Beartooth

A shaggy brown and white striped tom with scars, snaggletooth and green eyes

A large tom at the taller end of ShadowClan’s height scale, Beartooth’s fur is long and shaggy, wiry in its top-coat and dense and dark beneath. His dark brown coat is lined with darker stripes that zig-zag in typical Mackerel fashion across his every inch, only broken up by the touches of white that splash across his muzzle, belly, and paws. His body bears the typical scars of a busied Border Patrol-favorer, one who puts himself between others and larger predators without thinking twice.

Muscular and a bit broader than he is lean, Beartooth’s large, flat-footed paws and dark coloring lend to both his name and his countenance. His eyes are a dark, foresty green, and he bears a snaggled left canine tooth on his lower jaw that sits against his upper lip.

Beartooth is brusque, though not to the very definition. His appearance takes away every chance for him to hide his emotions, and so he has grown through his life not wasting much time doing so. He wears his every feeling quite plainly – the simple fact is that his catalogue is rather limited. Duty, honor, general disapproval, and resilience. He is a man of of his duty, and in his youth was little more than just that. What began in kithood as tattling on his denmates for “breaking the rules” and what was fostered in his apprenticeship with diligence has left him, in maturity, a seemingly stalwart example of a proud Warrior.

He speaks very little and smiles even less, only giving his opinion when he believes it’s ultimately necessary; though he’s not without his manners. Beartooth tries to make a habit of visiting the elders’ den when he has the free time, of checking to see if the medicine cat needs any more of that funny blue flower since his patrol’s going that way anyway. He’s a tom deeply devoted to his Clan and to the roles of all cats within that Clan, and it’s left him with quite a few expectations of how a Warrior should behave – the problem is, he’s not exactly afraid to point out when someone’s not meeting them.

Though it hasn’t earned him many close friends in the way of socializing, Beartooth’s diligence and stoicism bears out in his putting the Code and the Clan above himself. Firmly set in his ways and unflinching in his resolutions – his opinion is very hard to change when he has made it, and he unfortunately views himself as someone who is entitled to make such quick judgements based on his experiences – he is ultimately committed to the Clan and StarClan above all else. Get him going in a conversation over the morning’s fresh-kill, and he’ll gruffly regale you about his scars or his past skirmishes while stressing the importance of keeping yourself and your patrolmates safe.

• Born in the Moon of Lion's Glory (2018) 111
• Made an Apprentice as Bearpaw in ShadowClan during the Moon of Tiger's Wraith (2018) 117
• Named a Warrior as Beartooth in ShadowClan during the Moon of Long Sun (2019) 123

[ 0 – 6 moons ]

Born in the fading days of a resplendent green-leaf with the scent of summer herbs still hanging heavy in the air, Bearkit was the first of his litter to arrive. The angry scrunch of his little face coupled with the haywire ball of fur he was had his dam purring with amusement. Bear was her own personal suggestion to their leader, and though he always thought it came from his size and fluffy pelt, his mother kept to herself how it had come from his looking exactly like a grumpy bear who’d just woken up from his leaf-bare sleep.

His dam and sire were both capable and well-lived ShadowClan warriors; Bearkit’s litter was not his dam’s first, and neither was it his sire’s. In their capability and strength, they prided themselves on coupling for the betterment of their Clan and held a great respect for one another – their kits were first and foremost the promise of ShadowClan’s future, and his dam raised all of her children with the deeply-held belief that the Clan was both their family and their honor to be a part of.

Bearkit’s youth was marked largely by his curiosity. He was an eager learner, and an avid asker of all manner of “whys?” and “whats?”, but showed his individuality in the satisfaction he seemed to show in receiving said answers. He exampled a great deal of understanding from a young age of what expectations were, what rules were and what The Code stood for.

He watched the pride gleaming in his dam’s eyes when young apprentices would come to the nursery with fresh moss and polite good mornings, he noticed the appreciation in the other queens’ faces when the medicine cats came with borage and catmint. Everyone had their role, their place, their duty. It unfolded about him every day, and he had been lucky enough to be born into it! How could some kits whine about how boring the elders’ stories were when there was so much to learn? His curiosity waned in favor of quiet observation and diligent manners: he’d make himself worthy of his Clan, the same way the Warriors steeled themselves before crossing the camp boundaries for patrol!

The goings-on of the world about him were kept contained from the nursery in his youth, and though he may have vague memories if others’ mention more detail, Bearkit’s youth was one spent focused on his own growth within the dynamics of the Clan.

[ 6 – 12 moons ]

Palepaw’s career as an apprentice was one that Bearkit was able to watch from the outside, and one he hoped to live up to. When his time for apprenticeship came at the end of the Moon of Tiger’s Wrath (2018), his heart soared to hear their leader call him to stand before his mentor.

Bearpaw still had plenty to learn upon touching noses with ____ for the first time, though he’d never have admitted it to himself. The attitudes that carried over from kithood carried over into his growing adolescence, and though they may have earned him charmed chuckles in bumbling toddlerhood, they didn’t do him many favors in his early apprenticeship.

Though incredibly eager to learn, Bearpaw’s early moons with ____ were marked by his childish resistance to the idea that he wasn’t just naturally good at everything that came with being a Warrior. He’d been excited for training and practice, relishing the chance to show his new mentor just how ready he was – the first missed pounce, the first bap of ____ winning paw in a mock spar, the first slip and fall on patrol, they were all unfathomable to the young Bearpaw.

He learned a great deal from the respectable and diligent warrior ____ was in his day; not only about the Code and his responsibilities toward his Clan, but also a great deal about the importance of devoting time and energy toward bettering oneself and improving one’s skills for the sake of the Clan. It instilled deep, lasting foundations of his expectations towards both himself, and his Clanmates.

For all the dutiful calm that ____ brought to Bearpaw’s character, there was one place in which they always differed. Bearpaw had dreamed of the border patrol since his milk-teeth days; his later moons in apprenticeship were full of volunteering himself (with permission) for all manner of patrols, hunts, and territory markings to those who would take him. With his size and growing strength, he saw it as his duty to be one of the cats on the “first line of defense.”

[ 12 moons – Present ]

Beartooth. Anyone who took one look at the young warrior’s face might have thought it a bit on the nose – but Bearpaw understood it, instantly. -fang had suited him, but it just wasn’t his style. Named for his diligence and his willingness to put himself between the Clan and all dangers, Beartooth was beaming beneath the stalwart face he wore through his vigil in the Moon of Long Sun (2019).

The transition from apprentice to warrior was an rather smooth one for Beartooth, though the habits he’d developed in his youth never quite left him. For as quiet and observing and stoic as he’d become, he would still ensure everyone else had enough to eat before finishing his fresh-kill, he would still visit the elders’ den in the morning if he had time before patrol. In their more fruitful days, it wasn’t uncommon to see young Murkkit and Dazzlekit clambering over a scowling Beartooth in the clearing of the nursery, either.

In his own luck, there have never been any great tragedies that have befallen Beartooth in his time as a Warrior. What scars he’s earned have come from the every-day dealings and expectations of a Warrior in his role – should he have taken the attention of an angry predator on patrol to give the younger Warriors time to escape, or if he had happened to be present at a patrol meeting gone wrong, his actions and any action taken in protection of his Clan and patrolmates wouldn’t have merited much memory. As Beartooth sees it, it’s his duty as a ShadowClan Warrior to brave his way into their territory and keep it safe, for them and for their generations to come.

The reality of his moons and his experience live with him daily, and the scars he wears from past border skirmishes and encounters with larger predators weave a tapestry of a life given in service to his Clan. In the changing of Leadership and the events of late, Beartooth has become even more diligent and brusque in his handling of defenses and expectations. He cannot stand the idea of ShadowClan cats not pulling their weight during the aftermath of such a fraught time, and has vowed himself to the effort of restoring their strength and confidence.

In his diligence to remain a protector of the camp and the lives within during the ongoing events, what border patrols and skirmishes have occurred in deeper territory of late lacked Beartooth’s presence – something he deeply regrets. Over his moons as a fully-fledged Warrior, he had tried to make a considerable effort in offering himself for Border Patrols and Hunting trips alike, and to have been elsewhere when his clanmates suffered horrors unimaginable is difficult for him to bear.

• No threads have been recorded.