[I Like Bees]

Dutch rabbit inspired cat! Which has been in my drafts for years

Tell me about one of this cat's plans for their future!

Ends March 15th, 11:59 PM CST

Code: Select all

[b]Username:[/b]
[b]Cat Name:[/b]
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Rank:[/b]
[b]Clan:[/b] (Please link)
[b]Age:[/b] (1 year or above)
[b]Prompt:[/b]

x
Name: Hareheart
Gender: Male
Rank: Warrior
Clan: Ashclan
Description: Solid black with low white and brown eyes
Age: 3 years old
Edits: [NR] Expression; [C] ear tufts, pointy ears, ear placement,
shorter tail, eye shape, whiskers; [UC] mid fur, muzzle
Owner: wakita

[wakita]

hi bees!! oml what a cutie pie.
, my fam used to have some dutch bunnies when i was really little and we owned our horse ranch!! i used to love going out to sit with them. one of the little dudes loved to sit in my lap if i made a little nest with a blanket for him first. we used to sit out back and read in the summertime. i have a lot of fond memories on my farm with the bunnies. this is such a cute design: i love how you translated the design to a cat: im glad he finally made his way to the forums out of your drafts.

Username: wakuta
Cat Name: hareheart
Gender: male
Rank: warrior
Clan: ashclan
Age: 3 years old
Prompt: Hareheart's future is to become a "medicine cat" for the rabbit warren that lives on their territory. he is their advocate, their friend, and their voice against the felines who want to have them for dinner. Hareheart will throw down with his own clanmates if he catches them hunting a rabbit that he knows. hareheart will be the reason AshClan adds a rule to their warrior code-AshClan is not permitted to hunt or kill rabbits for any reason. he also asked for his name to be Hareheart, in honor of where he was raised.

have a small 'warrior's novella': we'll call this one Hareheart's Care
Hareheart padded across the open glade with haste in his paws. The black and white tom turned his head left and right, his ears on an ever-constant swivel in search of unexpected ruckus in the dense woods of AshClan's territory. Fluffy tail swishing along the still wet blades of grass, the warrior left his camp long before sunrise. Jaws parted to draw in the crisp mountain air, he raced off into the cover of dense fog and tangerine morning's light. In his jowls, he struggled not to chew the herbs he'd swiped from Palebreath's den. Their sharp taste brought tears to the warrior's eyes; the tuxedo wrinkled his muzzle with a disgusted 'eugh'. He despised the taste of poppy seeds. Hareheart hoped with all his might the river would wash away their taste before he returned home.

The tom hadn't been able to keep his schedule-he'd been an irritated ball of fuzzy fluff. Even Lynxhaze noticed how on edge the tom had been. It couldn't be helped: poor Blueberry had fallen ill. Every three days, the bi-color feline slipped past the quiet sentinels guarding the camp, undetected by their sharp and watchful eyes. After the fire that had crept so close to their camp, Burningstar had been hardpressed to let anyone out of her sight. There'd been no way that Hareheart could wander off so far alone before the smoke settled: she'd send her tracking hound, Summitsky, right after him. The gold and white tabby wouldn't take kindly to Hareheart's thievery-or for whom those herbs he'd stolen were for.

The warrior tossed a nervous look over his shoulder. pausing in front of a cluster of bushes. Rainchaser and Tumblewolf hadn't noticed him, too busy arguing over whether or not bird or squirrel was a better treat. An innocently smug grin made the warrior's whiskers twitched.

Bird, he decided, even though his opinion wasn't asked-nor would it be entertained, if they caught him sneaking out of AshClan's camp right under their noses.

Hareheart figured his friends would forgive him, nonetheless: keeping his secrets so close at hand might even seem ridiculous to the whole of the clan, but the private tom hadn't the desire to explain himself to a bunch of meat-eating animals just what he was doing-and more importantly, why. To another cat, it wouldn't make much sense-and Hareheart's pelt felt hot to the touch each time he tried to think of an explanation in case they did catch him sneaking away. If one looked a little deeper into his actions, there might be someone inclined to find his behavior selfish. There'd been times the Clan had gone hungry-there'd been times Hareheart sat on his paws, refusing to give AshClan a solution to rumbling bellies and protruding ribs. Each time he carried his chin high, content with his decision. The young tom wasn't certain how his clanmates might react if they knew about his companionship with the rabbit warren at the very edge of AshClan's lustrous woodland territory.

How in the world could any of them blame him, though, if they knew just how special those hares were? Fluent in their language, after being raised by a hare himself, Hareheart knew the pure innocence and kindness that with which a rabbit lived their life. All that mattered to the warren were the rabbits inside of those dark and cold tunnels. All they knew was fright and family: Hareheart felt so heartbroken for them-he felt as if he'd abandoned his birth place for strangers-and his Clan posed the biggest danger of them all. The tom often wondered what his future really might hold. The hare who raised him, Lilypad, insisted that he was destined to run with the warriors of AshClan, per the prophecy she'd received from the Great Frith.

The hares that appeared in his dreams, however, always led him back to the warren. Hareheart's being felt torn in two: he had no choice but to live with a paw in each world. The rabbits had his heart-but so did a certain someone sleeping in her nest still, who'd find his nest empty and cold again when she woke up.

Over the crest of a small hill, Hareheart watched monstrous sets of ears perk up, followed by the angular faces of his kin. Three smaller sets of ears popped up with excitement: Blueberry's most recent little of kits, all named in his honor: Swiftrunner Sharpclaw, and Bigtail. Blueberry, bless her heart, didn't understand half of what the tom tried to teach her about warrior life, but oh had his heart squeezed when he'd met the little scraps for the first time and heard their names.

"Brother Cat!" they all cried in unison. The kits took off down the hill at break-neck speed, even faster than they'd been the last time he'd had the privilege of seeing them. The tom's paws picked up off the ground in broad, bounding leaps. They forgot they belonged to a cat-and Hareheart shot off with the similar uncanny speed of a rabbit himself. The tom dropped his herbs safely in the grass, so as to protect them from the bunnies about to square up with him.

Hareheart chased Blueberry's kits all around the warren, stirring sleepy does and resident bucks with a quiet laughter. With great care, he was sure never to touch any of them or jostle them too much. Each rabbit he passed earned a quick but studious once-over: a few more hares had signs of the sickness Blueberry had contracted. Worry mounted in Hareheart's chest.

"We missed you, Hareheart!" Swiftrunner proclaimed, planting herself right in front of the towering feline so abruptly that his hind paws came off the ground as he dug his front paws in for brakes. Laughing, he crept forward on his front paws a few paces, before he tossed his rear over her head. Another kit got caught underneath his flank-Sharpclaw delighted in the trap he found himself in, throwing all his might into kicking Hareheart's stomach with his hind feet.

"I missed you," Hareheart retorted in their language-his mother tongue, too. "I'm so sorry I've been gone so long. Fire came close to AshClan. I had to protect my clanmates."

"The fires," came another voice, not owned by one of the kits. Ears perking, Hareheart swiveled to face the familiar voice: Blueberry. "I was so worried for you, Hareheart. Is your family well?"

"We are," Hareheart said, drawing himself back to his paws. He turned away and dashed off to collect the herbs he'd brought once more. The tom frowned furiously as he turned back-Blueberry had already made it halfway over to him. Hareheart hustled over to the wheezing doe, dropping the herbs down in front of his sister.

"Please," he begged. "These may not be your favorite flower, but it will help your respiratory system. It is what the clan uses to treat what they call white cough. You've got an infection in your lungs: these may help clear them."

"So clever, my Hare-cat," his sister praised him. Blueberry bent down and began to eat the herbs, though he could see disgust and the urge to throw an absolute tantrum alight in her bright blue gaze. The grey hare's fut shuddered, her stomach gurgled, upset by the plants she had little room for in her slowing gut. Hareheart pawed a poppy seed toward her. Blueberry's pink nose twitched over it, but she didn't eat it quite yet. She glared at Hareheart first.

"You must sleep. Let the other does care for the kits. They will be just fine, sister mine. They're old enough now to let their mother rest."

"Will you stay?" Blueberry asked the tom with a guilty tone in her voice. She asked so often-and most usually, the answer was no. Frowning, Hareheart, flattened his ears. Three excited kits stopped trying their best to gnaw his tail clean off and came racing to stand in front of Hareheart. They reached up on their hind feet, peering at their favorite hare in the whole warren with hope shimmering in their blue and yellow gazes. Hareheart hung his head with a loud, exasperated sigh.

“Alright. Just for a little while. I can’t stay overnight. Burningstar will have my pelt.”

Hareheart, throughout the day, kept finding reasons to stick around a little bit longer. The sun kept on creeping into the sky and his anxiety kept soaring. One more lap around the warren with the kits, one more spy run with old friends who egged him on into a playful race. Hareheart couldn’t stop stuffing his face with the raspberries and strawberries that grew naturally in the nearby meadow. He even wasted time helping the Tunnelers, Sage and Rye, finishing digging a new den for an expecting doe-Chicory would be having her very first litter with Crow: a long anticipated event, the two had been dancing around each other for moons.

Curled up with Blueberry and her kits, Hareheart lost track of time. The tom took a gracious nap with his chosen family: the tom was overjoyed as hares kept creeping into Blueberry’s den, surrounding the tom with the warmest, softest, safest feeling he could dream of. Not even the way he imagined his mother’s fur must’ve felt for the first two days he’d been alive, before she’d been killed by a monster and Lilypad had saved his sorry life. The hare he considered his father, River, made his way to sit right behind his boy. The rabbit reached to rest his old scuffed up paw on his son’s side.

“Hareheart, my adventurous kit. I wish I’d known you’d come to visit us-I was collecting greens for the does. My boy, do you hear me?” he mumbled, drawing the sleepy tom’s eyes open just a pinch. His flank shifted with the quiet “mrrp” he offered his father. The scarred buck let out a soft chuckle. “There is a warrior cat here. They say they’re looking for you, son.”

His eyes flew wide open then: he was awake now. Hareheart sent hares rolling and flying, disturbing that blissful peace he so very much craved. “Oh, God. Oh, I’m dead- I’m- oh, God.”

The old hare, snickering, followed Hareheart’s racing figure as he kicked up dust and dirt, tearing his way out of the warren to meet his maker. Bristling, claws unsheathed, the young tom prepared himself with dismay to face off with his own clanmate to protect his family. They didn’t know the truth about where he came from-but he guessed they were about to figure it out now. If they sent him packing back to the warren, they were downright crazy fuzzbuckets if they thought he would allow a singular cat to come near his hares. He’d be a one-cat Clan, but he’d surely become Harestar if that’s what it took to protect them.

Hareheart’s charge came to a skidding halt as soon as his front paws made it out of the tunnel’s entrance. Dirt, grit, and Hareheart’s tangible fury coughed up around him. Hareheart’s wrathful cloud puffed right into the face of the cat blocking his way. They gasped, squinting their eyes shut as they flung a paw dramatically over their face. Hissing, the tortoiseshell staggered away from the entrance of his warren. The young tom’s jaw gaped open, his fur pluming even more with absolute terror, rather than anger.

It wasn’t Summitsky. It wasn’t the warriors he’d slipped by that morning.

“Burningstar,” Hareheart rasped.

At the sound of her name, the fluffy she-cat dropped her paw from her face. The expression the tom was met with made his knees all but sway in-he’d become a rabbit alright, staring right into the torchlight of a fox’s gaze. Even on lower ground, as Burningstar righted herself, she towered over the hare-sized cat. Hareheart made it worse on himself, shrinking away a little, receding back into the tunnel. Burningstar’s gaze abandoned the terrified warrior’s, looking with blooming shock at all of the bright eyes peering at the feline-so enamored with Harehear, he could hear hopes for a new friend whispering amongst them. The she-cat’s expression contorted into the epitome of “I must’a done lost my mind”.

Burningstar cocked her chin to the side, staring the young tom down with an unreadable look caught between extreme concern and exasperation.

“What… are you doing, Hareheart? The hare I spoke to-he… speaks cat?” Burningstar, perplexed, looked around herself. Hares by the hundred had started to surround her. No fool, the she-cat realized the power of everything in nature, regardless of the food their souls sought. Blinking, she turned her back to Hareheart, unafraid of the tom whatsoever. She looked around herself, unbelieving of what she was seeing. The hares were just… walking right up to her. They sniffed at her, nudged at her, told her hello. ... hold on. Huh?

“Hello?” she whispered more to herself than the tawny hare who’d just greeted her without a shred of fear in her tone or body language. After a few more rabbits spoke to the tortoiseshell, the she-cat couldn’t help but throw her head back and laugh. Hareheart’s jaw dropped, watching as the feline sat down in the middle of his family, so that Swiftrunned could reach her nose to touch it-just like Hareheart had taught the warren to do, if they wanted to tell another cat hi.

"You can speak cat!" Burningstar gasped, mouth popping open. Her pupils widened to the size of the moon as she leaned over to peer into the little bunny's eyes.

“You’re so much bigger than Hareheart!” Swiftrunner announced. “Is your name Bigfluff?”

The leader of AshClan braced her paw against her chest, laughing with more gusto than Hareheart had ever known the she-cat to use. “Oh, I like you. No. My name is Burningstar. I’m the leader of AshClan, where Hareheart lives. Do all of you speak cat? I've... never come across anything so odd, my goodness. Delightful.” The tortoiseshell cut an unpleasant glare his way. The warrior averted his gaze. “Palebreath keeps noticing herbs missing-and now I can guess why. Is that correct of me to assume, Hareheart?”

Shame made the tom shrink down into the grass, curling his tail around himself with airplane ears and all. “I’m sorry, Burningstar… I try to replace what I take. She’s just-my sister, Blueberry, is really sick. I just wanted to help them. They don't know anything about medicine.”

The tortoiseshell was standing right in front of him when Hareheart opened his eyes again. With the top of her paw, she reached up and bumped it underneath his chin. The tom kept his ears flat, but he looked at Burningstar. Hareheart had never seen that much… ardor? In Burningstar’s eyes before. It far superseded the honeyed admiration and the wicked mischief that she reserved only for him. The tom found his way back to his feet almost like he simply floated back to solid ground. Burningstar shook her head at him, resting a paw over his thundering heart. He wished it’d stayed there a second longer after it swept back to the ground.

“All you have to do is ask me for help, Hareheart. If these rabbits are your friends, then they’re AshClan’s, too. You should have told me.” Glancing to the doe who’d crept close to Hareheart at the mention of her name, Burningstar had to guess the sickly looking rabbit was the aforementioned Blueberry. She offered the rabbit a bright smile and a swish of her fluffy tail. “Come. Palebreath will see to you. No harm will purposefully come to a hare in this warren. I’ll make it law.”

With that, the tortoiseshell turned away. She started the trek back to AshClan camp with darn near the entire warren in tow. AshClan would get one heck of a bunny-kick out of this.

“Oh,” she called over her shoulder with a growl, fixing her hard stare on Hareheart. “Sir?”

“I-... yes, ma’am?”

“Next time I catch you stealing herbs and sneaking past my distracted warriors, it won’t be a bird or squirrel they decide to have from the freshkill pile. It’ll be you.”

Swiftrunner cackled at Hareheart, jabbing his rear foot into the warrior’s side. Soon as Burningstar kept walking onward with Blueberry at her side, the tom threw his hind foot into the kit in the same fashion, but with not so much as an ounce of force behind it. Snickering, he pelted off with the feet of a hare still attached instead of a feline’s paws. With sheepish playfulness, he skated through the grass around Burningstar until she was laughing the way she did for no one else but him.

If he told anyone else, he knew he’d perish, but Burningstar did her best to run like a hare, too. The she-cat, a quick scholar, got the hang of it before they’d made it very far in the brush. They raced off back to AshClan, with rabbits by the dozens in tow.

From a distance away, the two warriors who still kept watch over the camp entrance fell silent-still in disagreement over which prey was the best. Rainchaser and Tumblewolf stared really hard at the chaos coming their way, but they still couldn’t comprehend the sight of it: Burningstar and Hareheart were running as fast as absolutely possible-and hares were absolutely flooding the glade in front of the camp’s entrance. Burningstar and Hareheart laughed as they approached, delighted by the fear on both of the warriors’ faces.

The pair trotted up to Rainchaser and Tumblewolf, who stared at the sweet-smelling hares with a gleam in their eyes. Hareheart stood tall, narrowing his eyes at the pair with a lash of his tail. Burningstar rested her tail over his back in a gesture of comfort.

“I’d like everyone to come to the High Peak for a Clan meeting as soon as I see Blueberry to the medicine cat den and explain to Palebreath what’s going on. May you go find out if there are still search parties out for Hareheart? All is well.” Burningstar addressed her warriors before they could let the brussels on their napes gather any more in response to Hareheart’s sudden shift in demeanor. Neither warrior found it a good idea to argue. They turned away, shuffling back into the camp with eagerness in their paces. They glared over their shoulders-they’d make quick work of her demands. They wanted to know what in StarClan a bunch of hares were doing in their camp.

Palebreath, the prickly tom he was, had some words for Hareheart-but the tom proudly took them while he watched the white-furred warrior treat blueberry as he would treat any other cat in the clan. The tom studied the hare’s breathing and the rhythm of her heart, trying his best to compare the feline medicine he understood, on top of the more human methods an acquaintance of his, Socks, had started to teach him, too. Palebreath’s qualm with Hareheart struck the warrior with a fond note for the young cat, even though he actively tore him to ribbons for it-he didn’t know anything about dosing medicine. Blueberry could have been given too much of an herb: especially since she was an entirely different species!

The rabbits of Hareheart Warren witnessed the leader of AshClan roar to gather her pride. From the greatest peak of the rock serving as her den, she made a decree that all cats shall follow for so long as the Clan still stood: no rabbits were to ever make their way to their bellies again. While some of the Clan felt it was a strange addition to the code, they came together in respect for Hareheart and his family. In fact, Palebreath gained a temporary second apprentice: Hareheart turned his future back toward the hares. He would serve as their medicine cat until he could take a hare under his wing and train them. He and Palebreath had quite a mission ahead, to learn the anatomy of a rabbit-but it would be done.

While he is with AshClan, he wears the name Hareheart-but each time he slips out of the camp to head for the warren, the tom feels himself change inside: he is Harestar, the leader of Hareheart Warren. The warrior would always come back to his nest, though-there was a tortoiseshell that snuck into the warrior's den on occasion to keep him warm at night. Burningstar wasn't at the warren after sunhigh. Much as he missed his rabbits, without her there, it just wasn't right.

[Skyweaver]

He's so floofy
I wanna pet him (∩˃o˂∩)♡

Username: Skyweaver
Cat Name: Stormfang
Gender: Male
Rank: Warrior
Clan: CherryClan
Age: 30 moons
Prompt:
As Stormfang stood beside her, his gaze traced the soft curve of her profile, bathed in the dying glow of the setting sun. The sky stretched wide and endless before them, painted in gold and crimson, but he could only see her. The light shimmered in her fur, catching in the depths of her eyes as she stared over the horizon, lost in thought. And in that moment, something inside him surged—powerful, undeniable.
Ever since their leader had sent them on this mission together, something had changed within him. It was supposed to be simple—a journey beyond their borders to deliver a message, nothing more. But somewhere along the way, through the long days of travel and quiet nights beneath the stars, he had felt something awaken in him. Traveling side by side, relying only on each other, it had felt right. No borders. No warriors watching their every move. Just endless land, the steady rhythm of their paws, and her.
And now, as he looked at her, he realized the truth. This was what he wanted. Not the life he had always known, bound by rules and duty, but this. Her. The freedom to wake each morning with the unknown stretching ahead of them. To roam wherever the wind carried them. To start something new, something entirely their own. A traveling Clan, built not on territories and rivalries, but on trust. On adventure. On them. He could almost see it—kits, born beneath the open sky, learning not just to survive, but to live.
His heart pounded. Did she feel it too? That pull, that quiet, unspoken promise of something more? Or did she want the comforts of a Clan life?
Almost as if his thoughts had summoned her, she turned to him, her soft amber eyes blinking at him in quiet contentment. The desire to travel the world with her surged inside him again, his dreams becoming even more vivid than before.
He then made a promise to himself, right then and there. That was the future he wanted. Those were the dreams that he wanted to turn into reality. Those were the kits that he wanted to be born free.
And, hopefully, it was the one she wanted too.

[Baobabel]

Username: Baobabel
Cat Name: RabbitPelt
Gender: male
Rank: tbd
Clan: SecludedGlade
Age: 6yrs
Prompt: RabbitPelt wants kits. He's always desired to have kits. Being drawn to the nursing den, helping watch over litters to give the queens a break. Taking on his first apprentice was a dream. He's one of the most loved and respected mentors. He has an incredible gift for working with young cats. He's loved helping many generations through the years but he wants the chance to have kits of his own. It certainly helps that he's finally met a special someone. He never was a one-night kind of cat.

[I Like Bees]

Username: wakuta
Cat Name: hareheart
Gender: male
Rank: warrior
Clan: ashclan
Age: 3 years old
Prompt: -snip-

Congrats! This was a very well-written and interesting story 👀

I'd also like to award a RU to Skyweaver !