#tigerclaw boyfriend i cannot believe this

[tamathena]

My Thoughts on The Prophecies Begin

Obvious Spoiler warning, I will be talking about all six books and the ending of this particular series, but it will be limited to this one.

I think, especially when compared to a lot of books for a similar demographic, Warriors was really good. The writing is descriptive, but not overly flowery, while still feeling to the point. It didn't feel like there was a lot of filler, I feel like most everything was relevant to the story in some way, and the world and its rules were really interesting. I don't really blame the books for being predictable, they're meant for an audience younger than me.

The tension in most of the series was genuinely really good. There was a lot of setup for some things, like Tigerstar (then Tigerclaw) being seen sharing tongues with Brokentail, and the reader immediately knows something is up.

I did find some of the characters frustrating, but I am not sure if that is more a me problem or a symptom of where some aspects could have improved. For example, Book 2 (Fire and Ice) was the single most frustrating one to read, since a lot of the conflict in that book comes from both Fireheart and Graystripe consinuously making similarly bad decisions, and Fireheart being mad a Graystripe for it, but not really considering how his actions were not much different. I also found Cloudpaw a little annoying and frustrating, though I think this may have been a little bit of the point of his character at the time he was Cloudpaw.

There were a lot of characters I did really like, though. I really liked Yellowfang, she was a fun character and her grumpy old lady kind of personality I think was interesting for a character who spends her time caring about and for others. Her death was one of the saddest scenes in the book, and I cannot get over her wishing that she had Fireheart for a son instead of the one she really had.

I also really enjoyed Whitestorm. He was just, likeable. There wasn't really anything to dislike about him. He was a good friend to the main character, and very wise. I kind of wish he had been developed a little more as a character. But what we did get to see of him, I liked a lot. He was loyal, and wise, and kind. Even when Bluestar wasn't well, he was there for her and was going above and beyond to help Fireheart, guising him gently, but not pushing him to anything through his deputyship. He was an obvious choice for Clan deputy.

My thoughts on Bluestar are super complicated, and I did initially really like her as a character. My thoughts on Bluestar after Tigerclaw's treachery was known are complicated, and I don't know exactly how to word them or what words to use. I did really like a few passages with her then, as a few were certainly extremely memorable. I'm just not sure I can articulate how I feel about her character in a way that would make any sort of sense.

I'm not sure how much I liked the thing with BloodClan, they seemed like they could have been interesting as a villain, but they were not around for ling, and only really became relevant in like, the last 10% of the Darkest Hour, which did unfortunately make them feel a little rushed and our of place for me. Especially since they wound up killing Tigerstar. I'm not sure what a better way to set them up in my opinion would have been, but they just felt so... weird?

I did think the religion that the cats had was interesting. They don't really have a deity, but there's not much better way to describe how they seem to feel about their warrior ancestors in StarClan. They believe that StarClan has more control over things than they really do, when StarClan is much more observatory and destiny, if that makes sense. They believe that StarClan can control the happenings of the forest, though they more just take a role of guides.

Overall, I think it was pretty good, maybe I can figure out more of my thoughts later, and when my boyfriend actually finishes reading them, talking with him might help me put better word to my thoughts. If I do, I'll likely add in the reblogs.

[pinespittinink]

“Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.” in the deep of the trees specifically tiddy lady and her hot evil boyfriend who is definitely not tigerclaw

“Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.”

ꕥ 🍃 ꕥ 🌿 ꕥ 🌱 ꕥ

Sabine's voice is a low, soft thing, green and quiet as the droonlight lanterns hung throughout the height of Palatruza. Titus could listen to her always and never hear steel in her tone. She touches the side of his face with her palm, fingers leafing down to petal over his wrist, held in her other hand between them.

“You broke their chains in the palms of your hands long ago. They have not held you for years."

“They have not held me ever,” Titus replies. He is tall in the shadows, large in the light, a man undiminished by nature.

Sabine's gaze is a verdant thing, like the lotuses, like the emerald trench of the deep. Her eyes are large and round, thick-lashed and down-turned at the corners. She has never been frightened of him, no matter how much blood he spills. Her hand curls over his, and Titus reaches up to palm the black fall of her hair, the supple curve of her neck. Sabine looks up at him, her head cradled in his hand.

“You are free to do whatever you want," she tells him.

“Am I?” His voice is a silken growl, black as the deep. He lays a kiss at her neck, dipping to mouth another one further toward the soft hollow of her throat. She has always been so small compared to him; a pearl in his hands. “Dearest, dearest Sabine. What of yourself?”

“Oh, my love,” Sabine says. Her breath tickles his ear, brushing like the fern fronds that drape and feather from the trees. "Don’t you know?”

He noses from her neck across her shoulder as he slips a hand around through her hair to the small of her back, the supple curve of her body against his own, draped as she is in pale silk. She's favored these filmy things as long as he can remember, dressing as though she's come from a lily bed, a spider's web. The very cloth of the moon, foreign above the thick of the trees.

“Your freedom lies with me," Sabine murmurs, like gentle commandment, "within the ledge of my ribs, my lips, the pink of my ear. It is within me that you may do whatever you desire. Within all in my hands.”

Titus makes a bestial sound, an obsidian huff licked through with his own disdain as he draws back from her, lifting his head only enough look down at her, slung still in his arms.

“I am not free then,” Titus replies darkly. “Not from you."

"Could you ever be?"

A low sound ripples through his chest, a burr dark and bloody. He curls his fingers in her hair, digs his grip in around her waist.

"I am not some prey animal for you to toy with," Titus says, embers licking through his teeth.

"No," Sabine agrees simply, unfazed. "But neither am I."

The night birds sing around them, calling through the dark. Titus studies her, the dark amber-green of his eyes gleaming. She is accustomed to his temper by now, but he does not believe it has ever angered or frightened her.

“The others," Titus rumbles, "they see you as just that, don’t they? A prey animal. Something meek and soft, to be left alone with your own milk teeth.”

Sabine tilts her head at him, the dark river of her hair tumbling down her back. She has always let it grow so long, untameably so.

“But you do not, do you?” she asks.

The question sears the air between them, percolating. Titus inclines his head down toward her, nails clawing smoothly through her hair, as though raking through water.

“I have seen the truth of you since first I saw you,” Titus growls, vetiver dark. 

“What truth is that?” Sabine asks him.

She offers her neck to him, gleaming in the droonlight, and Titus kisses her there. He travels up to the soft edge of her jaw, nose brushing against the scent of her skin, like the dew of the morning mist. He kisses her on the lips, her mouth plush and small and warm beneath his. She tastes of the deep, and Titus wonders just how long it will be before she gives in and makes a descent on her own, leaving him up among the trees.

“We are the same, you and I,” he says, breath heady, crumbling with emerald heat, lifting away only to speak against her lips, that she may swallow the truth whole. “You are a hunting thing, just as I am.”