Hello! It's been a minute since I've given myself the opportunity to write and not only plan, plan, plan, so I've taken a few requests from my Tumblr and hope to have more to share soon. These are very stream-of-consciousness, and I am delighted to share that I had input from both Anne and Grey after I poured out the first draft, which was much needed because I am rustier than a bike left out in winter. Being that part of these prompts is not allowing myself to over-plan, or really plan at all, there may be some possible timeline conflicts here that I have not investigated, so let's pretend that I have and that everything's looking as it should. I'm using these scribbles more to finally explore and flesh out the characters I've been adjusting and developing in my head since 2016, which is to say, I am using the world built for Warriors Rewritten (an AU) which, although it of course pulls from canon, does not follow its rules. That's one reason you may notice that Fuzzypelt is now Spiderpelt, and Mistyfoot is without the y. Anyway, I do hope you enjoy!
—Laika
"Bluestar and Redtail hanging out, maybe a casual debrief after a gathering"
Thunderclan camp seemed as vacant as Windclan's rolling moors this late into the night. The last of the Gathering patrol had brushed cheeks with their clanmates and disappeared, whisks of moonlight bouncing off of their tail-tips, into the bracken. A single warrior with dark, wiry fur remained, standing watch by the camp entrance, a set of yellow eyes against the shadows. His ears were pricked but posture slacked; no one would attack on the night of the Gathering. No matter the Shadowclan leader's impertinence, or Crookedstar's rancorous glower, those kinds of wolfish assaults were the conduct of rogues.
It was difficult to ignore the building and repressed hostilities of the night's Gathering, but when her warriors were tucked away in their dens and the camp was swathed in silver light, Bluestar could imagine, just for a moment, what peace felt like. From atop the Highrock, she raised her small, grey nose towards the sky and embraced the rush of cool midnight air as it swept against her whiskers. It carried the scent of rich soil, sugar maple leaves and cinnamon ferns, and… Redtail.
"The Shadowclan apprentices looked pretty small, don't you think?"
One warrior still carried too much on his mind to sleep, evidently. Bluestar's deputy emerged from the shadows cast by Highrock, his brightly patched, tabby coat brushing against the side of the stone mound as he approached. With only a few precise bounds did he join her side, sitting down beside the mouth of her den.
"I hadn't noticed," she replied truthfully, unperturbed by his sudden arrival. She groomed her paw, the other hanging loosely off the stones while she considered him. It was difficult to catch faces in the throng of cats gathered beneath the Great Rock, lit up only by the soft glow of the moon, scattered between the leaves of Fourtrees. The smell of all four clans in one space, generation after generation, was also so pungent that she could hardly distinguish the scents of the leaders sitting beside her. "Shadowclan cats have always been small."
Redtail shook his head. "One still smelled of milk," he meowed grimly as he wrapped his thick, red tail neatly over his paws. "Those new apprentices Brokenstar announced tonight… I don't think even a season has passed since he reported their births."
Bluestar looked up at him. His muscles were tight, green-and-gold eyes narrowed into slits, glaring into the dark forest ahead of them as if locking eyes with Shadowclan's leader beyond the twisting roots and undergrowth between them. This kind of animosity was not familiar to his features. Often, his bi-coloured eyes were bright with fervor, delighting and inspiring cats around him, but she appreciated this more somber passion, too. There was a reason she had chosen him to be her deputy. He was meticulous with details, and his compassion reached more than just his own clanmates. Bluestar had once, as a warrior, seen what caring solely for one's clan led to. Her rival for leadership had been a burly, hateful warrior named Thistleclaw who died as he had lived: covered in blood equally his own and his enemies'. Redtail, conversely, would make for an excellent leader one day.
Her mind having wandered, she scrambled for something relevant to add, but before she had a chance to respond, his gaze had moved towards the nursery, wearing a different kind of determination that piqued her interest.
"I never want Sandkit to leave the nursery," Redtail confessed. "The sight of her and Brindleface curled up together in their nest, warm, well-fed, happy… I never want it to change. Even when she's six moons old, I won't be ready." He paused and glanced down at Bluestar. In spite of his youthful appearance, Redtail in this moment looked very much like a father, the kind that Bluestar would have looked up to as a kit; the kind that couldn't bear to think that kittens were being exploited, even in an enemy clan. Warmth blossomed in her chest. How lucky Sandkit was.
The feeling of tenderness was fleeting, however, carved out by heavy claws as she considered what her deputy was surmising. Apprenticing kittens before they were six moons of age was explicitly against the Warrior Code—in her life, she had never known a leader wicked enough to break such a sacred law. Kittens were not as sure-footed, and still an easy target for predators if not under the immediate protection of a warrior. Thunderclan kits were meticulously monitored both within camp and the nursery. It was foolish and reckless to do anything less; better, she felt, to prevent a tragedy than to regret it later, and her clanmates shared the sentiment.
Bluestar exhaled quietly and dipped her head. "If Brokenstar is breaking the code, then the stars will punish him," she assured him, but the words did little to settle her own unrest. Her faith in star-guided paths had wavered since she was a young warrior, a secret she shared with only few of her companions. If Starclan had the influence and control over them that her uncle had once avowed, then they had killed her mother, her sister, and her daughter, and let Thistleclaw do as much harm as he did. She didn't like to think the stars were so cruel. Whatever the truth was, and whatever her own doubts, there was no reason for her to let such a burdensome uncertainty rest on the shoulders of her deputy. She could only do her own part, and hope that Shadowclan would not instigate battle between their clans. She had no interest in fighting kits.
"The queens would never stand for this," Redtail groused. "I don't understand how they could. Brindleface would never."
Bluestar's tail-tip twitched.
"Whatever is happening in the marsh is Shadowclan's own affairs. You do not need to worry about Sandkit or Brindleface," she insisted.
"But it's wrong. Having a leader that spits in the face of these laws, it's not only bad for Shadowclan, it's bad for the forest."
Bluestar's long, grey tail slapped loudly against the stone, demanding his attention. "Brokenstar is not your leader, and they are not your clanmates. Until they start crossing our borders or stealing our prey, this is not Thunderclan's to deal with."
"Bluestar, a leader who displays such levels of negligence to his clan's own kits isn't going to obey any other part of the code. When you send kittens to battle, prey-theft is just another hunting patrol. This kind of cruelty will affect every clan!" Redtail's fur had started to prickle while he spoke, a mix of black and red strands bristling skyward, highlighted against the night sky. The cat on watch—Spiderpelt, it looked like—had turned his head curiously towards the Highrock, but looked away the moment he caught his leader's gaze.
Bluestar lingered on the black-furred warrior before shooting a look over her shoulder at Redtail, and sat up to be on level with the deputy. She admired his mercy, but she could not allow him to wield his justice so blindly.
"We have lost many of our warriors this season, Redtail. Thunderclan needs to be able to protect itself before it can go looking for trouble, and problem-solving for other clans." Brows furrowed, the bite in her words did not appear lost on him. He turned away from her, his ears pinned back, but the fur along his back began to flatten. "As you said," Bluestar continued, "Shadowclan queens would not stand for this. Whatever blind obedience or reverence they have now will break the moment one of those kits gets injured. Have you ever known a Shadowclan molly to simply roll belly-up? They aren't kittypets."
She hated the thought that it would have to come to maiming or worse to light a fire underneath Shadowclan's den-mothers. Furthermore, she hoped she was right. If the issue with Brokenstar persisted, then it quelled nothing in her to sit here and conceivably lie to her deputy. The thought of kittens being pushed to train as warriors frightened her, but she knew her clan could not afford to meddle in the affairs of others, no matter the purpose. To denounce Brokenstar at the next Gathering could easily lead to something she and her warriors were not equipped to handle, and to sneak around Shadowclan's borders was in itself a violation of the code. Warriors could be lost. She could not afford to lose them.
Redtail was staring at his paws with the same ferocity he would stare down an enemy on the frontlines. He had dipped his head, she presumed so that she could not see, but she did.
"Redtail," she murmured, "you are not wrong to care about this."
When he did not respond right away, Bluestar leaned forward and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder fondly. Though she could hardly ever afford to genuinely speak her mind, she did not want him to feel as though his concerns were falling on deaf ears. She would never have chosen a deputy who did not care as much as he did. He leaned into it.
"There is something happening in the forest," Redtail said swiftly, interrupting Bluestar's train of thought as he lifted his stare to meet hers. "In Shadowclan, Riverclan, Windclan, Thunderclan… something is wrong, Bluestar. I can feel it. Something is afoot."
Her heart constricted tightly. The dreadful words that fell from his mouth made the formerly tranquil quiet of the dark all of a sudden eerie, the once calming wave of shadows cast the branches above striking the camp like rattlesnakes.
She wished he was just an overzealous deputy, imagining things so that he could prove his mettle as a protector of his clan. But she had no reason to doubt his intuition, aside from the aching plea in her chest that he was wrong. His attention to detail had astounded her many times. But, through witnessing the fall from grace of Thunderstar's lineage, Thistleclaw's bloodlust, her lost relationship with Oakheart, her kittens, her family… Bluestar lifted her head towards the stars and prayed that her deputy was simply ruffled from the Gathering, on edge because of ancient conflicts, just like everyone else. No exceptions.
Another soft exhale left her body as she pushed her worries down as far as they would go.
"If that is so, then it is up to us to protect our clanmates," she said firmly. She didn't want him to speak on it any further. "The cats of this forest have fallen and risen time and time again. For every death and birth, every disaster and every evil, we are still here. Let's pave the way so that Sandkit and her denmates can stand here one day and say the same."
When it comes a time where we can lend our strength, if Brokenstar continues on this dark path, then we will intervene... and you can lead the charge."
Gratefully, Redtail seemed satisfied with this response. He bowed his head to her. Part of her suspected he wanted to get Brokenstar's malevolence contained before Sandkit was a -paw and became a part of the fight.
"I apologise for raising my voice, Bluestar. I was out of line," he said as she stared at the split black-and-red pattern on his forehead.
"Lucky no one was here to see it," Bluestar teased, relaxing back down onto the cool, flat stone. "Spiderpelt is a wise old tom, and I've never known him to gossip, but maybe you should save him a nice, plump mouse tomorrow, just in case."
He lifted his nose to meet her with rounded eyes, and she was completely amused. How young and headstrong this tom was, who she had chosen as her second-in-command. She admired his fire, and had Thunderclan been at its full strength, she would have lent him any resource he needed.
At least, she would like to believe that she would. She spared no room in her mind for "what if's."
Thunderclan's numbers were the lowest she had ever known them to be, and between the three queens in the nursery, their litters were small. Only four kits remained, and only time would tell whether Robinwing's sickly younger son would make it to his apprenticeship.
"How is Brindleface feeling about the nursery, by the way? Still over the moon, or has the huntress's itch gotten to her?" Bluestar asked, the matronly edge to her voice mollifying. She did not want to send her deputy to his den with a thorn in his coat, and knew that nothing delighted him more than the opportunity to gush about his mate and kit.
"She loves it," he responded cordially, and gradually allowed himself to light up just the way she knew he would. "She's already talking about having another litter once Sandkit is older. Lionheart and Frostfur have been talking about kittens... I think Brindle likes the idea of being in the nursery with her sister."
"Ha," Bluestar mewed. "She's the youngest of us four, of course she would delight in guiding Frostfur through her first litter. Has she considered becoming a nursemaid?"
Redtail looked towards the nursery. "We haven't spoken about it yet."
"Well," Bluestar adjusted her forelegs by her chest to soothe the stiffness in her shoulders, "let me know if she's interested in staying there full-time. Doesn't need to be now... maybe after that second litter. She'll know for certain, then, if she can resist the bodily urges to smack around a Riverclan patrol."
Redtail's tail quivered, clearly taken by the image. Brindleface was not quite the fighter that Tigerclaw was, but she could act like it. It took no omen or vision from Starclan to cue cats in on when to turn tail and run when the spotted queen was angry. If she found that her future was caring for kittens, Bluestar would respect her wishes, but she would certainly miss having her flank to lean against in battle.
"Do you think Crookedstar will still send his warriors across the river after tonight?" Redtail's voice cut through her thoughts. His tail had stilled.
"I think Riverclan will cross as many times as it takes them to grow gills like a fish," Bluestar scoffed, feeling her shoulders sag. The struggle for Sunningrocks was many seasons older than her, incited by one of her predecessors, Redstar, when he claimed the land for Thunderclan in what she could only assume was a lavish power move. His descendants had all kept up the fight—seemingly out of self-imposed obligation, at least by Pinestar's rule—and it took everything within Bluestar not to just give it up. It was decent hunting grounds, and the elders she adored enjoyed basking on the sun-warmed stones, but it was also the burial site of Riverclan's founder. For that, despite its advantages to Thunderclan, it would always be a battle without end.
"Keep the border controlled," she advised him. "We can't afford to look weak now. Treat Sunningrocks as though we can spare the warriors to have it under constant watch. I want Shadowclan's attention off of us, and if Crookedstar has an opportunity to gloat at the next Gathering, I doubt Brokenstar won't notice."
Redtail nodded.
"Now, go get some rest, Redtail. You won't have time to brag to Sandkit about tomorrow's hunt if you don't wake up in time to organise it." She flicked her ear, dismissing him.
"It's an honour to serve under you."
Her whiskers twitched, taken by surprise. But her deputy elaborated nothing further and got to his paws, beginning his way down the grooves of the Highrock. She chanced a peek over the edge.
"May Starclan bless your dreams," he meowed, looking back at her, blinking slowly.
"And yours. Sleep well."
She watched him cast one last look towards the bramble thicket where the kittens lay before his black tail-tip disappeared with all the other warriors. Once he was out of sight, Bluestar lowered her chin between her paws, curling them towards her chest tightly.
Whatever Redtail was anticipating, she hoped she would be enough to fight it.
Eyes closed, she saw Sandkit batting at her father's tail as the sun began to peek through the winding trunks of black cherry trees above them. Willowpelt had spent the morning grooming pieces of leaf litter out of Greykit's fuzzy coat as Whitestorm explained to him the importance of not jumping headfirst into green hawthornes. At sun-high, the clan had broken out into hysterics as Mousepaw dragged a squirrel into camp that was about the same size as she was. Across the river, she could see Stonefur and Mistfoot chatting with their father about the incredible sturgeon they had seen during patrol, how their clanmates had dared them to try and catch it. Of course, for this, Bluestar had to use her imagination.
The molly curled into a ball, nose tucked against her downy, grey belly.
Please don't let me fail them.