[BEAR.]

"What are you," Lionstar asked Raccoontail without batting an eye, "an outdated elder? Where do I even begin with you? Look. Dirtfur wasn't even deputy anymore, I demoted him because of his continued detrimental behavior. Let's jump into his offenses, shall we?

"First: Out of the blue, Dirtfur accosted Fawnsqueak and myself and demanded we get off our asses-- with a reminder I was dealing with cats joining our Clan at the time and patrol reports, and Fawnsqueak had been repairing a den. Fawnsqueak and I have been both productive members of the Clan since day one, and to be rudely spoken to was out of paw. I warned him of his behavior and he apologized for his misstep, but he refused to stop there.

"He assigned himself to a patrol and abandoned his Clan-mates in the middle of our territory to take a nap. He had no excuse for his behavior and gave me a half-assed apology when I confronted him. His carelessness put himself and others at risk, and that was my final warning to him.

"He was assigned to place Cherrykit in quarantine because of her sickness. I did not want it to spread around camp, and I expected him to have her supervised so she didn't try to leave until she rested and recover. The best cure to a sickness, Raccoontail, is rest-- but he left this kit alone, bored, and able to slip out of camp because he didn't care to watch her. I found her by the ThunderClan border with Fawnsqueak and because her condition had worsen due to her lack of rest, we sent her to ShadowClan for treatment. I sent a kit to a Clan that hates us, Raccoontail, so she'd survive. Where the hell have you been, honey?

"Next thing I know, Dirtfur is sick. His screwing around caused her sickness to pass on to him, so I confined him to the den to rest. Instead of obeying my order, he opted to leave the den and wander around camp. He went as far as to enter my den during the auditions to sneeze on me, Raccoontail. I specifically had told him I did not want the illness to spread throughout camp, and he intentionally disobeyed my orders and did just that.

"So, that's when I demoted him. But exiling..? If you had been listening, you would have heard Hazelberry's confrontation with both Dirtfur and Cherrykit. They both hated Shiverpetal, Raccoontail: understand this! Shiverpetal was a whacky tom, but he was not malicious and he would not harm a Clan-mate. Why do you think no one died in his care? He had a gift, stolen away by the Star Cats themselves.

".. I know Dirtfur well enough to know he was easily jealous when it came to cats held in a higher favor than he; and it is clear the corruption of his heart and mind drew him to this insanity. Shiverpetal never said he planned on putting her down, but who wouldn't believe the former deputy over a medicine cat not entirely there? He was trying to start a smear campaign, and he was trying to fearmonger kits. He put fear into Cherrykit's heart Shiverpetal wanted to kill her, and because Cherrykit is inexperienced she believed it-- she believed a cruel, twisted tom with malicious intent.

"Had I allow him to remain in our Clan, he would have continued to cause damage, to tear cats down without reason-- he did the same to Hazelberry when she was in talking to them in the medicine cat's den. He would have spread fear into the hearts of kits and be a danger to our Clan.. I had plenty of thought behind my choices. It's not my fault you were blinded by your friendship to see what was going on in this world."

Now that his piece on Dirtfur was done, he was more than happy to continue onto the other part. "If you want a leader that doesn't give a damn about their Clan, you can saddle on over to ThunderClan and enjoy that crashing, burning tree. I have done more for this Clan than any other leader. Lionsgrove, Lionsrange, the tunnels, ceremonies-- I was the one to actually pay attention to mentor reassignments, even with SkyClan cats! I have encouraged mentor and apprentice training, I have set restrictions on training to ensure the warriors we have are the best of the best, and you dare think I don't love my Clan?

"The example you gave is from four moons ago, Raccoontail. If that's your prime example, I'm concerned where your head has been all this time because it's clearly not on current events."

And though Lionstar was annoyed with the idiocy of this cat, he kept his composure. Calm, collected-- unreadable. "Thank you, Fawn." It was nice that Fawn had come, his presence always had a tension-releasing effect on Lionstar. "Oh, and by the way, Raccoontail? The kits you're speaking of were more focused on fighting each other during that ceremony than their actual ceremony. They didn't give a tail-- the only complaint one had was that I wasn't mentoring them."

[ @Pepperkins, @Dipper ]