Chapter Text
Here are the options:
Path one is Operation: Let Firelight Retire.
Firelight & co. decide they aren’t just going to let this slide, cue shenanigans to get Bluestar to let Firelight retire via depriving her of a good portion of Thunderclan (temporarily) [there may also be some minor mutiny & or “treason”, I haven’t decided yet], and forcing her to pick a new deputy by calling her bluff. Eventually things are sorted out and Firelight gets to retire. I think I’d have Pantherstrike or maybe one of the OC kits (or some combination therein) be the ones to go find Skyclan and put them back together. Firelight would probably die a few seasons later (maybe after Cinderpelt becomes a warrior? Or is that too long?) because he’s really old now (Fuzzypelt and Robinwing totally die first though. Seriously, I’m still considering having them retire and die earlier and just having Ravenkit & Dustkit come from somewhere else or something) , and then he might split his time in Starclan between well-earned relaxation with his mate, and ignoring Starclan’s “no interference” rule because, while he does know the clans can fend for themselves without him, there are still a few ‘fixed’ events that he’d like to make sure go as smoothly as possible. (i.e. Preventing as many deaths as he can when the twolegs start invading, etc.)
Path two is How did Firelight survive long enough to be made leader anyway?
In this one, they don’t manage to get Firelight out of being made leader, and he now has to go through 9 entire lives before he can finally rest, and circumstances (*coughplotdevicescough*) keep him from simply training a deputy and then stepping down or whatever. He has a rather miserable time of things, and there’s a lot more tension between Bluestar, Thunderclan, & the other Clans. Starclan is also not guiltless here. There may or may not be more morally reprehensible shenanigans going on until (or even possibly after) Firelight becomes leader, and the whole thing will probably be a bit darker/depressing because while cats are still being saved, it’s coming at a high cost. There’s a lot more anger and desperation and resentment here. Not just on Firelight’s end of things either. What Bluestar did was Not Okay, and the ramifications of her actions effect more than Thunderclan. (Granted, it’s somewhat the same on path one, but there’s more focus on it here, because in this one she actually succeeds.)
Path three is Yeah, no, Sunstar isn’t picking Thistleclaw or Bluefur as Deputy, thank you very much. (very much a working title, might end up just calling it Sunstar’s Choice.)
Sunstar knows about the time travel shenanigans. He knows, rationally, that picking Bluefur could, theoretically, be a rare opportunity to know for certain that he’ll be leaving Thunderclan in good paws when he steps down as leader, because she did lead the clan fairly well up until Tigerclaw started his shenaniganry. But Sunstar doesn’t like what she did afterwards at all. And he especially hates the way she acted towards Firelight. Towards his mate.
(Yes, he does know that without those actions he wouldn’t even have Firelight, but that doesn’t make it right. Because he also knows that Fireli-star. Firestar should have been allowed to rest, and grieve, and join Starclan, after he died. He should have been given time to come to terms with his life and rest peacefully in death. He should not have been thrust into a time that wasn’t his own and forced to live an entire lifetime again. To live, not only knowing he would never see the cats he loved again, but that he would see cats like them grow up and live and yet never become the cats he’d once known. They would be the cats he knew, but not as he’d known them. And they would never know him the same way either. Firestar hadn’t deserved that. No cat did. And Sunstar knows that too.)
So, suffice to say, Sunstar doesn’t pick Bluefur as deputy. He never even considered Thistleclaw in the first place. I’m not sure who he does pick, but the point is, in this path Sunstar doesn’t die before he and Firelight can retire, so they both do retire and live happily as elders for the rest of their natural lives, Thunderclan gets a good and reasonable leader instead of getting Bluestar, and there’ll probably be some minor differences in how events happen after Tawnyspots retires because of Sunstar’s choice. Bluefur, upon realizing she won’t be becoming deputy after all tries to take back custody of her kits from Firelight, only for somecat to point out that she doesn’t really have much business trying to take them back considering the fact that she was willing to give them up in the first place. I’m still not sure what to do with Thistleclaw. Things go somewhat similarly to how they do in path one by the time Into The Wild is supposed to happen, just without the drama and complications that came with Bluestar’s leadership. There are probably going to be some other differences though.
I will probably end up writing the first fic of the Adopting Peace AU as everything up until Tawnyspot’s retirement (or shortly before), at which point I will wrap things up, end it there, and write three separate fics, each following one of the paths I’ve laid out here. Why? Because that’s what I want to do. Because I can. (and totally not because it was the first solution I came up with. *whistles innocently*)