This was a monthly piece for my Patreon made in April 2025, which I guess I just forgot to ever post over here. Prompt for it was 'Slugpelt and Rainhaze swap AU': here is what I wrote about it.
"I took 'swap' to mean a swap in circumstances, not in personality, so these are all the exact same characters as in canon, just in different situations. Here's how it would go down:
The moment of divergence is that Ranger and Hacksaw find Slugpelt, instead of Rainhaze. She doesn't trust them at all, but she does accept them bringing prey, especially as she can't hunt while nursing. When the time comes to pay up, Slugpelt has no love for BarrenClan and almost just leaves. But out of protection for her brother, she decides to kill Dustfeather. However, she just takes her mother out, kills her, and leaves her for Ranger and Hacksaw to find, disappearing with her two children.
Ranger is surprised but possessive, and tracks down Slugpelt to forcefully drag her into Defiance. She grows to resent him because of this, and as she's already more cynical and distrusting than Rainhaze is, Ranger's attempts at manipulation don't really work on her. She raises her children for awhile, although you can see that Pine was separated from her much earlier, around 3 months old. Ranger does this, noting his unique traits and bringing him to Deepdark, which causes even more bad blood between them. When Daffodil and Asphodel are about 6 months she challenges Ranger to a trial by combat, and ends up murdering him. Though Hacksaw claws her eye out in grief, Ranger's defeat means Slugpelt is able to be renamed and given a measure of respect by Defiance and Deepdark especially, though she refuses to take up Ranger's position as corporal. She abandons her children and ends up becoming a lone, almost mythical figure in Defiance, roaming around quietly."
And notes from my comments:
"I think since the story would kind of go in reverse - start in Defiance, BarrenClan is revealed partway through - it would either end with BarrenClan being destroyed by Defiance, or Defiance falling apart before they can. It'd probably be much darker so I'm leaning toward the angle of 'Defiance destroys BarrenClan, which incites the final rebellion for our Defiance protagonists'."
"corm helped his siblings escape in secret, and he stayed behind to make it less suspicious/so Deepdark wouldn't make them chase them, bc of his connection with pine"
