#juniperblaze

Juniperblaze was the daughter of the ThunderClan leader before her, and she received endless spoils for that. Her mother constantly doted on her, giving her an apprentice much too soon and making her deputy as per her request. That attitude made Juniperblaze the black sheep of ThunderClan, ignored and avoided by her peers.

Except for Poppybranch.

Poppybranch and Juniperblaze had been friends all their lives. The two young warriors were always desperate to prove themselves, picking fights and stealing prey. They hardly ever patrolled, or even slept in the warriors’ den. Juniperblaze was as impulsive as fire, and Poppybranch was her kindling.

Once her mother passed, Juniperstar immediately gave Poppybranch the spot of deputy and asked to be together forever all in the same speech. But their romps never ceased, leaving ThunderClan open and vulnerable. The senior warriors and elders took care of the Clan in their stead. 

It wasn’t until her first apprentice, Dustypaw, that Poppybranch began to realize the full extent of her careless behavior. Dustypaw was the son of two rogues, and yet he followed the code to the tea, and seemed very ashamed of his childish mentor. Poppybranch slowly but steadily began to make an effort to join in ThunderClan’s antics, bringing prey and deciding more patrols.

Juniperstar, curious about Poppybranch’s new way of handling things, assumed she was worried that ThunderClan would fall to an enemy Clan and began picking fights once again. It was bad enough when a warrior was doing it- but the Clan leader? Shame descended on ThunderClan like a blanket of snow.

Juniperblaze was the only cat of her littler to survive, and her mother dotted on her constantly as a way to deal with her grief. Poppybranch was constantly ignored in favor of her brother, who looked more like her father than she did, so it wasn’t long before she was brought into her mother’s nest as well.

Juniperblaze and Poppybranch were the spoiled darlings of ThunderClan, in spite of the sad reasons behind that. They never starved during Leaf-bare, and they were never chided for not performing their duties. The two snuck in and out of the other territories for kicks and giggles, bringing back stolen prey as proof of their skills and as a show of how much better ThunderClan was.

When her mother passed and Juniperstar succeeded, she soon found the rest of ThunderClan relying on her in ways no cats had before. It quickly got on her nerves. Feeling the rest of the Clan was trying to cage her, Juniperstar soon began to avoid the camp even more than before, spending the nights under the stars with Poppybranch, her deputy and love.

Having made Poppybranch deputy before giving her an apprentice, Juniperstar reluctantly let her apprentice Dustypaw when the kitten grew old enough. The leader was jealous of the tomcat for the huge amounts of time she knew he would take from Poppybranch. She hoped that he would become as wild as they were, at least, so they would get to stay together more.

To her shock, the opposite happened. Forced to confront her responsibility to the Clan, Poppybranch began to integrate back to Clan life, gaining the respect and admiration a regular deputy did. Juniperstar watched on, heartbroken, for she viewed it as willingly walking into a trap, chained down forever by others needs.

Juniperstar came up with a plan to get Poppybranch back by initiating a battle between her Clan and another, hoping that the reminder would make her hate the confines of the code and the pain it had brought them. Dustyleap tried to warn her away from it, but she still held a grudge against the warrior-turned-med-cat for stealing her deputy from her and ignored him.