Any thoughts on Nettlepaw? The apprentice who helps Mapleshade out and tells her Frecklewish saw/knew her kits drowned? He's a complete nothing later but he sits in my head as the one clan cat willing to show compassion to a mother who just lost her children, and I wonder how he felt when she went on to murder his clan mates. Because the obvious way, he feels bad and hates her. But I could also see the opposite, where he sees it a hypocritical of Oakstar to cry for murder after his son's drowning, then be horrified his daughter was injured/killed by a mother whose children died because of him. Idk, I like that he's one of only two people to reach out to help Mapleshade and I think he deserves some more attention
I have a really strong headcanon that Nettlepaw is actually the brother of Flowerpaw, the apprentice who died trying to save Birchface from the river. I really like the idea that the simple reason he helped Mapleshade in that moment was because he was so very tired of hearing about innocent people dying.
So... who cares if Ravenwing is going to be upset I lost some herbs, or my mentor might make me pick ticks off the elders? I can't do this anymore. Please, let there just be a small moment of kindness. Even if it doesn't last.
In BB, Nettlepaw is the son of Beetail, the deputy. He also happens to be the half-brother of Birchface and Frecklewish.
Beetail's first mate was Shinecloud, who is the sister of BB!Oakstar. She fell from a tree, and Oakstar helped raise his nespring with Beetail in her absence.
Eventually, Beetail fell in love with Dawnfeather, and Flower and Nettle came along. The two were close with their older half-siblings, it was a happy blended family.
So when Flowerpaw and Birchface died in the same night, it was a devastating blow. Nettlepaw took it better than Frecklewish did, though.
He's got Dawnfeather, alive and well at the moment. Frecklewish lost her brother, the one who remembered their mother.
So Nettlepaw doesn't really know how to help, even though he wants to. Superficially it looks like the same kind of grief, but it's very different underneath.
When Mapleshade's kittens came around, everything looked so much brighter. It was like Frecklewish was her old self again.
I don't see Nettlebreeze as being a very abstract thinker. He's not particularly poetic or eloquent, he's very straightforward and honest in how he assesses the world. The code is the code... but it's very sad that Mapleshade is all alone and the children are dead. It's not right.
Something feels wrong that the kittens lived thinking he was their half-uncle, and died thinking he hated them now. That the answer to so much death was even more death. And, sadly, it's not about to get any better.
Sad character, basically. He yearns for kindness in a cruel world, just before a rampage that will take his last sibling from him, and with the Crusades looming on the horizon.