#squirrelpaw

Crowpaw brings his late father's greyhound Hoprunner with him, who Brambleshoot ends up forming a bond with. It's Brambleshoot who leaves the group early (after Midnight, pre-Feathertail's death) to ride Hoprunner back to the kingdoms, to warn of the incoming storm/flood

((in this au the kingdoms are flooded, which forms the lake within the existing forest territories))

Crow and Squirrel are both unknighted and therefore "unnamed", Crow being a young squire and Squirrel having failed her final test (a trial set by Starclan)

Despite Feathertail's best efforts, the others are initially cautious of the young princess's intentions and its Squirrel's brash honesty and humour that initially brings everyone together as friends.

Stormpath admires these traits as being so unlike the insincerity of the River Kingdom's court and he develops a strong, unreturned crush on her (she's aroace, but doesn't get a chance to realise this until late in life)

Brambleshoot wasn't chosen by Starclan, Squirrel was; his insecurity about this, plus his early departure, holds him back from fully connecting with the others

Tawnypelt fights the hardest against bonding on an emotional level, too aware of their eventual separation and determined to keep things professional. She becomes the unofficial leader, working well with Feathertail who handles the more "personable" aspects of a leadership role.

They form mutual romantic feelings before Feathertail dies as a result of a jointly made plan. This devastates Tawny and she’s the first to pull away from the others upon returning to the kingdoms.

This is one of my earliest ideas for a Warrior Cats comic, so thank you to this community for actually giving me the motivation to make it! There's a lot more where this came from--in fact, the next one will be a sort of indirect follow-up to this comic! Can't say how soon that'll come out, though.

After I read this fic in April 2024 , I made some fanart for it in July of that year, but wasn’t posting yet then, so this is another redraw (ignore the orbs in the corner idk what those are about):

Close-ups + process: