#leaftail

A lone ThunderClan cat sat primly by the stream, gray pelt fluffed against the—oh, StarClan, not again. It was Dovepaw, her dark face pointed neatly in the direction of Hollyleaf’s patrol. 

“Is that Dovepaw?” Swallowtail questioned rhetorically. Hollyleaf didn’t even bother to groan, instead waving her tail to dismiss her patrol temporarily to hunting. 

Hootwhisker narrowed his eyes at her, pelt bristling. “Again, Hollyleaf?” he asked, disgust plain in his voice. “Anyone would think you’re making some sort of plot with your ThunderClan relatives.”

“Just go,” Hollyleaf sighed, feeling exhaustion creep into her bones. “Dovepaw’s a little obsessive, but she’s not dangerous.”

“If you say so, patrol leader,” intoned Leaftail, sarcasm threaded into his words like grasses into the nursery. He swept away, making sure to bump into Hollyleaf as he went.

“Yeah,” said Hootwhisker, eyes still narrowed. “If you say so.”

Hollyleaf gritted her teeth, planted her paws for Hootwhisker’s overly-aggressive nudge, and turned determinedly away, loping down the hill with an angry kind of grace. “What are you doing here?” Hollyleaf asked the wind, knowing despite their distance that Dovepaw could hear her perfectly well. “Again?”

Dovepaw opened her mouth as soon as she seemed sure Hollyleaf could hear her, bounding over the stepping-stones until she was sitting square in WindClan’s scent markers. The black she-cat was sure that the smell of the markings was overwhelming to her, but didn’t comment. She surely wasn’t going to the ThunderClan side of the stream, and the annoying furball deserved all of the sensory overload she got in another Clan’s territory. “Hollyleaf! I’ve been waiting ages!”

“Anyone would think you’re defecting,” Hollyleaf mewed caustically. “Or spying for WindClan. Or trying to get me to spy for ThunderClan.”

“You know me better than that,” Dovepaw said, seemingly offended.

“And whose fault is that?” Hollyleaf shot back. “I’m a WindClan cat. I have been since you were a kit. What do you think they think, seeing me here talking to you? Do they think I’m loyal, Dovepaw? Do they?”

“Oh,” Dovepaw mewed, voice wavering. “I’m really sorry, Hollyleaf, I am, but — I just need your advice about the prophecy. You’ve got to help me, please. Jayfeather just scowls, and Lionblaze is dragging his tail in the mud again, mooning after Cinderheart, and I can’t do this alone, I jus—”

“You need to understand something,” Hollyleaf interrupted, feeling her hackles rise along her back. “I am not part of the prophecy. I am not your mentor or your confidante. I’m not even your Clanmate. I spent half my life chasing that fool's errand, and I refuse to spend any more time trying to save ThunderClan when StarClan has decreed that to be your job.”

“I never asked for it!” Dovepaw protested, claws curling in the soft streambank mud.

“Then what makes you think that I did?” Hollyleaf’s meow had lost her previous vitriol; she could taste the bitterness in her mouth, sharp as Ashfur’s blood. She’d wanted to be important, but it had turned out that she never had been. Not to ThunderClan, not to WindClan, not to anyone. She could feel the weight in her chest, pressing dangerously down until she could barely feel the earth beneath her. Dovepaw was speaking, but Hollyleaf couldn’t hear her; all she could hear was blood rushing through her ears, drowning everything else out. “You need to go.”

“Go? But Hollyleaf, we’re family—”

Despite herself, a pang shot through Hollyleaf’s chest. Dovepaw was so young, so alone. What would have happened, if WindClan hadn’t made their claim? Could they have been as close as sisters, sharing everything? Could the prophecy have been for Hollyleaf, too, or had she ruined it before Dovepaw’s birth, when she’d clamped her teeth around Ashfur’s throat, feeling the life drain out of him? Had she been born special at all, or was she the leftover, the one to be scrapped and sold? “Go,” she said, harsher now. “Or I’ll make you.”

Dovepaw backed away, head lowered. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” And then she ran, disappearing into the cover of ThunderClan’s trees, the wide oaks sheltering her from the breeze of the moor and from Hollyleaf’s eyes, staring after her with something like regret.

Not my Gathering, Hollyleaf thought to herself desperately, digging her claws ever deeper into the muddy streambank, not my mouse-brains. But still, part of her wanted to chase Dovepaw into the treeline, wanted to sit her down and talk until the sun set, wanted to go back with her to ThunderClan camp, to the dappled shade and high stone walls—

Life of a Whis

Four years... Daily Whis has been running for four years now and I genuinely can't thank all of you enough!

I know this endeavor started as a silly thing I wanted to do because I was inspired by daily-squilf, but I never expected this blog to grow so much and become such an important part of my life. Whistlepaw, no. Whistlebreeze has grown so much in the past four years and so have I alongside whis. This blog genuinely means so much to me. It's gotten me through horrendous times and I also got to bring my joy to it too. Whis means so much to me, I draw her all the time in class or when I lack inspiration. I can draw that face with those fluffs anywhere.

And none of this would've happened without your support either. All the loving comments and reactions to my drawings is what kept me motivated to draw for so long, and today you all proved again why Daily Whis couldn't be a solo mission. Thanks to you I still got to do the yearly celebration of posting one drawing per hour every hour ignoring the fact that this post gets 20 drawings technically, I'll share all the separate frames in a reblog. Thank you so much to every single one of you for participating in this, or supporting this blog for the past four years, you are all so incredibly amazing

Leaftail is one of those guys who becomes overly conservative to overcompansate for the fact that he was born to a former kittypet less than a month after she joined WindClan.

I would say his closest friend besides his sister is Owlwhisker, who basically just agrees with whatever he says. Leaftail is the driving force that puts a wedge between Owlwhisker and his brother Weaselfur, because Leaftail is very scornful of Weaselfur for having kits with a kittypet. The brothers never really resolve their conflict before Owlwhisker dies in the Great Battle. Now Leaftail's best friend is Emberfoot, another one of WindClan's Thornclaws.

Born: Midnight

First Appeared: Eclipse (allegiance only), Fading Echoes

Mother: Robinsong

Father: Unknown

Littermate: Dewspots

Mentor: Tawnyfur

Phyllogomphoides imperator

A leaftail dragonfly from Ecuador and western Brazil.

Data Deficient