alright your duplex au just tapes up my broken heart like? snowtuft's random second death after the erins led us on destroyed me. i crave the closure and this gives me the closure. SO uh i had an idea, ddd!tadpole? i want hawkfrost to meet his not-quite-older-anymore brother and just. you know. break down sobbing
this was so nice to see out of the blue, thank you!!! 💛 it really warms my heart to hear that you’re feeling closure from this au. ddd!snowtuft in particular has grown to mean a lot to me. it’s encouraging to hear that this little cat au is doing something good for people reading it because it sure is doing me a lot of good to write it.
and now for your proposed ddd!tadpole! this is a really, really good idea. tadpole (like hopekit and wishkit) has room to kind of be whoever. I also want to put ddd!hawkfrost through the wringer emotionally and this is just *chef’s kiss*
confession: I don’t think I read sasha’s graphic novel, and if I did it was back in elementary school. but I did watch a lil recap on tadpole and there was something that I think is really fun for the au:
tadpole was never told who his father was, while hawkfrost wound up being molded into tiger star’s right hand man (cat?) and defined by his loyalty to their father.
(more on ddd!tadpole below the cut!)
once sasha isn’t around anymore, I imagine the only one keeping tadpole’s memory alive is mothwing. so eventually, mothwing dies and joins starclan (or doesn’t, not as punishment for not believing in them before but because she rightfully doesn’t trust them). that means that mothwing enters the afterlife and tadpole enters the after-afterlife at the same time. (big day for hawkfrost! also I love how mothwing who spends a lot of her life not believing in ghosts has two ghost/spirit brothers. I like reading her as not believing in ghosts because believing that one of her brothers is essentially undead and evil is emotionally harder than believing that her brothers are just gone.) I think I’m going to go with the idea that living cats remembering you keeps your spirit from beginning to fade, I know the books are inconsistent about it though.
~
so tadpole arrives in the duplex and he doesn’t know why. even though he’s been around for a long time, he’s a forever kitten. he’s lost, scared, and alone.
hawkfrost does rounds around the duplex, recruiting new arrivals for tigerstar. he pulls up ready to intimidate and possibly recruit the newcomer, but when he sees that it’s tadpole he stops in his tracks.
he feels an uneasy tightness in his chest. he hears himself call out to his brother, hears a name that hasn’t left his lips in seasons and seasons.
“Tadpole? Is that really you?”
“Yup, I’m Tadpole, nice to meet you! What’s your name?”
and for the first time in his (after)life, hawkfrost doesn’t know what to say.
he finds tadpole on a solo patrol around the duplex without tigerstar, and he’s relieved. his brother doesn’t recognize him and he’s relieved?
he’s confused. shouldn’t he want tadpole to finally know about their father? tigerstar is always the answer after all; following him is just what hawkfrost does. that’s how he knows how to be, and anything else isn’t imaginable to him. he’s never been led astray by tigerstar, except for... all the times he has been.
(have you ever known something before you even acknowledge to yourself that you know it? that’s what hawkfrost does. he knows deep down why he isn’t giving this kit over to tigerstar, but he won’t admit it even to himself.)
~
hawkfrost hides tadpole away for as long as he can. he wants to give him the kithood he deserves. he feels guilty for getting out of the flooding house before him — wait, is that guilt? hawkfrost hasn’t felt guilt since he was a young, living cat in the old forest.
when hawkfrost and tadpole talk, it’s weird like you said since now they’re both simultaneously the big brother. hawkfrost looks after him, but he’ll always be tadpole’s little brother at the same time.
he’s taking care of this little kit, but he’s also still playing sidekick to him. going along when he wants to play pretend, yes-and-ing his goofy ideas. he owes it to him.
~
it’s when tadpole is at his happiest and boldest that hawkfrost feels the sharpest stabs of guilt in his heart. he’s just a kit. tadpole was only just a kit like he is now, and he died because of him.
tadpole was only a kit when he drowned, and for that hawkfrost feels a scorching regret that he hasn’t felt about anything else since then. he thought he’d buried it, buried the way they never got the chance to bury his brother.
but then again, he was also only a kit back then. he wouldn’t blame tadpole if it’d been the other way around, would he?
hawkfrost asks tadpole that one day. he knows he’s asking too much of this kit, his big-little brother. but he needs to know.
tadpole is taken aback, his eyes wide. hawkfrost braces himself for his anger, but tadpole just buries his face in his brother’s fur as he gives him the biggest hug a little kit like him can give. he doesn’t say anything.
that’s all he needed to say.
~
this all happens just before hawkfrost starts helping bristlefrost and her friends without admitting it. tadpole’s arrival in the duplex changes him. here’s the big brother who’s missed out on the whole rest of hawkfrost’s life, and what does he have to show for it? what is he supposed to tell tadpole about how he lived his life? I think that’s the push that gets hawkfrost to introspect.
hawkfrost also gives them the upper hand when tigerstar ultimately comes to try to take bristlefrost’s radio — he betrays the og traitor. and tadpole helps!
~
this is disorganized bc I keep adding stuff and going down rabbit holes but this was really fun! tadpole has a place in the au - a really important place actually! he actually gives hawkfrost a good push for the change of allegiances that I’ve teased at for him. thank you so much for the ask!
