Post by ` hatter ! on Dec 26, 2011 21:51:22 GMT -5
slittedwing
IM NOT STICKING AROUND
TO WATCH YOU GO DOWN
IM NOT STICKING AROUND
TO WATCH YOU GO DOWN
name...Slittedwing
age...ninety five moons
gender...female
clan...CheetahClan
position...medicine cat
species...cheetah
apperance...Slittedwing has never grown past the size of a very new warrior. She's skinny, not scrawny, as her limbs ripple with her lithe muscles. Her build makes her quick, very quick, and perfect for hunting on the barren territory of CheetahClan. Her torso is slightly longer than a normal cheetahs, giving her a slight appearance. Her coat, wonderfully well-kept, is thin and windswept, slicked to her worn skin. She walks with no limps, like some middle-age cats may. Light undertones darken to chocolately browns up her back, and a deep v-shaped stripe connects her neck to her head. Dappled in spots, as she is most obviously a cheetah, she can easily blend in to the prairie landscape.
Her head, sloped and tiny, often has a fiery expression. Her face is outlined in black, contrasted by her white muzzle. Lastly, Slittedwing's eyes are a beautifully deep brown, stormy and swimming.
personality...SUMMARY: tempered, cold, intelligent, dislikes youth, damaged, brave, cares for her clan
Sittedwing has reasons to be who she is today. She’s not cold for merely the joy of other cat’s pains. Dig deep into who she is, I dare you, because she isn’t all that meets the eye. For first impressions, she’s a perfectly ironic opposite of what a medicine cat should be. A shame too, considering her capacity to be so much more.
She doesn’t like socializing, nor does she appreciate the fine company of a mate and kits. If given the choice, on most days she would wander in solitary for hours. Many recognize her chilly receptions, and the she-cat has few friends- as to which she is perfectly fine with. Slittedwing, as well, has such a terribly short fuse when it comes to young cats. Never could she imagine having kits of her own. Immaturity eats away at her already miniscule patience. Oh, and birthing is one of the few jobs of a medicine cat that actually makes her queasy. She should really just stay away from the young in general.
Those of the faint mind shouldn’t be around Slittedwing. They will be sadly crushed, just like a little butterfly. She is inexplicably harsh, this is for certain, and silly mistakes are rewarded with bared teeth and direct insults. Her tongue is sharper then daggers, and she doesn’t filter her words all that often. Tough love- it hurts. Don’t look up to her, hopeful for praise, as you will only be sadly underwhelmed. Luckily, she is not even a tad bit fake, and when she does hand you a compliment she truly and utterly means it. She doesn’t judge books by their covers, and will silently observe cats before coming up with an opinion.
Slittedwing doesn’t trust anything. She can’t accept that cats only wish to help her when she’s suffering. Imagine a caged animal, feral, being grabbed at. In her mind, her biggest ally is herself. She makes connections with few things, in fear that she will again lose them. Rarely does she take guidance from others, somehow believing that later she will owe them something for it. Don’t try and pity her, don’t even think about pitying her; she’ll hate you for it. Her pain will never be easy to decipher, and her expression can come up extremely guarded. When she’s hurting, she’s most likely lashing out on the innocent.
Slittedwing is actually smart beyond her years. She observes before being rash, and her cleverness is very well placed. Her intelligence is a gift when in risky situations, and is known to keep her head straight in snap decisions. Surprisingly, the cheetess actually has a very refined sense of humor. As for her belief in StarClan, it's a shaky idea. On good days, she will bow her head and thank them for their blessings. In a less than ideal mood, she can hate them, cuss at them. It's kind of a coin toss.
For everything that Slittedwing is not, she IS an above average medicine cat. She has birthed more litters of kits, saved more lives, snd buried more cats than she can count. Not many of her descendants knew the remedies of the trade like she does. When cats die on her watch, even if it was out of her hands, she feels like she has failed, and will become horribly angry with herself. She hates death, as all cats should, especially when it happens in her own clan. She cares for them, deeply, even though her exterior says she does not. Cats can question her demeanor, but they can never question her loyalty to CheetahClan.
To her, it doesn’t matter if you think she is wrong about your well-fare. She knows she’s right, and she wants what is best for you. She is far from heartless, but will shove her ‘victim’ towards whatever she knows is right. Afraid of heights? Off the cliff into the lagoon you go. Fear of spiders? She’ll personally deliver an arachnid to your nest. On another note, Slittedwing creatively uses the Warrior Code. It ‘bends’ to her liking.
Slittedwing is brave, she really is, and will sacrifice herself in the name of a clan mate. Yes, even a kit. It’s just one of the things she swore to herself to do. Her family is gone, and therefore her clan is her family, whether she likes it or not. Out of nowhere, suddenly, a cat will realize that they respect the old beast. Why, you ask? Maybe it was her harsh love? Perhaps her undeniably successful healing techniques? Or maybe, just maybe, it was that knowing glance she gave you, as if she saw exactly what you were feeling… and that she understood.
history...Slittedwing was indeed not always that. Before any of her present life, on a cold but breaking leaf-bare, a young kit was born, lying mewling in the glistening snow, frost hanging from the limp tree branches. There was blood, plenty of blood, but the happy parents were beaming with pride as they looked down at their baby girl. A single kit, determined and willing. This would be their very first litter and, unknown to them, their very last. A tragedy, indeed. Nonetheless, they loved their new addition. Her name, picked out after long deliberation, was because of the slight V-shaped dip against her lower back, slitting into her upper neck and pretty dappled head. It was, and would be for the next eight moons, Slit.
Slit had a lovingly simple exsistence in her first days. She was sheltered from death and from pain. From loss and guilt. She knew nothing about what it was like to live in fear, and believed in happy endings. Days were occupied with rolling in the snow, catching snowflakes with outstretched paws, and curling up with content beside her mother, Lattie, a beautiful spotted she-cat and her father, Orie, a solidly-built tom. She never felt unloved or tossed aside. Never did she know the feeling of loneliness or unhappiness- just the gentle scolding of Orie, with his kind eyes and patient smile. Not until nature’s grasp on the cold weather faded did she discover how much it hurt.
Orie and Lattie were young and foolish. They thought they could take anything. They thought that they were indestructable. The quaint forest that they lived in was changing very quickly into new-leaf, rivers cracking and melting and sweet rain pouring onto the earth. Slit’s parents sadly discovered the pack on a foggy morning. They was far-off, far enough that they could leave their little kit sheltered in the cave-like overhang that they resided in and face it. At least, that's what they believed. Slit never saw what was happening, only cries of pain, terrifyingly recognizable, and slashing claws and ripping fur. The blood was pounding so profoundly hard in her ears that when the snickering, spotted faces snapped at her with their greedy muzzles, she froze. Slit let out a slight whimper, so innocent, just as it was about to scoop her up. She closed her eyes, seeing stars. A dappled pelt, streaked with blood, barreled into the leading hyena and knocked the beasy off its paws. They rolled in the sloshy mud once, twice, and then a sickening snap. Lattie lay lifeless underneath the cruel paws of the creature, the hyena. There was just too many of them. Her eyes stared at nothing as the pack let out laughter, satisfied with their kill. Orie was letting out wails of grief and pain, sending songbirds flying. Slit stared at her mother, too shocked to speak, and backed farther into the overhang. She had given up her own life to save hers. It was her fault.
Her father spent days bent over Lattie, stopping only to hunt for himself. Slit knew no food until three sunrises later when a medium-sized rabbit was dropped at her quivering paws. Hopefully, she looked up at him. Orie’s eyes were dull and without feeling. Not only that, they seemed to drip with something else. Blame. Grief. Anger. Hatred? To keep her was to cost him the life of the sun and joy in his world. She was a lousy consolation prize. Apparently her flimsy life wasn't worth Lattie's love. He left her four pieces of prey less than a week later, his scent stale and gone. Slit felt hollow. She didn't feel anything. In a matter of nine days she was alone, an orphan, with only basic knowledge on how to defend herself or feed her soon-to-be hungry mouth. Her numbness lasted for days, and she was very aware that she would never see him again. The more she thought about it, the more she became angry. Furious, even. He left his own child. Her feirce bitterness drove her to catch her first rabbit.
Slit didn't have the aid of strength, speed, or even experience on her side. Her only ally was her small size, her light pawsteps. She made do. The prey that she did manage to scavenge for was stolen by rogues, hungry and rabid. Two moons of starving, Slit got in her first fight. Her belly called out to her in desperation and when a wild cat dove on her to steal the hunted boar, she turned and snarled. The cat put up a fight she hadn’t been expecting; it had ended in a mangled coat of cuts and a leaden body. But she had won. She knew that she could win. In many unfortunate ways, the wild hardened the sweet and innocent kit she once was. She stole, she played offensive. She did what she had to to survive. Slit was a lone wolf until Jag.
Have you heard of soul-mates? He was like her in so many ways. A challenger, just like any other. He wanted what she had, and she wasn't going to give it to him. The two were ironically evenly matched. He was larger and stronger but she was faster and more nimble. After neither could go on, it ended in two exhausted cats, littered by scratches. Both were lost and broken, they didn’t have anyone, never had anything. How the two ended up leaving by eachother's sides was, and still is, unknown. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she knew how to laugh again.
For a moon the pair travelled, away from her birthplace and towards the unknown. Jag and Slit became close. Best friends and eventually more. Somehow it snuck up on her and she realized: I'm in love. For the first time in a long while, Slit felt like she belonged; like she was finally going where she was meant to be. It was by chance that the pair wandered across clan territory. When the two reached the border, Slit felt longing, of all things, and was deeply confused. The patrol that they stumbled upon were well-fed, perfect. They were determined, protective. Suddenly, Slit wanted that. Not even Jag was more important than that. The few days they spent camped at the border of CheetahClan were filled with dreams of the clan and her longing. When the she-cat woke up after a particularly vivid vision, she had decided. Her and Jag would join a clan. He didn't have the same ideas. They argued for hours, but Slit would not shake on her decision. She plunged into CheetahClan territory and he never followed.
The moment Slit came even close to the camp, she was attacked by a slightly larger tom than she, with a smooth pelt and cold, hostile eyes. He hissed at her, his fur bristling fiercely, and sprung, attempting to pin her down and claw at her underbelly. Slit sidestepped him and dug her claws into his side, swinging him off course and into a nearby bush. He looked bewildered. Slit pounced, quick as an adder, onto his back and was thrown off as her teeth met his neck. They snarled and spit insults at each other until a powerful cat stepped from the shadows and ordered at them to stop. The cheetah did not yell. He murmured. Guiltily, she blinked up at him, meeting his deep blue eyes, which were slitted in thought.
And here was when Slit, now Slittedpaw, became a part of a clan. CheetahClan was not welcoming. She emmitted hostility back at them, taking the insults. No cat could ever question how well she trained, despite her terrible mouth. Thornclaw was harsh but fair and she flourished under his steady hand. They trained nearly every day, on top of patrols and separate hunting trips. Jag was pushed almost completely out of her busy mind. Almost. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop herself from seeing his saddened face- heartbroken. Coincidentally, it was a day that she was dreaming about him that, when on a small border patrol of two warriors, she saw him. He was on her border, eating her prey, ruining her life. From a command from her lead warrior, she pelted after him and jumped him, clawing at his back. Jag recognized her beige and black coat immediately but didn’t hold back. It was like the day they had met, fighting over prey. This time though, one would die. Slittedpaw had never meant to kill him. In fact, she hadn’t. The pointy, protruding branch he skewered himself on to did. There was but a faint gurgling noise and then nothing.
His expression haunted Slittedpaw up to the day of her warrior ceremony. She was filled with regret. Regret and pain and longing. She became Slittedwing, a warrior in her own turn. The clan never again doubted her loyalties. Her old mentor, Thornclaw, settled down with a lovely she-cat, a light brown spotted beauty, and she had kits a moon after her warriorship. They were healthy and strong, made to survive. Aspenkit, Pheonixkit, and, lastly, Tumblekit. Only one lived to see their third moon. It was by luck that she saw the naive kits teetering and hanging from the cliffside and by misfortune that rock slipped from their paws at just that very time. Desperately, she bounded towards them but hesitated, struck by fear from the high ledge. That slight pause was a matter of life or death for Aspenkit and Pheonixkit. By the time her paws had reached the kits, Tumblekit in her jaws, they were both shattered, broken at the bottom of the gorge. In shock and misery, she brought the two dead bodies to camp, preparing herself to confront Thornclaw. He screamed at her in fury, his agony converting to hatred, and scarred her shoulder with his claws. Slittedwing deserved it and she accepted it, depression and self-hatred. His blame and her guilt shadowed Slittedwing like a hawk, a constant reminder of more lives she had lost.
It was when she was sixteen moons that she saved the dying cat. Yewleaf was away at the medicine cat meeting, the half moon gloomy behind wispy clouds. A blood-curdling scream of pain pulled her from her nightmares. The warrior lay between two cats, his eyes rolled back inside his head. He had fallen from a tree, a huge tree, and was to die if someone didn’t do something. Inexplicably, Slittedwing was calm. As if she was possesed by another. The soft presence of a starry she-cat guided her. When Yewleaf returned, he was sitting in the medicine den, tail curled around his nose, sleeping. The medicine cat was mystified, exclaming excitedly that Slittedwing was meant to be his successor. What a joke. She didn't want to fiddle with herbs! Her entire clan laughed at the thought of Slittedwing as medicine cat. Apparently StarClan didn’t. The next evening, warm and summery, all the birds in the prey pile had slitted wings, a sign so clear not even she could deny it. She dreamt of them, of their starry pelts, and was taken up as a medicine cat apprentice.
She learned well, very well, and when Yewleaf died from a bout of incurable green cough, she took his place with begrudging honor. He was a kind old cat and she missed him. Since then, Slittedwing has lived her life with herbs and sick cats, gaining skills of healing like learning battle moves as a warrior.
ooc- eh -_-
