loyalty to windclan had always come first to dustnose and moleclaw – when the two stalwart windclan warriors found out they were expecting kittens, it was ample cause for celebration. heatherkit would be born alongside a brother, mudkit, and a sister, badgerkit, and seemed the middle ground between his cautious, sensitive brother and his overeager, adventurous sister. badgerkit seemed to cause enough trouble for the three of them, though heatherkit and mudkit were never terribly far behind their sister’s mayhem. heatherkit wasn’t meek or timid, but certainly had a good head on his shoulders even at a younger age, able to mediate disputes between his siblings and having a knack for words and charisma already. managing to keep his sister out of worse trouble and encourage his brother to step a bit farther from his comfort zones, heatherkit felt himself able to breathe a little more as their apprentice ceremony loomed closer. at the very least, then surely badger would have more important things to focus her time on that stirring up trouble or trying to sneak out of camp.

tensions between shadowclan and windclan had grown steadily throughout the years, though no cat could have predicted just how severe relations would become in the not-too-distant future. heathertrot had never been a cat especially respectful of borders, however, especially when some smooth words and a purr were usually enough to get you out of harm’s way without getting your ears clawed off. a foray into shadowclan’s territory would change his life when he met a very interesting shadowclan molly, however – her name was starlingpool, and despite her apparent hostility and the way she boxed him back over the border despite his attempts at idle chitchat and small talk, he found his thoughts occupied by the encounter. she could have certainly used greater force if she’d really met him any harm, and there was something about the look she gave him that made him willing to press his luck a bit farther. between gatherings and other ill-fated border ventures, he would come to enjoy starlingpool’s company, and the first time his silly antics incited laughter, rather than a bapped face or a grumbled hiss, his heart soared and fluttered the way it hadn’t really since fleeting kithood crushes. there was nothing fleeting about this, however, and meetings for the two would continue.

able to bond a bit over their respective health issues – while his breathing issues remained a constant problem, starlingpool had always had health issues from an early age – and make light of it, heathertrot would spend his lonelier nights in windclan dreaming of new jokes and topics to bring a smile to a typically-stoic face. he had never disliked life on the moorland, but every sunrise spent without starlingpool at his side felt bland and colorless, and somehow, swampier sunrises sounded more and more beautiful by the day. despite the way wind and shadow seemed to be at each others’ throats more and more these days, the ideal image of joining shadowclan to be with his starlingpool surfaced more and more in his mind. he knew that badger and his parents wouldn’t approve, and the rest of windclan… well, it wasn’t really any of their business, anyways. but what at first sounded like a silly little what-if grew more and more possible the more he imagined it, and perhaps, in a different world, heathertrot might have fulfilled that wish and everything might have worked out for the best.

but perhaps it wasn’t meant to be. starlingpool would admit softly, with uncharacteristic trepidation, that she could feel new illness coming on, and that she wouldn’t be able to see heathertrot for a while as a result as she recovered. there was a somberness to the meeting that he still recalls to this day, wondering sometimes if starlingpool knew just how ill she would become, or that she would never see him again. he certainly wasn’t aware of the fact that she was pregnant, and wouldn’t learn this fact even after many moons had passed. that night was spent curled up close, talking about life and a future and making smalltalk until his tongue finally ran out of words. with gentlest nuzzles and all the love in his heart, he vowed that he’d wait for her – and in the moons following, he would solidify his choice to try to join shadowclan, despite the anxieties.

he would never see starlingpool again – the news of her death at a gathering a few moons later is the only thing he remembers from the event, save for some comments from his clanmates, and from badger, about how any shadowclan cat dead was a blessing, with how much trouble they’d been giving windclan lately. for better or for worse, no one was the wiser to heathertrot crumbling around them, and no one would understand the way he withdrew into himself back home, sinking into mourning in his own quiet way. badger, despite her closeness with heather, couldn’t understand her brother’s change in temperament, and he certainly would take his secret of starlingpool to his grave now, knowing she’d have zero sympathy for him or the world that he’d lost.

but now moorland and swampland sunrises alike looked dull and colorless, and heathertrot wasn’t sure he’d ever see anything in color ever again.

war with shadowclan was supposed to be an earth-shattering event, but to a man already shattered, war passed in the background like a blur. while his family threw itself with vigor into the fighting, heather found himself coasting along, some small part of him perhaps hoping some more aggressive shadowclanner might take advantage of him and put an end to misery it seemed impossible to claw himself out of. every sunrise seemed to bring with it new tragedy, the losses of both parents in quick succession along with countless clanmates leaving him somehow more devastated. but each loss seemed to blend together more and more, impacting him less and leaving him wondering, dimly, if this was all there was left in life: constant loss and suffering.

CONTENT WARNING: MENTION OF VIOLENT KITTEN DEATH & AFTERMATH, PLEASE SKIP THIS SECTION IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ.

badger, conversely, had reasons to hope for the future – she and her mate were finally expecting kittens, and though the timing wasn’t exactly opportune… no cat could deny that windclan needed for cats after everything they had lost in the war. even heathertrot found himself smiling from time to time seeing tiny nieces and nephews, the ache in his heart was ever-present, but at least sometimes, there was something else. the night of the attack was one that, despite everything else, would still manage to shake windclan to its core; shadowclan’s deputy, wolfcatcher, targeted not battle-ready warriors, but windclan’s nursery, in the assault, ending the lives not only of queens, but the helpless, innocent lives they had fought so valiantly to protect. and in one fell swoop, badgermask too had lost her entire world, her kittens and mate alike fallen to the claws of shadowclan’s cruelest.

SECTION END.

he hadn’t thought he could grieve life any more deeply than he already had, but such a cruel, unexpected loss left much of windclan reeling – and while some, including his sister, found motivation to fight harder in the wake of it all, heathertrot’s own flame felt largely extinguished. one of the few cats he’d remained close to, his sister, was nigh unrecognizable from the cat she had been before, thoroughly consumed by hatred and the desire to inflict just as much pain upon shadowclan as shadowclan had on windclan. feeling just a bit guilty for not having the same drive in his heart, the war seemed to only continue in endless, vicious cycles for heathertrot – until the fateful night where a bloodied shadowclan warrior named fogstone would be escorted to windclan by a lightningstar covered in wolfcatcher’s blood, the death of one of shadowclan’s more dangerous cats news that fell on a stunned camp.

badgermask, unsurprisingly, wasn’t keen on a shadowclan refugee, and heathertrot still remembers the disagreement she and lightningstar had which earned the molly a scar upon her shoulder. initially stunned by his leader’s harsh reaction, and worried when his sister left their camp hissing at their leader, the more lightningstar interacted with fogstone, the more pieces began to slowly but surely fall into place for heathertrot. there was a gentleness and worry there that he’d certainly never seen windclan’s leader exhibit before, and the way ragged blue fur was carefully groomed down and the watchful eye kept upon him certainly implied more than mere friendliness between windclan’s leader this shadowclanner. while some seethed and grumbled about it heathertrot was wholly unprepared for another emotion – envy. as fogstone grew stronger and his survival more assured, some hollowness in heathertrot began to ache yet again. the tale of a windclan-shadowclan relationship surviving despite the odds, with both parents ending up together even in the wake of disaster… well, he was only a cat, he couldn’t blame himself for wishing that experience upon himself instead, could he?

heathertrot would visit badgermask in her self-appointed ‘exile’ in the barn for a couple of moons as the world moved on around them, sharing news of the war’s official end alongside copper and snow, their former apprentices. though some cats would prove less eager to see the war’s end than others, and snow’s death would come as a harsh blow at the hands of an overzealous shadowclan warrior and nearly incite badgermask to the same violence once again. heathertrot would grow closer with his former apprentice, copper, more than understanding of such a colossal loss even if copper certainly wasn’t aware of just how similar those losses were.

and windclan too would prove less than stable in the wake of war most cats had only ever know, a molly named ashjump’s teachings and views on starclan and lightningstar’s reign gaining no small amount of traction. though heathertrot kept himself out of what he perceived as more useless conflict, ashjump’s murder of the deputy, mothbelly, would cut deeper than anticipated, especially since mothbelly had also been one of badgermask’s apprentices. he wasn’t sure how his sister hadn’t completely fallen off the deep end.

he’s tried to avoid much of windclan’s inner politics and dramas in the moons since, finding himself frequenting the moors and the border with shadowclan more and more often. the world seems to have moved on, but heathertrot finds himself stuck years ago some days, before war even painted its ugly picture upon shadowclan and windclan, where there were only pleasantly-colored sunrises and things that still made him feel okay, before everything suddenly wasn’t.