Savagefox

A svelte green-eyed tom with a red tabby bicolor pelt

Savagefox is a cat of average build but somewhat above average size. Their wide, almond shaped eyes sit in the wedge shaped face that is topped by large, wide set ears. Those intense eyes are olive green and generally leap in focus from thing to thing, following whatever has caught their attention rather than the task they should be focused on. The majority of their head is a striped tawny-red tabby with golden undertones. The stripes themselves are only in the primal locations: elbows, hocks, tail and face. The face itself has a bright white marking that echos their ears in both shape and size.

Their body is svelte, covered in a dense pelt that only just managed to be long enough to create a fringe on belly and tail. The white on their face runs down onto the chest and neck, leaving only a single ribbon of rusty color that runs down the back of the neck. The white runs down the right forleg, leaving all but their toes clean of color. Their left forleg, however, is colored with just the toes being white.

Their back and tail are all the same tawny-red, marred only by the ghosts of stripes. Their right hind leg is also colored save for the toes. The left hind is colored only to the knee, then white, then colored from the hock down, and ending is white toes.

“Stillness” is a word rarely associated with Savagefox. They are constantly in motion: Paws flexing, ears twitching, tail curling. Some part of their body is always in motion. Savagefox’s eyes dart constantly, marking the everlasting state of hyper-vigilence they live in. When confronted with an outsider of any kind this state of alertness magnifies ten-fold and may well manifest in uncompromising violence fueled by the Fierceblooded line he is born of.

Savagefox finds backing down from a challenge untenable, be it border combat or something known only to their own mind. They find the world something to be explored, prodded, and poked. Should the world prod back their response may be one of fascinated obsession or violent destruction depending on the whims of the mercurial curiosity that consumed them.

They take a certain pride in their direct bloodline tracing back to the infamous Bloodstar through his daughter Hopestorm. They take even greater pride in their unquestionable status as pure blooded ThunderClan from a lineage rife with Senior Warriors, Leaders and Deputies. Savagefox’s dearest dream, never spoken aloud even in their youngest days, is to be ensnared in one of StarClan’s torturous plots like their many-greats grandmother Hopestorm. To leave a mark on the stories told ever-after to live on in tales just as they will live on in StarClan: Never forgotten.

• Born in the Moon of Long Nights (2018) 116
• The Leader named them Foxkit in ThunderClan during the Moon of Long Nights (2018) 116
• Made an Apprentice as Foxpaw in ThunderClan during the Moon of Running Prey (2019) 122
• Renamed to Savagefox in ThunderClan during the Moon of Long Nights (2019) 129
• Named a Warrior as Foxstream in ThunderClan during the Moon of Leopard's Rest (2019) 128

[Kittenhood 0-6]

Foxkit was born in the Moon of Long Nights (2018). Most unusually he was born away from camp when his mother, the Wildcry, was out hunting on her own. Wildcry had not been slowed by her pregnancy and would spend extra time whenever possible to do her own hunting.

Thankfully it was a mild Leaf-bare as she gave birth to 3 kittens (sadly one stillborn). Given the situation and her exhaustion she settled in to regain her strength for the return to camp. The third day led to Wildcry’s battle with a two-leg and her triumphant return to camp carrying the two living kittens as she interrupted her own funerary vigil.

Following the unremembered by remarkable circumstances of their birth Foxkit was calm and behaved. Right up until their eyes were fully opened and their legs were properly under him. Almost immediately they went out of their way to find new and interesting means to get into trouble.

Their youth was colored by trips to the Medicine Den to prance through fragrant herbs and bat about unknown berries of every description. Whenever he managed roots were thrown about and the odd leaf tasted. Warriors were accosted for tales of past glories whenever possible, their leader-father was shadowed and harangued for stories, deputies harassed into giving information on why patrols were assigned the way they were. Endless curiosity that could not be satisfied consumed them

Then, finally, the day of their apprentice ceremony came and they had a mentor!

[Apprenticeship 6-12]

Learning suited Foxpaw.

They shifted from task to task with zeal, asking endless questions and engaging in endless variations of what their mentor sought to teach them. The lack of impulse control became progressively more and more apparent to all who knew Foxpaw.

It wasn’t until the final moons of their apprenticeship that more than one close call on the borders that might have erupted in combat were barely averted by his consistently stressed mentor. The mentor tried time and time again to urge restraint, but their mother’s tales of the battles of Bloodstain, Fierecestorm, and Hopestorm echoed through Foxpaw’s overactive mind: Why should they hold themselves back? Their fierceblooeded ancestors didn’t!

Hunting always posed a challenge given Foxpaw’s lack for patience, but in the end they did manage to pass assessment for it. The exemplary performance, enhanced by the unpredictability of their reactionary choices, was not a surprise to many cats. The hardest of their evaluations was the one on the Warriors’ Code. Certainly important, but Foxpaw’s distractibility proved a problem with fully listened to the questions asked of them. Rote memorization was not the issue, it was processing the questions themselves.

[Warriorhood 12-Current]

Being named a warrior was a strange experience.

Foxstream wore their new name quietly. For about three days. Then they found frustration with it. He was no quiet stream to meander about. They were as the storm that split the clans: Ferocious, but able to create the future.

Taking their mother’s example to heart, they decided that focusing on the borders was wisest. No one would be angry if he drove off useless, two-leg loving morons or thieving rogues.

They found the freedom of both patrolling and to leave the camp as they wished when the whim took them to be invigorating. They could take on a personal patrol when the days in which staying put were absolutely too much. Much time was spent prowling the edges of ThunderClan territory, weaving amongst the Twoleg Trees.

Foxstream only took a a moon to truly hit pay dirt for his aggressive ambitions and dreams of combat to come true. During one of their extra circular patrols they noticed flashes of rust red amongst the trees.

The obvious thought was their namesake the fox, but they were wrong. As Foxstream crept closer it was quickly apparent that the creature was not a fox: The legs were too long, the ears too small, and the tail was curled up over the back in a swirl like a snail’s shell. Once the wind was in place they were certain: Dog. Not a big one, just a touch larger than Foxstream himself.

There was glory to be had here, and he would take it in his teeth and carry it all the way back to camp!

A savage war cry that would have made their mother proud rent the air as Foxstream launched himself onto the rusty-furred she-dog. The dog yelped in shock as Foxstream landed claws-first onto her back. They griped with teeth and claws as she whirled, trying desperately to dislodge Foxstream in a bloody parody of a bull trying to throw its rider. Foxstream threw their weight to the side, kicking out violently and sending the dog rolling through the grass.

The pair circled each other, the dog’s pointed face intense and lips pulled back in an unhappy snarl. Foxstream returned the impression with ears laid back and a threatening hiss. The she-dog caved in response, turning heel to run.

The idea of her escaping was intolerable. Foxstream launched himself again, reaching out first to catch her hindquarters in an attempt to drag her down again. The time the dog fought back in fear, snapping and biting. She gave what she could as the battle intensified, but she could not give as well as her opponent gave.

The battle felt long to Foxstream, who gloried in the crunch on teeth against bone as they felt the throb of blood under their teeth. Moments dragged long as the red furred she-dog went still beneath their blood-spattered red and white form.

Foxstream was contemplative and unusually still in the quiet moments that followed the end of the fight. Birds didn’t sing. Insects kept themselves quiet to avoid detection. All that remained was the wind to stir the tall grass away from the little battle circle they have trampled as they dueled.

Now that they had won, what was to be done with her?

It took them only a few more considering moments to decide she was prey now. Foxstream gathered it into his jaws and dragged. It took a long time to get the corpse back to camp, but the ordeal was no match for the stubbornness of Foxstream’s focused will.

They were not met with cries of congratulations for his large catch. No accolades came as he laid the new fresh-kill into the pile.

There was only the disappointed look in his sire’s eyes.

How were they to know a dog didn’t count as fresh-kill? Instead Foxstream waited, confined to camp and left to the tender mercies of the Medicine Cat and her apprentice, while Goldenstar considered the ramifications of the incident and a specially made patrol went to bury the dog on the outskirts of the territory to avoid it attracting anything they didn’t want.

By the time the special patrol headed by Jaysong, returned they were talking about the site of the battle, which they had searched out so they could ensure that Foxstream’s trail would not be followed by friends of the she-dog. They spoke of the circled pawmarks, the blood splatter, and the shed fur from both animals in the fight. Warrior spirits always burned with energy given the story of an honorable battle well fought to protect the Clan.

Wounds tended, though aching, Foxstream waited in limbo for whatever Goldenstar had in store for them. When the meeting was called their first thought was to look up at the moon lest they had lost track of the phase and somehow overlooked it being gathering night.

Instead it was words of chastisement and caution that also commended bravery onto Foxstream. Then Foxstream became no more and Savagefox was born.

The moment of rebirth let them feel, for the first time since Goldenstar had spoken the words that had named them adult, that there was comfort in the name they wore.

The time since has had a number of border squabbles during the leanest of leaf-bares before the Moon of Promised Prey dawned, but nothing was ever as glorious as the dog hunt hand been. Life and calm had run in his veins them in a way it never had before. None of the skirmishes on the borders had brought them to that peak again.

Someday they would reach the precipice once again.

But until then it was regular old patrols and no opportunity to rise to the heights their ancestors had reached. Instead they watched, waited, got distracted, patrolled, hunted, and otherwise worked mostly as directed.

Savagefox’s moment in the sun…

It would come.

• No threads have been recorded.

Is a distant descendant of Fierceblooded characters Hopestorm and Foxbright.