Code Of The Clans

Welcome to the Warrior Code

Hello! Firestar told me you’d be visiting today. Come in.

Watch out for the brambles at the entrance; they’ve grown faster than ever with the warm rain we’ve had this moon. Sorry, did that one catch on your pelt? I have some marigold leaves if it’s cut you. No? Good. My name is Leafpool, by the way, and I’m

ThunderClan’s medicine cat—but I expect you knew that, didn’t you? I forget how well-known our Clan has become, even among loners and kittypets.

Sit down, please, and make yourself comfortable. We have a lot to talk about!

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Firestar said that you wanted to learn about the warrior code.

I can see how it would fascinate you, born and raised outside the Clans. Does it seem as if our lives are governed by strict, ancient rules? Your life must feel free as air in comparison; you can hunt when you like, eat what you catch, and choose friends and enemies wherever you please without having loyalties and responsibilities forced upon you. I can see by the glint in your eyes that you sometimes pity us for the code that binds us like bramble tendrils to our Clanmates, our territories, and our long-dead ancestors.

But the warrior code isn’t like that. If you’re born to it, raised in its nurturing paws, it feels as obvious as breathing.

You hunt just for yourself, yes? But what would happen if you got injured or sick? In the Clans, the strongest cats, the warriors, hunt for all of us. And when it is their turn to have graying muzzles and trembling paws, new warriors will catch prey for them until they walk with StarClan and hunt like young cats once more.

You think the Clans hate one another and fight all the time.

It’s true, we live in close quarters with the other Clans, and that can lead to tension, but we also unite against common enemies—you heard about the badger attack, yes? We would have been destroyed if WindClan hadn’t come to help us. And when we had to leave the forest, four Clans succeeded in making the Great

Journey where one alone would have starved or frozen to death.

Being part of a Clan means knowing that you’ll never be alone.

The life of the Clan surrounds you and stretches into the distance as far as your imagination can see. You follow in the paw steps of Clanmates born moons before you and those who are younger will follow your paw steps in moons to come. You will always be part of your Clan, even when you walk among your ancestors in the stars.

You’re still uncertain, aren’t you? No matter. Wait until you hear how each part of the code came about. No, I am not going to tell you stories. Relax your mind and together we will travel back through the ages, through many generations of cats. Just as grass grows even on the bare cliffs around the hollow, each code arose from the Clans’ daily lives as a way of ensuring that every cat was safe, nurtured, and fed from its very first breath. You will see that while the warrior code is still a force for good, for protection and balance among the Clans, many cats have challenged it—for it can bring terrible conflict to individual lives.

Are you ready? Let us begin with the first code…

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