WARNING: Dark themes and graphic moments I wanted to redo the scenes and finish coding the words, but I ran out of motivation, so have this half-baked thing I made months ago! I might finish it eventually when I have the desire. Art and coding: @Tiki-Draws Song: Heaven Says by Chart Characters and story: @Tiki-Draws Characters Main black cat: Coldpaw/Coldpebble Reddish-black cat with green eyes: Spirit Tikistar Pale brown and cream cat: Cloverpaw/Clovercall Tortoiseshell and white cat: Dragonpaw/Dragontail Brown and white emaciated cat: Pinyondrift Reddish cats with brown outlines: StarClan Story After the death of Tikistar at the end of First Echoes, the spirit realm was completely sealed off from the world of the living. To save the living cats from the dark spirits roaming around, Tikistar sealed both StarClan and the Dark Forest away from the Clans, preventing either from interacting directly with the living cats. In the wake of this event, leaders lost their nine lives, medicine cats became strictly healers, and the Clans were left to figure things out for themselves. Tikistar became a legendary historical figure in the Clans, the bridge between the living cats and the divine. Still, as the generations passed, the truth in her story became increasingly fragmented, and Tikistar slowly became the Clans' Messiah. Meanwhile, in StarClan, many spirits were struggling with suddenly being unable to influence the living Clans as they had been doing for years. For some, it was a loss of power, and these spirits bonded over it. Eventually, their lack of power transformed into an overwhelming desire to be alive again. This longing of StarClan cats to return to the world of the living led to wanting to use the spirit Tikistar, a prominent figure even in StarClan, as a vessel to exchange their souls with the souls of living cats. Basically, an extremist group in StarClan is willing to kill all the cats in the Clans (and probably more) to come back to life. This extremist group disguises themselves as The Church of Tikistar, infiltrating their ideals down into the living Clans—who have grown up on the “Legend of Tikistar”— through the medicine cats and the leaders to make them more susceptible to being tricked into giving up their lives for the StarClan cats. Thus, the living cats begin to worship Tikistar from the prompting of The Church of Tikistar. Important to note is that StarClan cats cannot appear in the dreams of the living cats anymore, not after the Sealing. They can only barely influence the ideas of particularly gullible cats. So that’s what they did, influencing them to believe that they were prophets of StarClan. The Church of Tikistar thinks this will work perfectly. They’ll suck up to Tikistar and she’ll do the soul switcheroo for them. She sees through them, though, and recognizes The Church for what they actually are, so they attempt to subjugate her with force when sugar-coated words don’t work. They take some of her most beloved family members as hostages (Taikalight, Epsomflight, Whistlekit, Raileyes). Tikistar attacks The Church in her Sealing form, which takes a lot of energy out of her. Raileyes’ spirit is killed in the chaos and Epsomflight is gravely injured. Tikistar gathers her, Taikalight, and Whistlekit together and uses the last of her energy to seal them all in the closest attachment she has to the living world—a mural of her, built in the Gathering Cave in her honor. There, the four cats rest in a limbo state, frozen in time and unreachable by any StarClan cat. Fast forward ten generations. Post-Renaissance, the Clans lose hope in the return of StarClan to the commons, turning instead to their leaders, who simply must possess the ability to talk to StarClan that the common cats do not. The leaders grow fat on praise and raise themselves above the Clans, claiming that only they and their issue can speak with StarClan. Thus, the Dynasties are born as false prophets and praised as royalty. The Church of Tikistar, encompassing nearly half of StarClan, has grown frantic trying to find her and use her as a vessel. The living Clans are in the perfect position, but they cannot do a thing without Tikistar, the link to the living world. Someone finally tracks down a faint signal of Tikistar, in the physical world, but StarClan cannot access the living world post-Sealing. Thus, someone has the brilliant idea to send down the traces of Tikistar’s essence left in StarClan and insert them into a cat in Tikistar’s genetic line (only her genetic line would work, as the essence is adapted to her DNA). Apparently, all branches of Tikistar’s genetic line have died out, except for one remaining litter of four—one of whom is pregnant. The Church hurries and just slams one of the fetuses with Tikistar’s essence, hoping that the spirit connections Tikistar has will be inherited by the unknown kit. Continued below…
Continued from above: Coldkit is born alongside his sister, Cloverkit, to Scarletshadow and Fennelstar of the Perennial Dynasty. Coldkit grows up a normal kit, albeit royalty. While his sister was firstborn and thus the dynastic heir, Coldkit is still, for all intents and purposes, a prince, and is treated very, very well. While the majority of his training focuses on deputyship, Coldpaw is also tutored personally by his father, Fennelstar, in the ways of leadership (just in case). Along with this comes instruction in the ways of The Church, as the leader, medicine cat, and deputy serve as the religious figureheads of each Clan. As a result, Fennelstar takes his son one day to visit the mural of Tikistar—the physical location of The Church, and the resting place of Tikistar, Epsomflight, Taikalight, and Whistlekit. (Fun fact: Tikistar’s body was buried here.) When Coldpaw sees it for the first time, he is in awe when he feels the thrumming energy flowing off of the mural. He doesn’t say anything to his dad, sure that it must be the experience of all the cats that visit the mural and not wanting to appear dumb for pointing out the obvious. Of course, this is not the case—there is no real spiritual connection for any other cats. Coldpaw sneaks out one night to visit the mural and inadvertently pulls Tikistar and Taikalight out. Tikistar doesn’t yet know if she can trust Coldpaw, so she pretends to stay back in the cave as she sends Coldpaw home. She and Taikalight follow stealthily behind, tailing Coldpaw back to the TreeClan camp. There, they learn how much has changed; Dynasties, The Church, a class system, all seemingly designed to increase the power of StarClan and the governing cats while decreasing the power of the Clan cats. Tikistar is disgusted and deeply alarmed by this new normality, and tells Coldpaw how things once were and how dangerous this reality is. The story continues, but it's too long to fit here, so brief explanations of the scenes in the meme: - Pinyondrift, the medicine cat, is actually one of the extremist StarClan spirits, who swapped out the actual Pinyondrift's soul. He uses Pinyondrift's sway in the Clan to make everyone believe Coldpaw is Tikistar reincarnated, undermining his sense of self and keeping him under observation 24/7, as everyone in the Clans worships him. - Cloverpaw, Coldpaw's sister, is the heir, but when Coldpaw is made more important than her, she becomes furiously jealous and attempts to assassinate him later on, when they are both warriors, which ultimately leads to her execution. - Coldpaw's friend and crush, Dragonpaw, inadvertently becomes pregnant, and Coldpaw helps her through it, but her single kit is stillborn. This event acts as a catalyst for their eventual relationship, as Coldpaw chooses to be there for his friend. Later, Tikistar and Taikalight uncover StarClan's machinations, and the Clans decide to leave their territories to escape the thrall of the increasingly powerful StarClan. They journey south to the Jagged Red Desert, with Coldpebble leading the Clans. - Coldpebble continues to worry about StarClan. Pinyondrift's possession has been undetected, and he still feeds lies and confusion to Coldpebble. However, the presence of the soul of another cat in his body leads him to deteriorate and become emaciated, dying soon after, but not before he can sow seeds of doubt. - Dragontail and Coldpebble have a litter of kits, but a coyote inflicted with rabies attacks the Clan, and Dragontail contracts the disease and passes it to two of their kits. Coldpebble sees his mate languish, and she ultimately succumbs to the disease and attacks him. He is eventually forced to kill her to survive, and two of his kits die soon after, leaving only his daughter, Snapkit. - Coldpebble's sanity breaks and he embraces his destiny as Coldstar, Messiah of the Church of Tikistar, as the Clans enter their Dark Age. To be continued…
