While not as large as his brother, Basilheart stands out among many of his sleeker Clanmates with his height and size. His fur is long and pure white, mismatched eyes providing a pop of color against the pale coat. While his thick fur helps hides scarring, he does sport a jagged scar across the bridge of his nose from the war. Despite his potentially intimidating size, Basilheart is often seen accompanied with an easy smile and an awful joke, a contrast to his fierce skills in battle.

His kithood is happy. The sort of kithood that mothers dream of for their children, of days spent being loved by his parents and playing with his siblings.

Basilkit loves all of his family, but gravitates to his brother the most. Maplekit is fire to his water, his brother wonderful at finding trouble while Basilkit excels at sweetly smiling their way out of punishment.

It is only near the end of his time in the nursery that Basilkit experiences his first conflict.

Well, really it’s his brother's conflict. A kit brawl, spurred on by cruel teasings from a fellow denmate. "Half-clan", Maplekit whispers furiously to him that night when all has settled. "He called me half-clan."

The news comes as a surprise to Basilkit, blinking owlishly as he lets the words sink in. He does not respond like his quick-tempered brother, with anger and ferocity. He thinks, as solemnly as a kit can.

"Is that so bad? To be half-clan, I mean."

He flinches at the betrayal in Maplekit’s eyes, a look he doesn’t forget.

"Nevermind. Forget Redkit, he’s a bully. You can show him up once we're apprentices."

As kits are able to so easily do, the pair are able to move quickly past the tense moment, but Basilkit’s mind returns to the news frequently during the moons to come.


Their apprenticeship is celebrated shortly after the completion of Maplekit’s punishment. It’s a welcome distraction from the tension that has only continued to build between his brother and Redkit as well as the news of their origin.

Littlethorn never denies the news. It’s not a secret, after all, and Basilkit makes sure she knows that he doesn’t mind, both with words and extra deeds. He even lets her excessively groom his white coat to gleaming perfection without complaining before their ceremony.

Basilpaw is apprenticed to Sloestrike, a gregarious older she-cat whose quick humor is rivaled only by her faster paws. She’s fun, and Basilpaw likes her instantly.

Well, likes her until he’s been knocked off his paws dozens of times during their first few battle training sessions. She always helps him up with a wink, teasing that he misinterpreted the ‘sloe’ of her name.

It's something to focus on, at least, Basilpaw making it a mission to try and out-speed his agile mentor.


While their styles of fighting are different, Basilpaw quickly finds out that he agrees wholeheartedly with her regarding the tunnels.

“Dark, cramped little spaces.” Sloestrike sighs dramatically as she leads him into one of the wider and safer tunnels for their first underground excursion. “Claustrophobic, if you ask me. I don’t know how the tunnelers can stand it, but I reckon that’s why we’ve got them!”

The lack of freedom above his head, while not enough to cause panic, does not induce the same feeling of comfort that the tunnelers seem to agree upon. Each time he and Sloestrike return to the surface, they race, reveling in the sky above, the wind around, and the earth blessedly below them.

He never beats her, but he convinces himself each time that he was able to keep up just a hair-length more.


In between training, Basilpaw is disappointed to see that Maplepaw’s rivalry with Redpaw has not gotten better…if anything, it has continued to get worse. Other Clanmates have also started to take notice of the animosity between the pair, and Basilpaw is not deaf to the judgmental whispers.

He interrupts as many as he can with a sweet smile paired with a warning glare. He never publicly criticizes his brother, but scolds him softly from the comfort of their nests when ears are turned elsewhere.

“You know he’s just doing it because he gets a rise out of you.” He mumbles as he grooms a knot out of his brother’s mane. Thornpaw hums her agreement from her own nest.  “Either ignore him or I’ll beat you both up until you stop.”

Maplepaw fixes him with an amused look over his shoulder, grinning casually. “I thought you were the peaceful sort, brother.”

“It’s gotten annoying. I don't care how big you are, I'm faster and I'd win.”


Not fast enough, though.

What had started as a fun challenge has become an unsurpassable mountain of a task, for as much as he trains and improves, he cannot outspeed his mentor.

“It’s not fair!” He finally wails one day after what he is sure is the hundredth time he has missed an attack (Sloestrike would assure him it was at least the thousandth time). “I can’t do it!”

Sloestrike watches him calmly, uncharacteristically silently as Basilpaw drops to the ground in a heavy sit. His eyes focus on his paws with a sullen frown.

“...it’s because I’m half-clan. I can’t be quick like you, because RidgeClan cats aren’t.”

“No, they aren’t.” Sloestrike agrees softly as she pads over to sit beside him, tail curling delicately around her paws.

Basilpaw winces at the confirmation, and his eyes burn with building tears.

“...but, they are strong.” Sloestrike continues, bending over to better meet his eyes. “Don’t go telling others I’m complimenting our neighbors, but they beat us in strength. And you, and Maplepaw, and Thornpaw….you’re a mix of both. Fast and strong. You can’t excel at just one…you’ve gotta learn how to use all of your skills together.”

Sniffling back his tears, Basilpaw listens with a wide expression. He finds himself thinking back to his kithood impression of their heritage.

“How bad can it be? Being half-clan, I mean.”

He wasn’t wrong! There was nothing wrong with them…their differences could make them strong!

Sloestrike smiles as she sees the optimism return to his face and playfully ruffles his head with a paw. “There you go, kid. We’ll figure it out. You’re gonna great warrior.”

As they rise to their paws to return to camp, Sloestrike pauses again, an oddly serious look crossing her face. “...I did mean it when I said I wasn’t complimenting our neighbors, Basilpaw. They’re still the enemy. You’ll use their own damned strength against them.”

A careful warning to not look any further into the revelation other than the tactical advantage it gave PrairieClan.

He smiles, but can’t shake the feeling that there is a deeper message to be found.


In a whiplash of changes, his mother goes from a regular PrairieClan warrior to leader within a moon.

He is thrilled for her, but suddenly aware of more eyes upon him and his siblings. For the first time, he feels the weight of expectation upon his shoulders.

He knows Maplepaw has felt it since their kithood. To his brother, their heritage meant something to prove, but Basilpaw had never been bothered in such a way. With their mother paving the way as their new leader, though, Basilpaw contemplates the future.

What does he want out of life? If Sloestrike’s words are true, then his biggest success will be using his skills to take down their enemies alongside his brother and sister. It’s what all warriors should want.

Basilpaw isn’t sure he’s pleased with the idea.


Yarrowfrost plans to take a new apprentice. The news spreads like wildfire through the apprentice den and nursery, the youth of the Clan eager to try and guess the medicine cat’s pick.

Basilpaw hears his name come up more than once. “After all, you’re already named after a plant, soft-paws!” Redpaw crows from across the den. Maplepaw shuts the other apprentice up before Basilpaw has to.

He wouldn’t want it, he decides. It would be a way to escape the fate that seemed to be approaching him, to avoid the violence and bloodshed that he could see staining his paws, but Basilpaw finds that he doesn’t necessarily hate the strength that comes with warriorhood.

He can protect his loved ones with strength, after all. Perhaps he can find more ways to use it for good.

Thankfully, Yarrowfrost never approaches him to discuss the idea (something Basilpaw is more than relieved of, for he feared that he would accept immediately just to appease the stern she-cat). Instead, the new apprentice Shrikepaw is announced.

Basilpaw doesn’t miss the lingering stare that Maplepaw gives the pretty little she-cat after the ceremony.


“We’re almost warriors, mother. We want to ask to be named after you and father.”

Basilpaw and Maplepaw’s eyes are serious as they face their mother in her den. Littlestar’s eyes crinkle with amusement as she looks up at her sons.

(When did she have to start looking up, Basilpaw wonders distantly)

“Wanna keep the name in the family, do you? I don’t see your sister with you…she didn’t want to be Thornthorn, huh?”

Basilpaw flushes at the gentle teasing, but Maplepaw is insistent.

She turns down the request with motherly kindness. They are told that they are more than the past, that they are their own individuals and would be named as such.

Maplepaw is disappointed, but Basilpaw finds more fuel for the realization that has been just out of his reach for moons.


While he is never able to truly out-speed her, his spars with Sloestrike become more and more competitive and finally, instead of just receiving blows, they are able to exchange hits.

She teaches him to view the battle as a puzzle to solve instead of an obstacle to overcome, to anticipate instead of chase, to use fast and hard strikes instead of trying to match his opponents pace.

It all seems so simple now. She laughs at him when he admits this.

“Didn’t seem so simple when you were blubberin’ just a few moons ago, huh? You’ve done good, kid. I hope you won’t stop trying to keep up, though!”


He’s named Basilheart. It’s softer than Basilthorn, the name he had petitioned to his mother.

He likes it.


“Be careful, Maplefrost.”

Basilheart frowns as he intercepts his brother from a trip from the medicine cat’s den that had lingered a bit longer than it should have.

Maplefrost frowns in return. “I’m not sure what you mean, brother.”

“She’s in line to be a medicine cat. It’s not fair for either of you to tease at this.”

The tension is heavy between the brothers, both holding their own.

Basilheart, despite initiating it, is the first to relax. He lets out a long sigh, bumping his shoulder to Maplefrost’s. “I just don’t want to deal with you being heartbroken. Your obnoxious flirting with Redclaw is already hard enough to deal with.”

Maplefrost doesn’t move away, but Basilheart notices that his brother doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “...I won’t give you more trouble, Basil, I promise.”


The rain has only just begun when Thorngaze and Redthorn leave camp to show the tunnels to Thorngaze’s apprentice.

A lesson in how to navigate the underground network in stormy weather, he learns later.

The downpour is deafening when news reaches camp of the cave-in.


While Maplefrost and Littlestar retreat to their work to mourn, Basilheart finds it hard to leave his nest.

The grief is overwhelming, like a rock in his heart.

“It feels like the hurt will never go away.” He rasps to Shrikepaw, who had paid him a visit. A wellness check, the medicine cat apprentice had informed him when she had first entered with an understanding smile.

“Mm...it won’t really go away. It’ll make a home in your heart and sometimes you’ll remember how heavy it is, but you’ll grow strong enough to carry it.” The words are alarmingly wise from such a young cat.

“Friends can help share the weight.” She adds with another smile. He accepts her company over the next few days, the pair softly talking through the grief while his brother labors through it.

At night, the three of them sit and eat together, a warm feeling of companionship beginning to replace the pain.

When he next sees Maplefrost and her crouched together, heads closer than what would be expected of just friends, he looks the other way. Maybe things wouldn’t have to end in heartbreak.

Besides, if it kept Maplefrost from focusing on Redclaw, then how bad could it be?



Littlestar gives birth to two little kits just two moons after the tragic deaths of their sister and father. The new life, while a fresh reminder of what had been lost, were also a wonderful reminder of hope.

Basilheart is immediately enamored with them.

Spending time with them becomes a frequent part of his routine between his warrior duties. While small, the addition of their little paws helps keep the grief in his heart from becoming too heavy, and he finds himself laughing and smiling more than he had in several moons.

His favorite new hobby is to devise as many interesting and fun games for the girls to partake in, though their favorite always remains the games where they pull the too-serious Maplefrost into their fun.

The joy and love from his family is also a wonderful distraction from the building tensions between Clans. Battle sparring has taken on a new purpose, pushed by his mother to be prepared for war.

He knows he will fight as much as needed to defend his family and home, but constantly finds himself wondering at alternatives to instead seek peace.

Even though he is family, his voice carries little weight in the face of growing evil across the river.


The tension of the Clan breaks when war starts and they launch their counter-attack.

Despite his misgivings, Basilheart does not balk at the news. He licks each of his little sister’s heads, promises them they'll be home soon, and charges into battle alongside his brother and mother.

Sloestrike’s lessons suddenly become the difference between life-and-death, and despite his mentor’s skill in teaching, his inexperience makes him feel clumsy and slow in the face of real danger.

A swipe across his nose temporarily blinds him with his own blood in his eyes, and his panicked returned attack lacks the precision and strategy that Sloestrike had hammered into him. He attacks desperately, and when his eyes finally clear, he is faced with an incapacitated enemy and his white fur stained with blood.

Enemy. They would have been kin, in another life.

There had to be a better way.


He feels in a daze after the battle, convinced he can still see the red on his paws even after washing and grooming them dozens of times.

“You feel guilt.” Maplefrost says to him afterwards. It is not a question, but there is no accusation there either. A small kindness…perhaps his brother did notice the blind eye that Basilheart had turned to his budding relationship with Shrikeberry.

“I know I shouldn’t.” He mumbles in return. “Maybe some RidgeClan ancestor in StarClan is messing with my head, huh?”

The attempt of humor doesn’t lift the mood and Basilheart instead sighs, looking away. “It’s nothing, brother, really. Just…leftover shock from the battle. I’ll get my brain sorted out, don’t worry.”

Maplefrost frowns and seems like he wants to say more, but ultimately leaves it at that. They don’t bring it up again.


“What do you mean, you’re leaving?”

The little family gawks at Rosepaw as she stands apart from them. Had there always been such distance between them? Maybe Basilheart should have done more, worked harder to know her, but after the battle…

Logically, he knows he couldn’t have changed her mind. She always had the same stubbornness and fire of his brother, of their mother. But maybe, had he known her mind more…could he have made a difference? Perhaps, at the very least, he could have better prepared his heart to be broken again.

He doesn’t voice his racing thoughts. Maplefrost’s desperate anger beside him is enough, he thinks. Rosepaw doesn’t deserve more than that.

“Be careful.” He says softly to her as they make their goodbyes. She was taking a piece of all their hearts, after all. She had to stay safe. “We will always be here for you.”

The shrinking family watches her until she’s out of sight, as though all are hoping she the chance that she will change her mind and turn around to return to them.

She doesn’t.


Again, as grief takes ahold of him, Basilheart finds himself trapped in his nest by the heaviness of the feeling.

And again, Shrikeberry sits with him, providing the comforting presence of a dear friend.

“It feels like a failure on my part. I know Maplefrost feels it too.” He says softly several afternoons later as they watch the hustle of camp from the mouth of the warrior’s den. “I wanted to keep my family safe. It’s why I am a warrior, and now she’s out there and-”

He stops himself before he can verbalize his fears of the dangers his sister could experience, might have already experienced, out in the world beyond their borders.

“Look out there, Basilheart.” Shrikeberry says softly, motioning with her head to his Clanmates. “They need your protection, too. Some more than others right now.”

As he follows her pointed looks, his attentions fall upon the most recent additions to the Clan. Refugees from beyond their borders, fleeing the horror that their home in the mountains had forced upon them.

Despite being welcomed, they are regarded with an otherness by much of the Clan. What PrairieClanner would carry such a haunted look in their eyes, after all?

Basilheart stares, thoughts racing. Beside him, he feels Shrikeberry rise to her paws, the appearance of Maplefrost in the entrance of the camp the source of her own attentions.

He hardly notices her departure as she leaves with a brush of her tail against his shoulder.


It is as though Shrikeberry has ignited a flame that had been trying to start for moons. He finds himself filled with a new drive as he observes the struggle of the refugees, the continuing hate cast towards their neighbors, the apprehension cast out towards the loners on their border.

How different were all these cats from themselves? Sloestrike had told him he was still PrairieClan despite his mixed blood…could he not have been RidgeClan as easily? Were these new cats trying to take root among the prairie not a testament to how surface-level their differences were?

He would help them. Already he could hear whispers among the Clan of how overly generous their Clan was being, judgmental parties forming to oppose the acceptance of those who were not born among them.

Ah…it would not just be their new Clanmates he would be helping, he realizes. His Clan as a whole, to clear the judgment and prejudice from their eyes and help them see how similar they all really were, and that their combined differences would be what makes PrairieClan so wonderful. 

If only he knew where to begin.


It isn’t long after Shrikeberry’s gift to him that she passes away in Maplefrost’s embrace.

He mourns with his brother, comforting the larger cat as best he can even as the weight in his chest increases. “You must think me a fool.” Maplefrost says gruffly after the vigil. “You even warned me.”

“I don’t think you were a fool to love.” He replies softly, wishing he could weave the same comforting words that Shrikeberry had been so skilled with. It was no wonder his brother had loved her.

Maplefrost had avoided the the kind of heartbreak that Basilheart had anticipated, but it seemed some fates were unavoidable. “...I’m sorry, brother. I wish I had been wrong.”


In a whiplash of events, Rosepaw returns with a moon of grief and anger on her shoulders.

Shortly after, Maplefrost announces his intentions to step in as PrairieClan’s medicine cat.

He feels his brother slipping away onto a new path without him, and despite his sister’s return, he finds that he mourns the cat she once was.

Joy would always be accompanied by loss, it seemed.


The family works hard to adjust to their new normal. Basilheart supports his brother as best as he can during his transition, and the new light in Maplefrost’s eyes helps ease the different directions that their lives were taking.

Rosethorn’s changes are further accentuated by her fight with MistClan, her anger taking on a barbed point that she aims beyond their borders.

Just as before, he knows he cannot change her mind. He offers support and tries to help her smile again, just as when she was a kit, but there is a new toughness to her that is hard to break.

And through it all, he is faced with his overwhelming realization of his new drive. To help and protect his Clanmates, both the prairie-born and the not. To extend as much understanding beyond their borders as possible.

Many of his Clanmates seemed convinced that only more war would bring security. How could violence beget peace? His worries only grow as he sees his mother and his brother and his sister take alternative views, further dividing the fragile gaps within their family.

As he wonders where to begin, he notices Lionflower on the edge of the camp, paws digging through the earth around a wilting herb that had been transplanted. The new herbalist was inconveniently missing a third paw to support the plant as his other paws manipulated the ground around it.

Perhaps he didn’t need to decide any big actions just yet. While his family may not see eye-to-eye, if he could just make a small ripple of difference, that could be enough to grow into a wave of change.

“Here, borrow my paw.” He says as he hurries to the other tom's side, smiling brightly at him, “I’ll help.”

Pre-Plotting: Basilheart is from Rosethorn's wanted ad and is brother to Maplefrost & Rosethorn and son to Littlestar. He fills the role of Petal and views the newest additions to the Clan as a testament to PrairieClan's unique identity. Beyond the Clan, also hopes to encourage peace and understanding in regards to their neighbors, both Clanborn and not. Aligning closest to Sage, he belieces heir new strength should be used to make a difference, not to simply return to the turbulent way things have been before. 

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