#ddd!emberdawn

[shadowsight]

okay so people have theorized that silverhawk's wife emberdawn double died and thats why shes not in starclan despite being implied once being there, any ideas for her in the ddd!au if she did double died?

this is a GEM thank you for bringing her up! I have a couple ideas but I had to refresh on the tiny bit we know about them first.

(also PHEW this got long! spoilers for a light in the mist, and a warning for family violence and faith crises. it’ll make sense I promise)

silverhawk is a dark forest cat who tried to depose his leader so that his son (the deputy) could lead, they were both killed in their uprising instead.

in firestar’s (very brief lol) pov in alitm, we learn that silverhawk’s mate emberdawn isn’t in starclan and hasn’t been for at least the time that firestar’s been there because he has no idea who she is. firestar also wonders “if the mysterious cat had anything to do with Silverhawk being [in the dark forest] now.”

sounds like she’s double dead! she might’ve faded or been killed in the starclan/dark forest battle in the last hope. if she’s from long ago enough to have faded from memory, it’s weird that silverhawk is still around. (unless silverhawk is fading like snowtuft but I don’t think he was)

I bet silverhawk left out details on emberdawn for a reason. there’s an option that seems like it wouldn’t be something that’d happen in canon but:

what if silverhawk killed emberdawn?

he was conspiring with their son, but the two of them could’ve been keeping their plan a secret from emberdawn. she may have sided with their leader, so silverhawk fought her off, killing her. possibly a blind rage thing, or maybe he was willing to kill his clanmates but didn’t realize until it was too late that he’d killed his mate. maybe he killed her in cold blood.

what’s more likely in canon is that she died in the attack on their leader, but he didn’t kill her. I think silverhawk is in the dark forest for conspiring against his leader, planning the attack, and getting his clanmates killed. none of the biggest bads of wc, not even the serial killers, have killed their own mates, so I doubt they’ll go there for a minor character who isn’t even an antagonist by the time we meet him.

I’m not sure if I want to go with that tone in the ddd!au or not. but I do think emberdawn should be in the duplex! especially since the au (and the series in general lol) could use more she-cat characters, and she could be a lot different from bristlefrost, frecklewish, and spottedleaf.

I’ll hold off on saying for sure that silverhawk killed her for the au’s sake, but I’ll say emberdawn died in the same battle as her mate and son, but on the opposite side of the battle.

also, as a reason for her being double-dead, what if she was so shaken by how low silverhawk and their son stooped to gain power, how her life could suddenly be so horrifying despite her commitment to the warrior code and her ancestors, that she lost faith in starclan - as a starclan cat?

starclan seems to rely on the belief of the living. the logic around how starclan works changes a lot throughout the books. but this is an au so I’m just going whatever’s the most compelling! and the idea of someone literally fading out of heaven because she can’t bring herself to believe in heaven anymore is super compelling to me. I’m imagining an “if there’s a higher power why do bad things happen”-type faith crisis.

she’d probably have some major trust issues once she gets to the duplex! I’ll have to come up with more of a personality for her than that, but she’s the type whose values are more important than anything, including her family if it comes down to it.

one last thing — you know how they say stars “wink out” when they disappear? I don’t know where to work that in but I think that’s fun.

that was a lot! I think she’ll be a really interesting character to throw in the mix.

welcome to the duplex, Emberdawn!

[shadowsight]

SHES NOT DOUBLE DEAD YET but mapleshade if u havent done her 👉👈

hi! I’m finally done with this ask since I had to think for awhile about what where I want to take mapleshade in the ddd!au and because work was busy, thanks for waiting!

I mostly wrote about her goals and relationships with other duplex cats, especially emberdawn. it’s a little long, so it’s under the cut and broken up with headers.

(also, if this gets seen outside my little bubble: this is about my au in which there’s an apartment complex (the “duplex) where the double-dead cats live together! info in my pinned.)

mapleshade may not yet be double dead yet, but I have a feeling she will be within an arc or two. (still reading River atm.) seems like she's filling the role of ruler of the dark forest now that tigerstar and ashfur are gone. I imagine she was kinda in that role was before, since she got crookedstar to train there when he was young. (maybe also tigerclaw but don't quote me on that.) she's the og dark forest mentor.

who is (my version of) mapleshade?

a lot of my understandings of the characters’ psyched are mostly inferred from text and/or headcanon that I’m using to build mapleshade and others out as au characters.

while I don't have a concrete timeline for the au, mapleshade arrives at the duplex when things are seemingly peaceful and shakes everything up. especially for frecklewish — mapleshade’s arrival threatens to upturn the quiet happiness she’s found with spottedleaf.

mapleshade died when she was at her worst. then, she spent years and years in the dark forest, a place that actively actively makes you worse the longer you spend there. I imagine she was a little self-important even before the events of her novella, and I see her as having to ground herself in her belief that she’s always in the right or else her world will start to crumble.

in a different way, frecklewish died at her lowest point as well. she was torn up by grief over the loss of her brother, and then a different, new grief as she lost the comfort of believing her brother lived on in the kits, then the kits themselves and her kinship with mapleshade, and finally the loss of her vision.

if it weren’t for their history, mapleshade and frecklewish could be the only ones to truly relate to each other’s experience. too bad they’re also each the last cat the other wants to talk to.

what’s she up to in the duplex?

the power struggles in the duplex are weird at first since no one knows quite what there is to fight over or what would happen if someone were to be killed a third time here. (quick note: I have an idea for this now! but the cats don’t know until it happens)

there are some cats who are trapped in their power-hungry ways even here, but it’s hard to be power hungry when territory and life are both so fluid here. there are turf wars in the halls, but what do those mean when the passageways morph and remake themselves, never quite the same each time you walk them?

so mapleshade starts out trying to carve out her own part of the duplex and recruit others to her side, but she doesn’t really have power or sway over the other cats here. quite a few of them are disillusioned former dark forest cats who fell under her leadership.

still, she does eventually convince a small band of cats to follow her. I think it’d be fun if she had an all she-cat group, and emberdawn aligns with her temporarily. but emberdawn has been there longer than anyone, and she doesn’t tell mapleshade everything she knows so that she always quietly has the upper hand over the cat who thinks she knows everything.

rise and fall

mapleshade plots to take over the apartment that bristlefrost, spottedleaf, and ashfur share when word of bristlefrost’s power to connect with the living world spreads through the duplex like wildfire. (I’m imagining it’s probably hawkfrost who accidentally lets it slip to tigerstar when he’s torn between helping bristle and his loyalty to his father.)

mapleshade and emberdawn bond over how they were betrayed by their mates. it starts off as a terse, business-only bond, but eventually they let their walls fall down. they have wine together on thursdays.

this isn’t so bad, mapleshade thinks. this is the company I deserve. soon, emberdawn and I will walk the earth again and rule it as we should.

that’s why when emberdawn backstabs mapleshade, it cuts deeper than any other betrayal (or perceived betrayal) before it. this is worse than losing appledusk, than losing her chance to seize the forest as a spirit, maybe even worse than that day the usually calm river swept her kits away.

this was supposed to be the beginning of her happy ending, and instead it was the worst betrayal of all.

[shadowsight]

ddd!emberdawn is like a pirate captain. hope you understand (bc I don’t fully understand but it’s just her vibe)

[shadowsight]

I’m still thinking about ddd!mapleshade and emberdawn... two girlbosses each out-girlbossing the other