Leopardstar digs her claws into that wretched stack of bones that has loomed over her camp for too long, and she is the first to bring it tumbling down. She shrieks, something feral that she can't control, watching them scatter.
("We honor the bones," Mudfur explains to Leopardkit. "The bones give structure in change.")
Tigerstar has no honor, and honor is not made from leaving them to bleach in the sun. These bones should have been placed in shrines or sent down rivers, not piled in her camp, making a mockery of their dearest tradition.
This is not what RiverClan is, and under her leadership, it is what they have become.
Featherpaw and Stormpaw are watching. They flinch when she walks past them, and Stormpaw isn't as subtle as he thinks about staying between Featherpaw and Leopardstar. Mistyfoot sits, her tail wrapped around the both of them, but still, she winces at the cracking sounds of shattering bones.
This is Leopardstar's doing, and it will be her undoing, if she is not mindful of it. The rift in her Clan will not heal with empty promises of a better future. Tigerstar brought that promise with him, too, and now, her Clan is disgraced.
("We carry the divine, Leopardkit," Mudfur explains. "Never forget that.")
The Clan dismantles the bone pile, erasing it in moments, but there is still white shards crossing camp, dust and fragments revealing where it stood. Leopardstar paces outside her den, wondering how to address them.
Mistyfoot shares a den with Featherpaw and Stormpaw. She sweeps the apprentices into it, casting a glance around camp, and settling down, her eyes glowing yellow as she looks out across camp.
This is Leopardstar's doing, but it will not be RiverClan's undoing.
Tigerstar casts the first bone, striped of meat. RiverClan watches him, curiously, as he doesn't dispose of it.
"We will rebuild TigerClan in its own image," he says. "They will know us by how unafraid of our enemies we are."
("Her name is Leopardkit," Mudfur says. "She needs all her strength to grow.")
Leopardstar doesn't tell her Clan to follow his lead. Fish bones are thin and flexible, they don't stack. RiverClan eats them, mostly, but those too large to be swallowed are tossed to tell fortunes, thrown in the river for luck, or brought to shrines in offering.
They are not left to grow bleached, breaking beneath careless paws.
Leopardstar doesn't tell her Clan to follow his lead, but she does. She does in her actions, in her deference. She does not like the taste of the rats ShadowClan supplies, nor can they stand fish, but Tigerstar makes a point to eat trout and carp, and so she reciprocates.
("They look to you, now," Crookedstar says, even though he is far from death. "Be strong. RiverClan will follow you, so be sure of where you put your paws.")
Slowly, they follow her. Mudfur is the last to join, sweeping cast bones into the river long after Tigerstar has made it clear cats caught "wasting" bones will be punished.
"And what say you?" Mudfur asks, on a claw moon. "Are spent bones worth saving?"
Leopardstar turns away.
Leopardstar makes Featherpaw and Stormpaw warriors without a final assessment.
What more of an assessment do they need? They have faced death for their Clan, and that is all Leopardstar needs to know. Mistyfoot wouldn't hear a word of reassigning Stormpaw, anyway.
She watches his every interaction with warriors from a distance. Featherpaw stays close to her side, only interacting with others on her brother's request, but Leopardstar knows Mistyfoot is waiting for the hind leg to kick.
So she makes them warriors, and listens to their excited chatter as they prepare to sit vigil. She should chastise them, but it's as likely to come across as real criticism than friendly banter from leader to new warrior.
("Our traditions make us who we are, Leopardpaw," Whitefang said. "We are RiverClan because of the weave of our life, the things that tie us to those who came before us.")
It feels unfair that they don't get to celebrate. For most warriors, this solemnity is a gift to a Clan that has given so much to raise them.
For Feathertail and Stormfur, it is just another theft.
But who is Leopardstar to take this from them, too?
"We will make TigerClan strong together," he says, "together."
Leopardstar is no fool. She knows what her Clanmates say about her, know what the dissenters say about her and Tigerstar, but she's no fool.
If Leopardstar wants Tigerstar, this is not about that. It's about making a better world.
"Leopardstar," he says, purring, "please help me."
Leopardstar is no fool. She knows what he is doing. She can almost feel it working, feel how easy it would be to step into him, to pretend things are as simple as he makes them sound.
But she's not fool.
"Of course," she says, her voice like rain on a river. "TigerClan will bring a new dawn to the forest."
He touches his nose to hers, and she closes her eyes, and for a moment, she wonders if the truth matters, or if the perception is sufficient.
Mistyfoot is a good deputy. She performs her duties without wavering, and cares for her Clanmates. She is a friend to everyone.
Except Leopardstar.
That's alright. She doesn't need to be Mistyfoot's friend. Mistyfoot is respectful and clever, always quick on her toes to suggest a solution, never backing down when she thinks she is right.
Mistyfoot is not afraid to speak her mind, not after everything. Leopardstar will show her how she's changed. How RiverClan has changed. Leopardstar listens, takes Mistyfoot's words and acts on them.
She will do better.
("Would they have lived?" Mistyfoot asks, and Leopardstar realizes her presence is unnoticed. "Would they have suffered?" Her pain is palpable. "Did they get spared?")
She will do better.
Leopardkit knows exactly the legacy she is born into.
Her father is training to be a medicine cat — she can hear the rumors of her birth, the supposed kinless nature of his position — and Brightsky is dead before Leopardkit is alive.
Shimmerpelt is a loving mother, and Leopardkit knows how much the Clan tries to hide their concerns from her. She never hears a bad word from them, no matter how much she practically begs for them.
The most they will do is weakly chastise her, or send her running back to Shimmerpelt.
She is loved, she thinks. This is what love is.
Leopardkit loves RiverClan, exactly as she is taught to love.
Mudfur doesn't look at her anymore.
("This is a shrine to Brightsky," Mudfur says. "I know you do not remember her, but she would want to know you.")
He reports to her dutifully, and he is kind to her, as he always is.
She tries to show her respect for him. She stands by his decision to apprentice Mothwing, even if the Clan demand they wait for a sign.
Leopardstar stands before her father, when he tells her he will not follow them, and touches noses with him.
It has been seasons since they have done this, since they have had any contact other than medicine cat and leader, and it is not the same as it was.
"Come with us," she says, pleading. She feels like a kit, begging her father to let her leave camp. "There will always be a space for you in RiverClan."
"I thought I taught you better than that," he says, and there is warmth in his voice, like sun on water. "There is no point in keeping spent bones."
Leopardstar cracks. She presses her muzzle into him, breathing his scent, past the herbs and illness that clings to him.
"Please don't leave me," she says, even though she is the one who is leaving.
"I'll always be with you," he says. "But I need to stay here."
Mothwing looks sympathetic, and Leopardstar wonders if it takes a cat who does not believe in StarClan to understand how it feels to walk away.
Watching Tigerstar, Leopardstar thinks maybe her Clanmates are right.
He is intoxicating, tempting, overwhelming, and Leopardstar has never been the strongest swimmer; maybe it makes sense that she is drowning in him.
He swarms her field of view, eats at her attention. She forgets the lessons she has been taught, melting in the cracks.
The river is temporary. It rushes down, ever changing. Leopardstar clings to TigerClan, wanting to build something permanent.
They are supposed to honor those who came before them, and Leopardstar tells her deputy to kill kits of a dead queen.
She is divine, and she lets herself be led astray by a tom who is using her for his own mortal means.
Leopardstar is the first cat to sleep in the leader's den. She paces in her nest, trying to grow comfortable.
Her Clan is gathered, in rushed dens too large to hold in the heat come leaf-bare. Even Mothwing is with them, her den still in the process of being dried out.
Leopardstar wraps her tail over her nose and tries to sleep.