Redsand's History:
Redsand was born Remus and a rogue in a human city. His nursery was a cardboard box and his first taste of meat was a half-eaten hamburger, and at one time, he thought he’d die a stray as well. He had two sisters who didn’t make it past their first moon who he doesn’t remember, and their deaths may have ultimately strengthened the bond he had with his brother, Roman. As the runt, Remus was physically weak for the first few moons of his life, but his dedication to his brother Roman made his stronger sibling fairly protective over him. His mother was a beautiful calico molly who adored them both, and nothing made him happier than to be by their sides. Truthfully, at first he didn’t have much to worry about, and Redsand might’ve even considered his childhood happy had it not been for his father.
His father, Tulane (the city’s resident cat boss), with very specific, very narrow-minded views of the world, made Remus’s life hell and never really stopped. His father took one look at his small, wobbly kitten body and judged him based on his childhood weakness ever since. Tulane clearly favored Remus’ brother and made it no secret, and his mother and father’s already strained relationship tensed further due to the preferential treatment. His mother tried to shield both her kits from the hidden turmoil, but despite his weak body Remus’ mind was never dull. Though her efforts worked on Roman, Remus with his high innate empathy quickly picked up on his mother’s tells when around their father. It didn’t take Remus long to realize how often their mother kept them away from their father.
It all came to a head one day when Remus’ mother was visited by a strange cat during the day, coincidentally when Tulane was the least active. Remus had fallen sick around that time, and though the strange cat and his mother seemed to know each other, the stranger only spared Remus a glance during the meeting. Too used to his father’s attitude, Remus could almost tell that he was immediately dismissed by the stranger. Just because he wasn’t as healthy as Roman.
The next day, Roman and their mother left the city without him. He was only spared a few parting words and a promise he soon realized was empty. As one last gift, he was dropped off at a vet’s office to help cure his sickness. Though once he was released back on the streets because of his wariness towards humans and he was left with another mother cat who only took care of him because he was Tulane’s kit, he was officially left alone. And to his father’s mercies.
Regardless of his sensitivity to others’ emotions, Remus was not willing to become a pushover. With no way to track his family due to their faded scents, he stayed in the human city initially because he had nowhere to go. And once he aged to the point where no one except his father dared to challenge him (either publicly or privately), he stuck around out of spite.
Remus rose through the ranks at a pace unmatched by the feral cats his father and his goonies ruled over. Some who legitimately (foolishly) admired Tulane thought it made sense, given who Remus’ father was. Those who feared Tulane’s brutal and flippant methods labeled Remus as equally brutal. None of it really mattered to him. He was most concerned with making sure that no one tried to mess with him, and he got exactly what he wanted.
His reputation and political reach in the city is what exposed him to Floodclan. At the time, he didn’t know what he wanted for himself, especially with his father’s attitude toward him progressively getting weirder as Tulane realized that Remus wasn’t the weak little kit he despised anymore. With brawn that complimented his keen intelligence, Remus was like a well-oiled machine and calculating as hell. Any cat in the city who was foolish enough to challenge him quickly learned what it was like to lose.
Once he was able to trace the Floodclan cats back to the waterlogged floodplains-slash-marsh south of the city, he knew he had to try and infiltrate their group. Though initially it was just a ploy to gain intelligence and then leave, his father had the bright idea to try and take over the clan due to the sake of pride. He hated that the established group encroached on what Tulane thought of as his city, and wanted to see them in shambles. Remus, though reluctant with his father’s idea, was willing to agree to it if only to keep Tulane off his back.
Joining Floodclan, however, changed his entire life.
Privetpaw(skip)'s History:
Privetskip, born Pip, never knew his mother. When she died during his birth, and with his only littermate dying not long after, his older sister, Penelope, from one of his mother’s previous litters raised him alongside her own older kits. She never hid it from him that she was his sister, but he still loved the sweet older she-cat like a mother.
Her sister’s mate, Brandon, however, never tried to be his father. A bit of an unrepentant bully, his sister’s mate did tolerate Pip staying with his sister but vocally made it known that he thought that Pip, a kit who he thought should’ve died in the first place, was always taking away needed milk from his own kits. Though it pissed Pip’s sister off, she wasn’t sure what to do with his attitude because, at first, Brandon never raised a paw to Pip and acted as a loving father to his own babies. Her rationale was that she couldn’t expect him to immediately accept kits that weren’t his own.
Pip and his sister belonged to a small wandering group of cats. The cats included mainly toms and she-cat’s from Pip’s mother’s past litters, as well as Brandon’s siblings. Pip’s biological mother, before her death, acted as the senior matriarch, but Brandon soon assumed control of the group after her death. Once Pip reached four moons, the group ran into Floodclan.
Pip’s first moons in the world were somewhat bittersweet. Though Penelope adored him, Brandon (with lingering resentment from the previous matriarch) made it known Pip’s place once the small tom was fully weaned. With no real skills (partially because he was never really taught) he soon sunk to the bottom of the pecking order, and well below his sister’s kits. The first time he was forced by his sister’s mate to eat after his supposed siblings, kits he regularly played with day by day, nearly devastated him. He soon knew what it felt like to go to bed hungry, while the others were left well fed. It also didn’t take long for his sister’s kits to pick up on the dominating tom’s mannerisms and subtly bully him too. His sister, focused on keeping track of all of the kits in the group, could only do so much.
When half of his sister’s litter split from the group, their numbers quickly downsized just in time for his sister to announce her next pregnancy. Then, the group came across Floodclan.
Floodclan, though warily, was willing to let the group rest in their vast territory to give Penelope a safer place to give birth. Brandon, eager to show off his own group’s prowess in the face of Floodclan’s hospitality and efficiency, soon started to come across as unbearably stubborn and brash. When his entire group followed suit (save Penelope and Pip), it repelled virtually all of Floodclan only after a quarter moon.
For Pip, staying with Floodclan was like nothing he had ever experienced before. Though his group stayed out of the clan’s walls for privacy and respect when they went off to sleep, Brandon’s cats frequently went in and out of Floodclan’s camp. For the first time in moons, Pip didn’t have to worry about going to bed hungry. If nothing was available for him in the clan’s prey pile, the Floodclan cats, friendly and respectful, were willing to share their hunting techniques and gave him some pointers on how to fish. With no prior experience, he took to it like a duck to water. That first half-moon or so with the clan was the happiest he ever found himself being in a long time. Every day made the thought of leaving seem more and more undesirable.
And Pip really did think he’d end up staying. At least for some of the small group, there was some initial talk of staying with the clan and assimilating to clan life, but Brandon soon squashed those ideas. Unwilling to give up his position and submit to a strange leader, he soon butted heads with the Floodclan cats one time too many. He wasn’t willing to listen to the clan’s warnings about their harsh territory, and he was frequently reluctant to heed their rules about moving within the clan’s territory. More than once Brandon was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. And at times, even his own cats suffered because of it. His recklessness landed more than one of his cats in Floodclan’s medicine den. The majority of the group’s insistence on following Brandon’s lead despite his mistakes only soured the new cat group to Floodclan even further.
All of his actions came to a head one day when Brandon’s overarching curiosity pushed him to explore a part of the clan’s territory Floodclan’s leader specifically said was off-limits due to reports of snakes. Thinking that the leader was exaggerating, Brandon led a patrol of his own cats (including his mate, but without Pip) into that area of the march. All it took was one misstep.
Penelope, though she tried to stay cautious, was unaware of the leader’s warning because Brandon never relayed it to the rest of the group. Heavily pregnant, she clumsily stumbled into a water snake’s hiding place in the shallow water and got bitten. She, along with her unborn kits, died not long after.
Brandon, distraught and unwilling to own up to his actions even this time around, was quick to return to the clan’s camp and call heresy against Daystar. His screaming quickly drew a crowd, and in disbelief Daystar, uncommonly pissed off and unwilling to be made a fool of, bluntly told Brandon that the snake was his mistake, and if he wasn’t willing to respect the clan’s territory, they needed to leave. In the confusion, the two groups quickly stood off, and miscommunication led on of Brandon’s cats to attack a Floodclan cat.
It was the last straw. The beating was quick and decisive, and Brandon’s group was chased out of the clan’s territory by evening that day. Pip, though he was getting warmed up to Floodclan, was chased out with them.
After the humiliating loss, Brandon’s group fractured after they realized how ineffective Brandon was. With nowhere to go, Pip stayed with Brandon and the cats who decided to stay with the brash tom, including one of Penelope’s older children, a she-cat who reminded Pip a great deal of his late sister. It was a move made in vain; the two never formed more than an awkward, barely friendly bond.
Brandon, now without his tempering mate, only became worse to be around, and soon started to bully Pip even when Pip stayed out of loyalty. It wasn’t long before the small tom was pushed to the very fringes of the group. He might have even stayed regardless had Penelope’s daughter not pushed Pip to leave, if only for his own safety. This was no life to live for such a soft-hearted cat like him.
With nowhere else to go yet again, Pip simply backtracked and made his way back to Floodclan. And unfortunately for him, though he was still well under 12 moons, he didn’t get the warmest re-welcome, despite the fact that empathetic Daystar was willing to accept him into the clan. And it was all because of Brandon.
► Write about or draw a scene of your choice.
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Characters: Privetskip (then Pip), and Ottersplash.
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Ottersplash takes a little time out of his day to give this new kit a fishing lesson. Pip, currently around 4 moons old, is a dutiful pupil.
“So long as your paw and body are still, and your shadow doesn’t fall over the water, the fish just start to ignore you after a minute or so. They aren’t the brightest animals, and this is a moving stream. Any new fish coming along will just think you’re any other branch now.”
“Alright…” Pip leaned closer to the small body of water, just like how Ottersplash was doing. His unbalanced, kittenish body overcompensated and brought his nose far too close to the mini trickle of water cutting through the camp. With a purr, the older tom pushed him back up with a gentle paw at Pip’s chest.
Pip stilled where Ottersplash readjusted him, and the large tom rumbled in approval. “Very good. And when a fish comes close enough, that’s when you…”
“Pounce!”
Both of Pip’s paws splashed into the water. A delighted grin stretched his face as he kicked up a more than a few droplets. More than used to the enthusiasm of kits he mentored, Ottersplash merely shook his paws of the excess water and laughed good-naturedly. “That’s one way to do it, for sure.”
“Thanks, Ottersplash,” Pip mewed up to the tom, tail high and affectionate. “I really hope I can learn more from you.”
Despite Ottersplash’s usual stoicness around Brandon’s cats, the sparkle in his eyes was genuine when he looked down at the eager young kit. “I always welcome a pupil willing to learn. Though, do you plan on staying with us, little one?”
Pip’s tail drooped. “Ah, well…" he looked back further into camp, towards the medicine den. His older sister, Penelope, was visiting Lilyfrost for her most recent check-up. His tail drooped even further. “I’d have to see what Penelope says, but,” his tail pricked again, “She might plan on staying. She always complains about the cold weather further north. I think she’d rather stay in this region, no matter what anyone else says.” Pip turned back to Ottersplash. “So, well, maybe we could stay. At least some of us, if you’ll have us.”
“Maybe so. We always welcome new blood into our borders. And kits are always a blessing,” Ottersplash mewed. “Though, what about your leader, Brandon?” Ottersplash’s eyes grew a bit hard at the mention of the ornery tom, but his voice was still level.
At the mention of the large orange-brown tom, Pip’s tail completely drooped to the ground. He shrugged, a little self-conscious. He didn’t like thinking about Brandon anymore than he had to. Or talking about him. “I hope he’ll stop being a butt. Sorry he’s so mean lately, he’s not usually like this.”
Ottersplash fought to contain his grimace. Brandon was currently out of the camp, thankfully. Honestly, even Pip, a kit, can see how idiotic that tom is being. I don’t know how much longer we can take his disruptiveness. “You don’t need to apologize for his foolishness. If Penelope and you want to stay, I’ll readily vouch for you both. Besides, we like you well enough, and that’s all that matters to me.”
Pip purred weakly. “Thanks, Ottersplash.”
“Anytime.”
{515}
