loki-tom-h

[bonefall]

This might be too much, but maybe you can kind of use both Mouse and Ash, by really amping up the idea there's some behind the scene meddling. Like Mouse was supposed to be the OG lawyer, but is being mysteriously held up by something (clues hinting at some characters Ashfur works with later during the next arc)

Obviously a lot of the tension is genuine, but there could be some very bad faith players deliberately trying to increase animosity since the stakes are pretty high (Especially for thistle law leaning characters who don't want Squirrel to win)

So just a few weird mishaps that get overlooked in the chaos of the trial, only being brought to light when the imposter arc happens, being kind of a stealth set up that things are about to go very, very wrong

Too little is far, far worse than too much imo. I'm a whole-pussy kind of writer. I spell suBtlety with a capital B.

I'm leaning very strongly towards Mousefur being Ashfur's first victim, done in a fit of entitled anger because he wanted to take over the trial. But I think your suggestion of mishaps should be important too, that's a very good detail

Thoughts...

The trial was paused through some accident of one of Ashfur's cohorts. Someone broke something or called for a break.

The last person to see Mousefur was a Traditionalist, leaning on the harder side.

Mouse either goes missing just before Leafpool's Trial, or midway through.

It is NOT known that Ashfur has this terrifying ability yet, though. His cohorts simply think that Mousefur is having a hard time getting back to StarClan, not knowing that Ashfur has been messing around with the boundaries between realms too.