What if Breezepelt was exiled after the Great Battle, but was accepted back into the Clan because he rescued and brought back missing kids Cherrykit and Molekit
Aka the unborn kits he would have killed had Jayfeather and Honeyfernās spirit not stopped him.
Maybe they snuck away in the night hoping for an adventure. Maybe a flood washes them away. Or maybe a lingering dark spirit lures them away because itās bitter it lost the battle.
Whatever the case, Breezepelt finds them.
He tells himself itās not his problem, that all Clan cats can rot, kit or no, yet he canāt bring himself to abandon them. He knows he has to take them back, even if heās attacked for stepping foot on Clan territory again.
Heās still snappy. Heās still bitter. Heās still full of resentment.
So when Molekit complains about being tired and asks for a break, he could just smack himā
He doesnāt. Heās not like him. Heās not like Crowfeather. At least he doesnāt want to be.
He doesnāt become Worldās #1 Caretaker, but he watches his words and keeps his tongue in check. He will tell them to stop complaining if they say the same thing over and over, but he wonāt refuse rest breaks (especially not with their little legs), wonāt refuse stopping to hunt, and a little ways into their travels, he even indulges a little in their need to stop just to look at something that caught their eye.
And the kits respond to it. They like this cat and so they tell him about themselves and about their parents, and thatās when Breezepelt realizes who they are.
I really like the idea of them being lured away by a Dark Forest spirit because imagine Breezepelt being fueled to kill a pregnant queen by a Dark Forest cat and then he protects the very kits he would have killed against one (maybe Darkstripe? One always a pawn, the other breaking free).
Thatās as far as I thought about it because someone said something about Breezeās redemption pretty much coming out of nowhere and him suddenly being fine now because heās a dad.
So consider: he is better now because of kitsā¦just not his own and in a different way, and his redemption is actually focused on
Donāt know if the timeline fits with the kitās ages but. Idc