullshit class. All I did was dick around and throw balls at the annoying people in my grade, even if they were technically on my team,” Inferna said.

Her dark eyes were fixed on the restless boar-rider. Neddy was about to ask if she knew the player, but she started to speak again-

“I thought that level was pretty fun, besides Aydina’s totally unnecessary commentary. So I can help you, if you want,” she continued, “if you bribe me somehow. Since I don’t see how helping you with dodgeball helps my Guild, after all.”

Neddy's brows shot up. "Bribe?" she choked on her simultaneous relief and dismay. "I don't have much in the way of coin. . . . I'm not formidable by any means. Surely, it won't hurt Obsidian any if you help little old me move through a lower floor."

Inferna narrowed her eyes, skeptical. “Little old you and a dragon,” she pointed out, gesturing towards Jack asleep in the reed basket.

Neddy nodded, suddenly pensive. Coin was one thing, but Inferna was someone who had back-tracked through multiple levels and re-did the maze on ten just to get her hands on a pastry she could not even eat. Even standing on the barrier, she took a moment now and then to sniff the aroma-filled air like a wolf catching the scent of prey. Food was the answer.

So, Neddy said, "Yeah, okay, I can give you all the apricot tartlets in my inventory if you help me out."

“Alright fine, I’ll do it,” Inferna abruptly agreed, flipping her red hair over one shoulder. “Just tell me when, and I’ll be there. But don’t make it before noon, or I’ll probably sleep straight through it. Like, I’m not even kidding; last semester I somehow slept through ten alarms and missed a 12:30 PM lab. So don’t make it before twelve.”

"Whatever you want," Neddy laughed, and she stuck her hand out to seal the accord between them.

Inferna, with a grin, slapped Neddy's hand in a low-five instead of shaking it- then narrowed her eyes again. “Now hand over those tartlets.”

-

Neddy didn't want to leave the tourney without having a look through the stalls.

Though newly skint of apricot tartlets, she was in need of a few other items following her final bought with the shellycoat hoards on twenty-nine. Since she was Mermaid Cove-bound, she wanted to replenish her supply of medi-elixir and possibly grab a tide jewel, just in case.

Further down from the over-crowded lists, there was a whole wyvern being turned over a spit by some NPCs, and Neddy imagined Inferna would make easy work of the thing.

Players, some half-armoured, were gathered together, drinking mead and exchanging tales of the front. Others were immersed in Gem Quest's version of the dice game "hazard", which was popular in the taverns (and Neddy didn't have the first clue about). People were arriving at the stalls in pairs, if not more, to make purchases. In every direction, people were together- they were together even if their guilds were different.

Neddy stood in the centre of one of the grassy avenues flanked with stalls and people passed around her like water about a river stone. And her heart was heavy because of it, but it had been so for weeks. Enough was enough.

If he put himself before her gaze again, she would see that he didn't dare do it a second time.

Until then, she had work to do.

[ ref for Neddy’s outfit: x ]