Alderleaf

Alderleaf is a rather tall, fluffy cream tom. His fur is rather thin depite its length, leading to him being both chilly in leaf-bare and too hot in greenleaf. He's a little on the skinny side, which is only accentuated in winter when he will often give up his share of prey to give to his mate Eggsong from a colony not far from his own. He has large ears and paws. His expression is usually serious, and despite the fact that it can often appear that he's irritated with everyone he meets (which is true to an extent), he's actually just worried about new people being a threat to his friends, family and clan.

Alderleaf is a very confident tom, rarely hesitating when making a decision and always ready to lead a patrol into battle, no matter what anyone thinks the outcome will be. He tries his best not to be biased in clan discussions, giving everyone's points equal time to be explained, no matter whether he loves or hates the cats speaking. And though he may come across as cold at first glance, he can be rather warm once you have gained his affection, particularly if you're part of his family.

His love of his family is one of his flaws. In his eyes, they cannot do anything wrong and he will stand by them until the end, even if they've killed others- they will always be in the right, to him. And despite everything he says to those who paint them in this light, he is certainly a pessimist- it's not uncommon for him to list everything that could possibly go wrong before entering a battle, or complain about the hardships of leaf-bare before the season has even begun. Though he is quick in his decision choices, he makes a lot of mistakes when deciding as he fails to take in the whole situation, thinkning only of the immediate future, of how to stock up the fresh-kill pile for the next day or how to keep everyone safe in the battle while ignoring the struggles of the whole war.

Alderleaf started life as a loner, living with his frequently absent father Oak, overprotective mother Gingernut, and seemingly perfect sister Cherry. The entirety of his childhood was overshadowed by his sister, the clear favourite of both his mother and father. No matter how hard he pushed himself, his sister would do everything better, faster, more easily, and he started to see why everyone saw him as inferior, even believe them when they scolded him for not being as good as Cherry.

After the freak accident during Cherry's maturity ritual (crossing a path along a gaping chasm, an ancient rite of passage to prove an adolescent loner's worth), taken much earlier than Alder despite them being the same age, his parents' preference for his deceased sister became ever more clear. They spent their days mourning her rather than caring for their living son, and nothing he could do to prove his worth got through to them. He did everything he could think of. He even passed their maturity ritual without a scratch, yet still he was ignored. His attempt to climb the tallest tree in the forest ended only in him gaining a serious injury, one Oak and Gingernut thought would never heal, and they abandoned him, thinking he would soon die.

Hurt by their dismissal of him the moment he got injured, he became even more determined to survive. Contrary to what his parents thought, his leg did heal. He quickly adapted to being independent. When he met a cat he had never seen before, a small cream point who claimed to be named Birchstar, he thought he could see some resemblance between him and his father so agreed to follow him. Sure enough, it seemed that the time Oak had spent away from Alder and his family had been spent raising another family, one of Birchstar and his two sisters. He agreed to join the clan, taking the name Alderleaf, and quickly gaining the position of deputy.