Frecklewish (TC)/Main article

Frecklewish is a speckled, golden-furred she-cat with cloudy, blind, dark amber eyes.

Frecklewish is a ThunderClan warrior, daughter to Oakstar and sister to Birchface. After the death of her brother, Frecklewish promises to help raise Mapleshade's kits, incorrectly assuming they are Birchface's. Mapleshade gives birth to Patchkit, Petalkit and Larchkit and Frecklewish affectionately helps to raise them. However, when it's revealed Appledusk, a RiverClan warrior who killed Birchface, is their true father, Frecklewish attacks Mapleshade in fury. After their exile, Frecklewish follows Mapleshade's family from a distance and witnesses the kits drown in the river. Seeking revenge, Mapleshade lures Frecklewish into an upturned snake nest and gets her bitten. Frecklewish is blinded and dies a few days later.

Mapleshade's Vengeance

 * Beetail asks Mapleshade to join the dawn patrol, led by Frecklewish. Mapleshade declines as she is expecting kits, and is dozing off in the sunlight when Frecklewish wakes her up, fur fluffed in her excitement and eyes sparkling. She purrs that Beetail had told her that Mapleshade was expecting, and is very happy for her. Suddenly looking unusually shy as she stands beside her Clanmate's nest, Frecklewish continues, explaining that Beetail had said Mapleshade would be raising her kits alone. Looking down at the floor, Frecklewish looks up with her eyes blazing with hope, before inquiring if her kits' father was dead, and then if they were Birchface's kits, hopeful that her brother would live on in them.


 * Although Mapleshade doesn't answer her, she takes her silence as a confirmation, nodding slowly as the light in her eyes glow even more brightly. Thanking both Mapleshade and StarClan, Frecklewish tells her Clanmate how much these kits mean to her, as she thought she would never have been happy again after her brother died. She declares she would help raise them and teach them that Birchface was a ThunderClan hero. She breaks off her next sentence and stretches out her paw so it rests on Mapleshade's flank, murmuring that she hopes Birchface could see them. Mapleshade takes a deep breath and answers softly, telling Frecklewish that she had answered her prayers and she and her soon to be born kits are no longer alone. Eyes gleaming, Frecklewish vows that the kits will be the best thing to happen to the Clan.


 * Present at Mapleshade's kitting, Frecklewish gasps as a tom is born, calling him magnificent. Once the kitting is completed she whispers that the kits are gorgeous, voice husky with emotion. She volunteers to fetch water for Mapleshade when she asks for some, tired and sore from her kitting. Ravenwing comments that Mapleshade has made her feel like life is worth living again, as she had taken the loss of her brother hard.


 * Three days later Oakstar visits Mapleshade in the nursery, with Frecklewish soon appearing after him with a vole in her jaws. Turning to her father she purrs that the kits are perfect, and she can so clearly see Birchface in each of them. Mapleshade waits for them to comment about the shade of two of her kits fur, but Oakstar instead inquires about names. As Mapleshade tells him that they are called Larchkit, Petalkit, and Patchkit, Frecklewish disappointingly asks if she didn't want to name one of them after Birchface, although Mapleshade responds that she doesn't want them to be an echo of a cat gone before. Oakstar comments that he looks forward to seeing the kits grow up, with Frecklewish hissing that she cannot wait to see RiverClan's faces at the next Gathering upon hearing about them.


 * Mapleshade agrees hurriedly, wishing that she could be there too. The queen tells Frecklewish to tell Appledusk first, explaining upon her disgust at having to talk with him that since he killed Birchface, he should see that his legacy lives on. Sinking her claws into the moss under her paws, Frecklewish nods and spits that their enemies have even more reason to fear ThunderClan. Mapleshade reminds her and Oakstar that they are supposed to show mercy to defeated enemies, but Frecklewish hisses that he didn't show any mercy to Birchface and Flowerpaw. When her and her father's time in the nursery is done, Frecklewish bends her head to touch her muzzle lightly to each kit, murmuring that they are her brother's gift to the Clan and the most precious gifts to the forest. Mapleshade has to resist the urge to bat her away, thinking that they are her kits and not Frecklewish's.


 * Upon Ravenwing discovering who is the father of Mapleshade's kits, the news spreads quickly; Oakstar calls her to the Highrock, demanding to know who the true father of her kits is. Frecklewish pushes past a knot of warriors in the clearing, calling up to Oakstar that they know the father of the kits is Birchface and why he is asking. Voice soft with menace, Oakstar mews that he would not dare to imagine that one of his warriors has told such a lie. Mapleshade declares that any Clan would be proud to have the kits grow up in their Clan until Ravenwing says that their father is Appledusk. Frecklewish utters a horrified yowl and launches herself at Mapleshade, demanding if it was true as she claws at her Clanmate's face. Stumbling backward, Mapleshade yowls at her to stop, but Frecklewish pins down Mapleshade until she is dragged off by both Seedpelt and Bloomheart. Shaking off the toms, Frecklewish snarls at Mapleshade, calling her a traitor and accusing her of dishonoring her brother's name with her lies. She finishes off by saying Mapleshade doesn't deserve to be called a warrior, and neither do her kits, calling them half-Clan creatures. Upon Oakstar's decision to banish Mapleshade and her kits from the Clan, Frecklewish screeches to get rid of them, to drive them out.


 * Later, Nettlepaw discovers Mapleshade taking a rest in ThunderClan territory as she is extremely worn out. He ends up bringing herbs to her that he had been gathering for Ravenwing and mentions that he is extremely sorry her kits had drowned, mentioning that Frecklewish had seen what happened at the river. Mapleshade is enraged as she hadn't known that, hissing that her kits had been helpless and she didn't know how she could have just watched them drown. Nettlepaw doesn't know and starts to back away, explaining that she must have thought that the RiverClan cats would have rescued them.


 * While trying to sleep underneath bushes close to Highstones, haunted by images of her dead kits, Mapleshade is soon woken from her sleep, her thoughts then turning to Frecklewish as she watched her kits drown from the side of the river. Deciding that the she-cat needs to pay for the death of her kits, she soon starts plotting how best to catch the golden she-cat by herself in order to murder her and comes upon the idea of luring her to Snakerocks.


 * The former ThunderClan she-cat waits for Frecklewish on the fence of a Twoleg nest and waits for dusk until a patrol of four ThunderClan cats goes by. Catching a mouse and holding it in her jaws, she waits for her former Clanmate, which proves fruitful; Frecklewish catches the scent of the mouse Mapleshade is holding. Deliberately making sure the mouse brushes against the forest floor and plants as much as possible, she slowly lures Frecklewish to Snakerocks, and pushes away the stones that a ThunderClan patrol had used to block up the entrance to the adder's nest before ducking behind a boulder. Frecklewish cautiously emerges from the bushes, jaws parted and fur bristling, a puzzled look on her face when she sees the dead mouse. Springing from behind the boulder, Mapleshade hisses that she let her kits die, and Frecklewish stumbles backwards in shock. She arches her back and snarls that she shouldn't be in ThunderClan territory and should leave before she calls the rest of her patrol.


 * Lashing her tail, she asks if Frecklewish is too afraid to fight her herself, or if she just prefers watching innocent kits drown. Frecklewish protests that she didn't mean for them to die, saying that she thought they would have been saved. Mapleshade snarls that she doesn't believe her and that she is a fox-hearted coward, and Frecklewish bounds towards her former Clanmate, eyes flashing in anger. She spits that she wishes Mapleshade was dead, again accusing her of betraying her brother's name. Leaping at Mapleshade, the rogue she-cat dodges out of her way and Frecklewish crashes onto the stones. Before she can get back up, however, an adder bites her. Frecklewish staggers backwards in agony, screeching for Mapleshade to help her. Mapleshade, however, refuses, growling that she hopes she dies in agony as revenge for her kits. Yowling again, her screams of pain attract the other members of her patrol. As she begins wailing in agony, saying that she cannot see, the patrol tries to soothe her. Frecklewish whimpers and asks if she is going to die, as ThunderClan does not have a medicine cat since Ravenwing had been killed. Bloomheart reassures her that she will not die on his watch. Mapleshade, who is listening, is disgusted by her old mentor reassuring the cat she despises. Although she knows she needs to leave before she is discovered, the tortoiseshell sees the mess that Frecklewish's eyes have become, cloudy, seeping, and blind, and bile rises in her throat at the sight. Knowing that she would never see again if she lived, Mapleshade flees the scene.

Goosefeather's Curse

 * While collecting some catmint for Cloudberry at Snakerocks, Goosefeather has a vision of the confrontation between Mapleshade and Frecklewish. Goosefeather sees two she-cats hissing at each other, and recognizes one of them as Mapleshade, who had taught him to fight and sees the other with speckled golden fur and sad, haunted eyes.


 * He hears Frecklewish accusing Mapleshade of betraying her brother and lunges at the tortoiseshell she-cat, but stumbles onto the stones where she is bitten by an adder. Writhing on the stones, she screams that it bit her and to help, but Mapleshade just hisses that she hopes she dies in agony and walks away, leaving her to die, and Frecklewish fades away as Goosefeather comes back into reality.


 * Goosefeather whips around and sees Mapleshade watching him, and asks her if she had really left the other she-cat there to die. Looking surprised, Mapleshade replies she did, as she hates every ThunderClan cat.

Pinestar's Choice

 * Frecklewish is mentioned by Nettlebreeze when he's telling the apprentices about Mapleshade's story. The warrior comments about how Mapleshade wouldn't rest until she had tortured all the cats she blamed for the death of her kits. Mapleshade came back to ThunderClan looking for one cat, Frecklewish.


 * Daisypaw then begs Nettlebreeze to tell what Mapleshade did once she found Frecklewish, which the tom continues the story, saying that Mapleshade had found Frecklewish patrolling by Snakerocks. Mapleshade had forced her into a pile of stones where snakes were hiding, and one of them spat venom right in Frecklewish's eye. He then tells how Bloomheart had found her and explains that they could do nothing to save her since Mapleshade had killed Ravenwing without an apprentice to take over. Because of this, Frecklewish died a few sunrises later, when the poison took hold of her from the inside. As Nettlebreeze finishes his story, he says perhaps that was a sign of mercy from StarClan, because if Frecklewish survived, she'd have been blind and driven mad by the horrors she had seen.

Mistakes

 * Despite being listed as golden in the allegiances, and mentioned twice to be golden, Frecklewish has been called ginger, pale ginger,  brown,, pale brown and shown as a maroon-colored cat.
 * There is a slight inconsistency with how the snake attack occurs. In Mapleshade's Vengeance, she is bitten, but in Pinestar's Choice it is said venom was spat into her eyes.