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After Onestar’s coronation is over, he does not sleep. He sits awake in the room that not long ago was Tallstar’s, and takes off his crown, and thinks.
Thunderclan, Firestar once told him, uses a heavy crown made out of gold. They could have made it lighter, and chose not to, because they wanted every king and queen who wore it to remember that leadership is a burden, not a glory. (Firestar says, Firestar says; his thoughts always seem to circle around to Firestar, when he lets them. He doesn’t let himself think seriously that perhaps Mudclaw had a point, but the “perhaps” is there.)
Firestar fought a duel to the death for his crown, watched a queen go mad under the crown. Onestar takes the crown of Windclan in his hands — it’s a light, unobtrusive thing, made out of polished wood and enamel, meant to not be too obvious a badge, so that the king would remember that he was still part of his people.
Tallstar lived a long and joyous life beneath this crown. Perhaps Thunderclan rulers bear a heavier burden because their crown is heavy, and not the other way around, and Onestar laughs aloud to the empty air.
The king is still a part of his people, Onestar thinks, and tosses Tallstar’s crown — his crown, now — from one hand to the other and back again. Perhaps he’ll be ripped in two. Wouldn’t that be fitting.
It is traditional in Windclan for the king to hunt for his clan the morning after the coronation. Onestar is meticulous about holding to tradition; he goes out on his horse and spears two deer and a water ox. That morning, Windclan eats.
Tallstar is dead and Mudclaw is dead and the clan sits uneasy. Onestar makes a point of sitting next to those who backed Mudclaw’s claim to the throne, makes a point of not only breaking bread with his own supporters.
Several people ask him rather pointed questions about his plans for the future, and he’s careful not to mention Thunderclan in his response (Firestar would understand — no, don’t think like that!).
He talks about pursuing peace, talks about maintaining Windclan’s independence, talks about strengthening their apprentices, talks about adapting fighting techniques that work for others to make them their own. Everybody in the clan seems to approve of a different subset of those policies, and each for different reasons — some think that Windclan doesn’t need to take skills from other clans to be stronger, while others approve of him wanting to take from other clans as much as he gives, while others think that what works for other clans works for them but Windclan fighting should be kept pure, while still others approve of branching out — but these last are not the hearts he needs to be winning.
Onestar bites his tongue on a dozen sharp remarks about purity and recent leaders who have valued it, and resolutely doesn’t mention that a former soft-hand is now a King.
Onestar appoints Ashfoot his deputy. Her son asked Tallstar for his own warrior name in order to honor his Riverclan friend, but Ashfoot herself is known as a traditionalist; she pointedly took no side between Onestar and Mudclaw.
She’s well-liked among all crowds, his own supporters who think that appointing the mother of Crowfeather represents a willingness to reach out to other clans and the Mudclaw supporters who appreciate her traditionalism and the centrists who recognize the careful gesture and approve. She and Onestar go hunting together, and speak very carefully of nothing much at all.
There are rumors, because of course there are rumors, there are always rumors. Rumors that Crowfeather is Onestar's son, rumors that Onestar lets Firestar fuck him, or at least rumors that he would like to. Rumors that Thunderclan celebrated Onestar's coronation.
Rumors that Onestar was named deputy in the first place not at Tallstar's word but at Firestar's. That Mudclaw's death was never truly at Starclan's hands, but at Firestar's.
Those first were all rumors Onestar was aware of, but the last comes as — well, not precisely a nasty surprise, but nasty nonetheless. He doesn't acknowledge any of them, holds the official position that Mudclaw is dead at Starclan's collective hand, killed when the earth fell out from under him, never mind that Firestar was near him when it happened.
(The truth is, he doesn't know. He was blinded by sweat and blood and night when it happened, he saw only Mudclaw stepping out onto unstable ground and then, minutes later, his body in the ravine; he could have fallen or he could have been pushed, or — Firestar always did fight dirty, it would be like him to cause a mudslide — but he is faithful and pious and honorable and wouldn't claim a sign from Starclan where there was none. Onestar is sure of it.)
Still. Still. The rumor persists. After all, it's awfully convenient for Firestar, isn't it, that Tallstar chose Firestar's friend as a new deputy on his deathbed when there was nobody around but Firestar to witness, that Starclan themselves chose Firestar's friend to lead. (Not all have forgiven him for suggesting they unite against Shadowclan-turned-Tigerclan. Not all have forgiven him for the way some Thunderclanners called the group Lionclan, acted as if Windclan were theirs. Some, but not all.)
And there are still others who say — it's awfully convenient for Firestar, isn't it, that his queen went mad and killed herself, that the king of Shadowclan is strangely friendly to him. That the former soft-hand who fights dirty was made a king so soon after he joined the clan.
It isn't. It wasn't. Onestar is sure of it.
And yet.
There's a gathering, like there is every month. Onestar chooses who to bring with him carefully, picks mostly those of Mudclaw's supporters who won't start a fight where there doesn't need to be one and only a few of the ones who had fought for him.
(It's a balancing act, it always is, he can feel Barkface's eyes on him, he thinks for a moment that he can feel Tallstar's —)
The gathering goes as gatherings go. He's careful not to react to the worry he can see behind Firestar's eyes, careful to keep his gaze elsewhere — and it all comes back to Firestar, doesn't it, whether he's looking at him or looking away from him it's still about Firestar, whether he leans toward Thunderclan or leans away from it it's still about Thunderclan —
The gathering goes as gatherings go.
There are those in Windclan, Onestar is aware, who push for war. There is always someone pushing for war, of course, but with the clan yet split in two, with sister having so recently turned against brother, with Tallstar's last words in the name of peace still ringing in Onestar's ears —
And then Crowfeather son of Ashfoot vanishes, and it doesn't matter that he was never in favor of Mudclaw or that he chose his own name to honor a Riverclan warrior or that he left on a journey with those from other clans when they needed every hand, not anymore, not now that his disappearance is a finger to point — and with Thunderclan stealing their warriors, with Firestar inserting his friends as other clans' leaders, ambitious like Tigerstar, remember how Tigerstar —
Tallstar's eyes Barkface's eyes and Ashfoot's eyes and Webfoot's eyes and Firestar's eyes and everything comes back to Thunderclan, doesn't it, everything comes back to Firestar, no matter what Onestar does he will always be Firestar's friend before he can ever be anything else —
They attack at dawn.