Yup, I'm on the warriors au again... This post was prompted by an ask, but I decided to split Ripplewill and Hollowtide's rambles into separate posts since my Ripplewill ramblings went a bit longer than expected. You can check that out here if desired.
First off, here's a design for Hollowtide that I've been working on! Maybe someday I'll do a digital drawing of Ripplewill... there's too many cats to draw I fear. Hollow is one I've been meaning to do ever since finishing Cloverfall's post though, so this gave me a push.
His design was always meant to be a mirror to his brother, but it was a bit of a pain to actually figure out just like his brother's was haha. I'm not sure if I'll keep all the patterns quite like this but generally he's got a proper design now. Both of them are semi based on chimera cats, though ofc twins with the opposite half/mirrored patterns of the other is NOT how chimeras work lmao, and the luck associations with black cats and calicos... Clover has a bit of a butterfly or moth 'mask' on + a good amount of darkness hiding along his back and dotted around his face, while Fortune has a small little hollow circle on his forehead with very little else visible besides dark fur from the front. Though I haven't designed Lucky, their other brother, (besides the little pelt doodles shown in Cloverfall's post) looks fairly similar to Clover, but he doesn't have any black fur.
As he's a black cat (at least partially) he can be a lot harder to see in the dark, especially from the front. I can imagine him as a kitten with Clover hunkered down under a bunch of pillows or something and all you can really make out on him is his eyes peering out from the shadows while Clover is a lot more visible.
Alrighty, design stuff aside, onto some info about Hollowtide.
Some of this has come up in Cloverfall's post, but Hollowtide was born a kittypet, under the name 'Fortune,' alongside his brothers Clover and Lucky.
Lucky is Ladybug's biological kit, while Clover and Fortune are her sister Wishbone's, and are as such a tiny bit older. However, I haven't yet gotten into the details of that, or about some of the ...peculiarities Hollow has.
I've actually written some scenes related to this, including one where Ladybug gives Cloverfall some more details about what happened, but I think it would be simplest to explain things here in a post as I would normally. With luck, at some point I'll share some writing for some of my aus, including Paws of Chance, over on Ao3... for now, the train continues with Looking Glass. (Look forward to 'wonderland' soon, if you've been following that)
Annnnyways. This post is about Hollowtide, so let me pivot back to that. I'm about to go into some details I havent posted about yet, which I'm a bit excited to share.
Wishbone, Clover, and Fortune were a happy family, at first. Midas, their father, loved them too; even if he did not live with their housefolk, he visited the kittens often with exciting stories about 'the wild' and gifts from the outside world. Wishbone was a kind and caring mother, and Clover and Fortune were practically inseparable from the start.
Those times are hazy now in both of their memories. It was a brief segment of their lives, and one that occurred when they were both very young. However, the incident that changed everything is seared permanently into Hollow's mind, even if Clover cannot remember the details now.
It was a quiet night. Clover had snuck outside, entranced by a moth he'd seen fluttering in the light above the porch deck, and wandered off on his own. Fortune had stirred in his sleep, and followed after realizing he was missing.
He didn't know any better; neither of them did. The world, up till now, had been a safe place, a kind place.
When Clover fell into their twolegs' pool, everything changed forever.
Fortune saw him go under, then resurface, struggling for air. He moved immediately, reaching his side at a run, and dragging him out of the water by the scruff. Tiny paws scrabbled for purchase, and found it on the water's surface. Then, just as Clover began breathing properly again, Fortune heard a gasp behind them. He turned to see Wishbone standing at the pool's edge, having followed them the moment she realized both kits were gone.
He wanted to mew for help, but Clover's scruff was safely in his jaws, and there was something... wrong... Wishbone had a terrible look on her face; her eyes were wide and ghostly, and she stood there, haunted and still, without making a sound.
It was only then that Fortune realized he was standing on surface of the water. And in the next moment, he realized how wrong that apparently was. Wishbone's screech of horror, and her mutterings about old curses and doom frightened and bewildered him, even once the two kits were safely back on dry land.
He'd been expecting warmth and comfort; instead, Fortune was left alone with the half-drowned and delirious Clover. The little kit curled around his soaked brother as best he could, grooming him gently to warm him, and covering his ears with his tail, as if he could stop his brother from hearing their mother's words.
Perhaps tragedy could have been avoided, if Ladybug could have spoken to her sister that night, or if Midas had been there to calm the situation.
However, Ladybug had just kitted, and Midas... Midas perished that very night.
When Wishbone caught the scent of fox, and found the bloody corpse of her mate lying on the outskirts of the yard, any chance left that she would ever be a mother to those kits died too. Even Fortune might have begun to believe that he really was cursed, after seeing that.
The commotion eventually caught their housefolk's attention, and after they realized Wishbone was refusing to nurse Clover and Fortune, or even go near them, something had to be done. So, the two kittens were brought to another new mother close by; Wishbone's sister, Ladybug.
For a long time, Fortune wouldn't let Clover out of his sight, or Ladybug anywhere near him. The two kits would stay huddled up in the shadows of a small den or under furniture, while Ladybug waited worriedly. It was Clover who started venturing out first. However, even once Clover began to warm up to Ladybug and Lucky, Fortune would only stick his head out of shadows enough to meet Clover at the entrance to his current hiding place, and drag his brother back into safety. There was a period for a while when Ladybug feared he might never trust her, or worse, that he might starve because of it. However, Lucky and Clover's safety and bond, as well as the latter always trying to get him to come out into the light, must have convinced the little kit that if nothing else, they were safe here.
Ladybug cared for them kindly, and made for a better mother than her sister had been. Fortune began to feel a bit more peaceful again; though he stuck to Clover like glue, he at the very least accepted Ladybug's presence, and surprisingly, could sometimes be caught letting Lucky play with his tail, or sleep curled up at his side with Clover on top. But sadly, Ladybug wasn't the only factor in their situation. Once they were old enough to survive alone, her twoleg had always planned to rehome the two unexpected kittens, and when they were taken away, no cat had any say in it.
Fortune's new home was far, far away, and his housefolk were nothing like Ruby, Ladybug's twoleg. When he retreated into hiding, and continually tried to escape, they either didn't know what to do with him or didn't care. Eventually, unforeseen circumstances struck, and Fortune was left completely alone in the remains of what was supposed to be his home. Compared to Clover and Lucky, he felt abandoned and without anyone to turn to. Returning to his family seemed impossible, and even if he could find them again, then what? Ruby didn't want him, and Ladybug, Lucky, and Clover all had their own homes and lives that would be far safer off the streets.
Disillusioned with everything, twolegs, his fate, and cats in general, Fortune wandered alone from place to place. More and more, he started to believe he really was cursed, like Wishbone had said. He started introducing himself as 'Hollow,' and traveled here and there without any real purpose or goal. Sometimes, he encountered other cats. Sometimes, he helped them, or brushed paths for a while, before disappearing again.
Ripple was the first exception to that rule. It had been by chance that they'd met at all; Hollow had been caught in the midst of a huge storm, and when he'd been walking across the water's surface, he suddenly heard the sounds of a cat struggling for air, and calling for help. It was impossible to ignore such a thing, even for his supposedly cold heart. As he ran, he could hear Clover's helpless mew echoing in his ears. The glass broke, and Ripple was dragged outside into the rain. As long as he held her, Ripple's paws dragged limply against the water's surface, as though it were solid ground.
After the storm stopped, and Ripple woke, he assumed that would be that. However, for some reason, Ripple seemed to want to stay at his side. Slowly, Hollow grew used to, and grateful for, her presence. Even after Ripple found a home in Nightclan, he stayed purely because she asked him to.
Nightclan didn't feel like home to him. Maybe nowhere really had. He couldn't seem to trust them the way Ripplewill did, or gracefully weave himself into of the larger social group as she did. Though the clan was surprisingly patient with having a strange cat among them who rarely seemed to collaborate or help with hunting or patrols, he knew he wasn't liked. Any good treatment was surely only because of Ripplewill's efforts, the others' attempts to spare her feelings, or Dovestar's influence. And deep down, he suspected Dovestar only kept him around because of some prophecy he'd heard.
He wasn't wanted here, not truly, by anyone but her. That's what he thought, anyways. However, it seemed he was wrong. After a series of events forced him to make the choice to leave Nightclan, and left the clan with a different view of him than before, Dovestar surprised Hollow entirely. The leader gave him something, without any expectation of receiving something back in return; a warrior name. Dovestar told him he was grateful for what he had done, and gave him the name Hollowtide to remind him that he would always have a home on Nightclan's shores, and that in the future, if he returned, that offer would remain whether he stayed permanently, or simply chose to visit them, before pulling back out to sea.
Hollowtide was not one for big speeches or shows of emotion. However, the very next time he met a stranger, he introduced himself not as Hollow, but Hollowtide. Whether he'd return to the Clans or not, it seemed part of his heart remained there, hollow or otherwise.
