#i dunno!!!! i feel like it could be an interesting take on that whole sitution

[brackenfur]

random thought i had in my brain but i remember how in the first arc one-eye tells bluestar that thunderclan once kept prisoners in their camp for many moons (when they're talking abt what to do with brokentail) and very clearly this is just a one-off line that the writers forgot about (understandable tho cus that happens all the time in tv/books when theres a chunk of time between books) but i kind of ran with that concept and i was like hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....what if that was canon, wait a minute, what if that prisoner was thistleclaw

like. au time - what if after bluefur gives her kittens to riverclan, thunderclan doesnt necessarily buy the badger story. i mean, they can't scent a badger - and its a hard scent to miss. theres no evidence that a badger did, its way too clean of a crime scene. it looks more like the kits wandered off while she was sleeping, and theres no badger scent in their territory.

but i feel like thunderclan isnt dumb abt the fact that bluefur and thistleclaw do not get along, especially after snowfurs death. hes aggressive towards her and then some of the more dramatic cats in the clan - i cant help but think of someone like speckletail or dappletail or smallear - starts a rumor that maybe it WASNT a badger. maybe it was a cat who took bluefurs kits and most likely killed them. maybe it was a thunderclan warrior, who the kits would instinctively trust and follow. maybe it was thistleclaw.

the rumor snowballs and its hard for the most skeptical to deny, because it makes so much sense. hes been weird ever since her kittens disappeared - way too callous and has already just accepted that they were gone, not even offering to look for them or anything, nor comfort bluefur.

and bluefur knows that it wasnt him - obviously lmao, she knows where stonekit and mistykit are. but she knows thistleclaw is dangerous - thats the whole reason she gave them to oakheart. and hes still a candidate for deputy - but if that rumor did happen to be true, he'd be exiled immediately. sunstar would never keep someone who could do something like that in the clan.

so i think bluefur never outwardly says that yes it was him (shes always maintained that she was sleeping when it happened), but she doesnt deny it either.

and after a few more weeks, with tawnyspots getting worse and thistleclaw being more and more ostracized from the clan, sunstar decides to hold trial for thistleclaw - the rumors have reached him, and even he cant deny how suspicious it is. thats who the 'prisoner' was that one-eye is referring to - it was thistleclaw, and when it came down to his 'trial', bluefur did not deny that it would be possible for him to have harmed her kittens. and therefore, he was exiled from thunderclan because of it.