Post by TANGO on Feb 15, 2013 17:23:36 GMT -5
LEOPARDSTAR
| [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top] 64MOONS SHE-CAT RIVERCLAN LEADER | [atrb=style, width: 296px; padding: 5px; background-color: e3e3e3; border-top: 4px solid #000000;] GENERAL INFORMATION NAME, leopardstar BRIEF DESCRIPTION, unusually spotted golden tabby she-cat FAMILY, APPEARANCE pic speaking in technical terms, leopardstar is a golden-brown "spotted tabby". what does this mean? leopardstar's coat has a yellow-brown base with darker stripes laying over it, like any other tabby. howver, her stripes are broken and slightly warped into dashes or spots across her pelt. the effect of this unusual pattern makes her look leopard-like, not in a literal way (she's a feral cat, not a pure-bred bengal) but in a vague, impressionistic way. indeed, any cat who catches just a glimpse of her running through the forest will immediately understand her name--golden blotches of color mottled in darkness that ripples over her lean, toned muscles is undoubtedly evocative of the great leopard. but enough about her pelt, there is more to her appearance than that. she is long and thin in build, but well-muscled, with the typical riverclan short-and-sleek fur. her eyes are a dark, deep amber (keeping with the canon tradition, not the picture) and her ears are thin, giving her face an odd appearance. her shoulders are wide and sloping, and her claws are unusually sharp, almost (but not quite) comparable to tigerstar's. her tail is long, sleek, and winding, and she often uses it for expression. PERSONALITY Leopardstar is a loyalist, although she believes loyalty to a clan is raised in a cat and not born. You could be a ShadowClan cat raised in RiverClan and, in her opinion, you can be a loyal RiverClan cat. However, if you were a ShadowClan cat that, later in life, joined RiverClan, she would label you as untrustworthy. So, while she doesn't detest half-clanners who have been raised in one clan, she highly mistrusts half-clanners who have relationships with parents from both clans, cats who switched or joined the clans later in life, etc. Unless you remain loyal to the allegiance you were raised under, she has a difficult time seeing you as trustworthy. She is also incurably stubborn. Her head is as hard as a rock and once she has committed to a certain idea, she is set on it. Don't bother trying to argue against it or convince her of something different, because you will be wasting your breath. The same goes, not just for arguments, but for actions. Once she has set her mind on completing an action (say, taking Tallpines from ThunderClan) she will stop at nothing to see it through. Her commitment is unwavering. Leopardstar is known, particularly among the other clans, as being secretive and suspicious. This is because she doesn't trust the other clans, even if the ones she claims are allies, and would rather not have every clan knowing RiverClan's business. She keeps the Clan's external struggles, inner conflicts, future plans, and any other sensitive information "under wraps", so to speak. She worries that other clans will attempt to take advantage of RiverClan, if they get the opportunity, and is highly suspicious of any cat that seems too curious about the clan or its happenings. ( One of her more latent characteristics is her compassion. Leopardstar can be rather compassionate, although she doesn't show it in typical ways. For example, although she mistrusts cats raised outside of RiverClan, she allowed Cedarclaw to rejoin RiverClan to be with his family. This does not mean she will treat him equally or even civilly all the time, but her first instinct was the chase him out of RiverClan's territory. Instead, she chose the more compassionate option and allowed him to stay with his family. She believes firmly in tough love, but no cat should ever forget that the underlying emotion of "tough love" is love. Like most clancats, Leopardstar is brave and proud. She truly believes RiverClan is better than all other clans and willingly puts her HISTORY Brightsky and Mudfur were a typical RiverClan couple: fiercely loyal to the clan and completely smitten with each other. Brightsky was mentoring an apprentice named Graypaw when she discovered that she was pregnant, but she was willing to give up the life of an active warrior to care for the unborn kits of the tom she loved. Unfortunately, the pregnancy was a rough one. Soon after moving to the nursery, Brightsky caught a fever and remained sick throughout her pregnancy. Still sick, Brightsky had a tough time during delivery. She gave birth to a litter of weak kits. Two of them were dead by the time they were born and one died minutes after birth. Only the fourth kit, a little spotted tabby she-kit, remained, weak but alive. The combination of sickness and a complicated delivery was too much for Brightsky, and the she-cat died shortly after giving birth. The one surviving she-kit was had no mother, no siblings... Only a heartbroken father to care for her. He named her Leopardkit, thinking that the name would bring his only daughter the strength and power of the great LeopardClan of ancient times. The little she-kit was given to another queen, Shimmerpelt, to nurse, but the connection was not a deep one. Shimmerpelt could never replace her mother, and Shimmerpelt’s kits, Skykit and Blackkit, were never siblings to her, only friends. With such a sad background, most of the clan took pity on young Leopardkit and she was very spoiled as she grew up. Most of the older cats doted on her, and she seemed to be able to wrap any cat around her tail. For this reason, she became kind of soft. She never had to fetch her own prey or even leave the nursery on cold or rainy days, even as an older kit. Her coming moons as an apprentice would shock her. Naturally, at six moons old, Hailstar gave her the name Leopardpaw and Whitefang to mentor her. The amount of work Leopardpaw suddenly had to do was overwhelming, and in her early days of training she discovered something horrible about herself: she was a drypaw; she hated water. It was a combination of fear of drowning and dislike for the texture of the liquid on her pelt that made her cringe away from getting her paws wet. She struggled to keep this flaw a secret from the clan, knowing that RiverClan could never truly accept a drypaw. She confessed her aversion only to her friend Sunfish, and the two set out to condition Leopardpaw to accept water. Sunfish would leave prey for Leopardpaw on the far side of a stream and, if Leopardpaw wanted to eat, she would have to wade through the water to do so. At first, she resisted, but the hard work of training always left her hungry, and eventually (slowly) she adapted. The combination of warrior training and water conditioning left the apprentice constantly exhausted, and several moons of these conditions toughened her up. Fortunately, training became easier when, around four moons in, she finally realized that not only could she tolerate water but she was actually starting to like it. After eight moons of training, Whitefang decided that Leopardpaw was ready to become a warrior. After passing her assessment, Leopardpaw was cleared by Hailstar to earn her warrior name and was dubbed Leopardfur. A couple of seasons after becoming a warrior, Leopardfur was faced with a challenge unlike any she had seen in her apprentice days. A pack of rats had moved into the horseplace on RiverClan territory and were attacking any cat they came across. Hailstar put together a patrol to destroy the pack, and Leopardfur was chosen. She had never seen so many rats at one time! It was a draining battle, and she nearly got her ear bitten off, but the patrol succeeded in defeating the vermin. She still has small scars in her pelt to commemorate the victory. In this battle, Leopardfur proved that she could handle an apprentice, and Hailstar soon gave her one by the name of Whitepaw. Pleased that her mentor and her first apprentice shared a name, Leopardfur was delighted with the choice. She and the young tom got along well and greatly enjoyed their sessions together. They became close friends, and Leopardfur felt almost maternal about him. She was very protective and wanted him to succeed in the clan more than anything. She took great care in training him and he became a skilled warrior named Whiteclaw, one the whole Clan could be proud of. Her success in training him showed RiverClan that not only was Leopardfur a great warrior but she was also a great teacher: a useful trait for leadership. Moons passed and changes occurred within the clan. Mudfur, her father, decided to give up the life of a warrior and become RiverClan’s medicine cat. Hailstar died and Crookedjaw became Crookedstar in his place. Leopardfur aged and gained the wisdom and experience to be considered a senior warrior. She always offered to lead patrols, helped apprentices with their training, and was considered a true asset to the clan. Soon, however, she found herself on the battlefront once again. RiverClan fought in a battle against ThunderClan at the Sunningrocks. Although it was one of many battles between the two clans for this territory, this particular battle stands clear in her memory because during the battle, a rockslide occurred and RiverClan’s deputy, Oakheart, was killed in the falling rocks. The great warrior was deeply mourned but Crookedstar had to chose a deputy before nightfall and the choice, in his mind, seemed obvious. That evening, after the battle, Leopardfur was named deputy of RiverClan. She was 46 moons old. Within a few moons of becoming deputy, things became complicated in RiverClan. ShadowClan, at a Gathering, asked ThunderClan and RiverClan for permission to hunt on their lands. Crookedstar agreed, and though Leopardfur had no choice but to back her leader, she felt in her heart that it was the wrong decision. She confronted Crookedstar about it and he explained that ShadowClan was an enemy that RiverClan did not want to have. They were weak, but they had already pushed WindClan out of their territory. When Leopardfur discovered that ShadowClan had attacked ThunderClan camp after refusing to let them on their territory, Leopardfur saw Crookedstar’s point. When ThunderClan brought WindClan back from exile the next season, ShadowClan approached RiverClan for help. Again, Leopardfur felt that it was not RiverClan’s place to fight, but they Crookedstar seemed determined not to have ShadowClan as an enemy which, in this case, meant they must be allies. Leopardfur fought in the battle at the gorge. A WindClan warrior had pinned her to the ground when, in the background, Leopardfur saw a sickening sight: her former apprentice, Whiteclaw, was battling with a ThunderClan apprentice, and they were headed straight for the gorge. Leopardfur cried out to warn the tom, but the battle was so loud that there was no way for him to hear. By the time she had dislodged her attacker, it was too late: Whiteclaw and Sandpaw had fallen to their deaths. The loss stung Leopardfur, and her dislike for ThunderClan hardened that day. They alone, she believed, were responsible for Whiteclaw’s death. This severe distaste for ThunderClan inspired Leopardfur to fight harder in the battles against ThunderClan for the Sunningrocks and she was among the first cats to suggest actually taking the Tallpines from ThunderClan when RiverClan needed a place to hunt. In taking more of their land, she believes she can exact revenge for the death of Whiteclaw. As long as RiverClan has an excuse to take ThunderClan’s territory, she does not see the problem with it. This past Leaf-fall, Crookedstar caught Greencough. Though at first it looked as if he might pull through, he was not a young tom and he had only one life left. The sickness took a turn for the worst and he passed away. Soon after, Leopardfur voyaged to the Moonstone and received her nine lives. She was finally Leopardstar. Although Leopardstar has only very recently taken control of RiverClan, her first few moons have been rough. Although she remembers Crookedstar’s advice about ShadowClan, she feels pressured that she should do something about their presence in RiverClan. She has spent her moons consulting StarClan, the medicine cat, and her senior warriors about what the next step is, and she feels as if she can finally take it soon. To add to the pressure on her, however, despite the fact that she just recently received her leader name, she has already lost one life. A young kit wandered out of camp in early Leafbare, before the river had frozen, and fallen in. Leopardstar had had to leap into the freezing water to save her. Although the kit survived, Leopardstar took ill and quickly lost her first life to sickness. She must do her best to make her eight remaining lives count. OTHER INFORMATON She has 8 lives left. RP SAMPLE RiverClan was starving. Warriors floated like ghosts around the camp, half-dead and half-alive. Their bones pokes out of their thin pelts at odd, startling angles and they walked automatically around the clearing, their legs lifelessly moving. Lifeless. That was her Clan. Leopardstar looked out at her warriors and felt a sickness in her belly, as if she needed to hack up the world’s largest fur-ball. Her head spun at the sight of her clan. They were dying and there was nothing she could do about it. A rustling sound behind her drew her attention away from the center of camp. She spun around, her eyes darting wildly for the noisemaker. There! A dark face peered through a break in the reed barrier that surrounded the Clan camp, its eyes burning and curious. A body poked out behind the reeds, healthy and well-fed. A strange body. ShadowClan! Leopardstar hissed and pounced forward to attack the intruder, but he was gone. She raced after him, desperate to stop him. He knew too much! He had seen their weakness! But he left no scent behind him. He had vanished without a trace. Her paws flew in vain across the barren ground. The spotted she-cat flinched. Her eyes flew open at the sound of her name, and although she could see the walls of her den, her heart was still racing as if she were chasing the ShadowClan spy across the border. It took her a moment to process the warmth and softness of her nest before her body began to relax. A dream, she thought in relief. It had only been a dream. “What?” Leopardstar hissed irritably as the full shapes of Darkpaw and Mosspaw padded into her den. In truth, it was a relief to be woken from her dream by the lively voices of well-fed cats and know for certain that her clan was safe, but she couldn’t have the apprentices thinking that they could wake her up before dawn with whatever scheme they had gotten in their heads. Darkpaw and Mosspaw were notorious troublemakers, and judging by the eagerness in their voices, they were definitely up to something, even if her irritation had silenced them for a second. She lowered her eyelids and fixed them with a level stare. Darkpaw broke first. So that’s why they were so eager, the leader thought wryly. They wanted to get Shellclaw in trouble on her first night as a warrior. Leopardstar rose to her paws and shook the moss out of her fur as she moved away from her nest. “You should have woken her up, not me,” she chided them. “I doubt Shellclaw will appreciate you tattling on her. The leader sighed and padded out of the den, beckoning with her tail for Mosspaw and Darkpaw to follow her. “But we can’t be afford to have the camp go unprotected in times like these...” The image of the dark ShadowClan warrior spying on RiverClan’s camp sent shivers up Leopardstar’s spine, making her fur stand on edge. No, they couldn’t be taking any risks right now. RiverClan was on top for the moment, but power in the forest was so fleeting... One false pawstep and they could be groveling for ThunderClan to share prey with them. That will never happen![/] Leopardstar hissed to herself. I won’t allow it! Leopardstar prodded Shellclaw awake a little too brusquely. “Save your apologies,” she retorted as the young she-cat scrambled to explain herself. “You have these two to thank or I wouldn’t even know you’d been asleep. Just make sure it doesn’t happen again or I’ll have you to blame when we’re fighting off a ThunderClan ambush.” Speaking of the apprentices... Her amber eyes turned on them. “Since you two seem so interested in the safety of the Clan, then you won’t mind staying up with Shellclaw for the rest of the night to guard the camp. And I expect that this time, none of you will fall asleep.” ETCETERA OTHER CATS, |
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