Quickthaw Backstory

Water had always been very special to Quickthaw. From a young age, he'd even been able to control it - a feat which wasn't particularly novel in his Clan, but something he enjoyed nonetheless. And he was the only one capable of controlling water specifically - so he felt a little more special every time he splashed water in another apprentice's face. (Although he wasn't supposed to do that, ever since he'd frozen his brother's fur solid that one time. That had been quite the mess.)

But things changed, as they always do. Time went on, flowing like the water he'd become quite accustomed to controlling - it was as if he had another limb, almost - an attachment to his own body that he used day by day, hunting and patrolling and continuing to prank his brother as he got older. He didn't think it was something that would ever go away - nobody else's powers ever seemed to leave them. It was just something they were born with, that they used in their own little ways, and that they died with. It was normal.

It wasn't normal to lose them. And yet... they had.

They hadn't noticed, at first. Too preoccupied with their first litter of kittens, they hadn't gone out of camp much - and, generally, their Clanmates preferred when they didn't use their powers somewhere where they might soak (and probably half-freeze) every cat within the splash zone. Not to mention they didn't want to get their new little scraps of fur wet - they were just so tiny and vulnerable.

They'd noticed soon enough, though - they'd gone for a walk, trying to twist a bit of water around as they sometimes did. It was normally unconscious - they hadn't even realized it wasn't working until they realized they'd been trying to use it.

But when they had...

They'd tried everything. Pulling it from the snow, the air, shooting it with their paws, their tail even, but nothing would work. Their powers were just... gone.

They hadn't gone back to camp, that day. Or... ever, really. They'd sat by the lake so long, trying to make the water move at all, even just a splash, or a tiny ripple. But it wouldn't work.

They didn't remember slipping away. But one day, they realized, things had changed - he didn't recognize the young apprentice pattering into the lake beside him. He didn't recognize his greying mentor, either, grumbling something about a leader Quickthaw had never followed.

And neither of them seemed to see him sitting in front of their paws, hunched over the lake water as he had been for many, many moons.