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Post by fαllεη • on Jul 9, 2010 22:23:11 GMT -6
[center][IMG]http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee203/tigertron56/Warriors/GreatCatclans/smokerose.png[/IMG][/center]
[size=0][blockquote][blockquote][color=7b80ab]"CloudClan will probably want you back, won't they?"[/color] [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size]
Smokeleaf
Name: Smokeleaf, formerly the warrior Smokerose.
Age: 70 moons
Clan: FrostClan
Gender: She-cat
Personality:
Smokeleaf has grown older, and with that age comes great... snappishness. She doesn't take too kindly to young cats, believing that they have a right to enjoy life --just not where she's working. Not a great fan of kits either, she generally keeps away from the nursery unless she's needed there, preferring either the solitude of FrostClan's forests or the privacy of her den.
She knows how to hold a grudge, too. It's not a frequent occurrence, as Smokeleaf learned long ago that Smokerose's anger was never going to work as she got older. Her patience, never in great quantity, has fallen even shorter as her age increases. She's found that pretending to play the crotchety old crone makes it easier for her to get her way, but is only too ready to listen to the opinions of others and to be an open ear for their troubles... Even though, outwardly, she'll always appear either frosty or completely hostile. This enables her to treat her patients with the speed that she'd like: no warrior wants to spend more time around her than they have to, so they focus more on getting well and less on enjoying their time away from warrior duties.
Mind you, she still has a trace of affection for those who come to her with their problems --she won't show it, not for all the prey in the mountains, but the old medicine cat is more than familiar with a few of the older warriors, and always has respect for someone who's done something truly brave.
Introduce yourself if she hasn't gotten an idea of your prescience, and she'll treat you even less kindly. Smokeleaf hasn't got time for surprises, and she doesn't appreciate being made a fool of, ever. She's more than capable of holding a grudge... and of nurturing a crush. When she was still Smokerose, a cat who has long been dead to her, she was quite the charmer: pretty and social as you like, but even then she had an acid tongue to match. Like her brother Ashstripe, she inherited some of her mother's musical voice, and still hums under her breath when she thinks no-one is looking. She can't blame her brother for leaving: not only did he miss out on the thick coat of her father, but he was always the singer... And even Smokeleaf can't deny that she was tempted to stay with him, if only for the music.
She also doesn't give, to be frank, a rat's rear about the warrior code. It's easy to appreciate the main parts: no killing, no apprentices under six moons --that's logic, and stuff that she will hold with until the end. But all this 'feed the Clan before yourself'? No cat can think well on an empty stomach: warriors should at least take a snack before they hunt. And clan boundaries... She's grown rather callous to the idea of this. Being a medicine cat, she can technically waltz into any clan she likes under the pretence of seeing their medicine cat, and only a few snarls of derision would tell her she was doing anything wrong. In fact, the point of four Clans escapes her entirely, because she believes they'd do better sharing prey and herbs. Nothing wrong with a democracy.
Description:
As her name suggests, Smokeleaf (formerly Smokerose), is a grey, smoky-coloured she-cat. Thickly built and thickly furred, her pelt has always spelt 'trouble', and in as she gets older it's becoming less and less of a priority to groom it properly. As her warrior name suggested, she was once quite a pretty specimen, and the old her, the Smokerose that once lived, is a little secret that she keeps all to herself. But now, she's still got enough spring in her step to race the younger warriors --not that she ever would! Never take a chance if you're likely to lose.
With a stocky build and an intelligent, sharp-edged face, there are many first impressions that you could get from this cat. But the first first impression is generally of her eyes; one eye, specifically. Her right eye has been affected with a cataract that occurred during her brief four moons as a warrior. The she-cat was all anger, and when an enemy patrol crossed their border... Well, the fight didn't end well for her, but it ended at least as badly for her opponent. Her vision there is corrupted, and so she's particularly snappish and irritable if you approach her from the right without giving her a shuffled paw-step to work from.
The two golden eyes are now fading to a yellowy-green, two strangely-hued points of colour in an otherwise monochrome face.
Parents: Twistedstep (Father, formerly Bearfoot), Thrushspot (Mother, SnakeClan)
Littermate: Ashstripe (SnakeClan)
History:
Bearfoot and Thrushspot were the proud parents of two healthy kits. In all their lives, maybe these kits were their proudest moments: certainly a close second. The only trouble was that these kits of theirs? They were both half-clan. Thrushspot was of SnakeClan, a mother and a singer through and through. Bearfoot was a dedicated FrostClan warrior, but an even more dedicated father who wouldn't hear of Thrushspot raising their kits on her own. Worst of all was Leopardflame, the warrior that Thrushspot had, without Bearfoot's knowledge, persuaded to pretend to be the unwilling father of her kits.
But he had to give in eventually; the SnakeClan patrol would not have taken kindly to him, and how was he supposed to care for these kits? As Thushspot put it: "I love you, Bearfoot. You know I do, and these kits are evidence in themselves. But if I must choose between keeping part of you and keeping none at all, then you know. You know I would rather die than lose these kits."
Smokekit and Ashkit were named for their mother's silver colouring, but also for the father's fire that flowed through their veins: for after flame, what is left but the charred and acrid remains of its passing? And Thrushspot needed to keep those ashes if she could not have the fire.
The two were raised in SnakeClan on their mother's song and their elders' stories. The bond between clan cats then was much as it is now: powerful and almost a force unto itself, a force not even StarClan's power could make yield. It was with that confidence in themselves and this fire in their blood that Ashpaw became a strong and vocal member of the clan, while Smokepaw was much like her father: raging in every place at once, leaving silence and gentle whispers in her wake. She was a shameless flirt, spending time with every tom who could stomach her quick changes: from passionate, thick gazes to scalding ones; from easy, warm laughter to a raging tirade. But at least she was happy.
Her apprenticeship lasted the usual length, but Smokepaw had learned quickly and applied her fiery temperament to the training as easily as if she'd been born to it. Her brother preferred to stand back, his deepening voice flowing like liquid silver over her ears, giving her a steeled layer of strength. Looking back on this now, she can see that she was more than a little selfish with her treatment of him. Oh, she loved him dearly, but he had to be there when she needed him and gone the second the warm moods returned. He seldom saw her except when she needed his comfort. For it was, a moon before their apprenticeship ended, that Thrushspot was to die.
It hadn't been a terribly hard leafbare: in fact, it was just fading into new-leaf, and healing herbs should have been easy to find. Leopardflame, who had taken a new mate a few moons earlier in spite of the clan's whispering, stood by her --but he was her accomplice and no more, as the siblings were soon to learn.
Even if Thrushspot had survived her illness, had lived to see the effect it would have on her children and their adoptive father, I don't think she would have regretted telling them. She'd lived too long without their father: she needed to see a little of him in them, and for them to know that it was Bearfoot, not Leopardflame, who had given them that little.
Smokepaw was, needless to say, furious. She stormed out of the camp like wildfire, burning anyone who dared to get in her way. She railed at the few trees in the territory for hours, taking out her fury on their ancient bark. It didn't take long for Ashpaw to find her --at least, it wouldn't have if he hadn't given her a few hours in which to work out her frustrations. As always, he was the cool head in which she could reflect, look back, and cool her raging thoughts.
"She was right to tell us, though." he mewed, after one particularly long spiel had him behind a tree, Smokepaw frowning down on him. "She lied to us! They both did!"
"And would you rather still be living that lie?"
If she answered truthfully, she would. Smokepaw had spent her whole life hating anything and everything that came within claw's reach --half-clanners and rogue-born warriors being one of them. Now, her own words stung her as they must have stung the few others. Oh, they would have fun with her if she let them... but she wasn't going to.
She waited a few moons to leave: she wasn't stupid. And truth be told, she was a little scared. Leaving her clan would be a huge step, and it still felt like an act of betrayal to the cats she'd loved. She couldn't concentrate on prey; least of all on fighting, in which she normally took such pride. Her mentor, Whiteoak, had a few choice words to say to her when his usually strong, intelligent apprentice walked right into his attack during training. "FrostClan warriors would have you on the ground in a heartbeat, let alone those ravaging IvyClan warriors!" he growled. "Again. And focus this time."
But her warrior ceremony, while still the third-proudest moment of her life (first equal were the day Whiteoak told her he was proud of how well she fought and the day Ashpaw had beaten her in a sparring match), was to be her last in SnakeClan -or so she hoped. Sitting on the edge of the rocky plateau that made their camp, staring over the territory tree-lengths below (and wondering why SnakeClan bothered to have vigils when no sane cat would try to climb these cliffs in the dark) she broke the silence with a whisper. And Ashpaw wasn't surprised: he'd actually been waiting for her to show him just how little this part of the warrior code meant to her. But what she said --well, that didn't surprise him either.
"I'm going to see our father."
He stared at the ground, clearly unwilling to break his vigil as she had. But he pulled a confused face and drew a cross in the sand and pointed to the warriors' den. "Don't you want to be a warrior?"
"I do," she meowed, grinning a little at the face he'd pulled. "But...' She didn't need to say anything, and Ashstripe knew he should stop her. That was the night that he had a chance to be selfish: living under his sister's thrall... He loved her, that much was given, but the rest of his life, being her cool-headed confidante? She would be happier with their father.
She left at dawn, rubbing shoulders with her brother and heading straight for the FrostClan border, over the plains and rocky ground that made up her old home. Crossing the border was even worse: she came straight into the path of a patrol. Hoped that, just maybe, her father might have been among them. He wasn't. She was treated just as badly as any cat who'd stolen prey, before she finally persuaded them that she 'was just going to walk right into their camp if they let her go, and what was Smallstar going to say about them then?'
FrostClan, sticklers for the warrior code and trusting only their own blood... If she'd been raised there and left for SnakeClan, things would've been far easier. Sure, there'd still have been weeks of resentment once she'd left, but at least she wouldn't have been there to face it. SnakeClan would've welcomed her with open paws. But this was her kind of clan: a clan of fierce -albeit too silent for her taste- cats; another chance to prove herself. And her father... He was no longer the fiery cat her mother had told her about. He'd gotten a new mate; of course he had. Had to keep up appearances, or so he told her. She had felt betrayed. Again.
StarClan only knew how hard he worked to earn her trust again. And Smokerose, in her turn, proved that she was just as much a FrostClan cat as the next warrior -- and would claw the face off any cat who told her otherwise. The medicine cat den gave her solace: the second she had nothing else to do -no apprentices to nag, no duties to perform- she went there. Never let it be said that Smokerose was ever a lazy cat. Herbs became something she would nose for even on patrol, just to make sure that everyone knew she was doing her job --and everyone else's into the bargain.
It was her first ever meeting with an IvyClan patrol at fifteen moons old that proved just how willing she was. She'd taken a night patrol for one of the older warriors, complaining of backache, with a brief thought of derision and then her brother's cool, careful voice in her ears and an old song on his tongue. "Never let it be said that you and I held back from aid at a clanmates' cry. Never let it be thought that we would live when for our clan we had life to give.' A melodramatic song she'd always thought... But she was just as willing to hold true to that song as she would have done for SnakeClan's warriors, and when the IvyClan warriors lunged from the trees and across the border, something in Smokerose sang with joy. Her claws sliced and swiped as fast as she could go, but she never dived into a fight without assessing her opponent. Unfortunately, she underestimated the speed with which IvyClan's warriors could dodge. Her opponent was bleeding -though more by far than Smokerose- when he snuck under her final blow and smacked her head so hard that she fell sideways and it connected with a rock. Her fighting was done for that day.
She woke still on the ground with the medicine cat standing over her, who pronounced her 'a little giddy but apparently fit'. He did, however, whisper that if she felt dizzy or sick, she should come and see him immediately.
Smokerose was blessedly free from those symptoms. She gave as good as she got on border-patrols, abandoning hunting almost entirely to get a chance to see the warrior who'd beaten her again. She had no desires of her own any more. Crushing on the nice tom cats, flirting with the ones who weren't; being a strange combination of pride and shame to her father because of it. Not really caring any more.
Her troubles really began when her vision started to go... well, maybe 'weird' is the best word for it. Focus in the right eye was difficult, and the world seemed to be getting increasingly misty on that side. Cataracts weren't uncommon, but they generally didn't happen in someone as young as Smokerose. And soon the cloudy pupil lost her the attention of the boys. Sure, she could turn the clumsiness into flirtation in a heart-beat: "Oh, I didn't see you there. I was looking for the source of that musky, delicious odour... But that must have been you, eh handsome?" or "I may only have one eye, but that appears to be taking a hammering with looks like yours." Even, if she was feeling particularly snide, "Good thing beauty is in the eye of the beholder, 'cause I don't think my good eye can take much more of that."
Eventually, the blindness gave her more than an attractive klutziness: it began to interfere with her hunting. Not the best in that regard, even with two eyes, Smokerose's catches suffered a heavy blow. She'd go for a mouse, carefully scenting the air, before something darted across what was now the right of her vision but had once been the middle. Her prey was scared off by the other mouse she'd missed --the mouse she hadn't noticed to hide herself from. Hearing soon kicked in hard in that regard: she became the cat on whom sneaking up became a death sentence. She caught everyone who tried to scare her; not because she wanted to toy with them, but because she hated being bested, and she hated having that weakness.
Then one moon, the tentative medicine cat approached her. He was shockingly blunt. "Smallstar considers sending you to live with the elders, Smokerose." Smokerose recoiled in horror. Words cannot describe the expression of pure horror that she wore. Twenty moons old! Prime of her life. She should have been hunting, racing, attacking any who dared to oppose her... And Smallstar wanted her with the elders?! Smokerose, who'd only been angry for so much of her life, cried. She sobbed openly into his fur --not before checking the air for any other warriors nearby. But she couldn't bear the thought of lazing in a disgusting, tic-filled den all day, every day... For however many years it took her to curl up and die. No, she'd rather die than have that happen to her. And then Pebbleleaf (for such was the peculiar name of the cat) offered her something she'd never thought she'd hear. "Or you could become my apprentice."
She couldn't stop herself; she laughed. Her? Twenty moons old, half-SnakeClan, half blind, and always angry. He wanted her to become a medicine cat. Visibly hurt, he'd turned away, and she suddenly blurted, "If you're going to teach me the ways of the almighty StarClan, you're going to need to toughen up a bit."
He blinked. She grinned. He smiled, tentatively, back.
Of course, it wasn't easy at first. The hardest thing was, surprisingly, stopping the flirting with the toms. She'd done it for as long as she could remember: it was her thing, what she did. But as her new mentor -how strange it was to be back in that part of the woods again!- was very firm. Since she could no longer take a mate, she had forfeited all right to even tease the toms. Smokerose can honestly say that she missed it, but it was always just a game she played, some fun for a few licks behind the ears and a little bit of excitement in the lulls between fighting. And as she could keep her sparring matches, it was no real loss.
The next hurdle was getting the other medicine cats to accept her --or so Smokerose thought. She wasn't the type of cat to walk in their mystical circles: she probably didn't have a mystical bone in her body. But for some unfathomable reason they did, and Smokerose felt... glad. Relieved to finally meet them, to know they held no grudge against her -- and if they did, they had such a good way of hiding it that she did not question them. The SnakeClan medicine cat was the only truly awkward moment. She asked after Ashstripe; he asked after Smallstar. Both cats, in their own ways, were equally important to her.
She trained as a medicine cat for well over six moons, but Pebbleleaf didn't seem to mind. He had lots of time with his apprentice, and he wanted her to do the best she could. "Besides," he mewed with a smile. "You've already got your warrior name, haven't you?"
He frustrated her, that old cat --but then again, what cat didn't? She was up chasing herbs, prey and praise (but never toms) at all hours. She treated broken limbs, cracked pads, exhaustion (not an ailment in her opinion) and helped Pebbleleaf when he was helping a queen through her birth. She learned the difference between deathberries and strawberries, how to bind a wound and what to do when a queen's kits were stuck during birth. Yes, her second apprenticeship was a far more eventful one, and it amused her that, had she chosen, she now had a spot in the apprentices' den. Naturally, she chose the medicine cat's sleeping quarters over her own.
When the time came for her to become an official medicine cat, the day dawned bright and frosty. It had snowed the day before and, as ever, she silently thanked that elusive StarClan for her thick pelt --even while she was verbally thanking her father for giving it to her. Pebbleleaf was already up, sorting his travelling herbs for the trip. She sighed. No food before meeting StarClan was something else she couldn't understand about the warrior code that she'd sworn to uphold. Did they want her to faint before she met them? But this felt like her first visit to the Moonstone all over again. She might just faint at their feet anyway. If her 'mentor' (she still laughed at the idea of him truly mentoring her into anything) hadn't been next to her, she'd probably have run halfway to SnakeClan.
Before long -after the leader's obligatory speech and Smokeleaf's discomfort at it- they were off. It felt almost wrong to be going to StarClan's place in broad daylight, but Smokerose had gone before. Once with SnakeClan -the obligatory trip before she became a warrior- and once as Pebbleleaf's apprentice. But this was different. She was going to actually see the cats who were, like her, no longer fully inside clan boundaries. She could befriend these cats without any fear of disgust from her clan members, because that's what medicine cats had to do. They stuck together so that they could stick the sick together.
Her coming-of-medicine-catness was awe-inspiring, but it was a part of her history that the newly-named Smokeleaf would always have for herself. She was still snappy and fiery as ever, but that ceremony marked a new dawn of responsibility for her. She couldn't depend on Pebbleleaf if she did something wrong -even though he said she could- and had to live with the responsibility of holding a cat's life in her paws. Holding her clan's life in her paws.
Smallstar died on patrol a year after she became medicine cat. It was a blow. She wasn't close to the leader, but after years of working alongside him, well... You can't help but grow attached to someone. Worst of all, Pebbleleaf had retired only days before the attack: he was still able to help her, but Smokeleaf wouldn't hear of it; not until they were sure that IvyClan was gone.
((I'm afraid I haven't really done much research into feline cataracts, and I'm a little confused as to whether Smokeleaf should've just been Smokerose until Pebbleleaf retired, so if I've done something wrong any corrections would be greatly appreciated ^^;))
Writing Example:
'Oh great StarClan...'
Smokeleaf had been watching things fall to pieces for weeks, but this final battle was simply horrendous. Blood. Pain. Of course, she'd only seen the aftermath: she'd been gathering cobwebs in the
Autobiography:
... I'm writing this at one in the morning. My parents will kill me i they find out that I've been up this late... Anyway XD.
As you may've gathered, I have such a lack of life in the real world that I will miss sleep to come online XD. I'm a teenager --old enough to dislike the word and young enough to need to be called it :P. Call me Fallen; it's my Warriors alias, and the only thing that I can be bothered carrying from one site to another, other than a love of rambling and a tendency to forget sites that I'm on unless the people there constantly PM me to remind me that I should have posted months ago XD. Anyway. Basic stats: hair that is brown but looks blonde to some people --which is weird, given that at its furthest from brown it's red XD, tall enough, brown eyes. Role-played for three years, starting to get lazy about it but still loving every hand-cramping, soul-draining minute :D. Probably shouldn't be signing up for a high position but have made the character conveniently old enough and crotchety enough to be killed off without a second glance, though if this does occur the poor gal will be reincarnated elsewhere XD.
Enough random details for ya? ^^;
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