Heyyyy you should tell me everything there is to know about Ospreyclaw ever pretty please <3
(No pressure if you don’t want to or something, I just absolutely love them. Their design and name are so so cool and I love ospreys and also the nonbinary rep makes me very happy ^^)
Ospreyclaw....... I initially made them as a one-off background character, since I knew that the leader and deputy would end up being killed off by the end of the disaster, and THEN. Then they started making themselves important to the story!!! Before I knew it, they were a mentor figure to both Larksong and Foxpaw, and they were the one in that scene in the climax where the kitten handoff happens!
I remember wanting it to be the deputy, specifically, that Lark and Fox were so close to; I feel like a lot of stories have the current/future leader being close to their preceding leader, so I wanted to try for something a little different. This way, Lark still has a lot of the experience that comes from being mentored by a cat in a leadership position, but it's not as simple as "you were trained by the previous leader, so you should be the new one". Ospreyclaw taught Lark how to keep cool under pressure, how to put her own feelings aside in order to address a crisis, and those lessons carried Larksong through the disaster's aftermath and the rebuilding of the clan. One thing they perhaps neglected to teach was how to set aside time to still experience those feelings. It's all well and good to be strong for everyone when they need you, but constantly putting your own emotions and needs on the back burner doesn't let you heal. To this day, Larkstar carries the emotional wounds from that time.
Ospreyclaw was never really the approachable type, not like Orchidstar was, but they were as steadfast as stone. They always put the needs of others before themselves, and followed the warriors' code of ethics strictly; not out of duty, or because they were the rules/the law, but because they truly believed in the code. Even if they'd been born a rogue or a loner, I think they would have still ended up following the warrior code without even having a name for it. They had an air about them, this sense of certainty, like they knew their exact place in the world and what was needed of them, and had fully embraced it.
No cat wants to die before their time, but for Ospreyclaw, giving up their life to save one of the clan's most vulnerable members, to give that tiny spark of life the chance to grow to a full flame... it was a good death. They are at peace with it.
