#kestralclaw

“Jackdawfoot! Jackdawfoot!” She cried into the starry fields, tail quivering with excitement. She had been sick long enough to come to terms with her upcoming death. Now that it was here, she felt little sorrow. She would miss her mother and littermates, but she will see them again. Now, now was her time to meet someone else, someone she had wished to see for so many moons, since he had disappeared while she was a young warrior.

Her Clanmates suggested he had run off, as there was no blood or signs of a struggle anywhere on or near the territory. But the family could never believe it. Jackdawfoot, the cat that was offered a temporary deputy position? Jackdawfoot, who swapped stories with the elders, even as a warrior?

 Jackdawfoot, the loving father and mate? Ran off? It was laughable. No good reason could be given to defend it.

So he was dead. Like Driftstep. And finally she could meet him again and find out exactly what happened. She looked around, peering between the dense branches, and called out his name again. 

“Poor one.”

Driftstep whipped around, snarling in her startlement. A grey-brown she-cat sat behind her, appearing calm until Driftstep noticed the way her claws were working into the ground, with her tail wrapped around as if in an attempt to hide the movement. “You won’t find your father here.”

Unprepared for the meeting, it took Driftstep a few moments to register what was being said to her. “So he is alive?” Her father wouldn’t run off. She knew that. Was he captured by a Twoleg? No patrols scented any. 

“He had died the first night he went missing.”

Driftstep looked around once more, beginning to wonder if this was some weird trick. Who was this? Why were they talking to her? 

“How do you know my father?”

“From birthing him. From watching him.”

Okay, so this was her father’s mother, who died sometime before she or her littermates were born. After that she watched him from Starclan–er–here.

“If you watched over him, how come he died?” she demanded, unsure whether not to be polite or accusatory. Did this happen for everyone trying to meet their deceased loved ones? Couldn’t she just see him already?

“I could not interfere. Even if I could, I wouldn’t have.”

“Interfere? What do you mean? Like a fight? Was my father killed in a fight? Wait,” Driftstep paused. “You ‘wouldn’t’?”

“Young one, your father was a murderer.”

Driftstep froze for a few seconds, as if the words casted her into a stony trance. Then she felt the spell slip away and lifed her muzzle in a chuckle. Whoever this cat was– and it obviously wasn’t her kin– they were obviously trying to freak Driftstep out. Whatever. She met cats like that before, who would do anything to give themselves a laugh. Well, Driftstep could laugh too. It was funny, at least it would be when not-grandma gave in and admitted to their trickery. Jackdawfoot probably wasn’t far. Maybe he was eating, or talking to even more elders. 

“Poor child. If I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would think the same as you. I am so sorry.”

Driftstep fought back annoyance. She was patient, but this was getting irritating. “Okay, I think it’s time we cut this out. Where is Jackdawfoot?”

“Haven’t you ever questioned it? Why it took him so long to return from so many lone hunts?”

“Because he was hunting so much prey! He always brought back loads of food.”

“But on patrols, rarely a mouse.”

“Listen, I can put up with a lot for a long time, but you need to know that you’re crossing a line. You’re insulting my father.”

“Fur so strangely ruffled when he returned.”

“Driftstep bristled. She barred her teeth. “He was hunting!”

“Smelt of pungent plants.”

“That’s just because of where he likes to hunt. Prey can’t smell him as well.”

“Was he covering up his own scent, or the scent of something else? Like the Twolegplace? The kittypets? The fear?”

Driftstep lunged forward, snapping her jaws on air as she stopped just short of biting into the speaker’s whiskers. “Enough!” 

The speaker stared into Driftstep’s eyes, welling with an empathy that made Driftstep want to vomit because of how real they seemed.

Then the she-cat turned and began to pad away. Driftstep breathed a sigh of relief. They were just a good actor, and sick when it came to telling a joke. Then the cat flicked their tail in a gesture for Driftstep to follow, their gaze still fixed ahead.

Driftstep considered staying where she was, or walking the opposite way. The need to know what exactly was happening overcame her, and she hurried to catch up just as the she-cat stopped at a small, clear puddle. 

“Look.”

Driftstep did so, shuffling a distance in case this weirdo thought it would be hilarious to shove her into the water. Ripples spread across the short distance of water and, for a heartbeat, Driftstep thought that she was beginning to fall. Then she realized that the scenery had changed. No longer did the water reflect the sky above, but a large cat. Jackdawfoot!

But it was much younger. Still, definitely her father. Was he an apprentice? He was with a patrol of older warriors, some Driftstep recognized as Clanmates. The others must have passed on while she was still very young. She watched as the patrol began to fight two kittypets, as her father pulled on the collar of one of them as they scrambled for air. 

She watched as the scene changed, and her father, older now, pounced on an unsuspected kittypet, pulling and twisting on their collar while blocking their nose with his long fur. 

Again and again and again the scene changed to a new murder, until finally cats pounced from the undergrowth in one of them, drowning Jackdawfoot in a swarm of yowling kittypets. 

Then the images stopped. Driftstep hardly noticed that it was because she had backed too far. She could only hear her own raspy breath, clawing its way through her throat as though trapped by an invisible force. 

Long moments of silence passed before she managed to breath out, “he told us stories. When he was gone for a long hunt, he would make it up to us by laying with us and telling us stories! Right after he- he killed..!”

Fur brushed soothingly against her side. She hadn’t even realized her grandma come sit beside her. “Your father, my son, was a monster. But don’t think he didn’t truly love you.”

Driftstep couldn’t decide between batting her away or sobbing into her pelt. “Where is he?”

The she-cat seemed to hesitate. “There is a place for those impure of heart. The Dark Forest, the Place of No Stars. That is where he resides.”

Driftstep breathed. “Where is the Dark Forest?”

++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++

My first story of the blog! I kinda got lazy after the first few paragraphs

You may remember Jackdawfoot from my first Dark Forest Resident post. He was a serial killer that would strangle kittypets with their collars while at the same time acting as an upstanding member of his Clan and family. The post has more detail on it!

Also he looks like this:

TLDR: Driftstep is the daughter of Jackdawfoot and had just joined Starclan. She was eager to find her father, who she believed to have died (his body was never found), but was instead told that he is in the Dark Forest due to the atrocious acts that he had committed without anyone knowing.

Ok my brain is growing thinking about the tragedy that could be Jackdawfoot's parents.

One of them was abandoned in the woods by their kittypet mother. Whatever the reason, they don't know it (or that she was a kittypet). The only thing that they do know is that they were left to die in a storm that washed away all scent of where they came from, and they have no idea why.

The other was never meant to grow up in the Clan, only stayed because their mother died in childbirth. She had planned to stay long enough to give birth and have them walk, then move on. Now they have to stay. It's the only life they know, but they were never meant to know it. That has to create some internal conflict, doesn't it?

(Using non-gendering descriptions because I don't yet know who was who)

Not every serial killer has an abusive parent, but great number do, and Jackdawfoot was written like a classic serial killer, so why not sprinkle in some classic serial killer backstory?

His mother, we know, was good. He did name one of his daughters after her, so she has to be. But his father, Nightspot? We have no shred of info on him.

Maybe Nightspot wanted to be perfect. He felt like he was constantly being judged for his outsider roots and unusual face, height, and fur. Then Jackdaw came out, the biggest of the kits, and the features that Nightspot was insecure about plain as day on his son, as if mocking him. Too, the son had a weird shut eye, and without knowing it, he piled all those insecurities onto his unusual son (also probably because Jackdaw was the only son, making Nightspot see himself and wanting "himself" to be perfect, like Jackdaw was a doll to shape to his liking).

Some things he would do (possible trigger warning, as some quotes may be familiar to verbal abuse victims):

--Shame Jackdaw. "Loyal warriors would never say that."

--Invalidate Jackdaw's feelings / tell him how he should feel. "Be grateful you were given food at all with the way you missed everything today. You should thank the whole Clan for bothering with you."

--Favour the other kits, and make it especially noticeable when Jackdaw was falling behind to "encourage" him. "Why can't you be more like your sister?" OR say "I'm so proud of you!" to them then ignore Jackdaw.

--Humiliate Jackdaw. He does this both as a way of punishing Jackdaw and to show everyone (who he's so worried of judging him) that he does not agree with what Jackdaw did, and that he's not part of that. (Loudly): "Why don't you announce to everyone what you did? Go on, own up to it like a warrior."

--Make Jackdaw "earn" his love.

Nightspot wasn't like this 24/7. He gave Jackdaw rare moments of being a proud, loving father (when he earned his love). And those rare moments were addicting. Jackdaw craved them, craved his father being proud, craved his father acting like he actually loved him. But it was never enough.

Left to right:

Sweettree (Alderstar’s mom),

Blacksong (Myrtlewing’s mom),

Swanheart (Poppyhill’s mother),

Kestralclaw (Jackdawfoot’s father),

Larklight (Ferndoe’s father [and Poppyhill’s close friend]),

currently unnamed Smalljump’s mother,

Blazepad (Flickerpine’s mother),

Russetnose (Flickerpine’s mother -- she was meant to be more red, but there wasn’t that option on picrew)

Of course, more parents miss their kits, but there was only so much room, so I focused on the ones that missed them most. I was going to add Poppyhill’s father too, but I guess I forgot to make him.