Swallowwing

Swallow the shame

Swallowwing was a ShadowClan medicine cat who served under an unknown leader's and Echostar's leaderships, living during Fishpaw's Time. She was born to her mother, Sneezepetal, alongside unknown siblings. Her mother convinced Swallowkit to become a medicine cat apprentice under her older sister, Poolfire. While she was still a kit, her mother also became deputy under her older brother, Echostar. Because of her family's control over ShadowClan, Swallowpaw felt as though she was under a lot of pressure to conform to her mother's ambitions. She became mates with the WindClan medicine cat, Reedseed, and also kept her brother's cross-clan relationship with Petalbriar secret. It is unknown how and when she died.

# Appearance

Silver she-cat. Alternate; dark gray she-cat.

# History

Sneezepetal was an ordinary warrior born into an ordinary, plain family of nobody exceptional. She lived a normal life as a loyal ShadowClan warrior. She was never anybody important, but she dedicated her life and soul to ShadowClan. In her opinion, the current leader and deputy weren’t the best. She also had a distaste for RiverClan, who ShadowClan were currently at odds with. They were allies with SkyClan at the time while RiverClan were allied with WindClan. ThunderClan had chosen to stay out of any possible conflicts, but they were allied with WindClan before the RiverClan-ShadowClan tensions started. Sneezepetal, like most average warriors, viewed her clan as the best, and disliked those who went against the warrior code or got into half-clan relationships.

When she gave birth to her first litter, which included Echokit and Poolkit, she loved all her kits dearly, although she wasn’t close to their father, who was absent from their life. When Poolkit became a medicine cat apprentice, Sneezepetal couldn’t be prouder and would always mention her brilliant little she-cat in any conversation. She was her pride and joy. She loved her other kits too, of course, but Poolpaw, eventually Poolfire, especially. Echopaw was not exactly envious of his sister’s special attention, but he did wish his mother was as proud of him. He found a cat similar to him, Petalpaw of RiverClan, who he bonded with, and when they became warriors, they were mates despite their clans hatred of each other.

To his surprise, he was actually appointed deputy when the previous one passed. Sneezepetal was shocked too, but all of her pride was quickly placed on him. She had gone from a simple warrior from a nobody family, to a mother with a deputy and medicine cat for kits! She had another litter at the time too, one of the kits Swallowkit. Poolfire’s mentor had recently passed, so Sneezepetal, obsessed with having her kin be important and in power, slowly convinced Swallowkit to become interested in being a medicine cat, and Poolfire, always wanting to please her mother, accepted Swallowkit as her apprentice, even though a part of her wondered if StarClan would accept her little sister. Swallowkit and her siblings had yet to become six moons when the clan leader passed and Echostar was the new leader. Echostar didn’t know who to appoint as leader. There were many cats in the clan who he thought would make excellent leaders one day, but would his mother want him to appoint his kin as deputy? She was certainly expecting him to do so- she could see it in her eyes. But Echostar knew his siblings well, and he knew none of them were leader material, so he made the confused decision of making his mother deputy. She was still a queen, but her kits would soon be six moons anyway. The clan questioned his decision, and he questioned himself too. He was mates with a RiverClan she-cat, and she was pregnant too. He had been so stuck in the mindset of pleasing his mother, that he thought of her and his family before his clan. Was he really fit to lead?

Regardless, he stuck firmly to his decision. Sneezepetal was overjoyed, realizing it wasn’t only her kin that could be important and powerful too- but she herself could too. Dreams she had always thought were too high in the clouds were suddenly right in front of her. She was quick to be the best deputy she could, organizing many patrols, monitoring every cat’s movements (except for Echostar, who she put too much trust in, as she remained completely unaware of his meetings with his RiverClan mate), training her kits’ to be the best warriors they could. Some believed she overstepped her bounds, getting into every cats’ business like a ThunderClan cat (although, ironically, during these times, ThunderClan seemed to want nothing with the other clans). While Echostar wanted to resolve tension with RiverClan, his mother, along with most other ShadowClanners, did not want to. In fact, Sneezepetal wanted to become more proactive than reactive, like the previous ShadowClan leader had been.

ShadowClan and RiverClan remained enemies, despite Echostar wanting otherwise, and fought each other even more. It wasn’t until Berrystar passed and the new leader Pebblestar demanded peace that tensions could finally settle… as best they could. Echostar was extremely surprised, pleased and proud to find his son, Bouncecloud, had been made deputy of RiverClan, even if his son didn’t know he was his father. Pebblestar and Echostar ended up becoming good friends, creating an alliance between RiverClan and ShadowClan, despite Sneezepetal and Poolfire’s opposition to it. Swallowwing, on the other paw, was extremely happy that her brother could make peace with RiverClan rather than continue aggressions like their mother wanted. As Swallowwing grew up and realized how much she yearned to be a warrior, she admired her mother and older sister less and less. She never gave up her position as medicine cat, as she had already come this far, but she was always displeased and unsatisfied with it. She even briefly trained with Dark Forest cats, but she never harbored enough hatred to become evil. She was perhaps the only cat who knew about Echostar and Petalbriar’s affair, and she kept the secret well, even happily, which might be due to the fact she had grown close to WindClan's medicine cat, Reedseed.

# Fun Facts

* She is transgender (male to female) and homoromantic-sexual.
* Full Art: