hullo hullo hullo!

have not posted on here in a While so this is a somewhat janky piece. just needed to write smthing to break out of a slump. writer's block is a bitch.

anyways, here's shrewpaw before getting yeeted by a car. tws/ in this for mentions of famine, and cat death. honestly i can't really remember much about this guys personality in canon so here's a very fanon shrewpaw! anyways enjoy. gonna be crossposting this to ao3 as well (same name as here) if that's your preferred website.


There's a pheasant just a few fox-lengths in front of him, and Shrewpaw can't help but lick his lips.

Because it's a pheasant. It's not the plumpest of birds; it too has suffered from the crippling famine imposed on the territory, but it's a pheasant. Flesh and bone and feathers and blood.

A bird of this size would feed half the clan. A bird of this size would - he doesn't even know. He thinks he could save a pawful of lives, if he drags it back. Thinks he could give the clan… some hope, he supposes. Something to smile about. Something to keep them going.

Which is all he wants to do. Nowadays, nobody wants his jokes. His siblings used to listen, used to try and keep up, but they're so listless nowadays he doesn't know if he has the strength to bother. Doesn't know if he wants to face their blank, clueless expressions as they struggle to understand his joke. Spiderpaw is the only cat who'll humour him with that.

A pheasant, though - they'll understand that.

He knows, realistically, that it's just a bird. But he's always been optimistic, always believed that rain will come with a rainbow. So he thinks that it's not just a bird. Thinks that when he brings the pheasant back, it'll mean something more.

Absent-mindedly, he thinks about Squirrelpaw watching him carry the catch in. Thinks about her flashing him a smile, thinks about the slip of white fangs, thinks of soft ginger fur framed against fragmented sunlight. Thinks of how she curled up next to him the night before, in the nest over. Thinks about the daffodil he saw before he left, and how he promised to himself that he'll give it to her. He hopes she'll smile at him. Hopes she'll look past Brambleclaw, and see him, properly, truly for the first time.

(She's just like that daffodil, he thinks. She's the flower that comes after leafbare. When she swept in, after so long away, he allowed himself to hope. To believe that things might be different.)

His mouth goes dry, and he shuffles his paws. He can't allow himself to get distracted. Not now. Not because of that.

That can be for after. That can be for when their bellies are full, and the elders have been fed, and when the kits finally, finally have enough energy to run and play.

He scents the air. Sniffs once, twice, and his stomach rumbles. Grumbles like rocks tumbling in a stream.

Wincing, he cowers into the undergrowth, hoping the bird didn't hear him. Mercifully, he seems to have gone unnoticed. The pheasant pecks down at the ground, picking at some shrubbery. It's oblivious.

(Starclan must be smiling down on him, he thinks.)

(He doesn't know how wrong he is.)

He cranes his neck. Somehow, the pheasant smells sweeter.

When he steps forward, hardly daring to breathe, it looks up. Blinks at him with beady black eyes, and he freezes. Roots his paws to the ground. He doesn't move a muscle, doesn't twitch an eye, or flick his tail.

It stares at him, and stares at him, and then it turns away. It doesn't quite seem to care about his presence, or maybe it just didn't notice him.

If every morsel of his body wasn't focused on staying completely silent, Shrewpaw would laugh.

Dumb bird, he thinks, and slips forward again. The peasant doesn't move. It stays still, and innocent, and stupid. It doesn't move, until it does.

The pheasant's gaze zeros in on him, bleak and knowing, and then it runs. Sprints like all the warriors of Tigerclan are after it.

Shrewpaw is no such warrior, but he's determined. Determined, and wily, and Starclan, he wants to make his clan proud.

So he takes off. His paws pound against the well-worn tracks, ancient pathways. Ground his ancestors once walked on. Ground that as much as he hopes, he knows his own ancestors won't ever step foot on.

The forest is crumbling.

He can live with that.

But he'll be damned if he lets his clan die too.

And something in his mind is telling him that he'll be able to save them if he catches this pheasant. Telling him that he'll be a hero, be a saviour if he brings it home with him.

He grits his teeth, and runs, and runs, until the pheasant is so close he can almost touch it.

"Shrewpaw!" He hears somebody call. Thornclaw, maybe. Or Dustpelt. The cat sounds raspy. But panicked.

He doesn't pay them any notice. Not when the pheasant is that close. If he snaps his jaws, he knows he'll come away with a mouthful of feathers.

He keeps running. His lungs scream in his ribcage. The delicate pads of his paws feel cracked, bloodied with the rough terrain he's been tearing across.

He keeps running.

His gaze is trained on the bird. It's slowing, now, but he is too, and he's starting to doubt that he can catch it.

"SHREWPAW!" He hears again. The desperation in the cat's voice is evident. Blatant if he'd been paying attention. Clear if Shrewpaw could hear him.

He can't hear, though. All he can hear is the blood pumping in his ears, the rhythmic, neat pacing of his paws. He can hear that, and he can hear screeching.

High-pitched, awful screeching. And the rough splatter of something just in front of him, like mud in a creek.

He slows to a halt.

When he looks down to his paws, his blood goes cold. He forgets how to breathe, for a moment.

(It hardly matters. It's not a skill he'll need.)

Because the ground at his paws is a murky, black colour. It's a tough surface, but somehow bouncy. He looks to the side, and sees a faded stripe of yellow.

He remembers a daffodil. Remembers a hasty promise made to himself. Remembers sunlight on a leafbare day, and a fierce flash of green eyes. Remembers jokes, and bird song.

Then he looks up.

The lights in front of him are blinding. He stops dead. Frozen in his tracks.

He can't move. He's paralysed, until he isn't.

The monster comes barrelling into him, and past him, thundering off into the distance impatiently. Shrewpaw is flung through the air, struck brutally in the shoulder by the side of the monster. He skids, and for a fragment of the moment, he thinks he can land on his paws. Thinks he can get away with it. Thinks he can heave himself up, and go again.

The way he goes crashing to the ground shatters that thought.

The last thing he knows is a jerky, violent twist of his neck and the sadistic hint of the colour yellow. The colour mocks him. Taunts him. Shows him what he could have had, what he could have achieved if he'd been better, quicker, if he hadn't stopped running.

Gaze lingering on the stripe of yellow, Shrewpaw takes one last fluttering breath and thinks of nothing but fields of daffodils and broken promises until his eyes go glassy and blank, and he can't think anymore.