LILY

ROGUE

large mottled torbie she-cat with yellow eyes

Between her bulky body type and her long fur, Lily's size is even greater than most male cats on the Island. Her legs are long, but not very slender. Her paws look awkwardly big despite her legs trying to even out the mass. Her ears are also big, the gentle tufts on the tips making them look even taller. Even her tail is sweeping and huge, rivaling the length of her own body. The only feature that is small on her entire physique is her petite, dark rose colored nose.

Her coloring is complicated, harboring a multitude of shades including gingers, whites, grays, browns, and even blacks. Practically every natural cat color is in her fur except blue. The shades are mottled together, occasionally escaping into stripes but usually devolving into patches. The only places that aren't a mess of color are her muzzle, chest, and tail tip, only being flavored in white.

Her lips carry an empty, soft smile that is almost always worn on her face like a deceiving mask. Her hypnotic dandelion yellow eyes are never big, or even widened to their fullest extent, unless in the moment of inflicting injury. While she is not the prettiest cat on the island, Lily subtly carries and flaunts her flowing mane and flickering eyes in such a way that grants her another level of attractiveness, one mounted in power.

formal//

Lily is always presentable, even at her worst. Her form is always straight and high, ears always on alert. Play is unknown to this she-cat. Everything must have purpose. She is direct and to the point with every sentence, and always puts business and logic over everything else. Any activity that involves self indulgence is a very private matter to her, and only involves a special lady if she isn't entirely alone.

intelligent//

The gears in her brain are constantly turning. She is always thinking, to a point where she often experiences extreme mental exhaustion. It has its benefits, however, because her mind is by far her strongest muscle. She is an expert planner, always thinking at least five steps ahead.

manipulate//

Lily may not speak much, but when she does, she uses her words expertly to probe for weaknesses in a cats’ psyche and take advantage of their sensibility. While she may have blocked off her own emotions, it doesn't mean she doesn't understand them and knows how to use them against others. One way or another, Lily is always convincing.

confident//

Lily has no concerns that any cat could ever rival her own worth. She knows her abilities well, and knows how powerful of a cat she could be with the right amount of effort. She doesn't ever waver in her belief in herself and proudly flaunts this recognition. The she-cat has a minor lick of humility, however. At least, enough to understand she isn't a perfect cat. She simply knows she has perfected her natural strengths and talents to manipulate whoever she wants.

calm//

Lily is painfully calm. Even when she is at her highest level of anger, it is never shown through her voice or expression very clearly. Only thin veils of poison in her words or glint in her eyes ever betray her emotions. Her calmness is almost meditative in nature, keeping a steady gaze even if spitting the nastiest insults.

ruthless//

Lily isn't one for showing mercy. She has little patience for forgiveness or second chances. Lily isn't commonly violent, often choosing to use her tongue over claws, but when it comes to either mistakes, disobedience, or aggression, a gruesome and brutal end is guaranteed to be delivered. Killing another cat does not bother her, even if she’d rather torture them alive instead. Not only will she kill without remorse, but Lily also readily engages in dangerous deals, having a bad habit of making connections with cats only to betray their trust later.

quiet//

Surprisingly, Lily is not much of a talker, even though she's good at it. In fact, she usually doesn't speak unless directly spoken to. Her speech is also quiet, often constructed in smaller sentences, not soft, but not booming either. It has an eerie flow to it, almost calming in nature, like the gentle coo of a mother putting her child to sleep, or a manipulative fox, soothing a rabbit before the kill.

strategic//

Knowledge and connections are Lily's regime, not personal strength and fight power. So, naturally, her favorite thing to do is to delve into the drastic politics of the Island, at least when it’s beneficial to her and her desire to destroy Thistlelcan. She believes that the more a cat understands about the nature and circumstances of their surroundings, the more connections can be created. The more that she knows, the higher potential she has to use this information to manipulate those who have crossed her.

authoritative//

Lily cannot handle not being in control. To follow someone else's orders would be similar to ripping out her own tongue. Independence and power is in her blood. She has strong diction. She isn't loud about her orders, but the directness and sharpness of her words makes up for the boom her voice lacks. She is very assertive when she needs to be and will do whatever it takes to gain complete control over both the situation and cat, even if it means ridding either with her own claws.

Lily isn't actually a full blooded outsider. Her mother, Bittersong, was a former warrior of ThistleClan. It was only selfish jealousy that created the circumstances of Lily's birth. Her mother harbored intense jealousy over her childhood crush settling with a different tom. As innocent as it seemed, the festering toxicity in Bittersong's heart resulted in the death of her former crush’s new mate dying before her, an accident she watched with a malicious smile on her face.

Foxes had attacked the patrol they were sent on, and as the she-cat begged for her life, Bittersong refused. It was exactly what she had wanted. Due to her negligence, Froststar was forced to run the foxes off himself. Completely disgusted with the actions of his warrior, Bittersong was banished on sight for letting a clan-mate die.

That was all Lily knew of her mother's past.

It was no surprise that Lily was adorned with an outsider’s name, her mother now resenting anything related to the three clans. “You are my Lily of the Valley,” her mother had cooed, already filling her daughter’s head with an innate sense of superiority. While Lily remembers very little about her childhood, she does recall the toms who answered her mother’s every beck and call. One of them was her father, though she never found out who.

As her only daughter, Lily was taught not only the finest fighting skills, but how to use them specially against ThistleClan cats. It was as if every day was a physical and mental trial, every moment Lily having to prove her own hatred for a family she never met. She would join her mother in attacking random patrols, even going so far as trying to help her mother steal innocent, unassuming Thistleclan kits.

Trained as an assassin, Lily began to plot and plan in the shadow of her mother, studying the layout around the borders of Thistleclan territory and testing her limits by feeling out how fast they reacted to new scents found near the outer limits of their home. She was rarely caught, but sometimes an enraged patrol would catch her scent and angrily pursue her until she left their borders, a sly smirk across her face.

Many moons into Lily’s early adulthood, her mother succumbed to the winter’s chill, her body too old and frail to continue. The toms had stopped hanging around long before, leaving the two she-cats to fend for themselves. After her burial, Lily vowed to continue her mother’s mission, to terrorize Thistleclan as much as possible.

It was soon after, she stumbled across the love of her life, Sophie.

She found the beauty drinking rain water pooled in the crevasse of the earth, scared and alone. While Lily may have chased off any other cat, she could only watch and stare, entranced by the she-cat’s feminine allure. When approached, the molly confessed she was a kitty-pet, stranded on the island after her two-leg owners left the campgrounds in a hurry after a violent storm. Lily decided from that point on she would take care of Sophie, vowing to never let anyone harm her.

It was during this time that Lily started to slack in her missions to terrorize ThistleClan, spending most of her time with her new mate and wondering what life she could give her as a mere rogue. She knew Sophie desperately wanted to start a family of their own, but how? It was then that an idea struck. She could steal a kit, just as her mother had tried before her. While she wanted to steal a kit from Thistleclan, Lily knew it would be too hard to do alone. Sophie wasn’t much of a fighter, after all.

So instead, she waited, watching the rogues who lived around them, hoping one would fall heavy with kits. It didn’t take long. A small, pitiful rogue near the Lichenclan border gave birth to a small litter of kits, all of them but one dead.

Without even blinking an eye, Lily murdered the small queen and brought the wriggling kit, newly weaned, back to Sophie. The smile on her mate's face made it all worth the trouble. It was almost addictive, this feeling. Sophie was enamored with their new son, a tom they named Wilder. They raised him to hate Thistleclan, but it wasn't enough for Lily. She wanted more. She wanted to steal a kit from Thistleclan, knowing it would make both her mate and her mother proud. But how could this be accomplished?

LichenClan.

Or rather, Minnowleap. In fact, it seemed as if destiny favored her, for the answer to her questions came in the form of a desperate warrior. Finding her on the Thistleclan and Lichenclan border in the middle of the night, Lily and Minnowleap made a dangerous deal. Without engaging in the politics of the situation, Lily agreed to kill a Lichenclan warrior for Minnowleap in exchange for aid in her plan to steal, or in her eyes save, a ThistleClan kit.

It was perfect.

On the night of the kidnapping, Minnowleap provided flawless cover with her patrol, surprising the unsuspecting ThistleClan with a well delivered border skirmish. Lily and Sophie used the distraction to sneak into the unprotected camp from behind, capturing the nursery and slaughtering a mother before grabbing the only kit in sight and retreating from the scene.

However, they didn’t realize that someone was on their trail. A Thistleclan warrior and the father of the kit, Bramblestrike, heard the horrendous screeches of his dying mate and managed to race after the two rogues, closing in on them fast. Before Lily could even react, he lunged toward Sophie, gravely injuring her with a deep, cavernous wound across her flank. Enraged, Lily dropped the kit and attacked the warrior, stunning him unconscious with a tremendous blow to the head. She then painstakingly dragged her bleeding mate and new kit across the border and into safety to their waiting son.

This near death of her precious mate caused Lily to fail in her agreement with Minnowleap. She never killed the Lichenclan warrior, her concentration instead focused on nurturing Sophie and their newly rescued kit, a tom they named Hawthorne. Frustrated, Minnowleap sought out the rogues a few moons later, bent on killing them for their betrayal. But Lily was able to talk her down, promising the she-cat a future allegiance with the words, "I'm in vicious debt."

Nestled far from Thistleclan, Lily remained in hiding, forced to care for her injured mate, Wilder, and her new son at the same time. Not only did she hate Thistleclan because of her mother’s deep-seated anger, but now she had reasons of her own. Sophie was never the same after the attack. Each day, the she-cat lived in excruciating pain. Lily tried her best to wrap the she-cat in bandages, but without the use of a medicine cat, the she-cat lived each day as if it were her last.

As in the tradition of how Lily was reared, Hawthorne was taught to believe Thistleclan was the enemy. They were the reason for all of their pain and suffering. So he was vigorously trained, far before his sixth moon, to avenge his mother’s injury. Much to Lily’s delight, he grew to hate them deeply, never learning about the true origins of his birth, being much too young to remember his real family. He was her favorite child, Wilder now cast to the shadows to care for his dying mother while Hawthorne trained into the perfect soldier she always dreamed of.

Moons later, Lily moved their family to the abandoned campground for better shelter. While she had never trusted the old cabins, the two-leg scent still heavy in the air, Lily believed that perhaps the protection of the two-leg structures could mend her mate’s chronic pain. Few rogues lived in the campground, so the area was suitable for them, at least for a little while.

One morning, Lily took Hawthorne on a scouting trip near the Thistleclan border so he could learn the limits of their territory, oblivious to the horror she’d return to at the campground. While she was training her son, a newcomer, a large tom named Curiosity, was murdering the love of her life as Wilder hid, terrified in the shadows. When they returned from the scout, Lily found her beloved dead, bleeding out in her own freshly made bandages as Curiosity sat menacingly nearby. Lily tried to fight him off, but the tom was too strong, and she had to keep Hawthorne safe.

Forced to flee from the loving home she had constructed with her mate, Lily, Hawthorne, and Wilder returned to the northern outskirts. It was here that she vowed, for the first time in her life, that she and Hawthorne would train for something else other than their hatred for Thistleclan. She wanted to kill Curiosity. No deals, no leverage for the cost of his life. She wanted him dead at her own claws. Then Thistleclan would come later, the clan cats having surely forgotten about the she-cat who used to terrorize them many moons before.

So they trained from dusk to dawn. Hawthorne grew stronger, while Wilder watched enviously from the sidelines, silently shunned by his mother for not protecting Sophie from her assailant. Still, he stuck around, too spineless to do much else. It was after a season of training did Lily find her third child, a young, abandoned she-kit in the north, who she named Poppy. While the she-kit was no Hawthorne, she still proved useful, feisty and desperate enough to want to fight as well. It was a mismatched bunch. Lily knew this, but it was a start. Soon, Curiosity would be dead, and Thistleclan would pay.