Ratfang

LichenClan

Slim, scarred she-cat with dark brown fur and yellow eyes.

Beneath an awful amalgam of patchy fur, scarred skin, and bent whiskers, is Ratfang. Her pelt is a deep russet brown that gives way to a brighter red along her legs and belly, with a locket of white on her chest, and is full of thin patches and bald spots. Where it has managed to grow in normally, it is still interrupted by the multitude of scars that wind their way across her body. Most of them look like typical battle wounds, marking her flanks and chest, but there is a single, long cut along her left cheek that stands out even amongst her ragged fur. At this point, no matter how much she grooms herself, or takes care of what is left of her fur, she will simply never be the picture of feline grace. The only thing she seems to have in good condition are her teeth and they—bright white and gleaming—look ready to snap down on anything with a moment’s notice.

Her eyes, a dull yellow, do not stand out very strongly against her pelt. Even so, it is easy to see ferocity within them, and few cats can look at Ratfang and declare her a pushover. While her multitude of scars and tattered fur make her look a little decrepit, Ratfang is quite energetic and light on her feet. She moves with subtle grace and is surprisingly poised for a cat so battered. Though it’s easy to insult her looks, she wears her ugly fur with pride and seems to strut more than she walks.

Despite her haggard appearance, Ratfang is far from shy. She is incredibly talkative when she wants to be, which is just about all of the time. She thinks very highly of both herself and the sound of her own voice, and is content to ramble for as long as anyone will put up with her. She enjoys inventing ridiculous stories and poking fun at cats who take themselves too seriously, rarely passing by an opportunity for harmless mischief.

Ratfang is very fond of all her clan-mates, even when the feeling is not mutual. Her loyalty to LichenClan and its warriors is deep and unwavering, and the large number of scars criss-crossing her pelt are a testament to how hard she has fought for her clan over the years. Despite her sociable nature, Ratfang is not a good diplomat and prefers solving conflicts with her claws, rather than words. She is a xenophobe and a warmonger, and always assumes the worst in cats not from her own clan. In her opinion, outsiders are dangerous, wicked, and, for everyone’s safety, need to be wiped out. While she is patient and forgiving with her clanmates, it takes very little to offend her or cause her to pick a fight when it comes to those outside of LichenClan.

Though generally respectful of authority, Ratfang can be difficult to control. It’s hard to make her see another cat’s perspective, but she tries her best when it comes to those she cares about. She is argumentative when she feels she’s been wronged and is very up front about what she wants and how she feels. This certainly makes her a handful, but at least you always know where you stand with her. At the same time, however, Ratfang is rarely one to dig deep and get at the heart of her feelings. Any attempts to do so by another cat will be met with jokes and deflection. It's not that she hates opening up. But rather, she fears she has nothing of interest beneath the surface. She is afraid that if she stops all of the noise and sass, and finally lets the dust settle, she will be seen for what she thinks she is really is: a cat who is actually not noteworthy in the slightest.

Ratfang is intensely pious and can be considered a traditionalist in the context of her clan. Though generally reluctant to act against the warrior code, she is strongly driven by instinct and can have a hard time reconciling what she thinks is best with what the code has decreed as law. She is not afraid to fight dirty if it means the outcome will favor herself or someone she is protecting. She would sacrifice anything—including the code—to save the life of another LichenClan cat. Words like “honor” and “dignity” mean absolutely nothing to her, and it is out of love and reverence for StarClan and her ancestors that she obeys their laws, not out of a need to be a noble warrior.

Ratfang enjoys solving problems and is an excellent cat to go to in a crisis. She may be wild, but she knows when it’s time to get serious, and can be depended upon when things go sour. Despite her reputation for being a bit of a trickster, she is also very reliable, and will never let a cat down who has put their trust in her. While her problem-solving methods can sometimes involve a little too much tough love, she rarely acts harsh out of a need to be malicious, at least
not toward members of her own clan. Though her looks can be off-putting at first, Ratfang is surprisingly straightforward and easy to get along with if you can look past her faults.

Since she was young, Ratfang has considered herself to be a survivor. She was born to a very large litter, though none of her siblings lived to be warriors due to a variety of unfortunate circumstances. One passed away before even leaving the nursery from a harsh Leaf-bare that following season. Yet another died early into his apprenticeship from a run-in with a badger, a third to greencough, the fourth to a poorly treated infection, until little Ratpaw was all that was left. When she was hit, like her recently deceased sibling, with a bad infection, the clan suspected that the young apprentice was soon to go the way of her brothers and sister. Not only was she prone for days in the medicine cat’s den, but her skin grew scabbed and coarse, and she lost several patches of fur. Her parents, overwhelmed by the fact that they were about to lose their last kit, and to such an ugly disease, visited little. Even Ratpaw's mentor, a buoyantly cheerful young she-cat named Littleberry, came to see her less and less. Because of the deaths of her siblings, many cats seemed to treat her as though she was already dead, like a ghost haunting the corners of the medicine cat's den.

Yet unlike her littermates, Ratpaw eventually emerged from her illness alive and well, her skin back to normal and her energy fully recovered. Her pelt was now ruined, her fur permanently thinned in some places and scarred away completely in others, but if her good looks were the only thing that perished, Ratpaw was happy to take the deal. Living seemed, to Ratpaw, a sign that she was meant to serve LichenClan for many years to come, and she trained hard as an apprentice to reach this goal. Her parents tried to dote on their last remaining kit, but she was unusually disinterested in their attention. It was in part due to her independent nature, but also some resentment from how they'd left her alone to die instead of comforting her. In time, her mother and father recognized her lack of interest in a relationship with them and moved on to planning the continued growth of their family, without ever really realizing that the damaged relationship
they had with their daughter was largely their fault. When her parents had a second litter, all of the kits were born strong and healthy, and Ratpaw quietly suspected that since her own survival, the family had
StarClan on their side. Believing that there was a hoard of otherworldly ancestors watching her back did quite a lot for Ratpaw’s personal confidence. She often got into small scraps and fights with her peers and trained hard to keep herself at the head of the pack. She was demanding when it came to her training, but these extra sessions were something Littleberry happily obliged, feeling guilty for her neglect of Ratpaw while she was ill.

By the time she was named a warrior, Ratfang was ready to become a terror around the island, and eagerly antagonized both clanless rogues and neighboring patrols. To Ratfang, LichenClan was the clearly the most glorious clan on the island, and she was meant to be one of its foremost champions. Her pelt soon became an even more shabby, scarred mess, but she wore her ugly fur like a badge of honor. She had known she would never be pretty since the infection she had in her youth, and so if she couldn’t be gorgeous, why not look terrifying? Ratfang became the sort of cat queens told their kits about to scare them into good behavior, and their descriptions were not always far off from reality.

Quickly gaining a reputation as a reliable, capable cat, Ratfang was given her first apprentice, Flashpaw, at a notably young age. She was already developing a habit of being tough on the up-and-coming generation in the clan, and she wasted no time whipping Flashpaw into shape. He was not given an inch of slack from the moment he was assigned to her all the way up until his warrior ceremony. Despite her gruffness with him, she was overwhelmed with pride when he was re-introduced to the clan as Flashfang. Encouraged by her success, she went on to mentor several more apprentices, finding she genuinely enjoyed teaching and showing her young clanmates how to survive in the great, wide world.

Despite her love for her trainees and LichenClan's overall community, Ratfang was never very close with her own family, and did little mourning when her parents passed of old age. Her younger siblings, now named warriors in their own right, never showed any particular interest in their strange, boisterous sister, and so she was happy to let them be. Though they are closely related, Ratfang feels distant from them. She would never say it aloud, but she feels they are false replacements for the brothers and sister who died in Ratfang’s own litter.

Around her 28th moon, she found herself receiving a large amount of attention from a tom named Lionbelly. He was average-looking at best, but Ratfang was hardly in a position to complain about looks, and his outgoing personality made his company enjoyable despite it. She'd never been the recipient of these kinds of affections before, and was delighted by this silly tom who suddenly had an interest in her. The two began spending most of their time together—patrolling, hunting, sharing tongues—until it appeared that they were nearly inseparable. The pace of their relationship was slow and easy, which Ratfang enjoyed, but Lionbelly began to demand more. He wanted her to show him more of herself, the real Ratfang, beneath her layers of smart-mouthed sass. But Ratfang was reticent. He was asking too much. It ended with an explosive fight, wherein Ratfang declared Lionbelly to be overbearing, and Lionbelly informed Ratfang that her insides were surely just as ugly as the rest of her.

Ratfang was used to stomaching insults about her pelt. She thrived on them, and used them to fuel her ferocity. But never before had someone insulted who she was, instead of what she looked like, and it cut deep. The two broke off their relationship, only interacting when it was absolutely necessary. And Ratfang, heart battered, but not broken, decided that romance was not for her. If anything, the experience had only served to further harden a soul that was already not very soft to begin with. She decided then that she would waste no more time on frivolities, and to focus on honing her talents in combat and building her reputation as a cat not to be trifled with. She was meant to be LichenClan’s greatest champion, after all. It was about time she started acting like it.