#ioth

as a reward for being so good and patient w me, have this.

nothing here is really spoiled, but it is an excerpt from the first chapter, so if you're super anti-spoiler, this one's probably a skip.

Making friends with the enemy... ^p^

yeah...

it's probably pretty obvious why i wanted this, but uhhh i write a lot about how leopardstar and stonefur are partners, y'know?

assorted ioth quotes just bc i want the excuse...

Leopardpaw stands in front of him. "I'm going to be leader someday," she says, "and you're going to be my deputy." She's nearly a warrior, moons older than Stonepaw, but she looks at him like it is fact. Like it is kismet. Leopardpaw jabs him. "You need to work on your holds."

Stonefur would have given his life, would have fought and died for RiverClan, would have told Leopardstar when her arrogance blinded her and still fought by her side in every battle. After all, it's what he's done his whole life.

Stonefur has been a fighter his whole life. He has been Leopardstar’s partner in battle; he has been the leader of countless raids; he has awkwardly stood over Mistyfoot’s kits, wondering what one says to cats who haven’t even opened their ears.

anyway, i could never pass up a chance to include that.

i can't remember if i named it anything, but it's just...an understanding. a person you know as easily as breathing.

i actually...urghhhh okay so i've never seen pacific rim but i DID read a really good fusion au once and so i don't know if this is from the movie or what but there's a scene where two characters meet four hits to four hits exactly and it's stuck with me my whole life and.

leopardpaw and stonepaw fight and their breathing falls in line and they could take on the world if they stand back to back.

I mean it would’ve been a rough plan, but the short answer is: that’s a social breach Leopardstar could’ve done without getting insurmountable push back. She’s picking an ex to be her deputy, which is something RiverClan would approve of, and she would have broken up with Stonefur, so it wouldn’t have seemed like he didn’t want a mate.

There’s not a literal rule about this, just a strong social norm. And the deputy is literally the first decision a new leader makes as leader, so starting off on the right foot is important. It can be hard to convey the intersection of religion, law, and culture, especially if you’re approaching it from seeing those as three distinct entities. I’m no anthropologist, but they’re really not — and culture encapsulates all of that, anyway. The Clans have absolutist monarchies, so no one can stop Leopardstar. But making her mate deputy would be spiritually unsound, deliberately cripple half of the leadership of RiverClan, and lose a lot of faith and trust in the Clan. To break that down,

The title keeper has a lot of possible additions (RiverClan loves epithets, if I can just take myself seriously enough to demonstrate that), but the most common are keeper of camp and keeper of the shrine. The Shrine is the spiritual center of camp, where all spirits can congregate, especially past keepers, and represents the sanctity and history of all of RiverClan. It’s believed that at the very back, the stone of first keeper is placed. Without a cat to keep the shrine, you’re damaging that connection. And while the seer can clean it, it’s not the same.

Furthermore, RiverClan is basically governed by a council. All the clans are — no one cat could do everything. The deputy handles patrols and external threats; the keeper handles camp life. It’s literally impossible for one cat to do both. So you’re hurting two out of the three advisors to the leader, which is — like, a lot! That’s a problem. The keeper is in charge of, for example, keeping track of how old kits are and managing den repairs, which is hard to do if you’re trying to assess apprentices and leading a battle patrol. “Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing.”

Finally, the keeper represents the heart of the Clan. They’re the emotional center, the peace and security and safety and sanctity of camp. RiverClan can be very literal in their beliefs. By making her mate deputy, Leopardstar is either deliberately constantly risking that security, or denying it in the first place. So she’s making a decision that defies existing norms, expecting cats to be okay without any sense of security — yeah, that’s going to rustle some feathers.