Tall and svelte, one’s first impressions of Stagleap would be ones of grace. He is composed of long, angular lines, dressed in short, lustrous furs, and endowed with a generous helping of hard, lean muscle. He stands taller than his bears, yet he boasts no broadness; neither is he cumbersome, though he is deceptively heavy. And while he does not harbor the same long tresses that are customary among his clanmates, his pelt is dense and double-coated, littered with scars from battles fought against cat and beast. His paws are tufted, and the leather soles of his paws are hardened and coarse. He was built to live among the higher altitudes of RidgeClan territory, and his long legs carry him quickly over the rough terrain. In coloration, Stagleap is all warm creams and dark seal points, while his eyes are a resplendent blue in the dark features of his face. 

Prologue.
Let it not be said that it was love that brought Boartooth and Larktongue together, and let it not be said that anything equal to such a word ever blossomed between them, for it was duty, not affection, that set the foundations for their union.

Boartooth sought heirs in his old age. His previous mate had withered away, leaving him nothing but wasted time and tenderness. And though he never uttered a kind word after her, he never opened his heart to another after her passing, and Larktongue did not ask him to. She was older, a widow—plain and docile. All the things Boartooth could ask for in his older moons, and willing enough. In time, she came to bear him three hearty sons; for a time, that was all he ever asked of her. He raised them when they were weaned, saw them into their warriorhood, and as the door began to close on their arrangement, Larktongue was once again with child.

The second time, she bore him two little ones. One that did not breathe upon its conception, and another—a son—in his likeness. The son they named Stagkit and the other they buried. He was the last child that Larktongue could manage, for shortly after, her body grew sickly, and her milk dried. With each day, her strength waned, and the child’s cries grew in their ferocity, yet no herb would bring her milk back, and any attempts to try seemed only to weaken her further.

So the child cried and cried, and all the camp was kept up with the noise of that steadily dying creature.

Then Boartooth came. Dark and angry. He took the kit savagely by its scruff and set him at the side of a queen. “Feed him,” had been the order he left her with, that weary old mother, whose children had all but died but who was strong enough to nurse him. And she had, and said not a word of it, and Larktongue watched on as the son’s wails quieted and the camp could rest again, wasting away in the feather-down nest alone.

---

Early Kithood.
Stagkit’s early moons were ones of comfort and warmth. Though his mother could not feed him, the other queens were generous and welcomed him into their nests. They would coddle and wet his cheeks with kisses, tell him stories that filled his head with lofty dreams, and when they were finished, he’d go to his mother, still sickly, but getting stronger, and she’d wrap him up at her side and hum soft hymns through the night.

Stagkit always knew his mother was ill. He knew it in the tired way she looked at all he did. The jumping and pouncing, the swatting and laughing. All the things she could hardly manage and that seemed to fatigue her just from watching. She scarcely said anything at all, though she would always hum her songs, and when the medicine cat came, she’d answer their questions and take her leaves—ever dutiful, his mother—and turn back in to sleep. He never asked her about his father, for during those moons, he did not visit, but he knew she feared him by the way she always grew quiet when Boartooth would hang at the nursery mouth to watch them.

Never speaking, only watching, and causing all the queens to turn to him warily. Stagkit never understood why they feared him. In time, he would come to.


It was only when he was weaned that his father came to him. He was a dour tom with a grim face, and he spoke only of things that involved war and fighting. He told Stagkit of his many hunts, the hawks he warded off in his prime. He showed his son his many wounds and seemed to please himself in his own unreadable way over the way Stagkit would gawk and marvel at them. When Stagkit was old enough to train, he taught him his first battle moves and gifted him his first scar.

The first time, it had brought tears to his eyes—a consequence of talking back. The second time, he learned to keep such things to himself. His father was cruel and he was bitter, but he was efficient. He hurt as much as he taught, and so Stagkit learned swiftly the many things the other kits were not allowed to. Killing bites and hunter’s stoops. His father entrusted all these things under the whip of his tongue. So much did he give him that Stagkit saw no reason to ask for kindness.


As Stagkit grew, so, too, did his father’s presence grow in his life. Their sessions grew more vigorous, and the bruises Stagkit endured were more numerous. Yet he did not stop attending him when he was called and uttered not a word of it to his mother, though he saw how her eyes would always fall to his battered pelt, or her nose would twitch before the reek of freshly drawn blood. She never asked him what had happened. No doubt, she already knew.

So, she sought to teach him herself. When the medicine cat came, she sought to teach him other things that were not cruel and hurting. She had him taught his herbs. She told him which leaves she needed and made a game of it for him so he would bring them for her. It was one of the few times Stagkit could remember her smiling—when he would bring her medicine and watch attentively as she ate them. The feeling of pride knowing he had brought the right ones. It had been a small thing, something that they shared with one another. Yet even that could not last.


“Leaves? I take you under my wing, and you squander it on leaves?”

His father’s words.

It was not long until Boartooth grew privy to his visits to the medicine den, and it was not long before the matter was put to an end. The next day, he came to the nursery, not for Stagkit, but for Larktongue, and together, the two of them departed. Only by sundown did they return, his mother’s eyes red from crying, her cheeks ruffled from where she had rubbed them dry.

She never asked him to bring her herbs again.

---

Late Kithood.
As his mother withdrew only further into himself, his father grew more adamant in his teachings. And as his apprenticeship neared, Boartooth grew only more insistent. Rare was it that he returned to his nest without some fresh bruise, aching, on the brink of tears, but holding on. For his mother, whose eyes swelled with concern, and for himself, who did not wish to show weakness before either of them.

“…one day, he’ll kill you.” She had whispered that to him once, dabbing his brow with wet moss. “I know he will.”

“Don’t be silly. He’d never do something like that.” He’d tried to smile, to find humor in it, but found he couldn’t with her watching him so grimly. Neither of them believed it, and he lacked the heart to convince either of them otherwise.


At five moons, his life continued as it had. He continued his sessions with his father, but come night, he returned with fewer and fewer bruises. He grew stronger despite Boartooth’s efforts, and in time, his mother did not worry over him so terribly. He preferred it that way, just as he preferred it that his father no longer came by the nursery so much as he had.

He had found new entertainment in a young molly. One who was sweet and smelled of flowers. Who always smiled and spoke too loudly and was all the things Larktongue was not. Her name was Hazeflower, and though he did not care to know her, his father ensured that he did. He meant to take her own as a new mate, to make up for Larktongue’s own failings. Some day, he might even learn to call her mother.

Stagkit hated her despite her best efforts and all the sweet things she would say and do for him. He scorned her gifts and offers of affection. He hated her without knowing her. He said cruel things where she could hear them and refused her as his mother. He drove her to tears at one point and earned the brunt of his father’s paw afterward.

It scarcely mattered. Stagkit could not love her when his own mother withered away, forgotten.


One morning, Ripplefur, an old face within the Clan, returned bearing three strange kits at their feet: a red-furred tom and two she-kits. Strangers all, with the stench of rogue in their fur. Yet they are welcomed nonetheless. They came to share the space that had always been his and whispered strange things among themselves in foreign tongues.

Despite his own wariness, he becomes well-acquainted with the tom, and for the first time, he comes to possess something he has never had before: a friend.

---

Early Apprenticeship.
His training was entrusted to a tom by the name of Cinderhawk. An esteemed guardian and a close companion of his father. Stagpaw never doubted who had pulled the strings so that he might fall under the tom’s tutelage. Still, he did not thank him.

The moons that followed were long and grueling. Cinderhawk offered him little rest, and he did not ask it of him—only time enough to eat and visit his mother. Retired by then, moved to the elder’s den too soon, taking bitter herbs while her mind grew ever more distant. He would feed her the meals she refused by any other paw and tell her of the things he learned from his mentor. He would bring her the feathers of birds he killed, scraps of fur from the prey he felled to pad her nest. Soon, she was buried in a veritable swell of his gifts, and yet, she looked upon each one he brought her as though it were new.

He loved her most desperately then, while his heart darkened and chilled to his father. He never stopped bringing her such trinkets, even as he grew older and kept no trophies for himself.


He would cross paths with his first hawk when he was no older than eight moons. A large, fearsome creature barreled down on him, and the mouse, which by rights was his, too. Cinderhawk had only time enough to warn him before its claws severed the flesh of his shoulder. He never forgot the chilling feelings of its great wings lofting him up from the air or the sureness in his heart that he might die then.

And had Cinderhawk not been there, he might have. But the warrior rested him from the bird's claws. Loosed him its grip and brought him back to camp. He spent five sunrises being tended, yet each day, he recalled the great bird and its lofty wings. The piercing gold of its eyes. It had been larger than any hawk he had ever seen. And one day, he vowed, he would kill it himself.

When he was not training with Cinderhawk, he attended to his brothers. Three of them, all older and distinguished in their own ways. From them, he learned the tricks of the trade. He hunted only the wiliest of game with them among the mountain peaks. He goaded badgers from their burrows and chased foxes off their kills. He bellowed in the face of bears and scrambled loose before their teeth could clamp down upon him.

Where he had nothing but scorn for his father, his brothers he loved almost as dearly as his mother. Though from them, he learned no gentleness. He learned of other, more exciting pleasures. Those which set his blood afire—reminded him he was alive.


Evenings spent in the company of his kin emboldened him. When he was not at the side of his companions, he walked obediently at their heels. He learned more from them than from anyone. He learned pleasures unspoken of. Of the flesh, of killing. Things which had alluded him that he had not known he could want. And he wanted for them as desperately and insatiably as his kin did.

He found that hunger in him, and he sated it on meager kills. Weasels hissing in earth. Rabbits too large for him. But it was the eagle, always, that captivated his mind. He braved the heights of their territory. He sought nests in the lofty branches of trees until he found it. That great golden eagle, waiting in the drafts of a late-day wind. It turned on those wings and saw him. It dove, as the stars had built it to do, and as its talons unfurled and opened to clasp upon him as they did before, he sprang and caught it by its next. He tore it to the ground with his weight, clamped jaws about its throat, and braced himself against the heavy strike of its wings.

Stagpaw did not release it until the talons ceased flailing against his skin, and the wings quit beating. And when it was done, the bird that had plagued him lay at his feet, and he stood beside it, battered and badly bleeding, and fell all to stillness in his shock.

They found him sometime later, littered in the feathers of that great bird. Honors were held. A feast convened. It was the first step, though he did not know it then, to becoming the guardian he would later become. And with that, did the focus of his rangings and battle training change. That Cinderhawk, who uttered few praises, came to look upon him more fondly, and his father’s attention was once again, to his chagrin, directed toward him.

---

Late Apprenticeship.
Though no stranger to death, when Stagpaw is ten moons, he witnesses the first one of real import. The death of a cat he once considered his friend. A playmate he who rolled in the training hollows shared japes with over fresh-caught prey. Dead, bloodied, and broken on the stones. Crumpled like a used-up cattail. Never to breathe again, never to laugh, to smile, or make odd japes. He found her like that, and he’d run home. He’d run faster and more recklessly than ever he had beside his brothers. He sought aid, and when it was sent, he sought a friend.

He found him alone, jaws braced in the throat of his own kin. Firepaw, his silver-tongued companion. Braced in battle, body straining, teeth arcing into soft flesh. How he reveled in the sight of the blood pricking there under the teeth. The fearsome, unrelenting look in those eyes. Had Wasp-paw’s broken body not rested at the forefront of his mind, he would not have intervened. Yet duty demanded he speak, and so he did, and when the two broke apart, he brought them to camp to see her body ushered in.

He watched them quietly in their grieving. Watched Firepaw in a way new and intent, and when the red tom’s eyes wandered, he saw that it was their father, Russetfoot, who they watched, retreating off into the shadows. And he knew in some small way, as his companion surely knew, what had become of her that day. And that it had been no accident.


What followed was a great deal of scheming. At first, it had been a secret between the two of them. Russetfoot’s guilt was undeniable. He had murdered her, and something must be done to right it. Not killing, but something else. Something else entirely.

For three-quarter moons, they put their minds together. At first, there were two of them, then the addition of two others—Needlepaw and Flickerpaw. It was to be their secret, their plan.

A shame it could not have gone as expected. That it all had to go amiss.

On the night they are to carry it out, Needlepaw goes missing. Not alone, but with Russetfoot. With haste, they pursue them. They find them bloodied in a clearing, Russetfoot pressed upon her, his teeth barreling into her neck. Trying to kill her as he killed Wasp-paw. Trying to put an end to another miserable life.

It was Firepaw who ended him, killed him in a blind rage, and in the end, with the blood seeping from that old, tattered throat, they had sat and peered quietly at the body. But it’s done. They need never fear him again, though even Stagpaw is not blind—he notices how the others watch Firepaw. As though it were something unsafe, dark, and sinister.


They are made warriors within the same day, before Russetfoot's body had time enough to grow cold. A vigil is held, a trial with it, witnesses and statements are given, and in the end, the entrusting each of their warrior names. Stagpaw becomes Stagleap, Firepaw becomes Firetongue, Flickerpaw, Flickerheart, and Needlepaw, battered and bruised, is entrusted with the title of Needleleap. It is a moment of bitter congratulations. Even Stagleap cannot celebrate too openly, though he accepts his name and the praise around him, going to sit by his mother who watches him feebly from the crowds far reaches.

She speaks to him, yet he does not hear her. His eyes watch Firetongue, walking among the others. He watches the way the tom’s eyes sink and linger about the clearing. The tension still present in the grim set of his face. He imagines him as he was again, with the blood staining him. How, even now, flecks of it stain his coat. And he thinks he is beautiful. Haunted but beautiful.

Their vigil commences and ends without issue. As they move to make their nest, Stagleap settles closest to his friend and watches Firetongue through their slumber with the same quiet consideration.


When he woke the next day, his father waited for him, watching him with something close to pride. As though his paw had a hand in such things. As though he had a claim to them.

“You did well, Stagleap.” Such formal words. Before, they had only rang with a familiar condescension.

It was strange not to hear that now. “Thank you, Father, but I won’t be needing that from you.” He had tried to walk past him; he had failed. Even in his old age, his father never failed to be quick, and just as swiftly as a path opened, was he moving to block it.

“It’s time you considered becoming a part of this family. Fully now. If you’re to be a guardian, you’d do well to remember those of us who made it possible for you.”

“No, you misunderstand. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Who do you think it was that got you your mentor? Who, that sent your brothers to teach you how to pull an eagle from the sky? Who do you think arranged those things?”

“No doubt, they’re standing before me. Begging for my compliance.”

“You forget yourself—”

“No, you forget yourself. I owe you nothing. I haven’t since you left mother. She still cries for you, you know. Yet I’ve never seen you visit her nest side. Why is that?”

“Me and your mother are finished. She has served her purpose—”

“And you have served yours. Farewell, father. Let’s not meet again.”

---

RidgeClan War.
By the time the war began, it was not a matter of why but only when. No cat wondered after it; their oracle’s mad ravings were proof enough, and with each day they listened to them did the little flecks of truth possess their hearts. They would lay siege to MistClan’s land and claim their territory for their own.

To a great many, such maddened declarations rang with sense.

Stagleap hardly knew how he felt about them, only that he found himself attending the frontlines, beating back enemies alongside his clanmates, urging an apprentice too young for such bloodshed into the heart of the fighting.

It was a blind and bloody business. A confusion of racing bodies, flashing claws—the pinch and rip of teeth. Once, he lost sight of his apprentice. He saw her fall before a wave of warriors howling obscenities in their plunge. He tore her free, wrenched her from their bloodied teeth, and when the fighting ended, came out better than he could have hoped. The both of them had. She with only cuts to tend, and he a mangled foot. It was no loss. In due time, even that would heal.


It was not long before the fault lines in their Clan began to rear their foul heads. Before, the deaths and desertions wore away at their ranks, and the denizen of the warrior’s den lessened with the passage of each day. Stagleap found only his old friends remained as a constant. He looked over them from where he lay in silent observation, and waited with baited breath for their desires to leave.

Those never came, and in time he came to relax again. To focus on matters more important—like the apprentice still rested in his care.


She was no fighter, yet he felt the desire to turn her into one. He taught her the very things that his brothers taught him. How to climb to the highest points and drop down from the canopies of trees. He taught her how to rouse a badger from its slumber or goad a weasel into her claws. He taught her to defend herself against the cruelness of the world, and he taught her pleasures, which came from killing and killing decadently. He restrained himself less upon her as she grew. His teachings became crueler, and the bruises he inflicted more bountiful. Yet no cat could have said she did not shape into a strong warrior.

When he watched her walk to receive her warrior name, he did not echo the sentiments of his Clan in their celebration, only watched quietly, at the eyes which would not meet his, the murmured words that fell off her tongue as she made her vows. He thought nothing of his cruelness. How it shone of the father he rebuked. He saw only the results of it and thought them good. And that was enough.

---

Post War.
In current moons, the RidgeClan becomes less of the Clan, which Stagleap knew. What of their identity they were fastened to is a weakening thing. His people are hungry, their faith in the stars enfeebled and weak. With each day, news of more deserters rears its head. Stagleap can not abide the whispering of cowards. He looks upon the landscape as it unfolds before him; he sees the leaders left mysteriously dead in the snow, the tension gathering and crackling between them, and he feels softly empowered and waiting for the unfolding of that building tensions to crash upon them. To make new wars and new bloodshed, to rekindle the fire left dormant in the beaten hearts of his people.

Pre-Plotting: Stagleap is the childhood companion of Firetongue, and was made using the context provided from Firetongue's adoption ad under the name of Dandelionleap. Within the Clan, Stagleap aligns with the beliefs of Mars. He is non-conformist by nature, and believes RidgeClan must continue to refuse the aid and opinions of outside factions to preserve their own way of life. 

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