Dragonfly was born to Raspberry and Honey in the Clover Colony. She has five other siblings: Moth, Ant, Weevil, Locust, and Caterpillar. Although Honey was acting as a surrogate for the litter and didn’t take on the role of a parent like Raspberry, she was still around for Dragonfly and her siblings, and was happy to babysit or be a helpful presence for the kits. Dragonfly was very proud of being the daughter of the leader of such a powerful Colony. She didn’t doubt her mother’s love for them, even when she was distant. She wanted to be more like Raspberry, in fact, and would copy her mannerisms to try and be more like her.

But early on, Dragonfly realized that despite her love for her mother, Raspberry didn’t have that much time for them. She tried to justify it at first - oh, she was just busy. It must be hard to run such a big colony. And some of that was true. But the distance between her litter and their mother grew, especially after the earth shook and their territory seemed to crumble around them. It was really scary, especially since cats around her were panicking. She even heard that one of their cats, Tern, died. Dragonfly didn’t know Tern, but others who did grieved for him.

She could excuse the distance between her and her mother, mostly because she assumed every family would be the same way. But…this changed once Rooster adopted a litter of kittens in the direct aftermath of the earthquake. They were too small for her to play with, but that’s not what hurt her. What hurt was seeing how incredibly involved Rooster was in their upbringing. She didn’t realize that that’s what she wanted all along. She didn’t want some high-ranked mother. Dragonfly just wanted a mother who loved her and showed it. She hid these feelings, though, feeling as though admitting it would be a grave betrayal.

When Dragonfly started her training, she was incredibly proud of the way she quickly caught onto hunting and fighting. Even though no one told her so, she told herself she had to be uphold this idea of perfectionism in her duties to be worthy of Raspberry. And it came easy to her, so she didn’t mind at first. Soon, though, the idea of it started eating her from the inside, and she developed feelings of anxiety. It didn’t help that since her litter was allowed to be more independent now, even those who had helped babysit her were distant.

A fox was said to be spotted in the territory, and two cats, Alto and Jessamine, disappeared shortly after. Many assumed the fox got the two mollies. It caused lots of panic amongst the colony…and it didn’t help that her brother, Caterpillar, was next to go. Something told her, though, that it wasn’t as simple as the fox catching him next - maybe he just left on his own. Nonetheless, their mom wasn’t happy about it.

One thing did get better, though. By now, Rooster’s kits were big enough to play and start developing their own personalities. Dragonfly especially liked one of his daughters, Piper. She was an athletic, competitive molly who was always coming up with all sorts of contests and games for them. They got along very well. Piper was quickly Dragonfly’s best friend, and vice versa. She hung out with Piper and her siblings a fair bit. Rooster was more than happy to help Dragonfly out with whatever she needed, which felt…really nice.

Two strangers later showed up at their camp talking about the “Pyre Colony” - some colony that was just founded. Apparently their leader could talk to the dead? And they were inviting cats from other colonies to find out more about her, if they were interested? Dragonfly was rather skeptical about the whole thing. Since when could a living cat talk to the dead? Surely, if a cat like that existed, they would have met one a long time ago. Although she was skeptical, Rooster wasn’t. He wanted the opportunity to hear from Tern again, and he made the decision to go. This would’ve been fine…but naturally, he was taking his children with him. That meant Piper would be leaving, and they didn’t know when they’d be able to see each other again.

Once Piper was gone, Dragonfly tried to shut out the rest of the world and just focus on her duties. Months went by, and she still hadn’t heard anything from her friend. She kept up the exercises they would do on the daily together; not only did it help her feel more connected to her friend, but the routine kept away her biting anxiety. Soon it came time for their name ceremony as her and her siblings reached ten months. Her siblings all decided to change their names: Moth became Atlas, Ant became Ponerine, and Weevil became Killdeer - leaving Dragonfly the only one who kept the name given to her by her mom. She couldn’t really place why. Maybe she just felt like it fit her. Maybe she still wanted to hold on to one of the things given to her by her mom.

adulthood

It had been four months since they heard from any of the cats that visited Pyre. Raspberry mentioned that she was thinking of putting together a communications team to go to the faraway colony and see how their visiting colleagues were doing. Dragonfly immediately offered to be apart of it - if Piper was there, she wanted to see her friend and know how she was doing.