Lavender

Lavender is a thick-furred, dappled white she-cat, with brilliant purple eyes. Her spots are a light gray, and she has a dark marking on her chest. She has tufted ears. Her front paws are heavily scarred and sensitive due to burns she received as an apprentice. She also has scars across her face, back, chest, and front legs.

She is often seen trying to cover her paws, such as covering them with her tail while sitting or tucking them under herself while she sleeps.

She is very solitary and keeps to herself almost all the time, including when the colony is sharing tounges. She doesn't show much emotion, but she still can feel and express them. She is also is very observant and can read people very well, and is more skeptical of trusting others. This leads to her coming off pretty blunt at times, but she often has empathy about another's situation, even if it's just surface level

She is very touch-adverse, espcially on her front legs/paws. She only lets others she considers family hold her purposefully (a fellow colony mate tapping on her to get her attention is fine to her, just no comforting geustures). This also goes with who she tells about the story of her scars (minus the cats who already know)

Lavender was the only kit of Ash and Dove. As a kit, she was a very cheerful cat, smiling brightly and laughing. She loved hanging out with her parents and Rowan when she would come around to play. She learned to sign very quickly from her mother, she enjoyed communicating with her. One day, when she was a moon, she saw a new cat join the colony, who turned out to be Fog, her grandfather.

After Fog joined, he would spend a lot of his time with Lavender, away from her parents. She did enjoy his presence, happy to have another family member. Fog would offer to take her out of camp much earlier than she would be allowed, claiming he wanted to show her what living was like outside. Intrigued by the unknown, she would always follow. Most of the trips out of camp lasted only a short while, but they soon began to increase in length. Fog would often converse with Lavender on these outings, Fog would talk about things, mainly how he thought cats were stronger if they lived alone, and that attachment to others made cats weak. She didn't agree with everything, but she did think about what he said.

When Dove started falling sick, Lavender was 3 moons old. She briefly saw Dove recovering, before Fog invited her out of camp again, causing Lavender to debate with herself. She eventually went with Fog. Her mother wasn't too sick, she could recover. With that, they left, and that day, Fog decided the two would sleep outside of camp.

The two returned to camp somewhat late the next day, but Lavender was greeted with tragedy. Ash immediately went for Fog, yelling at him with rage, Lavender was confused, until she saw her mother, lying in the middle of camp. She ran up to her mother while her father continued to yell, and was crying into her body. It was cooling, meaning she had died a while ago, She wasn't there when she died. The whole time, she was tuning out her father's angry fury, and only the words of Fog rung through her head. Getting attached makes you weak. It made you feel horrible. A strong cat would overcome heartbreak, but an even stronger cat wouldn't need to, since they wouldn't form attachments. She did notice Fog leaving, but did not move until Ash sat beside her, curling his tail over her back to comfort her. She didn't need comfort, she needed to be alone, She pushed herself away from him, going back to the nursery. She didn't even want to attend the vigil for her mother, only watching from the sidelines.

When she was old enough, she became an apprentice, and was assigned Rowan as her mentor. At first, Lavender was still quite silent, starting to hide her feelings, and didn't seem to interact with Rowan well, except follow the advice Rowan gave her, but Lavender soon remembered and reminisced over the times when they were both young, and the bonded very deeply, feeling the connection and love like two sisters would.

One night on a walk, a fire broke out near the Thunderpath, terrifying the two of them. Rowan instructed her to stay close and guided her to try to find an escape, but the burning forest soon trapped them in a small area. With very little warning, Rowan soon jumped over Lavender, covering her whole body, and then got pinned to the ground. It was impossible to tell how much time passed until the fire subsided, she could only use her ears to tell, hearing the crackle of flames die out. She crawled out from under Rowan, who had not moved at all, and was covered in still aflame bracnhes. She clawed the branches off of her, burning her paws in the process, and attempted to shake Rowan's severely burnt body awake. She saw Rowan smile at her, then she passed out, too weak from inhaling too much smoke to stand.

When she awoke, she was in the healer den, paws wrapped with cobwebs. Everyone in the colony was relieved she was ok, but all Lavender could think about was Rowan. She had let her guard down again, and she got hurt again, this time physically too. Her paws would serve as a reminder to never open herself to others ever again, one that would be present at all times.

After she recovered, Ash wanted to make her a warrior right away, but Lavender refused, she still had to earn it, and this time, she would do it herself. She refused to take another mentor, and always went out on her own. However, adapting to how her paws felt now was a bit difficult, which led to her getting all the other scars on her body. Ash did not like seeing his daughter do this, but Lavender would refuse to let him name her a warrior. After getting the scar across her face from a rabbit, she finally let herself be named a warrior.

When she became a warrior, she seemed to listen to Ash and Wheat and their orders, but only in a way that implied a "warrior following orders" way, with all personal connection seeming to have vanished.