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PanicFoxTidal — Labour (no text ver.)

Published: 2023-04-07 05:23:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 470; Favourites: 7; Downloads: 0
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Description And, after over a year, I finally have some finished digital art! Woah! Also first time submitting something from a computer, weird change

I'll warn ahead of time, the story is pretty long haha. Left a TLDR at the end of it, I'll try and make a habit of adding one whenever I do post.
 
I'll get to the interesting part, though, and introduce these two kitties! The "purple" cat (who is technically black, but I wanted to give her fun colors, at least for now) is named Pantherstrike, a senior warrior of WindClan, and the brownish cat who we can only see the snout of is Willowstar, WindClan's current leader and her mate. They have one kit, a warrior named Creekfall, who Panther had when Willowthorn wasn't ready for kits.
This not only led to him being handed the position of deputy (which Panther had been aiming for her entire life) but him being very much not present in poor Creek's life, even becoming distant towards his mate.
Eventually, the leader, Stormstar, passed due to illness, during a very bad Winter, while Creek was an apprentice. Having a good immune system, Panther had taken it upon herself to help Foxtrail with all the sick cats, since he had lost his apprentice. Despite being ideal for the position, Willowstar decided not to make her deputy, saying it was so no favoritism is shown- much to the dismay of Panther's friends and family, who were all very aware of her dreams. Still, Panther tried to be understanding, and congratulated the new deputy, a young warrior named Rabbitfoot. 
Willowstar, at this point, does start talking to Pantherstrike more, but is still very dismissive towards their son. Eventually it becomes obvious that the increase in conversations is not out of love, but for advice. She sets up more patrols and chooses more mentors than Willow and Rabbit combined, and is... not very happy about it.
Creekfall becomes a warrior, not much changes. He does prove himself to be a very strong warrior, reminding many- Pantherstrike included- of his father. Even Willowstar seems to recognize him, now, although he treats him like any other warrior for the most part.
As time passes, tensions between RiverClan and WindClan grow, and ThunderClan is clearly taking RiverClan's side. ShadowClan's leader, Fieldstar, seems to imply that she's willing to help WindClan, although doesn't confirm anything to avoid causing a fight. SkyClan seems to be content with staying out of it entirely, so no help there. During all of these increased border scuffles and smaller fights, Creekfall finally manages to get himself noticed properly by Willowstar, although long after he had accepted not having a proper father figure. He essentially treats him as a "premium warrior," almost always assigning him to lead patrols, sending him out for most fights, ect. Panther is usually also included in these, but finds herself declining as she slowly begins to notice that Creek's fighting tactics are almost cruel. On one occasion, pinning down an apprentice and threatening his life until the patrol leader, his mentor, called off the attack, and on another going for a clearly injured cat until she collapsed, making her clanmates carry her home. She wants to understand it, Willowstar wasn't much different even in his apprenticeship and it's not like she's never taken advantage of weak spots, herself... but she just can't help but feel scared that he'll take it too far, eventually. He's come close plenty of times.
Eventually it becomes very clear a war is going to break out between Wind and River, if no-one can manage to keep Branchstar and Willowstar from riling each other up. Creekfall is now the unofficial deputy, taking his mother's place, Willowstar has seemingly just learned what being a father is, and it's obvious Rabbitfoot is thinking of stepping down from his position.
Pantherstrike has a dream, one night- she's just fallen into a river, and stars start to surround her. She can't tell if they're appearing out of nowhere or falling in after her, but they almost seem to guide her deeper down. She can feel the wind moving the water overhead, jostling her, but still, she manages to sink. And just as a paw seems to reach out of the depths, open wide and ready to help her further... she wakes up. It's time for a border patrol. Eager to distract herself from the eerie dream, she goes along, even though Creekfall is leading it.
Nothing eventful happens. They see a RiverClan patrol, and that apprentice from before, but they stay on their side of the border, his mentor only glaring at WindClan's patrol. She remembers hearing his name at a gathering, Gnatpaw. He seemed confident last time she saw him, but now he cowers away without even seeing Creekfall. She feels guilty at the sight of him.
Night falls, and she makes her decision. She leaves. She runs as fast and as far as she can, then waits near the RiverClan border, not wanting to be caught in a useless fight. But of course, someone noticed. Willowstar, confused about her leaving, since she's always slept early, follows his mate. 
She hears him coming, and is furious. She can finally speak to him alone, and she won't ignore this chance at all. She whips around and makes herself very clear. She wants nothing to do with him, and should he try to stop her, she won't hesitate to fight him. He approaches her, but she follows through and scratches him over the eye- something you can imagine has emotional significance to her, by her own scar. He's stunned at first, then irritated. He tries to convince her, sure that she's just annoyed and not thinking straight. She interrupts him and starts listing off everything he did, and what he failed to do. He's just now recognizing how terrible he's been, as a mate and a father, and this only makes her even more mad. How could he not have realized what he was doing?
He brushes it off, though. He says he'll fix it, she just needs to come back. And she responds, saying the only thing that could get her to return would be his death.
It continues on, they're both getting nowhere. He says something especially stupid, tries to use guilt to get her back. Her father would be so disappointed, her siblings would be so sad. He even has the nerve to act like he knows Creekfall, saying "what would he do with himself after learning his own mother left him behind for RiverClan?"
And she snaps.
She attacks him, and now she isn't thinking straight. She's just so angry. How dare he pretend to know what Creekfall would do? It's not like he raised him, or acknowledged his hunting and fighting while he was an apprentice or even a warrior. Even just a moon earlier, Creek had lashed out because of him doing the same thing- acting like a father when he was really just his leader.
When she opens her eyes again, she's staring at the sky, panting. Her jaws are cold.
She washes herself off, and takes in what she did. She wants to feel guilty, but she figures it's more merciful than anything Branchstar or his warriors would've done, at this point. She goes to drag him back, to act like a fox or something attacked them, so as to not cause more fighting with RiverClan, but a cat steps from the tall grass. And another follows behind.
It's Creekfall, and Pantherstrike's friend since childhood, Moonstripe.
Creekfall reveals that he was there for a while, he followed Willowstar and saw Pantherstrike leaving. He isn't mad, and he even seems to look down at Willowthorn in disgust. Moonstripe is shocked, but has seen Willowthorn's behavior- even tried to get him to see what he was doing wrong, once- and she isn't all that surprised Pantherstrike decided she was done.
So, they help her get him back to camp. They help her pretend a stray dog found it's way over to them and that they got there in time to save Panther, but it was just too late for Willow.
Rabbitfoot doesn't step down, much to the surprise of many cats, and is named Rabbitstar. He originally goes to name Creekfall his deputy, but he declines, instead saying Panther would be better fit for the position. She's older, much more experienced, and even did work in place of Willow and Rabbit, plenty of times. He agrees, and so Pantherstrike is named his deputy.
With a much less aggressive leader, now with more confidence, and a very levelheaded deputy, the conflict with RiverClan is smoothed over. Luckily for them, Branchstar had also been caught up in a fight- ironically enough with an actual dog- and lost his last life to it, making his deputy the new leader, named Currentstar. Current is much more friendly, and, especially not wanting a fight with Fieldstar and ShadowClan, easily agrees to put the conflict behind them.
And.. all is well. Life is peaceful again, at least mostly.


TLDR: Pantherstrike and Willowthorn are mates, Panther got pregnant when Willow wasn't ready for kits, but it gave him the position of deputy because of dumb luck. He's a terrible dad and becomes a terrible mate, too, basically using her skills and experience despite her not being his deputy. He's also causing fights w/ RiverClan because he hates Branchstar. Their son Creekfall becomes downright cruel in fights, this scares Panther. She gets a strange dream, sees an apprentice Creek traumatized, decides she's moving to RiverClan. Willow sees her leave and follows her because it's unusual for her to leave late at night. They fight, she snaps, suddenly she's washing herself off in a creek. She goes back to bring his body back to camp, Creekfall and Panther's friend Moonstripe reveal themselves. They understand her anger, though, and help her in covering it up.
Willowstar's deputy, Rabbitfoot, becomes Rabbitstar. Creekfall makes sure his mother gets her rightful position as deputy, and Branchstar is revealed to have been cornered by a stray dog, making Currentstar RiverClan's new leader. Rabbit and Current are both eager to stop the fighting between their clans, and everything sort of goes back to normal, if not a little better.


This takes place in the same storyline as Nightbreeze and Hailgrin's story, as well as Burrpaw, Burnpaw, and, clearly, Fieldstar and Currentstar, although some retcons are present because my memory is terrible and the story needed plenty of fixing, anyways.

As implied by the title of this work, this art was inspired by Labour by Paris Paloma, as were certain small details in the story itself. Pantherstrike was very loosely inspired by Leopardfoot, namely her prefix, her being a tabby, and some of the colors used in her design. I planned out the storyline first and then felt like, since it reminded me a bit of Pinestar and Leopardfoot, I'd just reference her. Also Panther sounded like a cool prefix
(There will be another version, intended to look like a thumbnail for a video- which I may even use for that purpose, with some tweaking- which will have text on top of it. Originally I planned to not post it, but I spent a lot of time trying to make the text look good with the rest of the art, at least in my own eyes, so I feel like I have to now. I'll just copy&paste the description of this onto that version.)
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