Warrior Cats

"Hold on, you're naming her Hollykit?" Jayfeather exclaims as he's visiting his brother in the nursery. "Hollyleaf's still alive!"

"Well, yeah, but she left to become WindClan. That means she's legally dead in the eyes of ThunderClan—"

"—which makes this naming perfectly legal," Jayfeather finishes, groaning. "Lionblaze, no. This is stupid."

"Lionblaze no? I think you mean Lionblaze YES."

Jayfeather lets out a long-suffering sigh. "How did you get Cinderheart to go along with it?" he asks, brushing his whiskers against Hollykit's squirming form.

"Go along with it? It was her idea in the first place!" Lionblaze announces, puffing out his chest.

"Ah," Jayfeather says. "Yeah, that tracks."

"What do you mean, 'that tracks'?"

"You're not smart enough to find a loophole in legacy naming. Cinderheart is."

Crowflight sees Feathertail at the border sometimes. She looks… happy, and he wants to be able to add disgustingly so, but he can’t. She looks free, in a way she never quite looked on the journey. Hawkfrost is often with her, looking like a duckling following after its mother, and though Feathertail isn’t quite old enough to have borne him, Crowflight thinks he’s her son anyway. It’s… a good look on her, motherhood.

All this to say: he tries to be angry, but he can’t.

—

Stormfur seeks Crowflight out occasionally, often with Brook at his side. Crowflight has never been close with Brook, blaming the Tribe irrationally for Squirrelpaw’s death, but he knows she misses her, in her own quiet way. The duo never speak of anything important; there’s no Clan goings-on when they speak, no obvious body language that would make Crowflight accuse them of something, but they’re there, often, when Crowflight hunts by the border.

All this to say: Stormfur enjoys Crowflight’s company, and Crowflight can’t figure out why.

—

Crowflight sees Brambleclaw across the stream from time to time. He looks pensive, sad, in a way he never looked on the journey, at least until Squirrelpaw looked into the maw of a mountain lion and laughed. They don’t talk, don’t even acknowledge each other. Crowflight knows that Brambleclaw is mourning Squirrelpaw, a cat he’d never given a chance. Crowflight knows that he himself is mourning Squirrelpaw, a cat he’d pretended to hate until her last breath.

All this to say: Crowflight doesn’t quite understand himself, and he definitely doesn’t understand Brambleclaw, but that’s probably okay.

—

Crowflight doesn’t see Tawnypelt except at gatherings, and that’s okay, really, because the she-cat is intense in a way very few of WindClan are. But she sits next to him all the same, talking about inconsequential nothings and consequential somethings, waxing on about Rowanclaw and skirting neatly around the way she wasn’t born to her Clan, the way Crowflight can tell she doesn’t quite fit, not in the way she wants to. Crowflight knows that feeling intimately. The moors are his home, but they don’t feel like home. Home feels like six cats watching the sun drown, wondering whether any of them would make it back alive.

mosspelt is fast asleep, the two kittens curled at her side; graystripe feels a deep stab in his chest when he realizes that he's still expecting to see silverstream there instead, with the life they should have had together.

"i....did," graystripe knows that by now, crookedstar has decided to not be outright hostile to him anymore - his grief over silverstream is too overwhelming. but graystripe can't help but be cautious, afraid of one misstep ending in him being exiled from riverclan and away from his son and daughter.

crookedstar turns to look at him, his green eyes questioning; he stares for a few moments, before gesturing for graystripe to speak.

"i named the molly featherkit," he murmurs, twitching his whiskers. "her....she has this fluffy little tail, and we....silverstream and i, she liked the sound of it. it just kind of fit."

"featherkit," crookedstar repeats, turning the name over in his mind. graystripe waits for the hiss, the annoyance that he didn't ask crookedstar for his thoughts on any names - but the tom doesn't seem angry at all. mostly just sad. "featherkit. that's a good name."

"and the boy...," graystripe looks at his son, tilting his head. "silverstream....she told me that if we had a son, she wanted to name him stormkit. that was the only name she kept saying - he has to be named stormkit. and....i really like it; it fits him, with his coat and all..." graystripe blinks. "so his name is stormkit. she wanted him to have that."

crookedstar is silent for a long time; graystripe frowns, turning to look at the old tomcat, to see crookedstar's face tight with emotion, staring down at little stormkit.

"crookedstar?" graystripe whispers, frowning. "did i..."

"she wanted to name him that?" crookedstar asks, his voice soft and broken. he turns to look at graystripe, and graystripe can see the mixture of emotions - grief and heartbreak, but a little bit of what seems like joy as well. surprise, even.

"yeah," graystripe says, confused. "do you..." graystripe blinks. "do you like it?"

check it OUT

Hello! Originally, I was going to release this alongside a picrew, but with the move, I just haven’t had time. In the meantime, please enjoy this small generator! It isn’t very advanced but has a long list of prefixes and suffixes. Please tag me if you create anything inspired by it! I would love to see! (Thank you for 100 followers!!!!!!)

lionblaze was 100% stoked to be a big brother while jayfeather, despite being fully grown, had spent his entire life being the youngest sibling of the family and was much more “://////” about them at first. but one day squirrelflight says “hey lionblaze is out on patrol and leafpool is gathering herbs, can you take care of them for a second?” and it’s all downhill from there. turns out, jayfeather is a fantastic babysitter. he spends the entire day teaching little alderkit about herbs (and YES he’s very interested in it!!) and letting sparkkit play with his tail. even his snarkiest comments get a laugh out of the littermates. when squirrelflight comes back from her patrol she finds the three of them curled up for a nap in the sunshine, sparkkit sprawled on top of jayfeather’s back and alderkit nestled snugly against his chest. jayfeather’s a lot less reluctant to watch his little siblings after that, and suddenly the grumpy medicine cat isn’t so scary to them any more.

leafpool absolutely spoils her new nieces and nephews. she’s always the first to bring alderkit a pretty flower or find a big feather for sparkkit to play with. squirrelflight gently chastises her sister time and time again. “you’re spoiling them,” she laughs. leafpool purrs and shakes her head before bringing them their latest plaything. she’s the first to bring her quiet, reserved nephew out of his shell, sitting and talking with him in the medicine den while the more rambunctious kits playfight. truly, his aunt is his best friend. one day the little ginger tom toddles up to her and quietly mews “can you tell me about hollyleaf?” leafpool pauses before smiling sadly and telling him stories of his big sister: how she journeyed all the way to the mountains as just an apprentice, how she cleverly learned to hunt and survive underground, and how bravely she fought and sacrificed herself in the great battle. alderkit, tucked against her flank, hangs on her every word, and at the end of her stories asks leafpool if she could take him to the moonpool to meet hollyleaf. leafpool smiles and purrs. “maybe one day.”

lionblaze, on the other hand, is far less reserved. squirrelflight finds herself scolding her oldest son like he’s an apprentice again for getting sparkkit and alderkit into mischief. does he ever learn his lesson? absolutely not. sparkkit absolutely ADORES him though, and she looks up to her big brother as her idol. he’s always up to give the little she-kit a badger ride or play mossball or sneak into bramblestar’s den to play leader and deputy (sparkkit is the leader, of course). even though he’s lost his power, lionblaze is still the greatest warrior the clans have ever seen in sparkkit’s eyes. “i wanna be just like you when i’m a grownup!” she squeaks joyfully one day, bouncing around him and swatting playfully at his tail. lionblaze doesn’t know why, but he very nearly becomes choked up after that and nuzzles her affectionately.

like its so vivid in my mind. breezepaw bumps into daisy at a gathering and makes a rude comment, and nightcloud promptly scolds him and has him apologize. she’d sigh and apologize again for her son’s disrespectful behaviour, and daisy, sensing her weariness, would smile knowingly and say something like, “tell me all about it, my son berrypaw is a real handful!”. they end up talking for the entire evening.

also i like how bluefur’s shift in personality has an affect on how cats treat her? like when moonflower dies people are like “dude ur mood is shit people don’t want to hang out with someone who acts like that” yknow???