#airclaw

The Clan can’t seem to escape loss.  After slowly fading for many moons, the elder Darkpetal (160) was found dead in his nest.  Bushmask (131) and Brightfalcon (164) are saddened by the loss of their friend so soon after the loss of their children.  Tremors wrack Brightfalcon’s body as she dwells on how Darkpetal won’t see another morning.  Bushmask goes over the best moments he shared with Darkpetal in his mind, again and again, until he’s certain he’ll remember Darkpetal forever.  Airclaw (63) misses her father and wonders how she’ll move on without him.  Cressfreckle (37) and Yellowcreek (48) comfort her.  In light of their losses, ElementClan and FurledClan have decided to end the war.  It had devolved into a stalemate and both sides were able to find common ground.  Despite the end of the war, Chervilcry (100) is busy.  She pulls Midgepurr (18) aside and asks him quietly about his crush.  He looks at her confused.  What crush?  He doesn’t have one.  Peakspots (90) has been worried that Cressfreckle is spending so much time with his mate instead of going on patrols.  This leads to a fight between them that Chervilcry has to break up, and Yellowcreek starts complaining about him behind his back.  Although not all is well in their romance.  Cressfreckle wants kits, but Airclaw isn’t quite ready yet.  She wants to see how their relationship progresses before taking the step into parenthood.  Chervilcry also helps them work through it. The final member of the quadrangle, Graysong (34), has noticed that his mother is having a hard time and surprises her with some of her favorite herbs that he grew.   Sadly, while on a patrol, Pythonrush (18) is killed by a thunderpath.  Flinttooth (22) is a little shaken that she couldn’t save him, but isn’t that torn up.  She wasn’t super close to him.  However, instead of shrinking this moon, the Clan actually grows.  A tom named Luckstripe (58) and his newborn kits have joined the Clan. He and one of his kits, Mothkit (0), are fire-blessed.  Chervilcry has to put out a small fire Mothkit starts in the nursery.  But the other two. . .are star-blessed.  And one of them, Flightkit (0), is so powerful that she almost blinded Caterpillarmallow (71) when she inspected the kits.  The other, Lilykit (0), is slightly less powerful, but still pretty strong.  Yuccastar (100) is intimidated.

As the war with FurledClan continues, it claims its first casualty.  Antlersky (77) was on a patrol and fell into a pit trap set by FurledClan warriors.  It was layered with earth-blessing shaped spikes that impaled her before she had a chance to get out with her air magic.  Brightfalcon (162) is shocked by the loss of her eldest daughter so soon after the loss of her son. She sits vigil that night as grief fills her heart.  In the days to come, Brightfalcon barely stirs from her nest.  Bushmask (129), too, is devastated by the loss of his adoptive daughter.  He worked so hard to earn her affection, and he’s glad for the time they had together. He searches for cats to help but, when no one needs anything from him, he breaks down, wailing uncontrollably and cursing the world that took Antlersky instead of him.  Caterpillarmallow (69) mourns the loss of her mate.  She knew they might not always be together, but she didn’t expect them to be separated so soon.  She visits Antlersky’s grave, bittersweetly recalling all the happy memories they shared.  There is a bright spot amidst all this grief.  Graysong (32) and Yellowcreek (46) have become mates!  Yellowcreek can’t believe he’s so lucky as to have a cat that cares about him as much as Graysong does, and Graysong appreciates Yellowcreek’s help in coping with his brother’s loss.  Now they just have to see what Airclaw (61) and Cressfreckle  (35) think about polycules. . .Peakspots (88) is still recovering from his injury.  But when he’s recovered, he hopes he doesn’t end up going on a patrol with Stonefreckle (102).  For some reason, he’s never been very close with his older foster brother.  Maybe he’s jealous that Stonefreckle got more time with Nightingaletree.  Or maybe they’re just too different to get along.  Speaking of cats not getting along, Gentle (106) feels like Yuccastar (98) has been relegating the powerless cats in the Clan to useless tasks.  He brings this up with her, but the two of them just fight and end up resentful of each other.  Meanwhile, his kits are also having some tension.  Timberfleck (16) is jealous that Midgepurr (16) got to fight in a border skirmish when he didn’t.   He wants to serve his Clan too!  ElementClan seems to be the Clan of the wind-blessed cats, as another former loner named Amethystdapple (46)  has joined the Clan with medium-strength wind powers.  

The Clan is in desperate need of good news, and Yellowcreek (49) feels like he has some to deliver.  He’s expecting kits!  But not everyone is thrilled that the dark-cursed clan cat is going to have kits.  What if some of them are dark-cursed?  Will they turn out evil?  He’s almost a senior warrior and he hasn’t proven himself, yet.  Is he evil?  The whispers start again.  Yellowcreek isn’t alone this time, though.  He has Graysong (35), Cressfreckle (38), and Airclaw (64) to rely on.  He can’t help but hope that his kits are earth-blessed though.  It would make their lives a lot easier.  Yuccastar (101) is especially upset over this development. In particular, she's upset about Graysong’s support of Yellowcreek.  Graysong’s one of the most powerful cats in the Clan.  How can he want to see more dark-cursed cats?  Not that they’re thrilled about having three other star-blessed cats in the Clan.  They’ve liked being the only one since Judaschaser died (read-was murdered by her).  Cressfreckle is also upset over the way Yuccastar has been acting towards Yellowcreek lately.  He gets in a disagreement with her and they haven’t been able to make up. With the older cats in the Clan dying, Peakspots (91) has decided to try and make things better with Stonefreckle (105).  He congratulates his brother and Stonefreckle nods back at him.    Faiththrift (43) is also not thrilled about having more star-blessed cats in the Clan.  She heard a rumor that Flightkit (1) was trying to use the status granted by her powers to become an apprentice early.  That’s not how it works, even for star-blessed cats!  Meanwhile, Lilykit (1) idolizes Yuccastar.  She thinks it’s so cool that she has the same powers as her leader!  While on patrol, the Clan finds a kittypet named Fry (29) and his five kits who join the Clan.  Fry himself has a medium strength fire-blessing.  Peakspots is glad to have another fire-blessed cat in the Clan.  One of his kits is fire-blessed as well, although Wildkit’s (5) blessing is a little weaker than his father’s.  And he’s already insecure about it.  Three of the kits have earth-blessings.  There’s Conekit (5), who’s always climbing on things and bossing cats around; Steppekit (5), who’s a sweet, bouncy little girl; and the fittingly named Gardeniakit (5), who would rather spend time alone than with her siblings.  The last kit is a little wind-blessed boy named Lupinekit (5).  He’s so quiet and easy to overlook.  Caterpillarmallow’s (72) not sure what they’ll do with so many Healers.  One of the kits may have to become a warrior instead.

It seems that the young cats in the Clan aren’t finding romance with each other (all the drama’s with the older generation).  Instead, they’re looking outside the Clan.  Airclaw (25) was recently seen touching noses with a rogue.  Meanwhile, Yellowpaw (10) has been spending time with the elders and enjoys how nonjudgemental they seem compared to some of his other clanmates.  It’s nice for him to find a safe space.  He always does whatever Yuccastar (62) says, even if he doesn’t want to (e.g. swapping his great piece of prey for her bad one) because he doesn’t want to give her reason to mistrust him.  However, not all is perfect in the elders’ den.  Sunflower (147) was annoyed with Darkpetal (122) for hogging all the good bedding, and Darkpetal overheard him complaining.

Enjoy them being happy and cute before tragedy struck them.

Gladepaw (6) has been made a Healer apprentice.  He’s glad to be out of the nursery, but his ceremony is a bittersweet occasion.  As he sits with Cressfreckle (46), he can’t help but wish that his other parents, who he barely remembers, could be there too.  It feels wrong that Yellowcreek, Graysong, and Airclaw aren’t there.  Steppepaw (13) has also been made a full Healer, honoring her observance with the name of Steppemimic.   Conepaw (13) is a little jealous that her sister, who started Healer training after her, got made a full Healer before her.  Her brother has also been made a warrior, with the name of Lupinefrost (13) in honor of his caution, leaving Conepaw as the only one of Fry’s (37)  kits  who is still an apprentice. Although annoyed at this, Conepaw quite likes being in the healer's den, particularly around Needlepelt (33).  She  thinks everything the other she-cat does is so entertaining. After so much loss, the Clan is trying to rebuild.  Amethystdapple (57) invites in a rogue named Strawberrytrail (118), who, the Clan is surprised to find, has an enormously powerful fire blessing.  She’s even more powerful than Nightingaletree was.  Yuccastar (109) thinks she’ll be nice to have on their side, even if she is older.  Yuccastar feels like Peakspots (99) is trying to undermine her and brings it up to him.  He hasn’t been trying to, and is upset. Chervilcry (109) has to step in to break up their fight.  Despite the fact that Wildcave (13) is now a warrior, Peakspots is still enjoying spending time with his former apprentice. They had a mock fire battle, which was safe due to the piles of snow around.  Cressfreckle is still looking out for Lilypaw (9), making sure that she’s alright in her training with Yuccastar.

Meta: I was so upset over the fact that Yellowcreek died before he had a chance to officially get together with Cressfreckle and Airclaw that I manually went in and made the two of them mates with Graysong. And had them adopt Gladekit.

Meta: So. . .this is a heavy moon. I almost cried when I saw that Yellowcreek had died. And then Fumblekit. . .Per the game's rules, an insecure leader will let the Clan vote on whether to keep or get rid of the kit. I went through and decided which cat would vote what, and, based on that, getting rid of the kit won. For the sake of the story, I had Yuccastar initially decide to exile Fumblekit (which is a death senetence for a newborn kit in and of itself), but, once she thought she was out of sight of the Clan, I decided that she would most likely kill the kit. And Cressfreckle took Yellowcreek's place as a witness. This moon was hard to write and I did my best to include any trigger warnings I could think of in the tags. Let me know if I missed anything.