Love What Is Mortal is a Warrior Cats fanfiction on Ao3 that takes place in the afterlife. After the disappearance of two spirits from Starclan, an angry mob chases Hollyleaf into the Dark Forest, where she must make unlikely allies if she has any hope of ever getting home. Meanwhile in Starclan, Sorreltail's daughter Honeyfern has just disappeared, and Sorreltail is investigating while tensions rise in Starclan.
The story is completed, and it can be read here
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Almost all spoilers for the canon books have been left unmarked. You have been warned!
- Alien Geometry: In The Dark Forest, it is supposed to be as confusing as possible. Left can be right, right can be left, and one can walk in circles in a straight line.
- Awful Truth: In Chapter 51, One Eye tells everyone the truth behind the Dark Forest: One Eye's curse is sustained by any cat that gets sent there. Sparrowfeather may very well have been condemned to cat Hell solely because if One Eye runs out of cats to feed off of, the curse vanishes and One Eye would kill a lot of innocent Starclan cats.
- Closed Circle: Starclan is a closed circle, as nobody can leave it except Tallstar.
- The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: A recurring element for those who stay for too long in the Dark Forest. Mapleshade makes no effort to deny the untrue rumors that she drowned her own kits on purpose, embracing her homicidal tendencies instead. It takes Mapleshade accidentally reuniting with Petalkit, one of her dead kits, to force her to drop her cynical mask and admit her real original motive for her murder spree.
- Deader than Dead: If a cat passes on or is killed in the afterlife, that's referred to as "double-dead", and there's no coming back from that.
- Maggottail/Ripplestar is implied to have been killed by One Eye in Chapter 45.
- Redwillow is killed by Thistleclaw in Chapter 46.
- Darkstripe is killed by Sorreltail in Chapter 49.
- Honeyfern is revealed to have been murdered by Ashfur before the story started in Chapter 49.
- Snowfur, Mapleshade and Spottedleaf are all killed by One Eye, Thistleclaw is killed by Sparrowfeather, and One Eye is killed by Hollyleaf in Chapter 51.
- Dead Serious: Thistleclaw kills Redwillow in Chapter 46.
- Dead to Begin With: The story takes place entirely in the afterlife and the protagonists are all dead spirit cats.
- Death Seeker: Maggottail wants to pass on, and has been waiting for a very long time to fade away and be forgotten by the living. He finally gets eaten by One Eye in Chapter 45.
- Demonic Possession: Shortly after Hollyleaf was born, Spottedleaf accidentally transferred a piece of her soul into Hollyleaf's mind. This caused Spottedleaf to become a voice in her head, and also causes Hollyleaf to feel some of Spottedleaf's emotional reactions.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Snowfur is just some random cat with no apparent connection to Honeyfern or Tallstar, yet they are working with Thistleclaw and the culprit Ashfur.
- Eldritch Abomination: The creature in the cave (AKA One Eye) in the Dark Forest is a vaguely cat-shaped apparition with a single glowing eye that is cursed and slowly feeds off of any cat that goes to the Dark Forest, and can rapidly absorb the lifeforce of other cats just by touching them.
- Eldritch Location: The Dark Forest. It's easy to get lost walking in a straight line, and everything in it is rotten and foul. Being in it too long changes your emotional state, brings out the worst. And there's whatever is that thing in the cave...
- As it turns out, the Dark Forest is tied to One Eye. If One Eye were to stop existing, so would the Dark Forest.
- Parts of Starclan have this, too, to a much lower degree. The water in the Dreampool is oddly warm and the Endmost Forest is unnerving to most new spirits.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Mapleshade and her three deceased kits Patchkit, Petalkit and Larchkit. Reuniting with Petalkit late in the story makes her remember the original motive for her murder spree.
- Snowfur and Thistleclaw are mates, and their evil plan is to leave Starclan to be happy with each other, no matter what collateral damage they have to inflict to get it.
- Evil Versus Evil: Mapleshade and Thistleclaw hate each other, and are constantly trying to sabotage each other. Ever since Thistleclaw started his evil plot, Mapleshade has been trying to undermine his plans.
- Face–Heel Turn: Snowfur underwent this when Thistleclaw was banished to the Dark Forest.
- Fisher King: The Dark Forest exists because One Eye ended up in Starclan, but was cursed to become some dark shadow thing stuck in a cave as a punishment -and everything around him is cursed to rot.
- Fisher Kingdom: Cats who stay for too long in the Dark Forest will turn shadowy and ghoulish, with yellow fangs, a foul smelling breath and corpse-like eyes. This is because One Eye is feeding off anything that comes to the Dark Forest to sustain his curse.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Averted. Starclan is depicted as a dreamier, more surreal mirror of the real world.
- Foreshadowing: As this is a mystery story, there's lots.
- Snowfur's involvement as the accomplice may come off as quite a surprise, but observant readers can predict that she's suspicious long before her involvement is revealed. During Thistleclaw's trial, Snowfur is said to have protested Thistleclaw's punishment even after Spottedleaf testified that everthing Redtail and Bluefur brought up was true and accurate, and after the trial she disappeared into Endmost Forest, where there is a back entrance to the Dark Forest.
- The story takes place after The Last Hope but before any of the canon storylines that follow. Looking at the timing of the story, it makes sense that Ashfur would be working with the Dark Forest to leave Starclan.
- Of course Honeyfern is double-dead -it is said that her scent just suddenly ends, and that could only truly make sense if she just stopped existing somehow.
- Even though Mudclaw is acting belligerent and antagonizing innocent cats unnecessarily, he is not the culprit. As he only cares about ruling Windclan, which he missed his chance to do now that he's dead, Mudclaw has no real reason to work with Thistleclaw or murder Tallstar or Honeyfern.
- Gender Flip: Sparrowfeather is a transgender tom in this story, but he's a molly in canon.
- Guilty Until Someone Else Is Guilty: The majority of Starclan has this opinion regarding Hollyleaf. Hollyleaf is the prime suspect behind Tallstar and Honeyfern's disappearances, and she is only vindicated when the real culprit Ashfur and their accomplice Snowfur are caught.
- Hate Sink: Thistleclaw is a manipulative sexual predator who went to the Dark Forest for pursuing Spottedleaf, and the narrative treats him as one giant hate sink.
- Healthy in Heaven: In Starclan, cats appear at the age they were happiest at.
- Hearing Voices: Hollyleaf has a voice in her head that comments on things. This is actually Spottedleaf, or at least a piece of her.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: A lot of the remaining cats in the Dark Forest, such as Sparrowfeather, were condemned to the Dark Forest after their deaths even though they died trying to cut ties with the Dark Forest.
- Played straighter is Redwillow, who is killed again by Thistleclaw and Darkstripe before he can be judged and potentially sent back to Starclan in the future.
- At the ending, Snowfur and Mapleshade are both killed off before they can begin thinking about redemption.
- Heel–Face Turn: Mapleshade slowly heads down this path, learning kindness by helping Hollyleaf evade Thistleclaw, sabotaging Thistleclaw's evil plans, remembering her original motives by reuniting with one of her dead kits, and in Chapter 50 stopping Sorreltail from killing Snowfur to save her from condemnation.
- Hell: The Dark Forest is where all evil cats go, separated from Starclan by a barrier of mist. Interestingly, the Dark Forest is a part of Starclan.
- Hell of a Heaven: Several characters end up holding this opinion about Starclan regarding the communication issues, the fact that some cats are going to the wrong afterlife in their opinion or that there's so much tension in the afterlife.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Subverted. Mapleshade dissuades Sorreltail from killing Snowfur out of revenge not because revenge is wrong, but because she states Starclan will condemn her if she does.
- I'll Kill You!: When Thistleclaw manages to kidnap Hollyleaf and Maggottail and leaves them with Tallstar under Darkstripe's watch, Mapleshade threatens to kill off Thistleclaw's goons one by one.
- Judgement of the Dead: Notably absent from Starclan. There have been a few trials in the past, but it only has happened when something unsavory about a cat's past came up -which was the case for Thistleclaw. Spottedleaf Changed Hollyleaf and her siblings because she believes that Starclan needs this, and her ideas are considered radical in-universe.
- Kicked Out of Heaven: After Tallstar disappeared, Hollyleaf was chased into the Dark Forest by Windclan. In the past, Thistleclaw came to Starclan originally, but Redtail and Bluestar didn't like that because he was a groomer and he also trained in the Dark Forest, so they conspired together to get him banished to the Dark Forest.
- Manipulative Bastard: Thistleclaw is very manipulative, it's how he operates. And Ashfur, naturally.
- The Needs of the Many: Remembering the truth of what Spottedleaf did to Hollyleaf and her siblings causes her to choose to break the mist barrier for Petalkit's sake despite the consequences it will have for the rest of Starclan.
- Never One Murder: Two spirits disappeared; Tallstar and Honeyfern. Subverted in that it turns out that Tallstar was needed alive, but Honeyfern is indeed double-dead.
- Never the Obvious Suspect: Subverted. Of course it wasn't Mudclaw, that's too obvious... But the actual culprit is an even more obvious suspect, Ashfur.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: In chapter 51, Mapleshade, Snowfur and what's left of Spottedleaf are killed by One Eye, One Eye unleashes an awful truth about how the Dark Forest works, and Hollyleaf decides to destroy the Dark Forest for good.
- Pædo Hunt: Thistleclaw is the main antagonist of Hollyleaf's POV of the story, and he is in the Dark Forest for grooming Spottedleaf into an age-gap relationship. Thistleclaw also groomed his Dark Forest apprentice Sparrowfeather in a similar way, and it is implied that Spottedleaf and Sparrowfeather are probably not his only victims.
- Racist Grandma: Oakstar is old, and he's very open about his bigotry towards half-clan cats.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Thistleclaw's lecherous behavior disgusts nearly everyone in the story. Even the other Dark Forest spirits are disgusted by him.
- Red Herring: The killer isn't Mudclaw or anyone else from Windclan, but from the way they're acting you're led to believe that they are the killer.
- Remember the Dead: As in canon, cats who aren't remembered by the living fade away over time. Exploited by Maggottail, who thinks that not telling Dark Forest apprentices his actual name will make him fade away faster. It is implied that this is not actually how Starclan works, for the second leader of Thunderclan and even one of Mapleshade's kits still exist despite being completely forgotten by the living.
- Whodunnit: Who is the culprit behind Tallstar and Honeyfern's disappearances? It's Ashfur. However, Snowfur had a hand in it too.
- Two Dun It: Sort of. Ashfur did all of the really dirty work and is the one who killed Honeyfern, but Snowfur was also involved in Thistleclaw's evil plot and did the more manipulative stuff.
