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Pinestar is Aromantic and Asexual, and Leopardfoot is a Lesbian. However, the cats of the clans don't really have words for these concepts, and in life neither of them were aware of this.
Pinestar never saw Leopardfoot as his mate. To him, fathering her kits was merely a duty or service he was performing for his clan, by providing it with more warriors. He had no real emotional attachment to Leopardfoot or the kits, due to his depression and disillusionment with clan life. He never communicated any of this with Leopardfoot properly, or at all, and Leopardfoot assumed they were mates as a result.
As a young warrior, Leopardfoot was unsure of what romantic feelings were like, but saw that all other she-cats were choosing a mate and having kits, and thus she decided to just pick a tom and pursue him, hoping it would all work out. She chose Pinestar specifically bcause he seemed unattainable; he was the leader and she was a young warrior, he had never spoken to her in a personal way, and so surely, she hoped, he would reject her, and then she would have an excuse to not have a mate. She felt weird about being with a tom, and purposely tried to engineer her own failure. However, to her shock, when she led with "Do you want to have kits?", Pinestar said yes. Leopardfoot then felt she had to commit to the choice she'd made, hoping she would eventually be happy.
Pinestar didn't communicate very well with Leopardfoot and was very distant with her due to his depression. Overall, he was a very poor partner. He was never unkind to Leopardfoot, and was respectful to her like all his clanmates, but he seldom thought about her or their relationship unless prompted to by others. He thought of Leopardfoot as a skilled and loyal clanmate, similarly to how he felt towards just about all of his warriors. Conversely, Leopardfoot thought the two were mates, and never saw any reason why she would need to clarify the nature of their relationship, since Pinestar never objected to anything she asked for, and never showed interest in any other cat. Internally, she was conflicted about this. She knew that most mates were more affectionate, but due to her lack of attraction, she didn't really want to be affectionate to Pinestar either.
Leopardfoot was initially furious with Pinestar for leaving ThunderClan, but as she grew older and saw how leadership weighed heavily on her friend Bluestar, she began to reflect on her own past. She never truly forgave Pinestar, but she became less angry, and started to understand why he made his choice. Leopardfoot was well supported by her friends and family with Tigerkit, eventually realizing she was happier raising him alone.
Pinestar felt guilt for leaving Leopardfoot and Tigerkit for the rest of his life, up until he began to go senile. He was too cowardly to return to the forest and make peace with Leopardfoot and his son, or to confront his former clanmates. He vowed that if he were allowed into StarClan, the first thing he would do is apologize to Leopardfoot.
Overall, Pinestar and Leopardfoot's relationship was one with terrible communication where neither party was happy or satisfied. They both were pressured into it by the expectations of their society, and only the passage of time was able to help them realize this. In StarClan, they have since settled their differences, though Pinestar does not walk with StarClan most of the time, visiting only to make amends with Leopardfoot and to give Tigerstar one of his nine lives. Pinestar felt horrible learning of Tigerstar's tyranny, though Leopardfoot also felt responsible for teaching Tigerkit to hate his father, believing she led him astray. Pinestar disagrees, believing that maybe if he had stayed, he could have prevented Tigerstar's cruelty. Pinestar also confesses to Leopardfoot that StarClan were telling him to kill Tigerkit, a fact which horrified Leopardfoot. In the end, the two agreed that Tigerstar's choices were his own, in spite of his parents' mistakes (some mistakes worse than others). They are in mutual agreement to keep their distance from each other, for their own sakes. If they cross paths in the afterlife, they are polite and respectful, but not warm or friendly.
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