#caterpillarmallow

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.  

Chasingskip (52) and Caterpillarmallow’s (90) kits have been made apprentices!  When it’s time for her ceremony, Burrowkit (6) runs up to the front of the crowd in excitement, eager to get her name.  She’s apprenticed to Amethystdapple (67), as it’s long past time for the senior warrior to get her first apprentice.  Cypresspaw (6), despite having a medium powerful wind blessing, has been apprenticed to the powerless Cressfreckle (56).  She’s not sure how she feels about that.  Does he even know how to train her to use her powers to fight?  Cressfreckle assures her that he does.  He has experience working with wind-blessed cats.  Sleepypaw (6) is given to Steppemimic (23) as an apprentice and is excited to learn how to be a Healer and fill out ElementClan’s complement of them.  Caterpillarmallow is a little nervous about having one of her kits in the healer's den with her, and she confesses as much to her sister-in-law, Frostheart (43).  The other she-cat reassures her that she’ll do great.  Moorleg (52) is a little frustrated to be stuck in camp again after getting injured.  She’s been telling jokes about Burrowpaw and wonders how easy it would be to attack Yuccastar from where she’s laying. . .not that she would ever do that.  Strawberrytrail (128) notices that Gladepatch (16) has been a little distracted lately and convinces him to play a game.  Cressfreckle watches and thinks about how Yellowcreek used to love hanging out with the elders.  There’s so much of the father in the son.  It helps ease the ever present ache in Cressfreckle’s heart.

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.

Meta: In the game, Yuccastar did in fact murder Cressfreckle. Both of them had mutual hatred for each other even without me mediating them to hate each other. I did not want Cressfreckle to die.

Meta: In the game, it is still (up to where I've played as of queuing this post) unknown who Caterpillarmallow's killer was. I just recently checked the code (as in, a week before this post went public) and it turns out that Peakspots was actually the one who killed her! But I didn't know that when I was writing these moons and it would have changed a lot later on. So, in canon, Yuccastar killed her. It just makes sense.

Meta: This moon, Moorleg died while she was lost. RIP Moorleg.

While several of her clanmates are grieving the loss of their kits, Caterpillarmallow (103) is kind of regretting having kits with Chasingskip (65). She feels like the other she-cat doesn’t really care about her and just used her because she wanted kits.  Chasingskip doesn’t even know Caterpillarmallow’s favorite prey!  Not that she regrets their kits.  Cypressbadger (19) and Sleepyfoot (19) have grown into great cats.  She adores working with Sleepyfoot, who’s so wise for her young age, and Cypressbadger is using a gentle, compassionate way of teaching Featherpaw (9) how to best utilize her powers.  Meanwhile, Cypressbadger has noticed that her moms don’t get along.  She wishes that they would and has taken to surprising Chasingskip with her favorite prey.  Chasingskip, meanwhile, is also proud of the work Cypressbadger has done with Featherpaw.  The powerful young cat is mastering her magic quite well.  She hasn’t blown down a tree in moons! That’s a relief to the whole Clan.  In a more personal bit of relief, Creekpaw (7) is glad that she gets to be her full self in the Clan now that she has proven herself with her dark-cursed powers.  She has noticed that some of her Clanmates are giving her weird looks now, though.  She used to get along well with the older apprentices, but now they’re excluding her.  She wishes Songkit were still by her side.  He understood what it was like, being dark-cursed.  Gladepatch (29) and Cressfreckle (69) try to help her, but they just can’t get it.