Profile
FLOODCURRENT
ISTJ-T
overambitious brute
a sizable, stocky blue-silver tabby with a frame built for strength, floodcurrent’s webbed paws and thick, rudderlike tail make him a natural swimmer as well. with murmurings of his riverclan heritage due to those paws, at least it seems like half of him belongs to riverclan, even if that does little to ease the insecurities he feels or the judgment more discerning cats pass his way. scars mostly hidden beneath a thick-furred pelt betray how hard he’s worked and trained, though a frigid golden glare and a typically-impassive face are their own insight into how closed off this cat seems.
no emotion slips through that mask typically save for anger, and even that proves (thankfully) rare. instead, floodcurrent seems to wear an eternal poker face, difficult to read though some say he’s not masking emotion so much as hardly feeling any in the first place.
floodcurrent strives to be the most loyal riverclan warrior he can be, and perhaps some would argue he tries a bit too hard. almost single-minded in his drive to serve his clanmates and clan, he’s forgone things such as friendships and other interpersonal endeavors for the sake of being the best warrior he can be. under the cruel, rather vicious mentorship of leopardstalk, a younger floodcurrent had to adapt to harshness and criticism from an early age. knowing that if he buckled under the pressure he’d never get up again, he instead seems to have steeled himself to the world, to the point where even simple concepts such as contentness and relaxation are foreign to him. who has time to relax when every waking moment can be spent either honing your skills or using those skills to riverclan’s advantage?
judged harshly in all aspects of life, perhaps he’s become more like leopardstalk than even he realizes, because he holds his clanmates to high, often unrealistic expectations, fiercely of the belief that riverclan cats shouldn’t consort with enemy clan cats at all, let alone let themselves become friendly or, stars forbid, involved with any of them. a stickler for the rules, he’s likely to intervene if he catches someone trying to slip across borders, and certainly isn’t above telling someone in a more authoritative position if he can’t get someone to listen.
he’d follow a leader’s orders to the ends of the earth without questioning them much, no matter what that leader decreed. that’s loyalty as far as he’s concerned – whether it’s morally sound or not hardly matters if it’s the leader’s decision, and while he often seems frustrated by the current peace, eager to prove himself capable in battle or some other daring feat, he won’t go out of his way to purposefully make trouble for now.
large, muscular
heavy, solid
born to a loner named briar alongside his siblings, lily and aspen, his first few moons were spent outside of any clan’s camp, though his mother’s swift onset of illness resulted in the kits being taken to the clan their father, lakeshade, resided in – riverclan. though he did not come forward to publicly claim the kittens, their webbed paws seemed proof enough that some riverclan blood flowed within their veins, and the kittens were taken in, though not every cat was pleased with the decision.
one cat unhappy with the decision was a warrior named leopardstalk, who would become floodpaw’s mentor. one of the first outings with the apprentice was one laced with cruel words and implications, noting that floodpaw was worthless by default in his current state, with his tainted blood, and that making himself at least useful to riverclan was likely the best a cat of his pedigree could ever accomplish. floodpaw learned very quickly that betraying any signs of weakness or emotion would only result in those weaknesses getting picked at and ripped apart, and so he seemed to grow up more quickly that his siblings, shoving emotion and weakness alike deep inside and focusing all of his attention upon the warrior code and making riverclan the best it could possibly be.
he grew into a distant, stoic cat, often at ends with his sister, lilystream, over her friendships with other clan cats and disregard for borders and the code. frustrated more than once, shared words certainly wouldn’t be friendly, and he distanced himself more and more from his family, unwilling to allow his own reputation to be tarnished by cats who held less loyalty than himself, even if he did share blood with them.
floodcurrent would get the chance to begin training an apprentice while still young, and though he didn’t show it, he felt pride and ambition at the idea, to prove that he was a capable warrior who could teach future riverclan generations. shadepaw, the apprentice given to him, wasn’t a good fit, however, and certainly lacked natural talent at things like fighting in particular. utilizing the same harsh training regime he himself had grown up with didn’t seem to work, either, as shadepaw seemed to crumble and withdraw from the pressure instead of getting stronger.
a particularly nasty training session would result in a yelling match between the two – and though floodcurrent wouldn’t unsheathe his claws, a swipe strong enough to knock a belligerent shadepaw off his paws seemed to be the final straw for the young cat, who departed in tears and returned to camp despite floodcurrent’s insistence they finish their practice session. shadepaw would be kept busy helping the local medicine cat, tigermoth, in the next few days, to floodcurrent’s chagrin, and his shock when tigermoth announced that shadepaw would become his apprentice made him uncharacteristically angry. his first apprentice had been a failure not of any fault of floodcurrent’s, but he nevertheless felt it was bound to reflect poorly upon his standings in the clan.
as shadepaw began his new role as riverclan's future medicine cat, floodcurrent didn't have too long to ruminate. strange dreams plagued him at night -- and though it was the first time he'd ever had such vivid dreams, he might have dismissed them if not for the fact that his long-time friend, ottersplash, had had nearly the same dream. shared with their other clanmate, cuckoocall, as well, starclan had seemingly called them to conquer some great sickness and evil that laid beyond clan borders. despite the gravity, floodcurrent felt excited for the first time in a long while. perhaps now, he could make a name for himself and earn some recognition at last. though sharing their journey with cats from other clans wasn't something he was thrilled about, he tagged along, and though he couldn't claim much personal glory, they were successful... mostly. starclan's decree to eradicate the surviving brightwood cats, despite their apparent good health, caused some hesitation amid starclan's chosen... and though floodcurrent might have attempted to act upon starclan's wishes if on his own, even the strongest riverclan warrior knew that acting against so many would result not only in failure, but in death.
though the decision would nag at him, along with ottersplash, as they made their way home...
though the two warriros would return home with more than just lingering doubts. ottersplash was exhibiting strange symptoms by the time they made it back to riverclan territory, and floodcurrent found himself uncharacteristically agitated at the thought that one of the few cats he gave a damn about might have contracted some mangy brightwood plague. ushering him quickly to the riverclan medicine den, the good news was that ottersplash wasn't plague-ridden. the... surprising news was that he was pregnant. and there was only one warrior who could have been responsible for that, according to ottersplash...
while he'd always wanted a legacy, he certainly hadn't planned for one so early; hell, he and ottersplash were hardly more than kits themselves, in the grand scheme of things. but ottersplash seemed excited, and despite his worries, floodcurrent wanted to be excited too. though it seemed riverclan was destined for greater excitement than the promise of new life...
the truth about his parentage came abruptly, and while he had suspected the deputy, lakeshade, to some degree... knowing it to be truth, with lakeshade only admitting it to his rejected children when forced, made floodcurrent's blood boil. only loyalty to riverclan kept him from lunging at lakeshade then and there... and one massive warrior sat to watch lakeshade bare his sins to the world before stepping down. though lakeshade's final decree to exile some questionable cats threw unexpected chaos into the mix -- lakeshade's father, and, floodcurrent supposed, his grandfather, stormgaze, threw himself at his son, mangling him and then lunging for redstar in the ensuing chaos.
though he would have watched lakeshade die without an ounce of pity, hearing ottersplash cry out for their leader fueled floodcurrent into action, and he lunged for stormgaze alongside one of riverclan's most promising apprentices, bluepaw. he could recall the way blood flooded his maw and bone cracked beneath his jaws days after the fact, cutting stormgaze's attack short and leaving the old riverclan cat crumpled and lifeless on the ground. bearing fresh scars from the assault, floodcurrent couldn't find himself to feel much pride in the aftermath, as riverclan recovered from its inner treachery. the disappearance of tigermoth and leopardstalk rattled floodcurrent especially; though his mentor seemed to have been on the side of stormgaze, floodcurrent had a difficult time believing he wasn't somehow acting in riverclan's best interests...
he would remain resentful of lakeshade, angry that the former deputy hadn't perished from his wounds. though he had sired them, he would never be a father in name to floodcurrent. occupying himself with providing for an expecting ottersplash, floodcurrent would find himself frantic when ottersplash went into labor one stormy gathering night. it was difficult enough that it was hard to believe that one single kitten had caused ottersplash so much trouble -- but not-so-little rabbitkit had finally made his way into the world.
he wasn't sure how to be a father -- he certainly didn't have any example to follow. but some part of him couldn't help but melt seeing rabbitkit, and he vowed to do the best he could for rabbitkit, showing him what being a strong, loyal riverclanner really meant and making sure riverclan could be something he could be proud of.
