Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Yellowfang is a dark gray she-cat with a broad, flattened face, and orange eyes. She was first foreseen in a vision long before she was born, in the early days of the Clans. The first-ever medicine cat, Moth Flight, had recurring dreams of what would later become the nine lives ceremony, and Yellowfang was one of the cats she witnessed giving a life. It was countless seasons later, during Cedarstar's leadership of ShadowClan, that Yellowkit and her littermates Nutkit and Rowankit were born to the warriors Brackenfoot and Brightflower. Yellowkit was close with her mother's mother Silverflame, who was one of the Clan's elders, and even when she was just two moons old, Yellowkit dreamed of being a warrior and a queen like her mother. During her kithood, there were strange moments where Yellowkit felt pain seemingly without reason – a sore paw with no thorn in it, or a bellyache without having eaten crowfood. Other cats always seemed to be injured or sick at the same time, but this wasn't something Yellowkit paid much attention to. At the age of six moons, at the first snowfall of leaf-bare, Yellowpaw was apprenticed to Deerleap, a senior warrior who was known for being a strict mentor. The exciting day was marred by sadness, however, as this was when Yellowpaw's grandmother Silverflame joined StarClan. Yellowpaw admired the older apprentice Raggedpaw, and they started to become close around the time he became a warrior, with the new name Raggedpelt. They drifted apart again, however, after an idea of hers led to him meeting his kittypet father – who promptly disowned him. Deerleap's rigorous training regimen turned Yellowpaw into a skilled hunter and fighter. She and her littermates became warriors, with the names of Yellowfang, Nutwhisker, and Rowanberry. It was after Yellowfang's first battle as a warrior that she learned more about the strange pains she'd been feeling throughout her life. Upon visiting the medicine cat Sagewhisker, the older she-cat pointed out that Yellowfang wasn't actually wounded, but that other cats had similar injuries: Yellowfang was feeling the other cats' pain. Sagewhisker felt that StarClan had given Yellowfang this gift for a reason, and urged her to become a medicine cat, but Yellowfang had no interest in this and was determined to remain a warrior. She grew close to Raggedpelt again after saving him from a badger, and the two of them began to become more than friends, a fact that some of their Clanmates noticed and began to gossip about. Throughout that bitter leaf-bare, Yellowfang gathered herbs for Sagewhisker and occasionally helped sick and injured cats, partly just to help ease the pain for herself. Sagewhisker continued to insist that Yellowfang become her apprentice. Finally, after Yellowfang saved the life of a kit while Sagewhisker was at the Moonstone, the older medicine cat lost her patience and snapped at Yellowfang that it was her destiny to become a medicine cat. Yellowfang thought about it and came to accept that perhaps it was the best way to help her Clan, and so she finally accepted. The first few days of Yellowfang's new apprenticeship were difficult and lonely, with so many things to learn, and being treated differently by all of her Clanmates. Raggedpelt, for one, was furious when he learned of her decision, feeling that she'd chosen being a medicine cat over him. The first visit to the Moonstone comforted her, however: the other medicine cats were welcoming, and when Yellowfang dreamed, it was of her grandmother Silverflame, who promised to watch over her. As leaf-bare turned to newleaf, Raggedpelt was announced as the Clan's new deputy. Yellowfang met him in the forest one day, where they admitted that they still had feelings for each other, and they decided to carry on their relationship in secret. That leaf-fall, Raggedpelt's apprentice Cloudpaw was badly injured by rogues. Sagewhisker felt he was too far gone to be saved, but Yellowfang didn't give up on him. She worked fiercely to save his live, and he pulled through. Sagewhisker was proud of her, and announced that Yellowfang was ready to take on the full title of medicine cat. Yellowfang knew that this was truly her destiny, and so she would have to give up her secret relationship with Raggedpelt. When she dreamed at the Moonstone after the ceremony, she had a vision of kits that disappeared. Yellowfang soon learned what this meant when she realized that she was expecting kits. In the midst of trying to figure out what to do, she also had a worrying dream where a StarClan cat gave her a message: “There is a cat coming, a cat who should never have been born, whose life will bring fire and blood to the forest, yet StarClan is powerless to stop him!” Yellowfang feared that this referred to her coming kits. Sagewhisker could tell Yellowfang was pregnant, and after confronting her, let the younger she-cat make up her own decision on what to do. Yellowfang made up her mind that for the good of the Clan, she could not raise the kits. She revealed to Raggedpelt what was going on, and though he was thrilled to be a father, he was angry when he learned that she wasn't going to be a mother to them. He made her promise that if she was going to do this, she would never reveal that she was the kits' mother. He knew how hard it was knowing that a parent had willingly abandoned him, and he didn't want his kits to go through the same thing. Yellowfang promised. Yellowfang gave birth to three kits in a dead tree outside of ShadowClan territory. Two were female, but one of the she-kits was stillborn, and the other died shortly after her birth. If the official family tree is to be believed, Yellowfang gave these kits the names Hopekit and Wishkit. As for the third kit, he was a tom, and he seemed to be a fighter from the beginning. Yellowfang brought him back to the camp, and she and Raggedpelt brought him to the only nursing queen, Lizardstripe. Lizardstripe wasn't happy about having to care for another kit, but she took him in. Yellowfang told her that the kit's name was Brokenkit, and most cats assumed that the name came from a bend in the kit's tail, but the truth was that she'd named him for the feeling in her heart as she gave him up. She watched from afar as Brokenkit grew. Silverflame advised Yellowfang that even if she couldn't be a mother to Brokenkit, she could be a friend, and Yellowfang tried this, but ultimately it resulted in Brokenkit being bullied more by the other kits, so he chose to stop visiting her. Many changes occurred in Yellowfang's life in the moons afterward. Sagewhisker joined StarClan, leaving Yellowfang as the only medicine cat. She wasn't alone for long, though: when Brokenpaw was apprenticed, Yellowfang took one of his adopted littermates, Runningpaw, as her apprentice. In the following moons, Cedarstar lost his final life, and the newly named Raggedstar named Brokentail a warrior upon returning from the Moonstone. Around this time, Yellowfang gave her apprentice his full medicine cat name, Runningnose. Although she had initially been proud of her son's skills, eventually, Yellowfang became more and more worried about Brokentail's behavior. He was a harsh mentor, and when the Clan deputy Cloudpelt died in battle, Yellowfang believed that Brokentail might have something to do with it. She pleaded with Raggedstar not to name Brokentail as the next deputy, but he refused to listen. With him as deputy, the Clan began to focus mostly on fighting. Yellowfang had yet another horrifying vision: this one was of kits fighting each other and dying – and Raggedstar had the same dream. One day, Brokentail returned to camp with Raggedstar's dead body, reporting that WindClan had ambushed their patrol. Yellowfang was shocked at her former mate's sudden death. Things only got worse under Brokenstar's leadership, since now nobody could oppose his thirst for battle. He apprenticed kits at only three moons of age – several of them died as a result – and banished the elders to the edge of the territory. It got so bad that Yellowfang confronted him about it and threatened to get StarClan to take away his nine lives, but StarClan told her there was nothing they could do. There was a small bit of happiness during this time when Yellowfang helped her mother Brightflower deliver a second litter of kits, Yellowfang's younger sisters Mintkit and Marigoldkit. But the kits were only half a moon old when they went missing, and Yellowfang found them in the forest, dead. Brokenstar accused her of murdering them – even her own parents believed it - and banished her from the Clan. Yellowfang fled, feeling wretched, with nothing else to live for. She collapsed near Fourtrees, and was found and defeated by the ThunderClan apprentice Firepaw. ThunderClan took her prisoner, and charged Firepaw with caring for her. Over time, she grew to respect and care for the young tom like a son, and Yellowfang was formally invited to join the Clan after defending the nursery from the ShadowClan deputy Blackfoot. ShadowClan attacked again not long afterward, though, and this time, they were successful in stealing the kits. Yellowfang tracked them, was found by Firepaw and a ThunderClan patrol, and they teamed up with the exiled ShadowClan elders to try to drive out Brokenstar. It was there that Brokenstar revealed that he'd been the one to kill Raggedstar, and Yellowfang was horrified. Ultimately, Yellowfang's battle plan was successful, and Brokenstar was forced to flee. Since the ThunderClan medicine cat Spottedleaf had been killed when the kits were stolen, Yellowfang decided to remain in ThunderClan and become their medicine cat. Even though Brokenstar had been driven out of ShadowClan, the forest wasn't free of him yet. He tried to attack ThunderClan again with a gang of rogues. Yellowfang fought him during the battle, blinding him and taking a life, but she couldn't bring herself to kill her son for good. He remained there as a prisoner under her care for a few moons, but when he and the traitorous deputy Tigerclaw plotted with the rogues to attack the Clan yet again, Yellowfang knew she had to kill Brokenstar to keep the forest and her adopted Clan safe. She fed him deathberries, revealing to him as he died that she was his mother, and he lost his final life. Meanwhile, a young apprentice named Cinderpaw had been badly injured on the Thunderpath, and she stayed in Yellowfang's den for a long time as she recovered. It quickly became clear that she'd never become a warrior, but during her stay there she and Yellowfang developed a strong bond, and eventually Yellowfang asked Cinderpaw to become her apprentice. When it was finally time for Cinderpaw to receive her full medicine cat name, Yellowfang feared that StarClan might reject the young cat due to Yellowfang's murder of Brokenstar. After the ceremony when Yellowfang dreamed, however, she was not met with accusations or punishments, but rather, was given a profound sense of relief. Sagewhisker and the StarClan cat Molepelt reassured her that Brokenstar's own choices had led to his fate, and that it wasn't Yellowfang's fault for giving birth to him or killing him. StarClan accepted Cinderpelt and promised that they'd always be with Yellowfang. One night in greenleaf, the Clan awoke to fire roaring through the forest. They fled, and Yellowfang and Fireheart went back into the camp to help try to get the remaining elders out. As Yellowfang tried to carry Halftail out of the camp, a burning tree fell and blocked the camp entrance, trapping them in. Yellowfang brought him back to her den to try to shelter from the flames, but unfortunately this did not save either of them. Halftail died, and Yellowfang herself breathed in too much smoke. Fireheart found her before the end, and she had enough time to reveal what she had done to Brokenstar, and thank Fireheart for bringing her to the Clan, before she passed on. Once in StarClan, Yellowfang enjoyed hunting with her former Clanmates, although she somehow still managed to have fleas there. Despite being dead, she still had an active presence and was still involved with the Clans. As Moth Flight had once foreseen, Yellowfang had the honor of giving young Firestar one of his nine lives, a life for compassion. Once the Clans left the forest and moved to a lake, she saw an omen that she shared with the rest of StarClan: Before there is peace, blood will spill blood, and the lake will run red – which meant that Brambleclaw would kill his evil half-brother, Hawkfrost. She, Bluestar, and Lionheart also visited the young ThunderClan medicine cat Leafpool to warn her that she would tread a path that few medicine cats had walked before her – meaning that she would have kits, as Yellowfang once had. As the time grew near, Yellowfang told Leafpool that she too had given birth to kits, and that her son had been Brokenstar. Yellowfang couldn't be certain how ThunderClan would react to Leafpool giving birth, but she comforted Leafpool that the kits could walk a different path than Brokenstar if they knew from the start that they were loved. Leafpool brought Squirrelflight to the Moonpool with her, and there, Yellowfang suggested to Squirrelflight that she could raise Leafpool's kits as her own. She felt that this was the best option, and she went as far as lying and telling Squirrelflight that she couldn't have kits and would never otherwise be a mother, in order to try to convince her. When the kits were finally born, Yellowfang helped with the delivery. Leafpool's kits were prophesied to “hold the power of the stars in their paws”, and one of them, Jaypaw, had the ability to walk in other cats' dreams. Yellowfang was determined to keep an eye on him and try to convince him to not misuse his power. StarClan decided to keep the kits' true parentage a secret from the three of them, but after Squirrelfight revealed that she wasn't their mother, Yellowfang decided that the time for secrets was over and gave Jayfeather a crow's feather to hint at who his father was. It turned out that only two of Leafpool's three kits were part of the Power of Three prophecy, and that the actual third cat was Dovepaw, another of Firestar's kin. Yellowfang decided it would be best to send a sign that the young cat was special, and she spoke a prophecy to Dovepaw herself: “After the sharp-eyed jay and the roaring lion, peace will come on dove's gentle wing.” Yellowfang didn't know at first what the Three's powers were for, but she sensed that something bad was going to happen. Jayfeather told her that the WindClan warrior Breezepelt and the spirit of Brokenstar had attacked him at the Moonpool, and that he knew that Dark Forest warriors like Tigerstar were training living cats. In order to learn more, Yellowfang led Jayfeather and Spottedleaf into the Dark Forest, where they were confronted by Brokenstar himself. He acted innocent and taunted them, and eventually Spottedleaf sent Yellowfang home to StarClan, explaining that Brokenstar's presence was clouding her judgement. StarClan, beginning to understand the trouble the Clans faced, grew restless. A few other StarClan cats blamed Yellowfang for a battle between ThunderClan and ShadowClan where the ShadowClan deputy Russetfur died, claiming that Yellowfang should have sent a sign to stop it. StarClan knew that the only way the conflict with the Dark Forest would end would be in battle, and they began to urge the Clans to keep to themselves, since they couldn't trust each other. Yellowfang, for one, believed that ThunderClan would be the only Clan to survive the war. She continued to try to guide Jayfeather, although she wasn't always correct about what was the right thing to do. For instance, she had Jayfeather reveal to Cinderheart that she was a reincarnation of Cinderpelt, in order to recruit another medicine cat, but once he did so, Yellowfang sheepishly admitted that she was wrong, and that Cinderheart was, in fact, meant to be a warrior. Yellowfang's fear for the future was reflected in the rest of StarClan, and for a time, even they were divided. But when the final battle came, the Clans faced the Dark Forest together – including StarClan. Yellowfang was one of the StarClan warriors who arrived in the forest to help the living cats. She found Brokenstar fighting Firestar, and, yelling “Enough!”, she ran in and attacked her son. She killed his spirit, once again destroying him so that the Clans would be safe. Finally, at the end of the battle, after Firestar lost his ninth life killing Tigerstar, Yellowfang and the other cats who had given Firestar his lives led him to StarClan. Even though not many of the living ThunderClan cats had known Yellowfang during her lifetime, she continued to care for her adopted Clan and visit them in dreams. She appeared to Firestar's successor, Bramblestar, to give him a prophecy that blood can mean strength instead of death, which meant that his kinship with his sister Tawnypelt made them strong. She appeared to him again, along with his mate Squirrelflight, just a few moons later. Yellowfang admitted to Squirrelflight that she'd lied about her not being able to have kits, and apologized. The reason that Squirrelflight had been feeling sick recently, Yellowfang revealed, was because she was now pregnant. One of Squirrelflight's kits, named Alderpaw, ended up becoming a medicine cat too, and at one point, Yellowfang visited him to praise him for speaking out for what was right. Around this time, the ShadowClan medicine cat Littlecloud died with no apprentice, so Rowanstar picked one of the kits to train as a medicine cat, and alongside Leafpool's mentoring, Yellowfang trained the young Puddleshine in his dreams. When the rogue Darktail caused chaos among the Clans, resulting in ShadowClan collapsing, Yellowfang felt that some of the young ShadowClan cats who'd turned against their leader were to blame. She and some of the other StarClan cats gave Alderheart a sign of a five-pointed leaf, representing the five living Clans, and it was what Firestar said next – that “the Clans must remember their names” – that gave Alderheart an idea for the battle that led to Darktail being defeated. Yellowfang even appeared briefly to scold young Twigpaw when the apprentice took it upon herself to go to the Moonpool despite not being a medicine cat. And shortly afterward when it was time for ShadowClan's new leader Tigerheart to receive his nine lives, Yellowfang gave him a life, with the gift of forgiveness. Yellowfang's most recent prominent role in StarClan was when Squirrelflight and Leafpool were badly wounded and near death. StarClan decided to hold a trial to see if they'd be allowed to stay there with them, and Yellowfang was one of the judges. Overall, Yellowfang was supportive of the two she-cats. She pointed out the hypocrisy of some of the other judges – Bluestar had had kits with cats of another Clan, while Moth Flight herself was a medicine cat who'd given birth to kits before creating the rule that they couldn't. She also reminded them that Leafpool had sacrificed everything in service of her Clan and that Squirrelflight broke the rules out of compassion. In the end, she and the other judges ruled that the two she-cats would be allowed to stay when it was their time to join StarClan. Yellowfang has encountered difficult decisions throughout her life – and afterlife – and faced them with bravery. Even when she made the wrong choices, she always did her best to redeem herself. She has always been loyal to both her birth Clan and adopted Clan, and as Yellowfang herself once said, she will likely never be forgotten.
B1 US clan medicine apprentice forest warrior deputy The Life of Yellowfang 10 0 WarriorsCatFanWhiteClaw posted on 2024/02/23 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary