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Thornstrike |
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Affiliation
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Warrior of RiverClan | |
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Vitals
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Living at the age of 36 Moons (2.8 Years)
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Appearance
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| Short Description: |
An odd-eyed, mid-furred calico she-cat with a scarred right shoulder |
| Long Description: | Thornstrike is an odd-eyed calico. One eye is deep copper and the other is a brilliant green. She’s a medium-small cat with a limber, muscular frame. Like her mother and grandmother before her, Thornstrike resembles her great-grandparent who was born outside RiverClan, although she’s smaller in size than they were.
At first glance, Thornstrike’s soft fur might merely look dense, but it’s longer at her chest, underside, and back legs. Its mid-length truly shows in her bushy tail. Most of her fur is a mix of black and orange. Each color dominates different parts of her face, body, and legs, until they begin to brindle in sections of her patched back and sides. Red tabby stripes can be seen in the orange patches, especially on her face, tail, and legs. There are varying degrees of white on her chest, underside, and paws. Her right shoulder is scarred from a fight.
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Personality
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Thornstrike prizes precision. She likes her tongue as sharp as her claws and she has an opinion about everything. She’s easily irritated and frequently fueled by restlessness, even though she doesn’t always see it as such. She believes it’s just spite, but it’s often due to unrecognized overstimulation. She tends to have trouble fully falling asleep, so she paces or goes hunting again to wear herself down more. Thornstrike prefers being awake at night because it’s calming to her, but she wakes easily if she isn’t in a deep sleep, causing extra crankiness.
She thinks highly of herself and will help her Clanmates when asked, but she will point out flaws without hesitation or apology. To her, it’s a favor if she bluntly tells someone they’re wrong or doing something poorly, then they can fix their problem faster and stop getting in the way with their incompetence. She might not openly express it all the time, but she does care about her Clanmates and she shows that care through her actions. She sees herself as occasionally kind, but not nice. She enjoys learning cats’ likes and dislikes so that she can surprise them. That applies to allies and enemies alike.
Thornstrike believes in the superiority of her Clan, but loyalty is ultimately more important than blood to her. Her maternal great-grandparent Talonwhorl joined RiverClan after being a loner, and Thornstrike will fight anyone who thinks that was a problem. To Thornstrike’s family, actions speak louder than words, and real loyalty is proven again and again by actions, not by being a passive trait. Talonwhorl also identified as neither a tom nor she-cat and would quickly correct anyone trying to gender them. Thornstrike feels similarly, although she isn’t as strict with her pronouns.
The other Clans could disappear overnight and Thornstrike wouldn’t care until it troubled RiverClan. For her, Gatherings are for getting information, not for purely socializing. She has little patience for pointless conversation, but she’s willing to fake interest and be sociable if she thinks it could be worth it. She will hide her true emotions if she doesn’t want them known, and she holds grudges easily and doesn’t let them go. She keeps her real anger beneath the surface, cold and quiet until it’s ready to explode out of her.
Thornstrike enjoys fishing not for the quiet wait, but for the very moment of catching a fish. It’s the same for hunting land-based prey. She’ll play with her prey when bored and loves the rush in the space between seconds when taking something down. She’s happy to fight first and talk later if she thinks she can take her opponent. What she lacks in an pure size and strength, she means to make up for with agility, tenacity, and aggression.
She aims to finish fights quickly by striking fast and hard. She tries to seek out weak points. The sooner she can wear out her opponent or trip them up, the better. She doesn’t care about honor in combat, especially against anyone not of RiverClan. Life isn’t fair and neither is she. She would hit someone when they’re down just to keep them out of the fight. She hates holding back and would consider it a mercy to her opponent if she did.
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History
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| Full History: | Thornstrike was born to Nettlesky during the Moon of First White (2017) and named Thornkit. She was one of a litter of three sired by Swiftstripe, who was lost before the kits were born. Nettlesky always spoke well of him. The last time she ever saw him, she witnessed him chasing an intruder out of the territory, but he chased the cat across the Thunderpath bordering Twolegplace. He was struck by a monster and carried away by its Twolegs.
Nettlesky was energetic and to Thornstrike, she felt more like a playmate than a parent. The kits’ grandmother Rosepelt was more authoritative than her daughter, but Rosepelt didn’t interfere with Nettlesky’s parenting style.
Thornkit loved playfighting, but she hit hard at a young age and got reprimanded for being too rough with her siblings. Little Thornkit thought was unfair. She believed that in a real battle, warriors would fight their hardest. Nettlesky explained that sometimes warriors had to restrain themselves, and aside from that, playfighting and sparring were practice, not real battles, and that she couldn’t hurt her Clanmates even a little. It was against the warrior code and it was a waste of all their time for someone to be inconvenienced by unnecessary bruises.
When she was older, Thornstrike realized her mother was trying to curb her nature early, but Thornstrike also thought it would be far too embarrassing for a cat to ever admit that they got beat up enough by a kit to be bothered about it. Back at the time, Thornkit agreed to save her aggression for future enemies. She channeled her power into moss targets and practice prey.
She was apprenticed as Thornpaw in the Moon of First Green (2018). She took her training very seriously and strove to be exceptional, but her mentor saw impatience in her when it came to chores. She wasn’t sloppy with her work, but she was standoffish. She would deliver fresh-kill or clean out a den just fine, yet wouldn’t make smalltalk or ask how everyone was beyond if they needed something else. She was observant and mostly held her tongue around her elders, but if a matter didn’t personally interest her or affect the Clan as a whole, she didn’t care to engage. To her mentor’s disappointment, no amount of lecturing would truly change her attitude.
Thornpaw would also get frustrated when she couldn’t do something well, but her mentor got her to temper herself by reiterating two main points. First, Thornpaw needed to accept that she’d never be perfect–no cat could be–or satisfied with herself. Second, negative emotions were a distraction, but they were hers and Thornpaw could control how she dealt with them. Thornpaw decided that she needed to detach herself from them, and then work out her problem. In practice, this resulted in Thornpaw focusing on being attentive, fast, and coldly precise. Although Thornpaw was competitive and could still hold grudges when beaten in sparring, her mentor believed her anger would only be a problem for whoever she met in battle.
In the Moon of Turning Leaves (2018), Thornpaw journeyed to Highstones with her mentor and received the name Thornstrike at the subsequent warrior ceremony. Some moons later, Thornstrike encountered a very large weasel while out hunting. She chose to fight and slay it rather than merely drive it away. She gained a bloodied shoulder for her efforts, but that didn’t keep her from bringing the body back to camp as another piece for the fresh-kill pile. Rosepelt was impressed, but Nettlesky thought its addition was distasteful. Thornstrike paid her mother no mind.
Rosepelt was long-lived and died of a fever in 2019. More recently, Thornstrike was a part of the patrol that Boldstar gave a life to defend from an eagle attack.
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Family
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| Sire: | Swiftstripe (A gray mackerel tabby bicolor tabby tom with copper eyes) |
| Dam: | Nettlesky (A longhaired primal ticked torbie with brilliant green eyes) |
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Pedigree
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Significant Cats
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| Others: | Extra family info for ic reference:
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Notes & Additional Details
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| General: | Her appearance is based on Somali cats and she’s descended from a Somali who was outside of official breed color standard. They were Thornstrike’s maternal great-grandparent Talonwhorl, who joined RiverClan under a leader named Shellstar. Talonwhorl died in early 2016 at the age of 80 moons, just before Nettlesky’s apprenticeship. Rosepelt was also long-lived and died in 2019. Thornstrike’s siblings are available for creation: Family Finder thread seeking siblings |
| Genetics: | This character requires a genetic code to be bred. |
| Bans Data: | Thornstrike has been compiled into the bans records. Thornstrike is a Female Cat with a Tortie Non-color restricted Bicolor pelt of Mid-length Normal textured hair. They are of Medium-small Size and Common build. Their eyes are Odd and ears are Normal. Their tail is Normal, with Normal paws and Normal legs. They are of Mix Somali descent. |
Thornstrike has been approved.