Post by Longstride on Jun 23, 2017 16:18:30 GMT -5
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[attr="class","WindClanName"]
LONGSTRIDE
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[PTab=Tab2]APPEARANCE Dolce
Longstride is the sort of warrior well-groomed enough to pass as a kittypet. His white fur is usually radiant in the mornings; less so the rest of it, as this tom is capped and patched in ashen grey. Two intelligent, amber eyes gleam out of the short, soft fur; his long muzzle slopes gracefully into a pink nose, and when his warm smile is driven to an angry snarl, it reveals a set of slightly yellow but pointed teeth.
It's very likely that he's the tallest cat in WindClan--with the exception of the gentle giant Softears--and as his name would suggest, Longstride's legs are almost comically long for his size. Ordinarily, he's very composed and graceful. Every movement is as purposeful as his words; when running at full tilt he moves like lightning or whitewater. But that's not to say he's permanently invested in his appearance. When he's not paying attention (or when he needs to hear someone laugh), well, you've never seen a cat bend like Longstride. Every gesture looks exaggerated on such a stretched-out cat: a twitch of his enormous tail sends dust flying; his despondent walk is like watching spaghetti flop on the end of a stick. All his practiced grace seems to literally slough off, until some kind of jelly-cat remains. The most serious thing about him is his face, but even that will melt into a smile at the slightest suggestion of amicability. Longstride has one of those honest smiles.
It's been a long time since Longstride has seen any combat that's done serious damage to him: he has a small bald patch from a bite scar on his right hind leg and a rip in his left ear, injuries sustained in that bloody conflict with RiverClan all those moons ago. Since then he's been scraped and scratched and a little scarred, but has somehow avoided any noteworthy (that is, visible) damage.
PERSONALITY Some cats are born quiet and reserved, the kind of souls that keep eyes wide and mouths closed and drink in the world. Other cats, like this one, are all mouth: to ask, to eat, to laugh, to yowl. The then-Patchkit could talk the ears off a boulder; Patchpaw was a ball of energy and laughter. His capacity for quiet was built on this foundation of constant curiosity, a younger cat's insatiable need to know. As he grew older, factual answers grew less important than opinions, tactics, reasons: he became more interested in the how and the why of things, in what made ideas good or bad, and how to improve them. Empathy and patience are the two greatest qualities that age, apprentices, and the loss of his father have given him. And since then, he has been the tom to listen to and temper generations of loud questions.
Grief is no stranger to Longstride's family. He lost his siblings to whitecough in the middle of their first newleaf; his apparent father, who was built even leaner and more sickly than his sons, followed when Longstride was twelve moons old. His mother had lost her best friend and two kits in the span of a single year. It was not many years after this that tensions between WindClan and RiverClan finally escalated into open battle. He's never forgotten what WindClan was like: united, vengeful, and utterly terrifying. He believes that only compassion and kindness should motivate cats towards that kind of action. He was only a kit himself when those kits were found dead by RiverClan, but he maintains (as his mother did) that the deaths were not their fault. He holds a healthy, though secret, respect for Littlestar, or Greatspirit. Ultimately, he tries to be understanding and compassionate to the cats of his clan, who have fought beside him for these more than fifty moons of life as a warrior. Other cats may define themselves by loyalty to their clan, but this tom is defined by love for his clanmates.
That's not to say that the tom doesn't have his blind spots, of course; he has a tendency to idolise the dead, and will refuse to speak ill of another cat, even if it would be advantageous to do so. And he has his share of regrets, mostly concerned with his second apprentice, Eaglepaw. Most cats remember late in Eaglepaw's apprenticeship, the two abruptly stopped seeing eye to eye. He remains uncomfortable about this time, but they've never made up and remain at odds with each other to this day.
FAMILY - Sagefur, Featherstep; siblings Whitekit and Blackkit; 'step-father' Stagheart
HISTORY
It was a frigid leafbare morning when Longstride and his siblings were born. Sagefur and Featherstep, a stocky she-cat and a feather-weight tom, had come late to parenting; in some respects, it was simply the most convenient label to apply to their relationship. They wanted kits, but neither had ever had the time or inclination to find a mate. It was a surprise to the clan when Sagefur, mateless and grinning, eventually waddled, heavily pregnant, into the queens' den. And their relationship continued amicably, though it wasn't romantic or passionate in the way that other cats' partnerships seemed to be. Featherstep would bring his pregnant friend fresh-kill, and Sagefur would grumble good-naturedly about the tribulations of pregnancy, and when it was time for Featherstep to go back on patrol, she would firmly nudge him, protesting, out of the den and into the cold. Everyone assumed Featherstep was the father; certainly, he was the closest thing Longstride had to a father, and that was more than enough.
Their three kits were grey and white, and because Sagefur thought it was funny, but partly because she didn't believe in naming kits after lofty ambitions and partly because she was skeptical of warriors named after birds, she named them Whitekit, Patchkit, and Greykit. It wouldn't be accurate to say that the two parents doted on their offspring, but they certainly were considerably more attached than they'd expected to be. Longstride is getting on now and the exact memories of those days are getting a little hazy, but them seem to be good ones, in spite of what happened after.
The three kittens felt the cold as soon as they were old enough to leave their mother's side. Leafbare was bitter that year, at least for three early kittens. All three contracted whitecough, but only little Patchkit managed to pull through.
He was made an apprentice late because of this early illness, apprenticed with others in the second moon of summer, and to a kindly old warrior named Hazewhisker. She was far too good to him, and after Sagefur's coddling he seemed to think he deserved that kind of deference. She always consulted him as if he was already a warrior, and little Patchpaw would put on his most serious face and try to look like he knew whether it was better to go hunting at sunhigh or dawn. That was the sort of teaching Hazewhisker liked: leading her apprentice gently through the logic so that he could find his own answers. As he grew older, friendships with other apprentices helped him drop this veneer of self-importance. He learned to fight and hunt, and he slowly became aware of the subtleties of Hazewhisker's teaching style. It would be his afternoon off, and he'd find himself seeking her out to ask who would win if RiverClan allied with ThunderClan against ShadowClan and RiverClan, and who would be most likely to attack first, and which side would be the most likely to launch the first attack, and they could talk for hours.
It was around this time that Featherstep started falling ill more and more often, and Patchpaw took to spending those rare afternoons with his father instead of his mentor. Featherstep was the opposite of Hazewhisker in nearly every way. Where she had logic and reason, Featherstep had fantastical stories and a nonsensical sense of humour. He had a thousand ridiculous stories about who Patchpaw's actual father was, and who made StarClan, and why frogs had so many toes. (As he got older, Longstride became aware that Featherstep had been treated with either amusement or distrust by most of WindClan for as long as he'd been old enough to speak: not everyone enjoyed the old tom's flights of fancy, which explained why he was so glad to have a willing audience in Patchpaw.) Soon Featherstep spent more time in the medicine cat's den than he did out of it; and as he deteriorated, Nightstream diagnosed him with a bad case of greencough. He was quickly isolated from the rest of WindClan. The fever began to play havoc with his overactive imagination. Patchpaw and Sagefur regularly visited, though they weren't allowed to stay for long. And then one day, quite abruptly, when Patchpaw and Hazewhisker and their patrol returned from hunting, Nightstream was there, and his father was--well, he was not.
Patchpaw was so angry for so long; it exhausts Longstride to remember it now, the constant pressing weight of an anger left untreated. He threw himself into training; his answers to Hazewhisker's questions became curt, his solutions less peaceful. What did any of it matter? Hazewhisker finally took him aside. "Come now. You believe in StarClan, don't you?" she said, flicking her whiskers. "And for unfathomable reasons, you believe they killed Featherstep." And so she presented him with an argument.
"StarClan consists of dead cats, this we know. And dead cats in StarClan were once warriors. If we accept, as most do, that all warriors follow the warrior code--and what is the fourteenth law of the warrior code, Patchpaw?"
"An honorable warrior does not need to kill other cats to win their battles."
"--and that being so, a true warrior can never kill another cat, except in self-defence or to protect the warrior code. Therefore, StarClan cannot kill."
Patchpaw's eyes narrowed. "But they let him die. That's different. And what about medicine cats? They're not warriors."
"Oh?" Hazewhisker replied, her tone still neutral. "There's an idea. A clan ruled by medicine cats and not its warriors."
"You know what I meant!"
"Never assume you'll be understood. And your other argument is incorrect also: you've left out Featherstep and Nightstream."
Patchpaw's confusion must have been obvious, because she continued. "If I push you, you may let yourself be pushed, or you may resist." She pushed him gently with a forepaw, to demonstrate. "See, you are resisting, because you do not wish to fall over. And if you cannot resist, then others may stand beside you and push back, to resist the force for you. Now, I am StarClan, and you are Featherstep. If I push you, you may resist. And if you cannot resist, Nightstream will push instead. You see, there is no let about it. If I push, I am not passive. If I am not passive, then I have killed. And I cannot kill, can I, Patchpaw? I am a warrior."
Patchpaw was made a warrior at the fine old age of fourteen moons, one out for his kithood illness and another that was just for him. He stood over the other apprentices even then. Thistlestar commended his 'passion' (a euphemism if ever he'd heard one) and dedication, and then abruptly announced that Patchpaw would 'henceforth be known as Longstride'. The newly-named warrior only wished he'd been facing WindClan, so he could have seen Sagefur's face. Hazewhisker later mentioned (while looking up at her former apprentice) that she'd had a word with Thistlestar about his warrior name. "Keep improving," she added teasingly, "and maybe one day you will be Longleap!" Only Hazewhisker could make 'keep improving' sound like 'or else'.
As a young warrior, Longstride still had his foibles. He briefly fell in love with a ShadowClan warrior at his first gathering and spent every patrol moping after her; he made new friends among the warriors and good-naturedly ribbed the cats he knew who were still apprentices. The sun rose and set; the moon waxed and waned. His ShadowClan paramour found a less-gangly mate in her own clan.
He was a full thirty moons old when tensions between RiverClan and WindClan finally began to deteriorate to the point of war. Hazewhisker, old enough to be privy to Thistlestar's strategic briefings, occasionally brought out snippets of knowledge to try out on Longstride. She never gave him too much, and in return Longstride's arguments for or against strategies would sometimes shape Hazewhisker's proposals for the battle. War did not disconcert him then, not in the way that it did after he first saw real blood-soaked earth. In the battle that claimed RiverClan's second deputy, he was assigned to a weak position with one senior warrior and another young apprentice; the older warrior had clearly been told to keep the two of them out of trouble. Longstride and Eveningsun had other ideas and moved slowly south along the border, to a sheltered patch of bushes where RiverClan could approach undercover. The instinct was good: while the main WindClan force was doing battle, the three young warriors fought off the would-be ambushers and kept WindClan's flank intact. The taste of blood was hot and sour in his mouth, and as soon as he saw the cats turn tail and flee, a burning rush of shame crashed over him. He fought because he thought he had to, but why? Who had let it get so bad? Thistlestar? Why had WindClan held a grudge for so long; if RiverClan was starving, then the code forced WindClan to help, and vice versa--not tear each others ears off. With one eye on those fighting with him, he and the other two turned back to the main fray. He was always the last to jump into the fighting and the first cat to pull the wounded to safety. Combat was symptomatic of a deeper rift between the two clans; this blood-lust didn't make any sense, and it wouldn't solve anything. Blood was not the answer, and WindClan was showing weakness by stooping to violence.
At forty-nine moons old, Thistlestar gave him his first apprentice: Mosspaw, a quiet cat with a heart of gold. The two of them got along magnificently, and Mossheart remains on good terms with him to this day. Thistlestar died halfway through Mosspaw's apprenticeship from the same disease as Featherstep, and he was grateful to have an apprentice to be strong for, the faith of another cat to hang on to. There's a special kind of grief that comes from losing one's first leader, and it made him feel sad, and old, and apprehensive about the future.
His mother passed away when he was nearly sixty moons of age. She never retired, not officially, but there was always an extra cat on patrols that she was assigned to, and though she noticed, she made no fuss. Longstride had learned how to manage his grief by then: he kept it in, and talked more with Hazewhisker, like old times. He believes she's in StarClan, and hopes she's happy.
Dewstar, the new leader, was a little more difficult for Longstride to get a read on; for one thing, he gave him Eaglepaw, his second apprentice. Eaglepaw was a loud and brash character who always had an opinion about everything. The two managed to get along at first: Longstride was patient, as his mentor had been, and Eaglepaw was a quick study: everything Longstride had to teach, Eaglepaw could pick up within a few days of training. The application, the combination, was where they had to focus their efforts, and it was hard to get the clever apprentice to focus on anything that wasn't immediately relevant or interesting. They began to have disagreements, little things that prevented their relationship from blossoming into that ideal of mutual respect and trust that other mentors and apprentices enjoyed. Longstride tried to remain even-tempered, but Eaglepaw always saw his calm exterior as an admission of weakness or failure. One night, while Longstride was arranging apprentice's warrior ceremony with Dewstar, Eaglepaw and their friends snuck out of camp and simply disappeared. They were clever about it: everything Longstride had taught his apprentice, about covering one's tracks and disguising scent, had been put to good use. Add to this the torrential rainfall, and there was no way of tracking the missing apprentices. Understandably, Longstride was beside himself, but more with frustration than worry: he may not have known much about his apprentice, but they were a quick study, and whatever foolish exercise they'd gone off to do, they'd be in good hands. No, it was the other apprentices he worried about.
Longstride was on every patrol he could manage, as were the other anxious mentors. Dewstar could not allow them to cross into another clan's territory, but it was leaf-fall and as all the Twolegs had packed up, he organised efficient search paths through the Twolegplace, across both sides of the Thunderpath, and up and down the trails that led to the Moonpool. There was only one possible answer: the apprentices had left WindClan territory.
They returned on the seventh day, one of Eaglepaw's friends limping and badly wounded in the shoulder. They wouldn't say anything about where they had been or why they'd gone, except that the wounded apprentice had been attacked by a monster.
As punishment, all three of the apprentices had their warrior ceremonies pushed back a full moon, and they were expected to help Crookedwing. Even then, Longstride was struck by her, but he was far too busy chastising Eaglepaw to pay attention to his own thoughts. Besides, Crookedwing was Crookedwing. They'd been apprentices together, and oh he'd admit in a passing way that she was pretty, but never thought much more on it than that.
Eaglepaw was made Eaglecry, and Longstride's nest has remained as far from his apprentice's as possible, much as he tries to keep an eye on them.
Since then, time has continued to pass. Longstride is one of those cats who's remained oddly fulfilled by clan life: the friendships of his clanmates and his apprentices, the hours spent with Hazewhisker; these have been enough for him. He's led his share of patrols, most to good effect. No cat comes to harm on his watch. During Gatherings, he does his best to allay fears and diffuse tensions--cats from all clans may recognise him for his good humour and willingness to listen. Nothing more has ever seemed important.
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[PTab=Tab3]DO YOU BELIEVE IN STARCLAN? WHY OR WHY NOT?
"That's what being a warrior is--StarClan are us, our ancestors, and one day we'll all join them. Isn't it strange that when we die, all those clannish distinctions will just fall away? Hm, now there's a subject a good warrior maybe shouldn't think too much about. But as we know, faith alone can't bring us plentiful prey. What keeps us all strong, that's what they care about. The doing, as always, is up to us."
FAVORITE HISTORICAL CAT? WHY?
"Oh, that's a terrible thing to ask someone to choose! My father was the sort of cat who always had a story to tell--sometimes, they were even true."
WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST FEAR?
"What?" The tom's tail twitches in what, for him, passes for a scathing rebuke--but the tapping slows as he grows thoughtful. "Fear. As in, what's likely or what's most frightening? Blackcough sounds like one of the most unpleasant ways to go--but there's all manner of physical afflictions that any sane cat should fear." He shivers. "Blackcough would about do it."
IF YOUR BEST FRIEND/MOTHER/WHOEVER KNOWS YOU WELL COULD DESCRIBE YOU IN THREE INDIVIDUAL WORDS, WHAT WOULD THOSE BE? DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE?
He laughs, warm and low, and shakes his head. "Sensitive, thoughtful and ultimately foolish. And she's not wrong."
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[PTab=Tab4]USERNAME/ALIAS - Flynn! (Sea calls me Fallen. She will be along eventually, maybe.
)
PRONOUNS - She/her
TIMEZONE - GMT+12 (that's roughly 5 hours ahead of you American-zoned types!)
OTHER CHARACTERS - None!
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PAST NAMES - patchkit, patchpaw
SEX - Tom
AGE - 87 moons
CLAN & RANK - WindClan warrior
BRIEF DESCRIPTION - a long-legged grey-and-white tom with amber eyes.
SEX - Tom
AGE - 87 moons
CLAN & RANK - WindClan warrior
BRIEF DESCRIPTION - a long-legged grey-and-white tom with amber eyes.
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[PTab=Tab2]APPEARANCE Dolce
Longstride is the sort of warrior well-groomed enough to pass as a kittypet. His white fur is usually radiant in the mornings; less so the rest of it, as this tom is capped and patched in ashen grey. Two intelligent, amber eyes gleam out of the short, soft fur; his long muzzle slopes gracefully into a pink nose, and when his warm smile is driven to an angry snarl, it reveals a set of slightly yellow but pointed teeth.
It's very likely that he's the tallest cat in WindClan--with the exception of the gentle giant Softears--and as his name would suggest, Longstride's legs are almost comically long for his size. Ordinarily, he's very composed and graceful. Every movement is as purposeful as his words; when running at full tilt he moves like lightning or whitewater. But that's not to say he's permanently invested in his appearance. When he's not paying attention (or when he needs to hear someone laugh), well, you've never seen a cat bend like Longstride. Every gesture looks exaggerated on such a stretched-out cat: a twitch of his enormous tail sends dust flying; his despondent walk is like watching spaghetti flop on the end of a stick. All his practiced grace seems to literally slough off, until some kind of jelly-cat remains. The most serious thing about him is his face, but even that will melt into a smile at the slightest suggestion of amicability. Longstride has one of those honest smiles.
It's been a long time since Longstride has seen any combat that's done serious damage to him: he has a small bald patch from a bite scar on his right hind leg and a rip in his left ear, injuries sustained in that bloody conflict with RiverClan all those moons ago. Since then he's been scraped and scratched and a little scarred, but has somehow avoided any noteworthy (that is, visible) damage.
PERSONALITY Some cats are born quiet and reserved, the kind of souls that keep eyes wide and mouths closed and drink in the world. Other cats, like this one, are all mouth: to ask, to eat, to laugh, to yowl. The then-Patchkit could talk the ears off a boulder; Patchpaw was a ball of energy and laughter. His capacity for quiet was built on this foundation of constant curiosity, a younger cat's insatiable need to know. As he grew older, factual answers grew less important than opinions, tactics, reasons: he became more interested in the how and the why of things, in what made ideas good or bad, and how to improve them. Empathy and patience are the two greatest qualities that age, apprentices, and the loss of his father have given him. And since then, he has been the tom to listen to and temper generations of loud questions.
Grief is no stranger to Longstride's family. He lost his siblings to whitecough in the middle of their first newleaf; his apparent father, who was built even leaner and more sickly than his sons, followed when Longstride was twelve moons old. His mother had lost her best friend and two kits in the span of a single year. It was not many years after this that tensions between WindClan and RiverClan finally escalated into open battle. He's never forgotten what WindClan was like: united, vengeful, and utterly terrifying. He believes that only compassion and kindness should motivate cats towards that kind of action. He was only a kit himself when those kits were found dead by RiverClan, but he maintains (as his mother did) that the deaths were not their fault. He holds a healthy, though secret, respect for Littlestar, or Greatspirit. Ultimately, he tries to be understanding and compassionate to the cats of his clan, who have fought beside him for these more than fifty moons of life as a warrior. Other cats may define themselves by loyalty to their clan, but this tom is defined by love for his clanmates.
That's not to say that the tom doesn't have his blind spots, of course; he has a tendency to idolise the dead, and will refuse to speak ill of another cat, even if it would be advantageous to do so. And he has his share of regrets, mostly concerned with his second apprentice, Eaglepaw. Most cats remember late in Eaglepaw's apprenticeship, the two abruptly stopped seeing eye to eye. He remains uncomfortable about this time, but they've never made up and remain at odds with each other to this day.
FAMILY - Sagefur, Featherstep; siblings Whitekit and Blackkit; 'step-father' Stagheart
HISTORY
kithood
It was a frigid leafbare morning when Longstride and his siblings were born. Sagefur and Featherstep, a stocky she-cat and a feather-weight tom, had come late to parenting; in some respects, it was simply the most convenient label to apply to their relationship. They wanted kits, but neither had ever had the time or inclination to find a mate. It was a surprise to the clan when Sagefur, mateless and grinning, eventually waddled, heavily pregnant, into the queens' den. And their relationship continued amicably, though it wasn't romantic or passionate in the way that other cats' partnerships seemed to be. Featherstep would bring his pregnant friend fresh-kill, and Sagefur would grumble good-naturedly about the tribulations of pregnancy, and when it was time for Featherstep to go back on patrol, she would firmly nudge him, protesting, out of the den and into the cold. Everyone assumed Featherstep was the father; certainly, he was the closest thing Longstride had to a father, and that was more than enough.
Their three kits were grey and white, and because Sagefur thought it was funny, but partly because she didn't believe in naming kits after lofty ambitions and partly because she was skeptical of warriors named after birds, she named them Whitekit, Patchkit, and Greykit. It wouldn't be accurate to say that the two parents doted on their offspring, but they certainly were considerably more attached than they'd expected to be. Longstride is getting on now and the exact memories of those days are getting a little hazy, but them seem to be good ones, in spite of what happened after.
The three kittens felt the cold as soon as they were old enough to leave their mother's side. Leafbare was bitter that year, at least for three early kittens. All three contracted whitecough, but only little Patchkit managed to pull through.
apprenticeship
He was made an apprentice late because of this early illness, apprenticed with others in the second moon of summer, and to a kindly old warrior named Hazewhisker. She was far too good to him, and after Sagefur's coddling he seemed to think he deserved that kind of deference. She always consulted him as if he was already a warrior, and little Patchpaw would put on his most serious face and try to look like he knew whether it was better to go hunting at sunhigh or dawn. That was the sort of teaching Hazewhisker liked: leading her apprentice gently through the logic so that he could find his own answers. As he grew older, friendships with other apprentices helped him drop this veneer of self-importance. He learned to fight and hunt, and he slowly became aware of the subtleties of Hazewhisker's teaching style. It would be his afternoon off, and he'd find himself seeking her out to ask who would win if RiverClan allied with ThunderClan against ShadowClan and RiverClan, and who would be most likely to attack first, and which side would be the most likely to launch the first attack, and they could talk for hours.
It was around this time that Featherstep started falling ill more and more often, and Patchpaw took to spending those rare afternoons with his father instead of his mentor. Featherstep was the opposite of Hazewhisker in nearly every way. Where she had logic and reason, Featherstep had fantastical stories and a nonsensical sense of humour. He had a thousand ridiculous stories about who Patchpaw's actual father was, and who made StarClan, and why frogs had so many toes. (As he got older, Longstride became aware that Featherstep had been treated with either amusement or distrust by most of WindClan for as long as he'd been old enough to speak: not everyone enjoyed the old tom's flights of fancy, which explained why he was so glad to have a willing audience in Patchpaw.) Soon Featherstep spent more time in the medicine cat's den than he did out of it; and as he deteriorated, Nightstream diagnosed him with a bad case of greencough. He was quickly isolated from the rest of WindClan. The fever began to play havoc with his overactive imagination. Patchpaw and Sagefur regularly visited, though they weren't allowed to stay for long. And then one day, quite abruptly, when Patchpaw and Hazewhisker and their patrol returned from hunting, Nightstream was there, and his father was--well, he was not.
Patchpaw was so angry for so long; it exhausts Longstride to remember it now, the constant pressing weight of an anger left untreated. He threw himself into training; his answers to Hazewhisker's questions became curt, his solutions less peaceful. What did any of it matter? Hazewhisker finally took him aside. "Come now. You believe in StarClan, don't you?" she said, flicking her whiskers. "And for unfathomable reasons, you believe they killed Featherstep." And so she presented him with an argument.
"StarClan consists of dead cats, this we know. And dead cats in StarClan were once warriors. If we accept, as most do, that all warriors follow the warrior code--and what is the fourteenth law of the warrior code, Patchpaw?"
"An honorable warrior does not need to kill other cats to win their battles."
"--and that being so, a true warrior can never kill another cat, except in self-defence or to protect the warrior code. Therefore, StarClan cannot kill."
Patchpaw's eyes narrowed. "But they let him die. That's different. And what about medicine cats? They're not warriors."
"Oh?" Hazewhisker replied, her tone still neutral. "There's an idea. A clan ruled by medicine cats and not its warriors."
"You know what I meant!"
"Never assume you'll be understood. And your other argument is incorrect also: you've left out Featherstep and Nightstream."
Patchpaw's confusion must have been obvious, because she continued. "If I push you, you may let yourself be pushed, or you may resist." She pushed him gently with a forepaw, to demonstrate. "See, you are resisting, because you do not wish to fall over. And if you cannot resist, then others may stand beside you and push back, to resist the force for you. Now, I am StarClan, and you are Featherstep. If I push you, you may resist. And if you cannot resist, Nightstream will push instead. You see, there is no let about it. If I push, I am not passive. If I am not passive, then I have killed. And I cannot kill, can I, Patchpaw? I am a warrior."
early warriorhood
Patchpaw was made a warrior at the fine old age of fourteen moons, one out for his kithood illness and another that was just for him. He stood over the other apprentices even then. Thistlestar commended his 'passion' (a euphemism if ever he'd heard one) and dedication, and then abruptly announced that Patchpaw would 'henceforth be known as Longstride'. The newly-named warrior only wished he'd been facing WindClan, so he could have seen Sagefur's face. Hazewhisker later mentioned (while looking up at her former apprentice) that she'd had a word with Thistlestar about his warrior name. "Keep improving," she added teasingly, "and maybe one day you will be Longleap!" Only Hazewhisker could make 'keep improving' sound like 'or else'.
As a young warrior, Longstride still had his foibles. He briefly fell in love with a ShadowClan warrior at his first gathering and spent every patrol moping after her; he made new friends among the warriors and good-naturedly ribbed the cats he knew who were still apprentices. The sun rose and set; the moon waxed and waned. His ShadowClan paramour found a less-gangly mate in her own clan.
He was a full thirty moons old when tensions between RiverClan and WindClan finally began to deteriorate to the point of war. Hazewhisker, old enough to be privy to Thistlestar's strategic briefings, occasionally brought out snippets of knowledge to try out on Longstride. She never gave him too much, and in return Longstride's arguments for or against strategies would sometimes shape Hazewhisker's proposals for the battle. War did not disconcert him then, not in the way that it did after he first saw real blood-soaked earth. In the battle that claimed RiverClan's second deputy, he was assigned to a weak position with one senior warrior and another young apprentice; the older warrior had clearly been told to keep the two of them out of trouble. Longstride and Eveningsun had other ideas and moved slowly south along the border, to a sheltered patch of bushes where RiverClan could approach undercover. The instinct was good: while the main WindClan force was doing battle, the three young warriors fought off the would-be ambushers and kept WindClan's flank intact. The taste of blood was hot and sour in his mouth, and as soon as he saw the cats turn tail and flee, a burning rush of shame crashed over him. He fought because he thought he had to, but why? Who had let it get so bad? Thistlestar? Why had WindClan held a grudge for so long; if RiverClan was starving, then the code forced WindClan to help, and vice versa--not tear each others ears off. With one eye on those fighting with him, he and the other two turned back to the main fray. He was always the last to jump into the fighting and the first cat to pull the wounded to safety. Combat was symptomatic of a deeper rift between the two clans; this blood-lust didn't make any sense, and it wouldn't solve anything. Blood was not the answer, and WindClan was showing weakness by stooping to violence.
warriorhood to present
At forty-nine moons old, Thistlestar gave him his first apprentice: Mosspaw, a quiet cat with a heart of gold. The two of them got along magnificently, and Mossheart remains on good terms with him to this day. Thistlestar died halfway through Mosspaw's apprenticeship from the same disease as Featherstep, and he was grateful to have an apprentice to be strong for, the faith of another cat to hang on to. There's a special kind of grief that comes from losing one's first leader, and it made him feel sad, and old, and apprehensive about the future.
His mother passed away when he was nearly sixty moons of age. She never retired, not officially, but there was always an extra cat on patrols that she was assigned to, and though she noticed, she made no fuss. Longstride had learned how to manage his grief by then: he kept it in, and talked more with Hazewhisker, like old times. He believes she's in StarClan, and hopes she's happy.
Dewstar, the new leader, was a little more difficult for Longstride to get a read on; for one thing, he gave him Eaglepaw, his second apprentice. Eaglepaw was a loud and brash character who always had an opinion about everything. The two managed to get along at first: Longstride was patient, as his mentor had been, and Eaglepaw was a quick study: everything Longstride had to teach, Eaglepaw could pick up within a few days of training. The application, the combination, was where they had to focus their efforts, and it was hard to get the clever apprentice to focus on anything that wasn't immediately relevant or interesting. They began to have disagreements, little things that prevented their relationship from blossoming into that ideal of mutual respect and trust that other mentors and apprentices enjoyed. Longstride tried to remain even-tempered, but Eaglepaw always saw his calm exterior as an admission of weakness or failure. One night, while Longstride was arranging apprentice's warrior ceremony with Dewstar, Eaglepaw and their friends snuck out of camp and simply disappeared. They were clever about it: everything Longstride had taught his apprentice, about covering one's tracks and disguising scent, had been put to good use. Add to this the torrential rainfall, and there was no way of tracking the missing apprentices. Understandably, Longstride was beside himself, but more with frustration than worry: he may not have known much about his apprentice, but they were a quick study, and whatever foolish exercise they'd gone off to do, they'd be in good hands. No, it was the other apprentices he worried about.
Longstride was on every patrol he could manage, as were the other anxious mentors. Dewstar could not allow them to cross into another clan's territory, but it was leaf-fall and as all the Twolegs had packed up, he organised efficient search paths through the Twolegplace, across both sides of the Thunderpath, and up and down the trails that led to the Moonpool. There was only one possible answer: the apprentices had left WindClan territory.
They returned on the seventh day, one of Eaglepaw's friends limping and badly wounded in the shoulder. They wouldn't say anything about where they had been or why they'd gone, except that the wounded apprentice had been attacked by a monster.
As punishment, all three of the apprentices had their warrior ceremonies pushed back a full moon, and they were expected to help Crookedwing. Even then, Longstride was struck by her, but he was far too busy chastising Eaglepaw to pay attention to his own thoughts. Besides, Crookedwing was Crookedwing. They'd been apprentices together, and oh he'd admit in a passing way that she was pretty, but never thought much more on it than that.
Eaglepaw was made Eaglecry, and Longstride's nest has remained as far from his apprentice's as possible, much as he tries to keep an eye on them.
Since then, time has continued to pass. Longstride is one of those cats who's remained oddly fulfilled by clan life: the friendships of his clanmates and his apprentices, the hours spent with Hazewhisker; these have been enough for him. He's led his share of patrols, most to good effect. No cat comes to harm on his watch. During Gatherings, he does his best to allay fears and diffuse tensions--cats from all clans may recognise him for his good humour and willingness to listen. Nothing more has ever seemed important.
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[PTab=Tab3]DO YOU BELIEVE IN STARCLAN? WHY OR WHY NOT?
"That's what being a warrior is--StarClan are us, our ancestors, and one day we'll all join them. Isn't it strange that when we die, all those clannish distinctions will just fall away? Hm, now there's a subject a good warrior maybe shouldn't think too much about. But as we know, faith alone can't bring us plentiful prey. What keeps us all strong, that's what they care about. The doing, as always, is up to us."
FAVORITE HISTORICAL CAT? WHY?
"Oh, that's a terrible thing to ask someone to choose! My father was the sort of cat who always had a story to tell--sometimes, they were even true."
WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST FEAR?
"What?" The tom's tail twitches in what, for him, passes for a scathing rebuke--but the tapping slows as he grows thoughtful. "Fear. As in, what's likely or what's most frightening? Blackcough sounds like one of the most unpleasant ways to go--but there's all manner of physical afflictions that any sane cat should fear." He shivers. "Blackcough would about do it."
IF YOUR BEST FRIEND/MOTHER/WHOEVER KNOWS YOU WELL COULD DESCRIBE YOU IN THREE INDIVIDUAL WORDS, WHAT WOULD THOSE BE? DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE?
He laughs, warm and low, and shakes his head. "Sensitive, thoughtful and ultimately foolish. And she's not wrong."
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[PTab=Tab4]USERNAME/ALIAS - Flynn! (Sea calls me Fallen. She will be along eventually, maybe.
)PRONOUNS - She/her
TIMEZONE - GMT+12 (that's roughly 5 hours ahead of you American-zoned types!)
OTHER CHARACTERS - None!
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