Rabbitpaw | Shadeclan Apprentice

Name: Rabbitpaw
Gender: She-cat
Age: 14 moons, mid leafbare
Loyalty: Shadeclan
Rank: Apprentice


seems so long ago since we were carefree

When Rabbitpaw was born, her beautiful long-furred ears were actually flopping down comically, and thus her mother named her for them, and despite how she has since grown into them and they have perked like that of a true feline, the name still fits. Unlike many of her clanmates, Rabbitpaw's skill in hunting does not rely mostly on the squirrels and birds that rest high in the pine trees found scattered over Shadeclan's territory, but also in the rabbits that rush along the moor and Star Fields, her legs unusually long for a Shadeclan cat. Sure, her large paws, broad shoulders, and long pelt allow her to blend in with the rest of them and deny any question of her lineage, but the length of her legs and tail gives her an advantage over them. Her mother used to call her a double-threat, and she enjoys living up to the title, using her graceful body to its fullest potential. Her black, apricot, white, and brown dappled face and pelt is similar to that of her mother's, although the patches not falling in exactly the same place, of course, the large black patch on her nose causing her to have almost been named Patchkit. She likes how she looks just fine, not caught up in it, but not insecure either, for her abilities as a warrior causes pride to shine in her pine needle-green eyes and that is where her true beauty lies.



photographs lost in time are all i see

Genuine | Clever | Strong | Brave | Polite | Respectful | Trustworthy | Imaginative | Playful | Loyal

Rabbitpaw is one of the most genuine cats you might find in all the four clans combined. She has a very good sense of who she is and what she wants to do with her life, and she knows both her flaws and her assets and tries to use both for the better of her clan. She is clever in this way, realizing her overactive imagination could get her into trouble, but also could be used to come up with great battle plans or creative ways to get to hard-to-reach prey. She is strong and brave but not cocky about it, rather finding herself hearing her mother's voice in her ear from time to time, knowing to remain respectful of her peers and polite to even the most dirty of rogue scum, because that was how she was raised. Despite her pleasantries towards non-Shadeclan members, she is viciously loyal and therefore very trustworthy, willing to die before she told someone else's secrets, to die for her clan, unaware that the truth about her lineage could turn her every word she ever uttered, every step she ever took, every belief she ever had, a lie.



a pointless nostalgic - that's me - that's me

Mother: Brindlepatch
Father: Blazenfur (known as Blaze)
Sibling(s): UNKNOWN: Honeycloud (half-sister, Mistralclan), Foxpelt (half-brother, Mistralclan)
Mentor: Tinystripe
Mate: None
Kits: None


thoughts running 'round my head today

birth

Tucked down between the wildflowers of the Steeplands rests the Mistralclan camp. Here, dappled brightly with yellow sunlight and whistling with the music of the winds, did many a cat once call their home. They were strong, prideful warriors with ancient lineage stretching further than the stars themselves. The very mountains whispered, singing their celestial song to the mesmerizing melody of cricket- chirps, weaving a tale of warriors long forgotten amongst lines of mist. Here, where the sun can refract and shower the earth with the full glory of its spectrum; here where the land was not born for cats, but the cats are born for the land; here where the true battle cry is not of tooth and claw but of the very nature of nature itself is where Mistralclan settled down for one relentless winter. Here is where Mistralclan made their home. Here is the clan into which Rabbitpaw was born.

Ah, but her tale does not start here, when she was barely a scrap of a kit and the winter was taking its toll. To fully know the vixen, one would need to have known before her before.

And, one would need to have known Blazenfur.

No. That is someone else's story.

For Rabbitpaw is a Shadeclan cat.

And as far as she's concerned, Blazenfur never even existed.

No, the father she knew of only through rumors and whispers, through her mother's description and her mentor's bitter jealousy, was a loner by the name of Blaze. He was strong, handsome, and while he possessed all the skills of a true clan cat, his wild nature and inability to work well in a group caused him to live alone on the outskirts of the twoleg place. He offered to sweep Brindlepatch off her paws on many occasions so they could live together and raise their only, beloved daughter, or so was the tale Brindlepatch wove for her beautiful kit, deciding upon Rabbitkit's birth that not only would she never know the embarrassing truth about the playful Mistralclan warrior who poured his misery into a Shadeclan warrior caught at the wrong boarder at the wrong time, but that Blazenfur would never know Rabbitkit, either. No, the tom had deceived her, informing her all too late that not only did he have a mate, but said mate had told him she was expecting the same day that the star-crossed lovers met.

The tale about him sweeping her off her paws?

Merely a fantasy.

kithood

As a kit, she didn't dwell much on who her father was or how her parents met, believing her mother when she said he was a loner and that she was too loyal to the clan to abandon them just to be with him. Not that she had much time to ask questions about the mysterious Blaze, for her mother, in fear of her being discovered as part Mistralclan, trained her from an early age. She would teach her kit fighting moves by demonstrating them and having Rabbitkit memorize their name, taught her the prints of different prey, different herbs that she could use in a pinch if no medicine cat was around, and often had her working on reinforcing the nursery walls or cleaning out the bedding so she learned discipline. The warrior code was the most important, and by the time Rabbitkit became an apprentice, she had all the knowledge she needed in theory, so all Tinystripe really needed to do was help her through the execution.

apprenticeship

While any mentor could be hard on an apprentice that was only half-clan blood, Tinystripe had been unusually bitter. Not cruel, oh no, never cruel, but harder on her than the others. He expected her to always do things correctly, even if she didn't know how to. He expect her to never complain, never be tired, never be hungry, and never ask stupid questions. His training taught her how to be strong and tolerant, how to be respectful and patient, and only drove her onward, wanting to prove herself to him. She would often be caught drifting off, imagining beating him during training and him being proud, imagining her warrior ceremony, imagining, even, that her father might come and be proud of her, too, instead of this sorry excuse for a father-figure who had the innate ability to get under her skin. Little did she know that she never could, for he was jealous, not of her, but they mysterious Blaze that had won her mother's heart.

current

The day her mother died was the saddest day of her life. For a while she let her misery overcome her, feeling lost, alone, with no family to speak of and nobody to comfort her. Tinystripe wanted nothing to do with her, and when he made it out of camp on a stormy night and never came back, it came to no surprise to her, for she felt nothing. Her mother was gone and she had lost herself. But every frost must thaw and as hope began to come back to the clan, so it came to Rabbitpaw, and the she-cat realized she had family. Shadeclan was her family. And it was in this discovery that Rabbitpaw found herself again, found her mother in her heart (and sometimes in her head) and found she could go on living again, this time having all the more to prove, because it isn't her mother or her mentor that she wants to be strong for, but for herself.


reminiscing my cares away

Roleplayer: Jimmy






i'm the pointless nostalgic - that's me - that's me