Bearbelly

Bearkit was born to a decent sized litter, along with three other siblings, to their mother Hollyfall and Stonefrost. Like his siblings, he never bonded closely with their father, as he was always more preoccupied with their half-sister’s (Embercry) litter. He never seemed to mind though. His father had made it clear that he didn’t want much to do with them, so he never made an outright attempt to bond with him.

While Bearkit was growing up, it almost seemed that everything in the valley was falling apart, but he was simply a little kit, what was he supposed to do? Regardless, he was always quite brave, even as a kit, so he did his best to take care of his siblings, even though he didn’t quite have the ability to do so. He would try to keep his siblings distracted with games, or would simply ‘stand guard’ from the nursery, protecting them from the demons haunting the camp.

After things calmed down a little outside, it seemed like a lot had changed, and when he did find out the whole truth of what had happened, he became even more worried for the safety of his siblings. What if something like that were to happen again and he wasn’t prepared to defend them? While he knew he couldn’t do much currently, that wouldn’t always be the case. He had to be ready for the worst.

And the worst did come…

…Embercry became the very thing Bearpaw had been trying to protect his siblings from. It felt… wrong, really for him to hate a cat this much. Especially someone who was technically his family. But she had hurt so many cats, in such a short amount of time.

Bearpaw had barely started his apprentice training when the war broke out, only being 8 moons, so he couldn’t do much to help. It didn’t matter much, regardless. The war was over rather quickly, but it was painful all the way through. Despite the hatred Bearpaw had for Embercry, the loss of a life, of a family member, was never easy, and it hit him particularly hard. He didn’t want for him, or anyone for that matter, to ever be met with that tragic fate if he could avoid it.

It was then that Bearpaw began developing his strict code. He didn’t trust himself, or his father’s genes, to not succumb to a path of darkness. So he made strict rules, to remind himself of pain and loss he’d already gone through.

The rest of his apprenticeship went by fairly uneventfully. His mentor, Foxgaze, was always fairly lenient with him, as she knew better than anyone else how hard the loss of Embercry had hit him. He truly felt like an entirely separate cat, taking his training more seriously than ever, and rarely spending time on playing with other cats his age. She also learned that Bearpaw preferred to do patrols on his own, and began letting him do so more often.

Foxgaze became the cat Bearpaw trusted the most. With her help, he learned to be more patient to himself, and to be more forgiving with himself and his rules. He slowly became closer to the cat he used to be, spending more time with his family, and finally remembering how to relax, but something never quite went back to normal.

As a warrior, Bearbelly returned to his loner ways, taking long patrols by himself whenever possible. He still enjoyed spending time with his family (and occasionally his ex-mentor, Foxgaze), but it seemed everyone else was busy with their own things more often than not. This didn’t quite bother him, in fact, he was quite proud of his siblings for doing their own thing.

Unfortunately for him, things could never stay normal in the valley for long. With strange, and seemingly random, murders happening in the valley, Bearbelly began to worry for the safety of his siblings yet again, especially his sister, Coyotechirp. He did his best to protect them in the only way he knew how, by taking long patrols to try and gather evidence. When that didn’t seem to pan out, he began to search more aggressively, for the cat themself. If scattered clues wouldn’t get him there, perhaps he could just find this cat himself and end it once and for all.