#and for mistyfoot to choose to become deputy to ensure that leopardstar never does the shit she pulls again

[sunnymoon-sunshine]

I still think it’s criminal that, out of all possibilities they could have done with Mistystar in regards to giving her a story of her own, they never wrote about her time in ThunderClan during The Darkest Hour. I honestly thought that was what her novella was going to be about when it came out.

There’s a plethora of ideas there. Mistyfoot, having been raised in RiverClan all her life, now having to acclimate herself to what she now knows is not just an enemy clan, but her mother’s clan. Her mother’s clan that just saved her when her birth clan turned a blind eye to the torture and death that were placed on the shoulders of Bluestar’s kits.

The elders! They remembered Bluefur’s lost litter. She must have caught them staring at her, noticing the striking similarities to their lost leader. How their lost kit had grown, and how they had called her name for weeks trying to find her in the thick snows that blanketed the forest in the season of her birth.

Or how ThunderClan struggled to consolidate the idea that an enemy was also their kin. Much as they may not have liked it, Mistyfoot had a claim in ThunderClan - even though, just a few short moons ago, she had cornered their leader in an ancestral battle over Sunningrocks. How could a warrior, born inside their clan yet raised in with their bitter rivals, fit into ThunderClan? It’s by the mercy of Firestar, born outside of ThunderClan, and Whitestorm, her cousin on her mother’s side, that she is accepted to ThunderClan.

Whitestorm, who remembered Bluestar’s lost litter, and how much his beloved aunt grieved for them. His aunt, his mother in how she raised him to be kind, to be noble, and to be a warrior ThunderClan could be proud of. Oh, how Bluestar would have done the same for her kits - it’s a pity, he thinks, that all Bluestar’s finest qualities went towards warriors of another clan.

And yet he enjoys being around Mistyfoot. She’s sharp as a thorn, quick as a weasel and she holds her ground, no matter how sharply her bones jut out, or how intense her grief is for her littermate. He understands, because he understands grief - and he feels it, in some way he cannot fathom, a sharp pang for the cousin he only knew in name alone, in the words of warriors who spoke of the greatest warriors of the forest. Stonefur. He would have liked to know his kin. To imagine a world where Bluefur could have raised her kits in ThunderClan with Thrushpelt, and he could have played with and taught and perhaps even mentored. Oh, how Bluefur’s kits would have been loved. He wonders what happened to Mosskit - and decides that it’s a secret that must have died with Bluestar, and that he’ll know soon. He isn’t a young cat, after all.

And he’s the one that comforts Mistyfoot the most. She isn’t alone anymore, because when she lost Stonefur, she lost the last of her RiverClan kin besides her own children, and Silverstream’s kits. There is family in ThunderClan, who knew her mother well - and know some very funny stories of her mother, to boot - and she is comforted by that. She knows why her mother gave her up, moons ago, because Whitestorm isn’t stupid and he understands how his father’s bloodthirsty nature most likely contributed to her decision. How Bluefur rose from the ashes of losing her children to accept her destiny as deputy, and how his father hated her for that for the rest of his life. There was something there, he was sure.

And he apologizes, because she should have been ThunderClan. And she disagrees - she loved being RiverClan, after all.

But being in ThunderClan’s camp, with the kin of her mother and the clan that was her first home, she starts to wonder what life would have been like - and would be like - if she stayed, all those moons ago.