#hollyleaf has been dead all along really but shes confirmed dead in this book

[yuridovewing]

maybe its just cause i stopped reading during avos but im so tempted to just nuke most of the post oots background characters and just do my own nextgen style au

[fencesandfrogs]

cloudtail’s daughter: cinderheart

alright well third character: cinderheart.

i'm going to be honest, i don't care enough about cinderheart to have a lot to say about this. i'm finishing it in the morning, and i'm starting it in night, so watch this be longer than dovewing's (fat chance i wrote like 4k words about dovewing because, and i can't say this enough, i lovewing dovewing), but i'm not feeling particularly inspired at the moment.

ohhh wait i changed my mind this is the one where i get to talk about cinderpelt again, isn't it? yeessss i take it all back i've been waiting to write this since i first wrote cinder back in dovewing's character

anyway as per usual, this is part of an au where dovekit and ivykit are born to brightheart and cloudtail. go ahead and click the cloudtail's daughter tag if you want to see more about this. this is probably pretty dependent on knowing what happens to dovewing in the au, but i'd say compared to lionblaze, its still more self standing because it's significantly more verbose, so it's not reliant on filling in the gaps as much, because this is filling in the gaps.

[3k words, 10 minute read. section headers. a little bit jumpy.]

section one: cinderpelt and cinderkit --- an exposé on reincarnation

you don't need me to tell you warriors reincarnation is weird. to make my life easy, here is how it works:

true reincarnations -- jay's wing/jayfeather, dove's wing/dovewing, lion's roar/lionblaze. only one soul exists. half moon will reunite with jayfeather. or ig he can decide to go by jay's wing. dovewing and lionblaze may or may not regain their memories on death; it's not important to this story so i'm not decided

starclan induced reincarnations -- cinderpelt's soul gets shoved into cinderkit. they now share. this was, ah, very dangerous, because cinderkit and/or cinderkit's soul could have died. but she didn't. as cinderkit grows into her own person, she and cinderpelt will grow either increasingly intertwined (i.e., cinderpelt weaves into cinderheart, and is never fully awakened.) when they die, idk what happens. it's not very nice.

luckily, that didn't happen. instead, cinderheart grows apart and cinderpelt basically is a voice in her head. eventually, at some point, idk, cinderpelt frees herself. i'm sure i'll figure that out in this post, but i don't know yet.

so that's their deal.

section two: cinderheart and lionblaze

alright, cinderheart and lionblaze are not going to be a conflict thing, because of destiny. i'm just, that's. well it's a step up from the standard romance drama, but i still hated it. so anyway, cinderheart knows lionblaze is in L-O-V-E with her, but she's kind of holding out until he's more mature/responsible.

she's also not ready for kits, and that's the only way a warriors romance can be officially codified.

jk, but in seriousness, they're already close, similar to sandstorm and fireheart in books 2-4 or so of TPB. she's just not ready to take him as a mate yet, and he's kind of funny as a bumbling fool. that said, she does care a lot about him and if he pushed her, or circumstances pushed her, she'd be willing to be upfront about it.

cinderpelt is happy cinderheart is finding love, but she does kind of wish it wasn't with lionblaze. not because he's an idiot, after all, cinderpelt had a crush on fireheart before he finished growing a brain, but because she is worried about the prophecy. and lionblaze dying and leaving cinderheart alone. so cinderheart has some internal conflict about this, but she has internal conflict over whether she wants thrush or mouse some days. side effect of having two souls in one body. she keeps it wrapped up because she's pretty sure she's into lionblaze and cinderpelt is unsure, and she doesn't need to confuse the situation anymore.

yeah, by the time this series begins, cinderheart and cinderpelt are really two separate entities, and cinderpelt is getting ready to leave. she's just sort of waiting. it's until cinderheart and lionblaze confirm they're mates. why? because that's when it happens in the original and i can't think of a better time. also, it kind of completes cinderpelt's small crush on fireheart.

(it really wasn't that big. sandstorm just made a big deal out of it because she was jealous.)

section three: dovepaw

right, so cinderheart is hype for dovepaw. the dovepaw is real sweet and quiet and cinderheart feels good about that. so they're excited.

cinderheart and dovepaw go out for territory and cinderheart is like "she's on top of shit this dovepaw" and dovepaw catches a mouse or two and cinderheart is super proud and supportive and everyone is happy.

and then cinderheart starts to feel like she's failing dovepaw, because dovepaw just can't get anything else down. lionblaze and ivypaw, on the other hand, are having basically no issues. so she feels like she's failing dovepaw, and she's a little insecure about that, so cinderheart and dovepaw tag along with lionblaze and ivypaw a lot.

as you can guess, this makes everything worse.

cinderheart realizes dovepaw is sneaking out at night and is like "well this is a problem i'm not equipped to deal with" and frets over it for a while, unsure of who to talk to without geting dovepaw in trouble. (lionblaze also snuck out as an apprentice, he's an unreliable source.)

so she doesn't tell anyone at first, just makes sure dovepaw is still getting sufficient rest for a young cat. (she isn't.) eventually, she lets it slip to hollyleaf who talks about it with lionblaze who ivypaw overhears, but ivypaw is the last character i'm covering in this set of essays.

dovepaw gets trapped in the tunnels for three days, and cinderheart feels like she's failed her charge. also, brightheart is kind of mad at cinderheart because she feels that cinderheart didn't really do anything to stop dovepaw from feeling like she needed to prove herself and like, brightheart's not wrong, but it's also unfair to cinderheart. so cinderheart blames herself a whole lot because dovepaw is dead now and it's her fault.

when dovepaw gets back cinderheart only barely punishes her, and dovepaw has had enough exploration, so being confined to camp is only barely a punishment anyway. cinderheart vows that she's going to do better, do right, by dovepaw (although she's really been doing pretty okay no one is really blaming cinderheart, even brightheart has gotten over it now that dovepaw is back and safe and alive.)

section four: can you hear what i hear?

so when dovepaw gets back, cinderheart takes her out once she's recovered, and dovepaw is like "so where are the creatures with the clicky-clackies?" and cinderheart has no idea what's going on.

but cinderheart, despite being lumped in the "two braincells" category that the first three pov characters have (seriously if you haven't read my breakdown of this au as a whole you may want to because i've written so much for it that i'm definitely skipping details. now that my pace has slowed from "about 10k words in one weekend" to "2k words a day" it's better but still), is not an idiot. she's seen the lake get smaller. times are getting hard. there was a gathering while dovepaw was in the tunnels that cinderheart went to and it was real rough. so she's like. hm. maybe. dovepaw is starclan chosen or something? it would explain why she's spacy all the time.

cinderheart gets all the info she can from dovepaw and then has to figure out whether she's taking this to firestar or jayfeather.

i'm not 100% how this resolves, but eventually, cinderheart and dovepaw go to firestar to discuss the beavers. cinderheart does most of the talking, dovepaw is just kind of there nodding along.

so the standard canon thing happens and they all get ready for the trip. i feel like i've done a pretty in-depth breakdown of this for dovewing, and hollyleaf will get one too, so i'm just going to say, other than hollyleaf also coming, it's pretty much canon.

section five: the tribe

oh man it's the cinderheart book and whoo boy am i excited for this one.

alright alright alright so dovepaw is doing the Late Nights again, but its to see tigerheart. so cinderheart is uh, not very aware of it this time?

dovepaw is older and smarter (barely) and more importantly knows she can’t get caught again.

so dovepaw real tired, real close to tigerheart at gatherings, and cinderheart is like “hm maybe something is up” and cinderpelt is like “yeah keep an eye on that”

(an aside: so cinderpelt’s presence is kind of a nagging one in cinderheart’s life. it’s not that she’s not the same cinderpelt we know and love, but she’s a kind of omnipresent authority figure, so she reads a bit differently. but she’s still our wonderful cinderpelt. no fear.)

and ivypaw tells lionblaze that dovepaw is sneaking out (see here for lionblaze, literally 0 awareness) and he tells cinderheart and cinderheart is like “well that checks” and cinderpelt is like “hm remember fernpaw and dustpelt”

“ferncloud is like a second mother to me no i don’t know the details of her romance”

“yea well...”

you know, cinderheart's almost worried dovepaw is going to have kits real soon after becoming a warrior and there are approximately 0 thunderclan toms she's close enough with for that to be applicable.

(for the record, they are not that close. cinderpelt is concerned not just because forbidden romance, but also because of how young leafpool was. not impossibly young by any means, but still fairly young.)

so then through uhhh who knows memory? convenient stormfur is convenient? haven't decided yet, but anyway, cinderheart decides the tribe can help them. (the real reason is because i want the tribe to solve a clan problem for once. the stated reason is probably something like "dovepaw feels too much pressure after the beavers" or "long journeys are good for apprentices" i mean look brambestar dgaf about where warriors are going so why should i?)

lionblaze and ivypaw come along and cinderheart is like "great i just told this guy that i don't want to change anything between us until i'm done mentoring dovepaw and now he's tagging along with this? where's a hollyleaf when you need her?"

(hollyleaf is living with her ghost boyfriend, cinderheart, she is no longer a reliable source of buffering between you and lionblaze. also, cinderheart, this isn't coming up in this au because again ending in step with canon but please consider: lesbians.)

anyway, the four of them set out and dovepaw and ivypaw still aren't talking which is getting really old, really fast.

eventually, after a day or two of travelling in basically silence, ivypaw and dovepaw do start to talk again. one goal down. (my conviction that travelling books are good, actually, remains untested, but i'm determined to prove it.)

okay, so i've been reading all my notes in detail as i start actually drafting this, which means my essay content is morphing further into writing notes. you can tell because i'm skipping bigger sections, or adding notes about purpose in story, etc. this is just a warning that since i last worked on this, i've actually begun writing the book this stuff takes place in (the first book only matters if you're dovekit or ivykit, so the fact that i'm writing it doesn't really have an effect. i just wanted to start with something low-stakes.) so like, on one hand, i should have more figured out, but on the other hand, my comments are going to be a lot looser and i wouldn't be surprised if i just straight up contradict something i already said (i do edit my posts but not heavily and only if i think they're something i'm going to point people back towards. i'd rather point people to my archive once i start posting, so.) anyway, this is just a warning for this and anything else in the CTD essay series (hollyleaf, jayfeather, ivypool, as well as the books, growing shadows, fading echoes, distant whispers, and whatever the canon names are but switch book 4 and 5), that it's going to be less "here's a summary of what i'm going to do" and more "here are my thoughts about what i'm doing"

right that note aside, the travelling party makes it to the mountains. there's drama, probably? none of them have been to the mountains IIRC? i know jayfeather has but i don't think the others went with him (bramble did? hm i'll have to research) but okay so the point is, they make it to the tribe as the mountain is getting colder and this is where i have to deviate from my trend of realism the most because they're going to stay on the tribe for much longer than they should. my timeline has ivy/dove born in leafbare at the beginning of the season (easier math), so this is early-mid leaf fall, and the mountain would be unpassable really soon. but i don't want that, so we're going to pretend they have 2-3 moons before it's truly impassable, or the story flows a lot worse because i really want the drought to be in green leaf because it just sets up a hard hitting winter which is a good tension/drama fodder machine.

unfortunately, i'm limited in who i can kill off, but what can you do?

right so anyway, they're in the tribe and cinderheart present dovepaw and stoneteller is like "huh ig this could work sure why not" and dovepaw is enlisted to be a tribe to-be. she's not given an offiical whatever the tribe word for mentor is, (does the tribe have individual mentors? i can't remember off the top of my head), but she's more or less the same as any othet tribe to-be. the fact that she's so fluffy is a bonus. keeps her warm.

cinderheart is less at-home in the tribe, but she works with the prey hunters and generally gets along. i'm not sure. maybe she makes friends? (this is literally her book she definitely does interesting things i just don't know who lives in the tribe off the top of my head. her life does not revolve around dovepaw like 100%. she has to sort out some cinderpelt stuff in this book it's just very internal and i'm not entirely sure how it goes yet.)

so cinderheart and dovepaw are doing their thing for a bit. they get a good chance to explore tribe culture. it's good. everything is good. cinderheart is still definitely mentoring dovepaw, but what that means right now is a lot of modeling how to be a good learner, rather than explicitly teaching. cinderheart herself is preparing and thinking about how to transfer these skills to thunderclan.

uh yeah so anyway it's getting close to winter so they gotta head out, and the tribe is like "off u go food is tight in leafbare/whatever-they-call-winter" and the four of them set out.

okay so i'm going to skip to cinderheart's second book, because honestly, arc one narrators all get thrown in BGCH until they're needed in arc 2. (i mean, tbf, jayfeather has done literally nothing in all of arc one. nothing. he's just there, occasionally being like "no firestar, don't make dovepaw my apprentice!" and that's pretty much it.)

and basically so while jayfeather and hollyleaf are off having ghost romances (that's the entire plot of their book it's ghost romance), cinderheart and lionblaze are just having a relationship. dovewing and ivypool are warriors now, so cinderheart does have background drama of being worried because dovewing is still seeing tigerheart ("we took her on a whole mountain vacation and she's still obsessed with him?"), but like, it's very chill for a while.

and then sol comes back.

oh man, sol comes back and it's gonna be a big deal. yeah. it's a big deal for cinderheart, and hopefully this will be an interesting section, because cinderheart is a very different character from the OG oots crew, and she's going to handle problems in a different way, and this is the first chance we get to see that. the beavers don't count she was j chilling with whatever dovepaw said and the tribe is certainly a good example of her character (caring, resourceful, outside the box), but that's the set up. sol is the pay off.

so cinderheart is pleased by sol, but also generally wary. you gotta remember, cinderheart has been on a lot of extra curricular field trips. she's met a lot of cats. (note to self: include more loners.) she's a quick judge of character. and sol, you know, he's a lot.

so she keeps an eye on him, and she expresses her concern to hollyleaf, and hollyleaf is like, yeah, sure, i'll help.

so hollyleaf is like "so by the way, sol is in the tunnels." and cinderheart is like "this is going to be a problem" and cinderpelt who is now in starclan is like "oh she's finally learning."

so i'm not entirely sure on the details here because i haven't plotted out the ending three books in nearly as much detail (i mean on the blog i have but in my head where i keep all the plot lines i haven't) but cinderheart is going to solve the problem and she'll do it in a different way.

thunderclan definitely still learns to fight in the tunnels because they need to for battle purposes. (oh, to be a windclan tunnler, looking down in sadness from starclan about what my clan has lost.)

and yeah leaving cinderheart here because she retreats to BGCH after completing her duty of being a meanful character.

cinderheart? done.