#oakstar

Squirrelwhisker’s heart twisted at the memory of Eaglestorm’s raspy moorlander mew. But she knew better than to question her leader now.

"I understand fully." Her mouth felt dry as sand. "I honor your mercy, Oakstar."

"I know you do," Oakstar said. "You’re smart, Squirrelwhisker, and I believe you will learn from this. But…" His piercing amber eyes fixed on her. "I have one last condition."

Squirrelwhisker swallowed. After a heartbeat, she nodded.

“A long time ago,” Oakstar began, “one of my warriors decided to lie to me. She let me and her clanmates believe that the kits she had born were pure ThunderClan.”

Oakstar squared his jaw, and his muzzle wrinkled. He growled the next words. “She even told me that the kits were my son’s.”

Squirrelwhisker knew perfectly well which cat Oakstar was talking about, but she feigned surprise as he told his story. Even speaking the name Mapleshade was enough to send the leader into a rage no cat could soothe. She shrank into her nest and waited.

“Well…” Oakstar sighed deeply, obviously fighting to keep calm. “It turns out her kits were half RiverClan.” After a tense moment, his fur smoothed, and he locked eyes with Squirrelwhisker again. “And I never want to be lied to again.”

Her heart thundered rabbit-quick in her chest. She nodded.

Now, in StarClan Appledusk is evasive around the kits, both out of guilt, avoidance of responsibility or any obligation to them. He considers Reedshine's kits his true kits, and who he will watch over from StarClan, even if they will never meet him. He is bitter at Mapleshade and still pins all the blame on her, and refers to Larchkit and Patchkit as "Mapleshade's kits". 

But Appledusk isn't bitter at the kits themselves, doesn't even hate them, he just wants to be paws off as possible, and just avoids them. He did genuinely feel love when he first met them and cared for them—when it was convenient and it didn't cost him.

He didn’t want to put in any work for these kits when he is already dedicating himself to Reedshine's kits, being his true mate, and this is how he is showing his loyalty to her, especially when he cheated on her, and doesn’t like the kits reminding him. 

This pisses Birchface off. 

Birchface doesn't even care that Appledusk indirectly caused his death. He is angry about the kits and that Appledusk betrayed Mapleshade. He believed Mapleshade deserved better, and Appledusk is the one that caused all this grief in the first place. As far as Birchface is concerned Appledusk is responsible for breaking Mapleshade enough to go on a murderous rampage, firmly believing that Appledusk should be in the Dark Forest instead of Frecklewish. He is devastated to learn his sister has been killed by Mapleshade, and not in StarClan with him. 

Birchface believes the least he can do is love these kits with everything he is. His only connection to Frecklewish and Mapleshade.These kits deserved a father, so he will be theirs. 

Appledusk was fine with that, but he’s very self-preserving. So when he first noticed there are only two kits instead of the three he remembers, he doesn’t bother mentioning one is missing. No one in StarClan ever met the kits but him, so only he, Larchkit and Patchkit know about Petalkit.

Patchkit and Larchkit are still traumatized from drowning and being away from Mapleshade. They don’t really want to talk about it much, but eventually questions are asked. Where is their sister? Appledusk would discourage this, telling them to never talk about Petalkit again.

But Birchface catches on and confronts him. Appledusk denies there is a third kit. Larchkit and Patchkit are just confused. But when Birchface is able to fact check this, there is no kit to be found. StarClan can’t even find her because she is a time anomaly, thanks to the Affliction. Unfortunately this just proves Appledusk right and everything is tipped in his favor. Appledusk leans on this, and basically tries to gaslight the kits that they never had a sister, and insist to StarClan there were only two kits. Birchface still feels some suspension, but keeps it to himself because all the other StarClan cats believed Appledusk, and Oakstar (whenever he dies) even goes along with this confirming there were only two kits he exiled. He isn’t proud of what he did, and doesn't want to be blamed or have his reputation tarnished, so he keeps Appledusk blamed.