I HAVE ASC#4 THUNDER! THUNDER SPOILER THREAD

And yeah, to Sunbeam, Cherryfall probably seems old even though she's apparently only like 6 at this point (so she's roughly the same age that Tigerstar I was when he got wrecked by Scourge, I just checked the wiki to make sure and saw that he left the life chat at 6.58 years of age).

Sunbeam thinking that Cherryfall is old kinda feels like me at 15 thinking people who were 40 are old. Coincidentally, I just checked the age equivalent of 6 cat years to human years and found out Cherryfall would indeed be like 41 lol.

I wonder how many kits Havenpelt will have. Her last litter was just two cats: Splashtail and Fognose. They should probably be born in leaf-bare.

okay these chapters are really good. Not a bad traveling chapter and nice to see Sunbeam settling in.

Nightheart has them back off from the unfamiliar cats until those cats get used to them and even rejects Frostpaw’s idea to hunt as they prey belongs to the group of cats. They see a small black she-cat killing a rat and carries it to the others, who seem to have forgotten about Nightheart and Frostpaw’s presence. They see a young marbled gray-and-brown tom playing, a long haired tabby washing his belly, a ginger queen close to kitting, a handsome white tom, two toms sharing tongues and a gray-and-white queen washing her two kits. The black cat drops her rat but none of the other cats look at her/it and she eats it alone. Frostpaw notices the white tom and ginger queen wearing faded collars and that the rest looked like loners while one or two had an appearance that made them look like former rogues.

Frostpaw goes to sleep while Nightheart takes the first watch and when she wakes up to take the second watch, there is something happening- a Twoleg arrives in a monster, gets out and brings a box of fish to the group of cats and begins dropping the fish to the ground. The cats all look very excited and treat the Twoleg like an old friend. Frostpaw desperately wants the fish but Nightheart tells them these cats would be more likely to listen if they didn’t steal their food.

The black cat is the only one who hasn’t moved a muscle, not even when the monster leaves and flashes its light at her. Nightheart confessed to Frostpaw about having and enjoying Twoleg food on his journey with Sunbeam, whom he and Frostpaw discuss. Frostpaw suggests to talk to the group of cats after they finish eating and the long haired tabby gets to his paws, curious. Frostpaw is lost for words and Nightheart tells him they are warriors from the lake and think they need to talk to the group, which puzzles the tabby. The black cat suspiciously asks them what they want from them and the tabby tells her, addressing her as Rook, to calm down and listen to what they have to say. The gray and brown tom asks where the lake is and what warriors are, telling them they are just park cats and no one ever wanted to talk to them before.

Frostpaw tells them they came to talk to them because Riverstar told them to. The gray and brown tom asks who’s Riverstar, but the long haired tabby stares at them, his eyes wide, telling Rook, “Did you hear that? They know about Riverstar”. Rook pads towards Frostpaw and asks how they know about Riverstar and asks if he is still alive. According to the stories she heard, he has special powers and died and came back to life in the battle he helped the park cats win. Frostpaw muses that Riverstar must have led them here because he himself had been to this place before. Nightheart tells Rook to back off and the young gray tom tells Rook she is scaring them. Rook goes, “But they know Riverstar! Where is he? Has he come with you?” Frostpaw isn’t sure how to break the news that Riverstar isn’t immortal and died long ago. The long haired tabby acknowledges they have something in common and introduces his group. The long haired tabby, who they realize is old and has an aging muzzle, is Scruff. The young gray tom is Bee. The brown and gray tom is Waffle, the ginger queen is Firefly and the white tom is Chalk. A scrawny ginger tom introduces himself as Marlow, a brown tom as Wasp, a sleek tortoiseshell as Molly, a gray and white queen as Lark and her kits, Weevil and Peg. Frostpaw tries to take in all their names but can’t stop thinking about them knowing about Riverstar. Rook impatiently cuts off the cats introducing themselves and asks how they know about Riverstar, but Frostpaw simply counters her by asking her the same question. Scruff answers, telling her Riverstar used to be a park cat in another park near here before Twolegs demolished it. Riverstar had to leave and traveled a long war downriver. While he was gone the cats whose home was destroyed had to live wild in the forest but then rogues came and terrorized them. One of them went downriver to find Riverstar and ask for help. Riverstar came back and chased the rogues away and told the park cats he was a leader now in something called the Clans and couldn’t be killed. The park cats thought he came back for good but he went home and the cats he left behind found a new park, bigger and safer than the old one and they are still here to this day.

When the park cats ask Frostpaw if it is true, she confirms Riverstar is real and was the first leader of RiverClan and that all leaders are given nine lives and that’s why he was revived in the battle. Waffle excitedly asks if they can become warriors too, but an amused Nightheart tells him that he’d have to catch all his own prey, to Waffle’s shock. Waffle is amazed when he learns Frostpaw is a medicine cat. When Rook asks if Riverstar is still alive, Frostpaw confirms his death and says he is a StarClan warrior now. She explains what StarClan is and tells them that medicine cats can communicate with StarClan and that’s how she was able to talk to Riverstar in visions. Bee asks if that is like meditation. Frostpaw asks what that is and Scruff tells her all park cats meditate as that’s how they learn and grow and uncover our deepest thoughts. Frostpaw gets excited when she learns meditating happened during Riverstar’s time and by how meditating helps one learn. She deduces that Riverstar had sent her here to learn meditating to learn what was needed to fix RiverClan. Waffle and Bee tell her they can start teaching her how right now as they plan to sleep tomorrow when the Twolegs arrive. They bring her to a river, where Bee says they usually mediate beside. Frostpaw’s heart leaps when she sees the river - she came all the way here only to find a piece of home. Nightheart goes with Frostpaw to learn meditation. When Nightheart asks if meditating takes long, Bee says it depends as Scruff says real meditation takes a lifetime.

Bee and Waffle instruct Frostpaw how to meditate by slowing her breathing and feeling it flow into her body and Frostpaw feels herself relax. They tell her to feel her thoughts flow with the river. No idea how long she had been sitting there, she opens her eyes into the dark chilly night and sees Riverstar. Riverstar confirms that she is here to learn to meditate but more importantly she must let Nightheart and the park cats support her - really support her - to trust them to take care of her when she can’t take care of herself.

Frostpaw wakes up the next morning and Nightheart who was watching over her asks how was the meditation. Frostpaw says she only scratched the surface and will need about half a moon to find what Riverstar wants. Frostpaw knows she must start to think about something that had been lurking at the back of her mind since she’d been attacked. Until now, she never dared face it. But with meditation she felt she could uncover a thought that could hurt her more deeply than anything ever had. She needed to think about the cat who tried to murder her.

It’s a quarter moon later. The weather is even colder now it’s shocking. Frostpaw has just finished her meditation and Bee brings her prey. Bee can see she is unsettled and tells her that feeling frustrated is perfectly normal after meditation. Bee tells her that meditation sometimes lets you relax you and see the deepest truths and sometimes it can feel like trying to find a pebble at the bottom of the river, getting closer and closer but unable to get to it and keep running out of air. Frostpaw is relieved as this is exactly how she feels. Bee suggests that perhaps she is trying too hard, much to her surprise. Bee kindly suggests that she may not be ready as if she isn’t ready for the truth, no amount of meditation can reveal it to her. Frostpaw feels her face getting hot. Bee tells her it’s not her, there isn’t anything wrong with her but that she just has to be easier on herself, as for the past quarter moon she hadn’t allowed herself to talk to the park cats or experience this new place and encourages her to take breaks now and then and to play, saying that in the park, cats of all ages play.

Frostpaw joins the park cats in playing “Find the Shell” which Nightheart is already busy playing with the park cats. Whoever has the shell gets chased by all the cats so Frostpaw askes what’s good about having the shell. Nightheart tosses her the shell and tells her to try it and find out. She runs away from the others and, not remembering how she ran when she played with her littermates as a kit, uses her warrior training under Harelight to escape. She is able to evade nearly everyone and is about to run up a tree when Wasp emerges from behind the tree, surprise causing her to drop the shell. Nightheart then pounces on her from behind. They continue the game when Waffle picks up the shell and Frostpaw notes how she felt more like herself than she had in a long time, being the Frostpaw she was before Mistystar’s death. She had been clever, quick, friendly and most importantly she had been able to feel safe and it felt good to remember that. And hopefully she would find this cat again to guide RiverClan into its future.

A quarter moon later, she comes out of meditation, her heart racing. She realizes she’s holding a thought she’d reached during her meditation, hooking it up like a fish from the bottom of the river. The thought is a frightening one. Bee asks if something happened and Frostpaw says she thinks she finally knows who it is. Frostpaw reveals to Bee that she had been searching for the cat who tried to kill her, telling him about the turmoil in RiverClan for context. She can see know that he is trying to take control of RiverClan and is prepared to kill any cat to do it, even her. The words are hard to say, as she loved him and she thought he loved her, but he was willing to murder her just to stop her giving him away. She tries telling Bee the identity of the murderer but she cant say it as she cant believe he could do something so awful. She manages to tell Bee, “It was Spla-…”, but her mouth goes dry as she didn’t want to say it and didn’t want to make it true outside her own thoughts but she knew she had to. She forces herself to speak, “It was Splashtail”. Saying his name out loud opened an ache in her heart that took her breath away.

She closes her eyes and sees the vision her meditation had uncovered. A vision she’d been running from, one she never wanted to see. Splashtail was prowling through the heather, tracking her across the moor as she hurried to find Whistlepaw, breaking into a silent run and gaining on her, unsheathing his claws and lunging from the bushes as she turned, slicing open her throat and watching her fall, satisfaction glittering in his eyes and he saw her lying in her own blood as it drained onto the earth. Bee asks if she had suspected him, Frostpaw replying that she thinks she had always known but didn’t dare admit it, even to herself. Bee tells her she is brace and Frostpaw tells him it’s all thanks to him and the other park cats and Nightheart, the latter whom she feels a rush of affection for. She remembers how Molly had a great sense of humor and could get Frostpaw’s minds off her troubles, Waffle for introducing her to Lark’s kits, Peg and Weevil, who had an endless appetite for stories of the Clans, particularly RiverClan. Being around cats who cared about her made it easier for Frostpaw to face the truth. Bee asks if she will now leave, she responds by saying she should, but first there is still something she needs to find out - how to choose RiverClan’s next leader, as she still isn’t sure which cat would be right. She waits for Nightheart to complain, to see disappointment in his gaze. She glimpses a flash of it but he blinks it away. He tells her that is she is to choose a leader, she needs to know what qualities to look for, and to do that, spend more time with cats she trusts.

Park cats! Finally! Great to meet Waffle at last, too. And yeah, there it is. God, poor Frostpaw!

Well there it is, Splashtail is the one who attacked Frostpaw. Not very surprising, but poor Frostpaw's world is crumbling around her. A cat she loved and considered a friend betrayed her and tried to kill her. Girl needs a hug.

I'm gonna be honest I could care less about the Park cats, but Waffle is cool. So I guess the Park cats are going to help her make a decision on who's to be RiverClan's next leader?

I feel so bad for Frostpaw😭 she finally realized that it was Splashtail...

Waffle! He's a gray-and-brown tom. I wonder who the second cat who goes back to the Clan with them is. I'm betting on either Rook (a black she-cat) or Bee (a gray tom). I love how these cats grew up on legends of Riverstar. Two quarter moons pass, meaning it is for sure leaf-bare now. And Frostpaw finally realizes that Splashtail was the cat who attacked her. Her little bit about being in denial, yet always knowing it was true, is very sad. Poor girl. :c

The answer is clearly Wafflestar, I mean c'mon!

(I still want it so bad to be Frostpaw.)

Imagine Nightheart gets chosen to be the new RiverClan leader.

I am not sure he would even accept that. Much less RC. But I would find it hilarious if it is a cat who doesn't even live in RC.