#they write

Additional Tags: Fluff, Dream joins the antarctic commune, Post-Prison Arc (Dream SMP) Series: Part 1 of Rivalsduo Spooktacular 2025 Summary:

Rivalsduo Spooktacular (hosted by loyalcrowlist) week one: Prompt: Full Moon/Long Walk At Midnight

Dream tries to go on a walk alone. Techno won't let him leave without company.

The barber-surgeon of Novigrad

AnS (c) Akizuki Sorata

I feel a lot for her. She is like, the most endearing background character in the series and I honestly don’t think the Erins even intended that. Even despite her hardships, she’s never as mentioned in Thunderclan/the clans in general after she dies. Sure, Leafpool is sad and thinks about her constantly, but that was mostly written as foreshadowing for Cinderheart. Of course, when she dies, Littlecloud is described as becoming sad. But after that, we get nothing. So let’s talk about her for a while, yeah? Cinderpelt, alongside her brother, gets kidnapped by a shadowclan cat. She is saved by the former MC of said clan, and her future mentor. She is a happy little thing, always willing to help and eager to prove herself. This eagerness and willingness prove to almost be her doom. She becomes depressed, finds happiness when she is once again saved (in a metaphorical and literal sense) by the grumpy Medicine cat that had once been Shadowclan. 

She is happy. Then her former mentor (and currently a good friend) runs to her asking for help. A queen is having trouble during birth, she is Riverclan please dont freak out, so she goes and helps. Its her duty. Then the queen dies, under Cinderpaw’s watch, and she’s so heartbroken about it and so apologetic. But you saved the kits, her friend insists, but thats not enough, is it. Her brother’s mentor is now heartbroken, devastated, and because she couldn’t save a cat her friend, her former mentor, will lose his best friend. Because she couldn’t save her, and he chooses his kits over his clan, and Cinderpaw understands. He will be a great father you can tell, and she is so, so sorry.  Then a fire happens. Cinderpaw evacuates with the clan, saves as any herbs as she can, and when she sees orange pelt among orange flames with a kitten in his jaws, and she cannot see her mentor, she understands, too. She understands when Fireheart catches Yellowfang’s last breath, and she understands when she hears what Yellowfang tells him. It doesn’t hurt, but Cinderpelt is jealous that she wasn’t the one who spoke to her last, and shes disappointed in herself because maybe if she had been faster she could’ve saved her mentor just as she had saved her twice before. Cinderpaw finishes her training on her own, and when she becomes Cinderpelt, her heart aches with the knowledge that her leader does not trust her despite the fact they both had been wronged and hurt by the same horrible cat. She never lets the image of the clans be tainted in her mind, and she hides and helps two cats from Shadowclan who anyone else would have left for dead. She saves them, finds the cure to their sickness- isnt that just wonderful? Making up for the fact she let her mentor and a queen die by saving a whole clan? In the end, Cinderpelt doesn’t ask for a payment, she lets those apprentices be as they are. She never even asks for credit, but Shadowclan knows who their savior is and cherish her like their own, though their pride would never allow it. Her act inspired Littlepaw, and he becomes a MC apprentice. He looks up to her. 

When the forest is crumbling all around her and she knows they must go when the travellers return, its her who has to convince Firestar to leave the territory behind. She knows, no- she understands- that he is waiting for his best friend, his companion to everything, to return. Though in her heart she knows Graystripe to be well, it is hard to convince others otherwise. But its for the good of the clans, this isnt just about Firestar. This is about survival of their ways, survival of the young. Shrewpaw had already died before his time, please dont let that happen to any other cat. The journey is long but she bonds with the other medicine cats and warriors like she never had before, and she finds to be in peace. It’s a relief when Leafpaw finds the Moonpool and everyone can finally settle, but it is sad that they will have to part. 

It takes a few moons, but she receives it- not a prophecy, but a promise. She will die, Starclan has told her she will. They refuse to say when, or how, but they know she will and they want her to know it. For what? Because they were the ones who set her path so she would be a medicine cat? Why did they have to cause her suffering? Why do they have to mingle with those who still live? Cinderpelt has never felt so angry and so alone, and yet all she finds within herself is to lower her head and accept it. Yellowfang is among those who tell her, and she sees no sorrow in her eyes or even a hint of sympathy.

Cinderpelt wants to hate her, but she understands. She understands this is beyond her mentor, that this is something Yellowfang had to endure. 

She tries to make it count, she really does. But then she breaks at Leafpool and hate Spottedleaf more than she ever had before when her apprentice is gone, gone and she can’t even begin to look or ask for guidance because as far as she knows Starclan is just waiting for her inevitable death. If they warned her- maybe it was because they knew Leafpool would not come back. So Cinderpelt spends time with good Firestar, her mentor once upon a time, her rescuer in her dreams, the flame which saved the forest, her best friend. But even good old Firestar has his moments, and his worry for his daughter leaves her with no time to tell him how much he means to her, and how much he helped her. She spends time with her brother, with her sister- and Brackenfur is excited enough for his kits that he talks to her endlessly for hours, and the only thing Cinderpelt thinks is how she will miss his laughter, and will he miss her too? The medicine cat doesnt eat unless forced, her worry for her apprentice and the possible future lack of a medicine cat for thunderclan sickens her by the day. 

She starts to think this is how shes supposed to go until- well, until badgers storm into their camp and try to claim everyone as their victim, until theres too many badgers for so few cats, until there’s a badger with so much hate in its eyes she could suffocate. She believes her fate is to die from sickness until a badger stands by her and desperately tries to claim the queen and her kits. When the blow to the neck finally comes and she can’t carry her weight anymore, she thinks about how much it hurts. When she hears and scents and feels Leafpool, her whole body hurts so much. Cinderpelt says words she is not sure she still believes in, and she is so so happy that she can see Leafpool one last time. 

Ramblings:  I haven’t written in years and have little will to live, let alone improve my writing style or edit... nevertheless,,, here’s the start of that fic based off of this prompt list.  Bother me incessantly if you want more, I typically only do this sort of thing for my own self indulgence.  Roman and Virgil are in a kind of ambiguous relationship, that may change, I plan to have eventual logicality as well.  Thank you a lot if you read, lemme know what you think, it’d mean a lot <3

oh, also, it’s g/t, I’m weak what can I say

CW’s: slight arguing, starvation mention, slight language warning, mortal fear, panic, slight exhaustion, feeling/thinking one is dying, somewhat graphic imagination of one’s death

Enjoy!..or don’t, same honestly.