Hey all. Hope everyone's been doing well, you know with all the sudden winter weather and all. It's like December wanted to cement itself as a majority autumn month before passing the baton to January and letting it do all the cold weather and snowstorms and stuff.
I'd also like to point you all in the direction of a spin-off that Pianostar4 has written for Ignite, titled Ignite: The Dragon Apprentice on fanfiction. Pianostar contacted me and asked if I could give permission to allow an AU of Ignite to be written and I said heck yeaaahhh. It follows if the stone had entered Cherrypaw instead of Firestar. Please give it a try and give it some support! I should warn you all that it's a work in progress (obviously) and it seems like Pianostar isn't certain if it will keep getting updated for long. But you should all go see it anyway!
If one of my AUs interests you and you want to write something for it, just ask for permission and I'll more than likely say yes, just as long as you promise to credit. Or you could surprise me and tell me it's already written and posted :)
Reviews are appreciated!
The idea of sharing tongues and having a feast at the newly discovered clearing had been received by the clan rather well. Many cats wanted a look at the new part of the territory and see for themselves, while others were more receptive of the idea of spending time with Thunderclan's dragon. Mainly those closest to him, such as Sandstorm, who had been informed of her mate's new arrangements after she had come back from her hunting patrol and was not greeted with a black scaly tail picking her up to pull her in close to his side.
A bit of confusion later, and she was eagerly awaiting sunset with the rest of the clan. Until then, she had spent some much needed time relaxing without being squished by her overprotective, possessive mate.
"What? It's not like you spent every other moment with Bramblestar, Squirrelflight," Sandstorm had told her daughter when asked, stretching out her back legs leisurely as she lounged in her nest. "I love your father, I really do, but he could stand to learn a little restraint in regard to us, yes?" Squirrelflight had conceded, knowing the feeling of her legs being constrained within Firestar's tail.
As the sun started to dip below the horizon, Bramblestar called the clan together as if he was about to depart to a Gathering. Cats were gathered around with pieces of prey dangling from their jaws, the fresh-kill pile picked clean.
"Behave," Brightheart told her three kits in a stern voice as they squealed and romped around her paws, excited to be leaving the hollow. Cloudtail herded his kits back to their mother, not having their disappointed moans.
"If you don't listen to your mother, I won't hesitate to have Bramblestar send you back to the nursery with someone to watch over you three," Cloudtail warned, his whiskers twitching into a frown. At his warning, the kits quieted down, pressing close to their mother. Beside them, Brackenfur purred in mirth as he cleaned his daughters' pelts as they pressed close to him.
"Do you think we'll see Mom tonight?" Lilykit mewed up to Brackenfur. He paused in his grooming, his eyes hazy.
"I'm sure she'll be the brightest star up there," he murmured gently. He grasped her by the scruff gently, as did Daisy with Seedkit as Bramblestar raised his tail to signal their departure.
Cats chatted amiably with each other as they walked through the forest, the shadows of newly grown leaves dappling the forest floor as the sunlight grew brighter at the horizon. Bramblestar was silent at the front, ears pricking as Squirrelflight hurried up to him, maneuvering through other cats in order to do so.
"Nice evening, isn't it?" she asked softly.
"Yeah," he said awkwardly, reminding himself that they weren't mates, just two clanmates having a conversation with each other. He promised to give her a chance at starting over. He didn't realize how difficult that was going to be. Part of Bramblestar wanted to be back to the things were before the parentage thing was revealed at the Gathering, but the other half of him just didn't want a reminder of the seasons afterwards.
"Since we've practically drained the fresh-kill pile for this, maybe in the morning we could... go hunting together?" she asked him, tail twitching in nervousness.
"As clanmates?" he inquired.
"As clanmates," she reaffirmed quickly. "Or as friends, I don't know. Just you and me, hunting together for the clan." He nodded, tension in his body leaving him as they continued walking in silence, ignoring the chatter from their clanmates behind them.
"I really did love raising our family together though," she murmured suddenly. He pricked his ears, eyes glancing at her questioningly. "What I want most of all at this point is to raise a family for real. Not that Jayfeather, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf aren't family or anything, and us raising them was real, it's just that I wanted to raise my own kits with the tom I loved instead of being coerced into it by Leafpool and Starclan," she rushed through.
His head snapped over to her. "Leafpool and Starclan did what?" he asked incredulously, wondering if he had heard her correctly.
She shrugged. "Yellowfang came to me when Leafpool was still pregnant and told me that this would be my only time to raise a litter since I couldn't have kits of my own," she sighed heavily.
His whiskers twitched into a frown. "Yellowfang and Starclan just happened to know that you couldn't have kits?"
She shrugged again, not meeting his eyes.
He blanched. "Squirrelflight, we didn't do it nearly enough times for us to know that you couldn't have kits." He paused for a heartbeat. "Are you sure they didn't say that to you in order for you to be more inclined to take Leafpool's kits in?" he asked carefully.
She twitched. "Well of course they said that in order to make me want to take in Leafpool's kits," she said, rolling her eyes.
"No, I mean really think about it," he meowed seriously, swerving to avoid a bush as he said so.
Squirrelflight took a few moments to think, while Bramblestar could see the clearing right up ahead of them. "You think they lied about me being... you know?" she slowly asked, ears flattening on top of her head, a growl rising in her throat.
'And now I see why some cats lose faith in Starclan,' he lamented. He felt angry on Squirrelflight's behalf. 'Where did they get off telling her that she could only raise a family by taking in Leafpool's kits?'
"Listen... let's just... have that hunting patrol between ourselves and then we can talk?" Bramblestar meowed exasperatedly. He just wanted to enjoy tonight before getting angry at Starclan again. "Besides, we're already here," he said, gesturing to the clearing with his tail.
A very empty clearing that wasn't being taken up by a dragon.
"Where's Firestar?" Rosepetal mumbled around the squirrel she was carrying, before quickly digging her claws into the ground as the trees blew around wildly. The sound of flapping wings drew their attention upwards to the hole in the forest canopy, where Firestar carefully descended with a black and white creature in tow, dangling from his jaws. The clan relaxed as he landed, dropping his prey near the edge of the clearing, before looking down on Thunderclan, snorting.
"What? I needed something to eat too," he rumbled. He eyed the prey his clan had brought along with them. "If you shared your prey with me, there wouldn't be anything left for all of you," he snorted, a puff of smoke escaping him as he laid himself on the ground. Yet, his comment relieved the clearing of all the pent up tension as some cats laughed at his comment. Eventually the whole clearing was taken up by the clan, cats sharing tongues, eating prey, some of them playing. Firestar had to take care in positioning himself, keeping his tail close to him, his wings folded up, fearful that he may accidentally squish someone.
A chirp below him drew his attention downwards, and he instinctively raised his tail to bring her close to him.
"Not the tail this time," Sandstorm purred. He forced himself to stop, head tilting. "Sometimes you're not as gentle as you think you are, you know," she meowed.
He flinched. "I haven't been hurting you, have I?" he fretted, becoming angry at himself.
She shook her head, alleviating his fears. "No, but I like the feel of my blood actually flowing in my legs, thank you." She nudged his forelegs, and he gladly opened up, encircling her within his embrace. "Sometimes, this is much better," she purred, nuzzling his chest.
He scanned the clearing, watching his clanmates mingle gleefully. His eyes zeroed in on his hatchlings. Squirrelflight was sharing tongues with Rosepetal, and Bramblestar was talking with some of the senior warriors.
Melancholy rose in him.
"She should be here too," he murmured.
His treasure nuzzled him again. "I miss her too."
"Why her though?"
"It was her time," she sighed. "We're here to relax and have fun tonight, not to get angry," she said, noticing his eyes beginning to blaze with anger. "Just try to relax?"
He looked down into the green eyes of his mate, emotions swimming in their depths that made him envious of her control over them. "It's just so hard," he murmured.
"I know."
"Room for one more?" Bramblestar called up him.
Firestar rumbled happily, trying to take his mind off Leafpool. "There's always room for all my treasures," he purred, opening up forelegs to let Bramblestar climb inside.
Sandstorm was right, he just needed to relax. His clan was becoming more relaxed around him, the other clans weren't causing them any grief, and he was keeping his treasures happy and safe.
His remaining treasures anyway.
He still wanted to see her.
Warmth bloomed from the stone, almost like it was comforting or reassuring him.
"What were you and Squirrelflight talking about anyway?" Sandstorm asked Bramblestar, noticing that Firestar was becoming lost in thought again. He had a bad habit of doing so.
"Nothing much, just going hunting together in the morning," he said nonchalantly, not wanting to talk about what Starclan had done to her.
"Oh?" Sandstorm twitched her whiskers suggestively.
His ear tips burned red. "As clanmates! Just because we've made up doesn't mean we're mates or anything!"
Jayfeather hummed thoughtfully after Lionblaze described to him what their leader, grandmother, and grandfather were doing. "Mean anything to you?" Lionblaze asked him.
"This is exactly what happened in my dream," he replied.
"You mean the dream you got while the other medicine cats got that vision of destruction and I wanted to tear Kestrelflight's whiskers off because of the comments he made that night?"
Jayfeather nodded, though noting that he would be first in line to shred Kestrelflight's whiskers off should the Windclan medicine cat try anything. 'Maybe Firestar being our guardian wasn't false after all.'
What comes next should be super obvious.
I'm still trying to tie up plot holes and flesh out Brambo and Squirrel's relationship.
It's super crappy of Starclan and Leafpool to have manipulated Squirrelflight like that in order to get her to take in Leafpool's kits. In fact, if I remember correctly, Squirrel didn't even say yes until the kits were born. Still could have told Bramble about it, but what Starclan and Leaf did was just... wrong. :/
Tell me how I did.