Tracestar // DuskClan Leader

[| Moonie |]

Name;; Tracestar
Age;; 72 moons
Gender;; Male
Clan/Rank;; DuskClan Leader

Appearance;;

Tracestar is a marbled tom, relatively dark-pelted for his breed. His fur looks almost as if someone splashed coffee over it. Underneath the dark splotches, however, there is a much lighter gold, particularly on his face and near his paws. He is a relatively large cat, brawny more than speedy – though that isn’t to say he’s slow.

Quite well-muscled, Tracestar has excellent balance. He likes water and swimming perhaps a little too much (especially in the eyes of his Clanmates). It helps that his pelt isn’t all that thick, and thus doesn’t take forever to dry off. Fishing is rarely something he’ll say no to, especially as he usually manages to actually catch fish nowadays – as versus merely falling face-first into the water.

Eternally well-groomed, it’s easy enough to tell from his appearance that he likes things reasonably well ordered at the very least. The toms certainly isn’t someone to cross for the heck of it, something that’s easily apparent in his confident stance and powerful build. Having sharpened his claws wherever he can, Tracestar is basically carting around razor blades at the end of his paws. He cares about fighting, and it shows in his well-executed movements.

The leader has a jutting, stubborn jaw that has seen many seasons of “I’ll do what I want and you can’t stop me.” His face often appears almost mask-like, making it nigh impossible to gauge his emotions just by looking at him. Even his body language is usually carefully neutral: this is someone with iron control.

Once one gets close to Tracestar, however, the thing that tends to scare others most (those that do fear him, anyway) is probably his eyes. Not that they’re a particularly freaky color or anything – amber, nothing unusual – but the fact that the expression generally held there is one that seems far removed from

Personality;;

Ambitious, confident, and hard, Tracestar is not a ‘people person’ in the least. He isn’t exactly the most approachable of creatures, although otherwise he deals with others just fine. Ambitious and forceful, he knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to reach for it – and then do whatever it takes (usually within reason) to get it.

With a sense of humor that’s sarcastic at best, the leader is generally not one to give a hearty laugh at anybody’s jokes. He’s realistic for the most part, knowing his – and his Clan’s – limits, and where to stop. The exception to this is when he gets too emotionally wrapped up in something, in which case he will just keep pushing, loosing much of his cool-headed attitude.

Though Tracestar doesn’t have much of a temper, he isn’t particularly easy-going. The control he employs to deal with his emotions extends to anger, as well, making it relatively tough to get him riled up. Still, it doesn’t take a whole lot to get him annoyed, and he’ll speak sharply to those he disagrees with. Going hand in hand with this quality, the leader has no problem handing out punishments, regardless of the offenders’ excuses and age.

On the other hand, he is excruciatingly fair. Allotting no favoritism to any cat, be they his best friend, enemy, or a random Clanmate, he has gained a reputation for being reasonable and hard to trick – especially as those that try get very little sympathy from the tom. Try ‘none,’ in fact.

Traitors (which, in his mind, basically consists of anyone who either betrays their Clan/family or does something that is a serious breach of the Warrior Code), idiots, and mindless killers are the three things that Tracestar despises the most. No one that fits into any of the three categories should expect to gain any leniency from the tom, as there’s about a coin’s chance in a volcano that this will happen.

History;;

Tracekit was born into DuskClan, the son of two well-respected warriors. He was the oldest of three (Noxkit, Flykit, Fadedkit, and himself), and quickly proved to be the kit that knew how to get all his littermates moving – along with some of the older kits. He rather liked his kithood, as he basically ruled the nursery apart from the queens. Even then, he tried to be fair and generally stood up for the scapegoat if he ever stumbled across another being bullied.

Once he had moved up in rank, Tracepaw took a bit longer to establish domination over the apprentice’s den, as many of the soon-to-be-warriors didn’t see why they should listen to a kit nearly half their age. Besides, Icepaw – an older, more experienced apprentice, at ten moons – was already there, having been to his own litter what Tracepaw was to his.

His mentor (whom Tracepaw found to be an ‘idiotic weakling’ at the best of times) cautioned the young tom to be a little patient and let them get used to him before he pressed himself on the others. Patience, however, wasn’t a word or quality Tracepaw dealt particularly well with, at least when people tried to force him into trying it.

A full-blown rivalry, quasi-enemity developed between him and Icepaw, each working to outdo the other. Despite this small setback, Tracepaw’s life was going well – right up until the world decided to attempt a headstand, in his eighth moon.

One of his brothers, Flypaw, fell deathly ill with a sickness the medicine cat had never even seen before, and thus obviously did not know how to cure. Flypaw’s siblings were forced to simply watch as his health disintegrated. It was the first time Tracepaw had ever felt so helpless, and he discovered that he hated the feeling.

Trying to counter-act this, he did something akin to throwing himself into his studies and generally keeping as active as possible to try and distract himself from his sibling’s death. The strategy worked to a point – but then there were those hours when he had nothing to do, or was trying to go to sleep but sleep wouldn’t come.

As a slightly misguided solution for the latter, Tracepaw started over-working himself, so that he would collapse into (dreamless) sleep at the end of each day, thus avoiding thinking about Flypaw at all. He began to drift away from his friends and siblings while doing this, however, which was really the last thing he needed.

His mentor tried to talk to him; his parents tried to talk to him; his friends tried to talk to him; random Clanmates that thought they knew best tried to talk to him. Nothing worked, which only worried those who cared about him even more. At the same time, Icepaw became Icedream, which was something along the lines of gluey icing on an already-sucky cake.

Then Tracepaw had a mini emotional breakdown in the middle of a hunting patrol, which was decidedly not fun and extremely embarrassing for him. He was simply wound up far too tightly, and had to release the pressure somehow – that was what his body decided to do.

To Tracepaw’s astonishment, however, one of the main cats that came through for him – and the one that finally managed to break through the shell he was trying to build – was Icedream. Instead of laughing at the younger tom for what had happened while hunting, Icedream managed to talk to him (somehow) and finally get through to him. Things calmed down slightly after that, and the two toms’ rivalry became friendly more than anything else, although it still existed.

A couple moons later, Tracepaw became Traceflight, with his siblings as Noxflare and Fadedcall. All three siblings seemed to have mostly recovered from their grief, ready and able to get on with their lives.

Time passed. The three matured together, growing closer as time went on, but fate wasn’t done playing with them yet. For whatever reason, Fadedcall gained an apprentice before either of her brothers. Though both were somewhat jealous, they hid it as best they could – Traceflight better at such things than Noxflare – as they congratulated her.

The toms’ jealousy wasn’t to last for long, however. It was Leafbare by this time, and thus a thin sheet of ice was stretched across the lake: it looked solid enough, but was in fact far from it. Fadedcall had taken her apprentice to train down near it, but no one else was really in the area.

Rather stupidly, Fadedcall’s apprentice decided to take a walk on the ice while she was distracted. He had heard of how many fish and the like resided in the waters, and wanted to see if he could catch something (though he had never been taught how). Of course, the ice wasn’t thick enough to hold much weight, even the handful of pounds that made up a half-grown cat.

The apprentice fell through. His gurgle-screams alerted Fadedcall, finally, to the danger – but she was a little too late in reaching him. She, too, ventured out on the ice to try and help him, but it broke under Traceflight’s sister just as easily as it had broken under her apprentice, despite the fact that she tried to be cautious. Their screams had alerted another DuskClanner, but by the time said cat arrived at the scene, both were gone – their bodies were never recovered.

Somehow, Traceflight found it easier to deal with this death than Flypaw’s, though this time two had been killed, instead of just one. However, he was rational enough to see that it wasn’t his fault that Fadedcall and her apprentice were dead, which may have helped: with Flypaw, a piece of him had always been convinced that he’d helped her death come about, since he hadn’t been able to help.

The next seasons of the tom’s life were relatively uneventful: he, Nightflare, and Icedream all got and trained their first apprentices together, and watched as those three cats were named warriors.

A short while later, rogues attacked DuskClan camp, where the old deputy was killed (along with many other cats, Nightflare included) – and the leader named not Traceflight or any of his friends deputy, but Razorwing, a random out-of-Clan cat, ex-rogue that Traceflight wasn’t entirely sure could be trusted.

He watched her carefully the next few moons as he mourned Nightflare; the two eventually began to form a sort of mutual respect. Eventually, the tom decided that she was ‘doing okay’ as deputy (rather high praise coming from him)…and then the old leader died.

It was a relatively surprising occurrence, though everyone had known that the cat was on one of their last two lives. Razorwing became Razorstar, and Traceflight was named deputy. Now, not so long after this, Tracestar has become leader, hoping to lend his Clan stability after the quick changes of the last (relatively short) while.

Other;;

Histories = teh suck Dx [And yes, I know mine is crap; I don’t care xD;;] -shot-

IC;;

[… But you already know how I RP Dx Ehwell –]

Well, at least it wasn't wet today. Insanely, meltingly hot, yes, but not wet. Unless you called humidity wet, in which case it was very much so. Having it pour would almost be preferable to this; at least it wouldn't be sticky. With an annoyed snort, the senior warrioress flicked her tail and looked around. Her first inclination would be to go sit and sleep in a patch of shade for the rest of the day (despite the fact that she generally didn't approve of such a lazy use of one's time).

Unfortunately, the Lightcat was already in the shade. Walking through it, actually, being under the cover of a forest full of big oak trees. How annoying that it didn't seem to have made a bit of difference in her comfort-level. If anything, she had grown more uncomfortable, not less, since entering the usually cool area. Probably because her irritation level had increased each moment the heat stayed.

Sitting around camp, Chainstrike had been biting the face off of anyone who approached her - not quite literally, thankfully. Out here, she wanted to do some real face-biting - or get into an argument (one she planned to win) with any semi-intelligent creature that approached her. Unfortunately, the preybeasts weren't very good for getting into a debate or even a nice battle with. Mice and voles clearly weren't the most intelligent of beasts. Perhaps that was a good thing, as that way they couldn't talk their way out of being eaten. Of course, it made arguing with them rather unsatisfying, to say the least.

Consumed by her thoughts and general discomfort, Chainstrike was decidedly not looking where she was going and - of course - walked straight into a hole. Stumbling a bit, she turned to glare at both the miscreant foot and hole. It was maybe better than walking into a tree, but not by a whole lot. Especially if she had witnesses. Stupid foot. Stupid hole. Stupid tree that had made the root that had made the hole. Stupid hot day.

The moment didn't seem to have many redeeming qualities in the gray she-cat's eyes. The grand total was 'none', in fact. At the moment, if any non-SpringClanner showed up, they were going to meet a quick end - she would make sure of that. StarClan; if a Lightcat showed up, grated on her nerves too much, and generally acted the fool, they might face a similar fate.

[The.Angry.Squall]

[/b]ccepted!
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