#y4-nl

"They're beautiful," Brackenfur said, pressing his forehead against Sorreltail's. "Do you have any names picked out?"

She flicked her tail over the tortoiseshell. "Patchkit for her." Newly named, Patchkit wriggled slightly. She had a ginger patch on the back of her head, and her tail was striped in brown.

Sorreltail blinked up at Brackenfur. "You can name the other, if you'd like."

Brackenfur hesitated. She was a pale brown, with no markings to speak of. "What about Vanillakit?"

i'm not sure! while i do usually try to come up with an explanation for leader deaths (since they're a fairly major deal), sometimes i can't think of anything.

stonestar dies, replaced by mistystar. she appoints blackclaw as deputy.

biggest event is that redstar dies and firestar becomes warrior, appointing greystripe as his deputy. mousefur is (rightfully) pissed.

spiderleg becomes a warrior!

poplarpaw and sugarpaw are apprenticed to ashfur and greystripe accordingly.

storksnow and squailkit die.

nightcloud and yellowbreeze become warriors, shadepaw and oakpaw are apprenticed to deadstar and tornear, respectively.

mintpaw is apprenticed to waspwhisker, and sagepaw is apprenticed to leafstar, because parents don't mentor their kits.

frecklepaw is immediately apprenticed to echosong because i just skip over the boring part of this. (there's still a Lot of drama about it, because frecklepaw, unlike echosong, isn't super eager to leave her kittypet life just because she sees ghosts sometimes. all cats see ghosts — according to frecklepaw who may have some sister blood in her — so why should she leave? but we aren't wasting time with apprenticing her to ebonyclaw first.)

galepaw is apprenticed to ratscar, sleetpaw is apprenticed to stumpytail.