#pigeonfang

[residences-of-the-darkforest]

Base by Constellairis!

Buzzardblaze and Pheasentdust’s son, grandson to Grousemane, and great-grandson to Pigeonfang!

@starfalcon555

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Graceful Pigeon

@starfalcon555​

Base: https://www.deviantart.com/slushikitti/art/F2U-cat-base-750125496

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Meet in The Webs (short story)

Grousemane shook out his long fur, grumbling with annoyance at the dirt that clung to it, and wondered when he would become too used to the itch to care. 

He was well away from the Thorns now, or the Eye-Out Thorns, as most were calling them, which wasn’t too surprising considering their long, pointed size and how many times Grousemane nearly poked an eye on them. They would have to make an open space somewhere in the middle if they were to live there longer.

Grousemane paused. Would he continue living with them? Surely they would want their privacy. Was he only a guest?

He kept walking, exploring the strange and quite creepy woods. He slowed when he entered a forest of cobwebs, trees so wrapped he had initially mistaken them as white birches. He looked around in interest, and began to purr at the soft padding beneath his paws when the layers on the grass piled high. 

One particular web caught his eye. It was huge, touching the ground and reaching just above Grousemane’s ear tufts. Twisted tree branches encircled it like the barriers on Twoleg clear-ice, a possible reason for why Grousemane thought that if he tried to look between the strings, it would be like seeing into another world. 

He approached it, admiring the way the webs held strongly together, and nearly fell back on his paws when a pair of bright blue eyes met his. 

He heard a yowl of surprise and thump from the other side of the tree. He stood high as he padded around it, and stared down at the long-furred spotted tom below him.

The tom’s eyes were wide, pupils mere slits. His mouth was gaping open, but he didn’t seem to be breathing. Did he even know he was still on the ground?

“Uh, hello,” Grousemane greeted. “Need help getting up?”

The tom’s mouth shut with a snap. He rose to his paws, but instead of speaking, he only stared more. 

“Er..Okay. I’ll be going now..”

“Wait!” The tom yelped suddenly.

Grousemane raised an alarmed brow. Shrugging inwardly, he sat down and nodded for the tom to say whatever it is he so dearly wished to say.

“Are you…Grouse?”

Grousemane pricked his ears. How did he know? “I’m Grousemane now.”

“So you became a warrior.” There was a small smile that faded quickly. “If only I had been there to witness.”

“Who are you exactly?”

The tom tilted his head. “Can’t you see it? Our eyes, our coats, our patterns. My name is Pigeonfang. I believe you’re my son.”

Now it was Grousemane’s turn to stare, 

stare, 

stare,

and stare some more.

“Are you going to say something?” Pigeonfang finally asked. 

“My father was a warrior?” Grousemane asked. The life of a loner was the only one he had known growing up. The only reason he could be a warrior at all was because Alderstar and Myrtlewing had found him and advocated his entry. Now he was being told that his own father had been a warrior this entire time?

“I left with your mother before you were born,” Pigeonfang explained. There was a hint of sadness in his words. “....It’s why I’m here.”

Grousemane’s head tilted. “Because you abandoned your Clan?”

For a split-second, Pigeonfang’s eyes went tenebrously dark. Then he chuckled tensely. “Something like that!”

Grousemane pulled back suspiciously. “Prove it. What’s my mother’s name?”

“Katniss,” Pigeonfang responded instantly. “She was a kittypet when she met me. I wouldn’t be welcomed in her world, and she wouldn’t be welcomed in mind, so we left both of our homes to be together in a new one. We had such high hopes for the future,” Pigeonfang mumbled.

“But I was a loner,” Grousemane pointed out. “And I became a warrior.”

“That you did.” Pigeonfang smiled sadly. “Maybe things could have been different, if I wasn’t too scared to try.”

Grousemane wasn’t sure what that meant, but he already had so much to wrap his head around, so he decided to save that question for another day.

“Maybe I could have been there to raise you, and you would’ve ended up with your mother, not here, with me.”

Wait–did he think?--Of course he thought–

“Oh! No, I was sent to Starclan. I came here voluntarily.”

Pigeonfang let out a breath of relief, then furrowed his brows in confusion when Grousemane’s words sank in. “Why would you do that? You know what this place is?”

“I do,” Grousemane told him. He studied a blade of grass poking out from the ground of webs. “I thought that my friends were sent here by mistake, and I went to rescue them, and…”

“It was no mistake?”

“It wasn’t.” Grousemane straightened himself. “Neither was going after them.”

Pigeonfang smiled softly. “Good friends, are they?”

“Yeah,” Grousemane replied. Friends, that’s all they’ll ever be.

Pigeonfang’s gaze appeared knowing, and Grousemane wondered how obvious his thoughts were. His soft smile became a full grin, which then became a joyful laugh. “My son! My son is here!” He announced to the Dark Forest. “Come, come! We have a lot of catching up to do!”

The tension melted instantaneously. Grousemane grinned as well as he followed his father through the shadows. “One more question,” he stated, “do you prefer ‘pops’ or ‘dad’?”

============

--Sort of related to the Poly stories, since this takes place during / right after Hoot meeting Alder in the Dark Forest, but could also stand alone.

--Grouse gets some advice from his papa soon!

@starfalcon555

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Dark Forest Resident: Pigeonfang 

Aliases / Nicknames: Pidge, Darling, Daddy, Papa 

Gender: tom 

Sexuality: polysexual, pan-demiromantic 

Family: Mousestar (mother), Eelfoot (father), Katniss (mate), Swankit, Magpiekit (daughters), Grousemane, Egretkit, Starlingkit, Buzzardkit (sons) 

Other Relations: Frogstreak (mentor) 

Clan: RiverClan (formerly)

Rank: warrior, loner 

Characteristics: lovable, loyal, goofy, caring, a devoted family man 

Number of Victims: 5 (accidently)

Number of Murders: 5 (accidently)

Murder Method: crushing, suffocation 

Known Victims: Egretkit, Swankit, Magpiekit, Starlingkit, Buzzardkit 

Victim Profile: his kits 

Cause of Death: starvation

Cautionary Tale: N/A

Story: 

Anyone who knew Pigeonfang would tell you that he was a lover, not a fighter.

Even as a kit and an apprentice, he was more preoccupied with finding "the one" than becoming the best warrior ever. Other cats whispered that it was the result of his parents' influence--as the only kit of the leader and medicine cat of Riverclan, they were bound to place bad ideas in his head. But Pigeonfang didn't care--that's just how he was.

It wasn't a surprise to anyone when Pigeonfang fell in love with a loner named Katniss, who had taken refuge in Riverclan to heal after losing her tail to a monster, and left the Clan to live as a loner with her. 

He missed his parents, but he was much happier as a loner, wandering freely with the love of his life at his side. Not much time had passed before Katniss became pregnant, and soon she had given birth to six wonderful kits, who Pigeonfang adored with every fiber of his being. 

He gave them Clan names. Grousekit, Magpiekit, Buzzardkit, Starlingkit, Egretkit, and Swankit, so they would always have a piece of their Clan heritage with them.

The next few moons of Pigeonfang's life were the happiest he had ever been. But then Leaf-bare came around, and the blizzard hit. Snow blanketed the ground as far as the eye could see, and the chill seeped into the stone of their cave home. But he had to at least try and hunt. Otherwise his precious kits would starve!

The hunt was long and arduous, but Pigeonfang was eventually able to catch a squirrel, which would at least be enough to feed the kits. By the time he had gotten back to the den, night had long since fallen, his bones were aching, and he was just so tired. 

He set the squirrel down and immediately flopped down to sleep. 

He could have sworn he heard a crunching noise, but he was so tired, he decided not to deal with it until the morning. That was exactly what happened when, come sunrise. a shriek of horror echoed in his ears, and he looked up to see Katniss staring at him in horror and Grousekit hiding behind his mother's legs, staring in confusion.

Pigeonfang mumbled sleepily, asking Katniss what the big deal was. But as his body shifted, he heard a strange noise. Like crunching leaves, but not quite. He stood up and looked down, and his world immediately shattered. 

The bodies of the rest of his kits were lying in a crumpled pile, fur matted with blood. Immediately the dots connected. Pigeonfang tried to tell Katniss that it was an accident, but she wouldn't believe him, and honestly, Pigeonfang knew in his heart that she was right. 

With one last hiss to stay away from Grousekit, she grabbed Pigeonfang's last precious kit by the scruff of his neck and whirled away into the snow. Pigeonfang chased after them, crying out for Katniss to stop, but he lost sight of them almost immediately.

That didn't stop him from trying to find Grousekit again, though. He kept on searching, and searching, and searching, but he never could. The older he got, the more determined he became, neglected to groom himself or even eat. He became skinnier and skinnier, but still he persisted.

Finally, many moons later, the scent he had been searching for for so long finally reached him. But it was intermingled with other scents too. Pigeonfang tried to leap at the rogues, but his muscles, weak from a lack of nutrients, buckled beneath him. 

All he could do was stare in horror as he watched the rogues leap at his last surviving kit's throat, and the death would be all his fault again... 

But then two more cats leaped out, Shadowcan cats, one reddish-brown and one golden, and they drove back the rogues without effort.

Pigeonfang watched as Grouse talked to the ShadowClan cats--Myrtlewing and Aldereyes--and listened to Grouse agree to join Shadowclan. As he watched the trio walk away, he let his body go limp and smiled. His son would be with the Clans now, safe and sound. As long as his son was safe, he could die happily. 

And die happily he did.

Additional Information:

--Submission by @starfalcon555​

--Yes, Grousemane's siblings all having bird prefixes was intentional! The whole family has a bird theme, with Katniss being named after Katniss Everdeen, who has her own bird symbolism :3.

--Grousemane wasn't with his siblings that fateful night because he had a nightmare and went to his mom for comfort. Had he not had that nightmare or woken up a few minutes later, he would be dead.

--The kits were probably all around two moons old when they died and Katniss and Grouse left Pigeonfang, so Grousemane probably forgot about Pigeonfang over time.

--Had the rest of the kits survived, [Star] thinks they all would have become Clan cats, with Buzzardkit and Starlingkit joining Grousemane in ShadowClan, Magpiekit going to either ThunderClan or SkyClan, and Egretkit and Swankit reuniting their grandparents in RiverClan. Their warrior names would have been Buzzardblaze, Starlingstrike, Magpieshade, Egretfeather, and Swanstream :3

--This makes the upcoming scene of Grouse meeting them in Myrtle and Alder more interesting..

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Pigeonfang is a very dark gray, almost black tom with light gray tabby spots and deep blue eyes

essentially a reversal of Grouse's colors for his main pelt color and spot color, same eyes, they look almost identical otherwise

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Images taken moments before disaster

@starfalcon555

Egret is the runt, their poor health a possible reason Katniss was out hunting and Pigeon was so tired.

---

Base: f2u 100 cat bases by supurrnovae on DeviantArt

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

@starfalcon555 when Pigeonfang visits the kits, he stands the whole time

he doesn't like explaining why

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Pigeonfang lives by the thinnest trees, as they are easier to carve a hole through.

His home is circled by hundreds of trees, each with dozens of holes, carved from one side completely to the other.

His has become the loudest terrain, wind blowing through in unending whistles.

For some it may be irritating,

even frightening.

But Pigeonfang is not afraid of the sound.

Because as a parent, he has learned that the worst thing to hear

is utter silence.

--

@starfalcon555