#birchpaw

Cw- Discussions of child abuse

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Birchpaw (Birchfall)

10 - Birchfall

Underrated honestly! Wish we could see more of him onscreen with his daughters. This is really just an excuse to draw a cat stretching! Design Notes and Headcanons under the cut!

My actual king. Nah like srs he’s my fav semi-background character, and I need like 151 maps on him NOW. He’s like Whitestorm except instead of having a chuddy dad it’s lowk his whole family 💔

Design Notes:

- He’s slightly more saturated than his dad, but he still looks grayish/dusty so that his kits being grey makes more sense. Have a more vivid alt version below

-Square. His build is squared, his stripes are squared, his face is squared. He resembles a birch tree: tall and sturdy, his tail looks like it could be a tree branch, and his stripes have gaps and circles in them like most birches do. Didn’t use a ref for this, so just trust me bro

- Out of all the dust/fern kits he’s the one that looks the most like his dad. The only thing he got from his mom are her muzzle patterns, hair on his head, the fur in his tail that resembles a leaf, face/body pattern (not stripes), and his ear patterns.

Headcannons: ‘AUish’ in the sense that it corresponds with my other headcannons, but idrk. Crosses into fanfic territory. This is a long one, I fear

• As a kit, Birchkit was quite lonely. He had his parents yeah, but something about them was distant, and his mom left him at times. He also had no friends his age, and his brothers were significantly older than him & had ‘grown up’ stuff to do. His fav brother was Shrewpaw, because he would keep him company & play with him, while Spiderleg would just grunt then turn tail. But then he died one day, and he was lonely again.

• Wasn’t really attached to the old forest, despite being born then, and had a better memory of the lake territories. Still keeps in touch with the ShadowClan cats he journeyed with though

• He was apprenticed to Ashfur, who he has an odd dynamic with. Ash (his uncle) played with him when he was a kit occasionally, and Birchpaw looked up to him greatly. Yet Ashfur wasn’t over the break up with Squirrelflight, and he became a bit more distant with his nephew; often zoning out and forgetting important assessments/training dates. Despite this, Birch still looked up to him, and the training he did get was quite impressive.

• Birchfall is childish in nature, and he tends to have the urge to play games of mossball, go on mild adventures with friends, and play fight (not spar, play fight), with the majority of his clanmates, but especially his mate and kits. He would try to play fight with Dustpelt, but he would always be too busy and would get annoyed with Birch’s behaviour.

• While Whitewing was the strict ‘no fun’ mom who kept things in order, Birchfall was the fun dad that would take his kids out hunting/patrolling and would constantly give second chances.

• His recruitment into the Dark Forest was mostly because he wanted to train to be a better warrior, in order to be a better protector for his family. However, a small part of him sometimes believed that his clanmates didn’t like him & his antics, and he still didn’t have any real friends in his clan. The DF offered both company and better fighting skills, and this was proven true when both Ivypool and Applefur (cat he befriended as a kit on the lake journeys) were also there.

• Apart from that, his life before the great battle was his best life; He was close with both his kits (especially Ivypool), he had a loving mate, and he was an overall success and well-liked warrior despite his worries. Along with that, his mom was able to be more present now that all the kits were grown, and despite his slight annoyance at his sometimes kittish antics, Dust was proud at how successful his son was.

• Then the great battle happened, and it was discovered he was training in the DF. His mother and friend was killed, and his dad disowned him for his association with her murderers. Then on top of that, Ivypool became distant for a bit, and Whitewing was so devastated that she couldn’t even look him in the eye. Heartbroken was too light a word to describe how he was doing. So as a last resort, he went to the only sibling he had left.

• Spiderleg was gruff, maybe a little bit hostile, but nothing too horrible right? They were brothers and their mother and siblings just died in a horrible battle! surely he’ll spare him some time, maybe even reconnect. At first, Spiderleg was distant and would just ignore him. But Birch was determined to get some kind of answer from him, even if it was just a tail on the shoulder, or a word of reassurance. Yet as he finally cornered Spider in a secluded part of the forest near the burial sight, he didn’t get what he expected too.

★───✱*︎.｡:｡✱*︎.:｡✧*︎.｡✰*︎.:｡✧*︎.｡:｡*︎.｡✱ ───★

☆───✱*︎.｡:｡✱*︎.:｡✧*︎.｡✰*︎.:｡✧*︎.｡:｡*︎.｡✱ ───☆

(Feel free to skip to the other headcannons until you see a barrier like above. If you are gonna read, then content warning for arguments (degradation), and overall angst. No happy stuff here

“Did you really expect to get sympathy from me?”

He glared at Birchfall, his back turned towards him. Despite wording it as such, Spiderleg’s tone implied it wasn’t a question. Yet Birchfall didn’t really understand why he was acting this way. Was he just grieving?

“Finally remembered me now that you have no one to run to, didn’t you?”

Birchfall lowered his head. “I don’t understand, aren’t we brothers Spiderleg? I-I know we aren’t really close like that, but shouldn’t we support each other-?”

“Support? Support, Birchfall?! Why would I support anybody, let alone a cat like you?”

Birchfall looked up in shock; he wasn’t expecting an outburst, and he couldn’t decipher what could cause something like this. Trying to cool things off a little, Birchfall stepped forward a pawstep.

“Woah! uh- I’m really sorry I upset you Spiderleg, I can give you some space, is that that what you wanted?”

Spiderleg laughed. It wasn’t a laugh that came from joy. Rather, it was a raspy thing that came from moons of exhaustion and amusement at something that wasn’t quite funny.

“You want to give me something as measly as space, when you took everything from me?”

Birchfall opened his mouth to say something, but Spiderleg quickly interrupted him by standing up and making his way towards him slowly. his pelt bristling and teeth bared

“You took my parents, you took my brother’s time and attention, you took the life I was supposed to live and more. You have everything Birchfall, and yet you still want more of me, when I have nothing? That’s quite selfish of you, isn’t it?”

Birchfall stepped back and flattened his ears. “But you didn’t have to stay like that Spiderleg I- You have Mousewhisker, your former apprentice. Starclan Spiderleg, you even had Daisy, and the kits you had with her too!

Spiderleg was more than halfway through the small clearing when he stopped. Something in the black tom’s eyes warned Birchfall not to continue, yet he did so anyways.

“You know they ask me quite a lot about you, r-right? Always wondering about where you went, and what you were like? They still look up to you Spiderleg, even after all these years! Toadstep always wanted badger rides from you, a-and Rosepetal was always curious about the tom she looked like.”

“Stop-”

“And me too!! I’ve always wanted to know who Shrewpaw’s brother was, who my brother was. He spoke so highly of you and I wanted to meet you but y-you kept running away and *sniffle*, and- and it was like you didn’t like me or something…”

Spiderleg glared down at him, yet the mood seemed to shift a little bit. He was angry, but he also seemed…uncomfortable? Birchfall took this as a sign he was getting through, and he slowly padded closer to him until they a mouse-length away.

“Please Spiderleg, I…. We’re all that we have left. Foxleap is dying, and Icecloud is in too much grief to even patrol, let alone look at me. Why be lonely when we’re fox-lengths away? Please Spiderleg, just please, please give me another chance…”

He crouched before Spiderleg, flattening his ears and looking up at him, tears falling from his amber eyes. He hoped that his older brother would finally look at him with something other than disgust and annoyance, as if he was a persistent flee in his pelt.

And as Spiderleg looked at him as if he was an actual cat, he felt hope surging through his pelt. Maybe this was all just a misunderstanding, and they could become brothers for the first time. Soon, all this will pass, and Whitewing would forgive him, and their kits could even be friends!-

*Splut*

Birchfall jumped back in shock as he felt something wet on his face. and when he raised his paw to wipe it off, he was disgusted to discover that it was saliva. He got up from his crouching position and took a step back, glaring at Spiderleg for the first time this conversation.

“You…. You spat on me….”

Spiderleg glared at him with a cold fury in his eyes, his pelt smooth as he unsheathed his claws

“I hope Bramblestar sees you for the pest you truly are, and exiles you. That way, you’ll die a rouges death, all alone, with nothing but your childish ideals and unrealistic morals.”

Spiderleg walked past him, slapping Birchfall’s face with his long tail. Birchfall snapped his head towards the black tom he used to call his brother, and spotted him at the edge of the clearing. Spiderleg was about to walk off, but then he stopped, and looked at Birchfall one final time

“You’re not my brother. You never have been, and never will be. And…. And never bring up that Kittypet and her Half-Clan kits again”

And just like that, he stepped out the gloomy clearing, as if he was never there to begin with…

☆───✱*︎.｡:｡✱*︎.:｡✧*︎.｡✰*︎.:｡✧*︎.｡:｡*︎.｡✱ ───☆

★───✱*︎.｡:｡✱*︎.:｡✧*︎.｡✰*︎.:｡✧*︎.｡:｡*︎.｡✱ ───★

• The confrontation didn’t go too well, and Birchfall genuinely felt like he was at fault for everything bad that happened to him. For moons, he would sulk by ShadowClan’s border near the lake, grieving his family and old friend from the neighboring clan.

•Then one day, as leafbare was ending, Whitewing would walk up to him and ask to have a very long conversation. Birchfall would cry his heart out and apologize for everything that happened, and White would forgive him and apologize for not handling things a bit better. As they share a nest for the first time in moons, Birchfall can’t help but think that he’d go through all that heartbreak again if it meant that his mate would still love him

• He still grieves for his family despite everything; Foxleap succumbed to his battle wounds, Dustpelt died fighting a badger invasion, and Icecloud and Spiderleg died in the same greencough outbreak. Those moons were tough, but all the while he had his family to hold him up; his only family.

He’d help babysit Ivy’s kits, like the good grampa he is.

• When Dove left for ShadowClan he was heartbroken at first, and it was as if he was losing his family all over again. But he had to be there for White and Ivy, and when he discovered that Dove was not only happy, but even named one of her kits after him?! His heart couldn’t take it! White joked that Dove didn’t name one of her kits after White, because she kept nagging back in her apprentice days. Birch smuggly thought that he was just that cool and good and fun of a dad- (White smacked his face with her tail before he could continue)

• Overall, he’s lived a good life. And as he gets older, he can’t help but somehow be grateful for all the bad things that happened in his life in order for him to be this content…