Post by BIRDY on Nov 20, 2015 1:05:08 GMT -5
NAME,Shatteredkit-Shatteredpaw- Shatter
NAME ORIGIN, Shatter was never close with his father and thus has always believed that the tom named him 'Shatteredkit' because he 'destroyed' his father's happiness. Ironically, the real reason he received the prefix was because his father hoped Shatter would one day break free of the tragedy and misfortune plaguing their family. Shatter's father was an awkward, reserved cat, though, and was ultimately never able to express this sentiment to his son. Following 'Shatteredpaw's' departure from Riverclan, he dropped the traditional suffix and simplified his name to 'Shatter'.
SEX, Tom
AGE, 32 Moons
CLAN,Riverclan-Rein's Rogues- Loner
RANK,Kit-Apprentice-Member- N/A. . .
REFERENCE, IMG1 - IMG2
SUMMARY, Tiny silver tabby tom with blue eyes and one ear
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION, [Domestic Shorthair Tabby with Siamese Roots] Shatter is a well-kept tom with a thick pelt made of short silver down and softer cream undertones. Slender, pale gray tabby lines cross the length of his spinal column down to his sacrum, at which point they vanish for a brief period before returning in neat white ringlets around his tail. This pattern repeats itself along each of his legs; broad but faint slate stripes start just above his elbows and hocks, becoming narrower but increasing in number and opacity as they travel toward his pasterns. With all four of the tom's paws dipped a solid, birch white, it is quite a hassle to keep clean, so Shatter's feet often end up the same smokey gradient as the rest of his body. This theme of faded coloring and vague markings is mostly consistent across Shatter's pelt, with his face being the only exception. Distinctly ashen guard-hairs spring forth from his scruff upwards, concluding in a characteristic soot-stained tabby 'M' on the tom's forehead. His left ear is a notable landmark on the expanse of the tom's body, standing proud but alone, a black sail whose brother has been replaced with a terrible scar marring the right-side of the tom's cranium. This ear was rather viciously removed by another rogue, Jack, who is also responsible for a majority of the bumps and nicks littering the skin beneath Shatter's pelt.
Missing body parts aside, the tom is relatively handsome as far as felines go. Baby blue eyes and a freckled pink nose are framed by ostentatiously long whiskers and beige cheek fluff. Coupled with his size, these neotenous traits result in the tom often being mistaken for a juvenile. His delicate paws and thin bone structure give his lithe frame all the necessary qualities to be an agile hunter and a light-footed fighter, but what he has in strengths he more than makes up for in weaknesses. The tom is small; so small in fact that even with his sister and all her birth defects, Shatter was still the runt of the litter. Weighing a measly average of 5 ibs and standing just 8" tall, the tom barely reaches the shoulder point of a typical feral adult male, making stature a rather touchy subject for the loner. As a result of his meek build, he has always had trouble landing meaningful blows in a scuffle. Damage sustained to his left forepaw has only diminished his fighting potential even further, and he has Obscurity's leader, Minx, to thank for this, as it was she that crippled the tom after hurling him over the side of a high ledge.. . .
PERSONALITY, [Temperamental - Impulsive - Loyal - Aloof] Shatter has always had ants in his pelt. He's the type to pick a fight even while he's still bleeding from the last one, acting without concern for right or wrong and responding purely to the pumping of his own adrenaline. Self-awareness must've skipped his generation, for though intuitive he may be, intelligent he is not. His own mistakes escape him until it is too late to correct them, making impulsivity somewhat of a habit for him. Violent action is, to Shatter, a reliable alternative to thinking too hard about the problems that he does not believe are capable of being solved with words alone. Although he's mellowed out considerably since his days of random instigation, the tom still retains that spark of madness that sends him flying into the fray even when he has no wings.
On the rare occasion that Shatter does stop to admire the scenery, he often finds himself baffled by what he and the other rogues have come to. Where the tom was once filled with resentment for his former life and those in it who mistreated him, he now spends much of his time worrying over the future; that of himself, his new friends, and the forest they live in. With time and experience, he's come to think less of the way the world has scorned him and more of how he can assist in its repair. His claws are quicker to come out on behalf of those he trusts than because of some off-handed insult, and his thoughts dwell less on old crimes and more on stopping new ones before they can come to be. In particular, he has ceased his brooding and begun to set aside his (many) differences with others in the hopes of discovering a route to peace. While still fiercely independent and loathe to dismiss attacks on his pride, Shatter has at least learned tolerance and maybe even attained a degree of maturity in the process.. . .
HISTORY, The night Riverclan gained two kits was the same night it lost a queen. Silverstep was a strong, healthy young warrior, effervescent and inspiring, but her life was cut short by those of her offspring. What started off as a perfectly typical labor took a sudden turn for the worst, and within the span of a few short moments that would turn into the longest of her mate Swiftclaw's life, the pride of parenthood shattered beneath death's crushing impact.
Another queen with darlings of her own did her best to care for the motherless brother and sister, but she had only so much milk and energy. With their father drowning in his grief, the two kits were left much to their own devices. They didn't receive their names until they were almost a moon old, but by then it was clear that one of them would never know it. The female, larger than her stunted brother, had not uttered a single sound all this time. In fact, she had not yet opened her eyes, and whether or not she could hear the voices calling out to her soon became apparent when, upon being spoken to by her father for the first time, she did not even so much as twitch an ear.
Rosekit was born deaf, blind and mute. Her chances of survival were slim to none, but the same could not be said for her littermate, Shatteredkit. While undeniably the runt, the little tom made it clear right from the get go that he would not go down without a fight. Where his sister spent her days of silence in a passive state of mere existence, Shatteredkit struggled hard to live. He battled his foster mother's kits with the ferocity of a Leopardclan warrior even when all they had to do was sit on him to bring the match to an end. Every word of discouragement or mockery only made the tom try all the harder to prove he could become a warrior like his father, but with said tom lost in forlorn solitude, there was no one to back Shatteredkit up, and so he stood on his own, one kit against the world.
There was speculation as to whether or not Shatteredkit should be trained. Although it was clear that Rosekit would never be able to hunt or fight alongside the other members of the clan, Shatteredkit had all the necessary faculties save size, his greatest downfall. The tom had trouble staying upright even at the slightest gust of wind, lacking the trademark sturdiness of a Riverclan warrior as well as the bare minimum height for any mentor to feel even remotely safe bringing him to the river. No one wanted to say it, but it was clear that they all dreaded the idea of taking on responsibility for the youth. He would only be a burden, a disappointment, a waste of time. Just make him a medicine cat already, they sighed. But Starclan remained silent on the topic, and so with no real way to explain to Swiftclaw why it was they couldn't allow his son to become a warrior, the clan begrudgingly promoted Shatteredkit to Shatteredpaw.
He was ecstatic as he stood there in front of everyone who had doubted him, staring up with wide eyes as the leader announced his new name and gave him his very own mentor. So what if Graytooth almost pulled a muscle bending down to touch noses with the apprentice? So what if his father barely shuffled over to the meeting at the last minute? He was on his way to becoming a warrior and all those who had once jeered otherwise could stuff their paws in their mouths. When he jabbered on and on about it to Rosekit, his sister had no idea what her brother was saying. But with his warm pelt snuggled up next to hers for the last time, she must have sensed the joy rolling off of him, for she purred like never before and gave his fluffy head an extra set of clumsy licks.
The reality, however, was that apprentice-hood was even harder than life in the nursery had been. As his clanmates had predicted, Shatteredpaw struggled with the basics while his peers were already off vaulting across rocks and launching fish into the air. It wasn't for lack of trying that Shatteredpaw fell behind. He was a quick learner, picking up on border knowledge and fighting moves almost immediately. It was the execution that he struggled with. Although his featherweight proportions gave him exceptional form and balance, when it came to practicing against the other apprentices, Shatteredpaw simply didn't stand a chance. He was always knocked down or injured before he could try out a new technique on his own, and when the mentors did allow him to go first, he simply lacked the necessary strength to get his opponents to react. He never felt so foolish as he did in those moments, charging at his fellow apprentice only for them to stand there, unmoved, staring down at him with a look somewhere between amusement and pity. What stung even more, however, was Graytooth's reaction. Shatteredpaw's mentor could hardly meet his apprentice's eyes. Instead, he looked away, as if afraid that his disappointment and embarrassment would show. It always did.
Still, if there was anything Shatteredpaw had learned, it was to struggle, to never stop fighting. On rainy days, when the wind was too strong for him to be allowed to leave camp and he had to watch as the other apprentices bounded off through the puddles with their own mentors for a lesson in following faint scent trails, Shatteredpaw would make up for it by testing fighting techniques on the fresh-kill pile or performing the hunting crouch on elders' tails until they inevitably chased him off. And even with the social rejection and repeated failures and humiliation, he knew that he was getting better. Little by little, whether anyone else acknowledged it or not, he knew he was improving. Every time he visited Rosekit in the nursery, he was sure of it. Although his sister had by now grown twice as big as him, he felt that he was her protector. When she sensed his approach and tried to let out a strangled greeting, sniffing her way to her brother and bowling him over, he knew that he was needed. No matter how alone he might feel, she would always be on his side, just as he would always be on hers.
But then Rosekit's lungs stopped working the way they should and her heart followed soon after. It wasn't that she was sick. What plagued her was nothing that any of her clan-mates could catch. It was something wrong with her, and just her. Something she had been born with. Slowly, day by day, it sapped her strength and stole what little breath she had, until she was reduced to an immobile lump of rasping fur. The other queens didn't want her in the nursery anymore. Her noises were frightening the kits, they complained. Her coughing was keeping them all from sleeping. They wanted to move her to the medicine cat's den, but Shatteredpaw protested. She would be alone most of the time, she hated being alone, a sick cat could make her ailments even worse, she was a member of Riverclan, they couldn't just hide her away in some corner of the camp like she was a disgrace. But this was a fight that no amount of training could help him win, so Shatteredpaw watched hopelessly as Rosekit was relegated to the den of the dying. When he tried to rally his father to help him change their minds, the tom looked straight through his son, eyes empty, and said, 'Who?'
Shatteredpaw fought. He really did. Trained just as hard, took every word of encouragement, rare as they were, to heart and never stopped pushing. But as Rosekit's condition worsened, Shatteredpaw's will began to weaken, and on a particularly bleak day, he happened upon Graytooth gossiping with another warrior just as they were leaving for a patrol.
'I heard she won't last much longer. It'll be any day now. I'm surprised whatever's killing her hasn't gotten Shatteredpaw yet. Even with two good eyes and ears, he hardly looks strong enough to make it through Leafbare.'
'It might be for the best. I can't train that cat anyways. Better disease take him than he fall in battle. I don't want that on my conscience.'
'No one would blame you even if he did. We all knew it even when he was a kit. That cat will never become a warrior.'
'But if my apprentice died in his first fight, what would the leader think of me? I'd never get to train another cat in my life, and then I'd never be considered for deputy.'
'It's a real pity.'
'You don't have to tell me. Riverclan would be better off without him.'
That was when Shatteredpaw gave up. Perhaps a small part of him had always clung to the thought that he could prove himself with time. That eventually, his clan-mates would change their minds about him and even Swiftclaw would snap out of his stupor to look on with pride at the warrior his son had become. But hearing how his mentor truly thought about him, Shatteredpaw felt that last bit of hope slip away just as quickly as if it had never been there. That night, he said good-bye to Rosekit in more ways than one. She was too weak to respond to his presence though, and eventually he slipped quietly out of camp, unseen and unheard, and had left the territory by sunrise.
Shatteredpaw might not have enjoyed his life as a clanner, but at least there had always been food and a warm nest to curl up in. Outside the safety of the camp, there was only foreboding woods and the never-ending expanse of unknown. The little tom was bombarded by unfamiliar sights and scents, ferocious predators lurking behind every bush, frightening sounds that belonged to creatures he had no names for. And hard as it had been in Riverclan, his misery did not compare to the sheer terror when he realized he was completely on his own now, no one to hunt and battle alongside him, no one to have his back, no matter how unwillingly. But he was a fighter. Young and petrified as he was, he had nothing if not the will to struggle. So the tom forced himself to move, navigating the outskirts of the clan territories and getting lost every time until eventually he started finding his way. He missed most of the prey that he stumbled upon. But when he didn't miss, he savored every bone. Before he knew it, it was impossible for him to get lost in the trees that had become his home, and although his stomach ached constantly, it became a comforting reminder that he was alive, he was breathing, he was still driven by the fight.
Surviving wasn't the only kind of battling Shatteredpaw did. He had heard stories about cats who lived outside the clans, 'rogues' and 'loners' and 'kittypets', they were called. Mostly, they were spoken of with scorn, but some had been mentioned as being of use to the clans in the past. Shatteredpaw's first encounter with a rogue was of the former kind, unfortunately. When he stumbled into a fearsome tom's turf, he was hastily pursued before escaping into a narrow rock-face that his far larger antagonist could not possibly fit into. There, he spent the night, shaking, squished, and cold, trying to ignore the feel of spiders crawling through his fur. But when morning came, the hostile tom was gone and Shatteredpaw was free to roam once more. That eye-opening introduction to the life of a rogue was only a prequel to what would come next. During Shatteredpaw's first real battle, the little tom would learn what he was truly capable of. It happened on a day where, by a rare stroke of luck, the former apprentice had managed to successfully catch a mouse. No sooner had he dealt the killing blow when a stranger suddenly entered the scene and demanded the tom hand over his prize. Shatteredpaw, too hungry to know better, refused, and the newcomer lunged. Just like that, the two were battling, Shatteredpaw's first real fight with claws unsheathed and fangs bared, no ring of warriors shouting for him to put more weight into his hind-legs or grab hold of his opponent's scruff. He and the stranger tumbled about, hissing and spitting in a nonsensical rage, and that was when Shatteredpaw realized that his combatant was almost as small as he was. Their ribs protruded from their fur, their flanks heaved raggedly, and their claws swung with the same desperation that his did, hunger and the fight. He knew then that this was no mere playful scuffle or proud retaliation. This was life or death, eat or be eaten. And with the sudden knowledge of just what it was he was fighting for, Shatteredpaw tore into his enemy all the harder.
He lost in the end. When he was tossed aside and winded, his opponent took advantage of his hesitation to snatch the mouse and run. But ultimately it didn't matter that he'd lost his dinner. He had fought, he had done damage to his enemy, and he was still standing. Shatteredpaw knew then that he was not the same cat who had cowered at the slightest toss of wind or glared at his paws in shame while his mentor chastised him for not striking quickly enough. He was different now, stronger, and in his own way, he had proved them all wrong. It was Leafbare. The snow coated the ground and bit into his thin, mangled pelt with a cold fire. But he was alive where they'd believed he wouldn't be. He was breathing where they'd thought the air would be empty. He didn't need a name or a ritual or some glorified cat sitting on a big glittery rock to tell him that he was a warrior. A warrior was a fighter, and Shatteredpaw had never been anything else.
The kit was already an adult when he joined Rein and her group of rogues. It was the first time he introduced himself as 'Shatter', but he had been calling himself as such for a while. After all, he was no longer that pitiful apprentice struggling to stay afloat. While he might still be small, he had grown bigger in ways that his old clan-mates never would, and he was not afraid of his own weaknesses anymore. Joining the rogues gave him a sense of community, the knowledge that he was an outsider but so were they, and it was what made each of them different that also made them strong. But this brief happiness was torn apart by the uprising of Obscurity. Shatter lost his ear, his home, his leader, his companions, and even a cat he had come to love. He almost lost his life as well, barely surviving by the skin of his neck and the help of an old friend. But having fought all this time, he is more than prepared to continue doing so, and unlike the past, he has no intentions of giving up.
FAMILY, Swiftclaw - Biological Father - Whereabouts Unknown
Silverstep - Biological Mother - Deceased
Rosekit - Full Sister (Littermate) - Deceased. . .
ROLEPLAY SAMPLE, It was half-past noon and Dana's customer was officially two hours late. He knew this because he had just checked his watch for the fifteenth time that day, and still there was no sign of the man. The exchange was not meant to be a particularly lucrative one, despite the relatively large quantity of product that Dana had been expected to procure. It was no real skin off his shoulder if the client did not go through with the deal; the shipment had cost Dana little to nothing. What did bother the trader was the feeling that he was being taken for granted.
That, and figuring out what in Arceus's name he was going to do with twenty crates of oran berries.
He supposed he could give them to Boo or Jaws (the latter of which was circling through the clouds somewhere overhead, keeping her eyes on The Sky's Truth while simultaneously stretching her wings). Despite the axew's appetite and the aerodactyl's size, however, Dana doubted they would be able to consume even half the cargo before it would spoil. That meant, assuming the customer never showed up, Dana would either have to sell it off to some third party buyer or else dump the remainder overboard. Wouldn't that make headlines in the land below.
Of course, there was always charity, but Dana wasn't much for giving without getting. Maybe he could rework The Sky's Truth's guns. Imagine the dent in the pirates' foreheads when they took an oran berry to the face. The thought was amusing, but as Dana wasted the minutes waiting, the situation began to lose what little humor could be sucked from it, and the man got up off the crate with a sigh.
Well, he'd done what he was supposed to. All that was left was to pack up and move onto the next order. Spitting out his cigarette and grinding it into the cobblestone with the toe of his boot, Dana stuck his thumb and forefinger into his mouth and gave a sharp whistle. The shrill sound was followed by heavy wingbeats and an unmistakeable roar that shook the air above.
Might as well unburden the load now. At least then there'd be less to carry back.
PASSWORD, Smile
