GOLDENPAW

ThistleClan

a dark tortoiseshell with yellow eyes and
paralyzed hind legs.

In physical height, Goldenpaw is lacking. She is shorter than average, but is build with dense muscle. She fits the typical frame of a ThistleClan cat well, her body condensed and small. In some ways, her musculature has the potential to shift and change due to the nature of her recent injury. The tight muscles of her hind legs are destined to shrink due to atrophy, whereas the muscles of her core, shoulders, and forelegs are likely to become even more tough and strong from abnormal amounts of use.

Goldenpaw's pelt is short and dense. She is equipped to keep warm in leafbare due to the thickness of her pelt, a significant portion of which she sheds in the moons leading to Greenleaf. Her pelt is particularly noteworthy for its patterning. While her pelt does appear to have a black base, given that the majority of it is dark in color, she is mottled with bright ginger. This bright dispersal of patterning is her namesake. She is marked with white, but just barely. The only bit visible on her otherwise mottled pelt is a small patch on her chest and a white left front paw.

The she-cat sports large almond-shaped yellow eyes. Her muzzle is delicate and small, with a tiny black nose. Her small ears sit on the top of her head, and she has rounded, full cheeks.

Helping others is a cause that Goldenpaw feels pulled to constantly. She is willing to put aside her greatest prejudices to help those in need and will break any rule or law to follow her conscience. In this way she is single-minded, pursuing her need to serve others no matter the consequences. She finds value in tasks that allow her to do good and strives to help others above all else.



Planning is something Goldenpaw has never been known for. She rarely thinks before she acts, and is often in trouble due to this. When she is pulled to action, she thinks nothing of how much danger is involved or who she may be upsetting. When she sets out to get her task done, nothing can stop her. Her recklessness and her "do first, think later" also lend her to creating messes she has no intention of cleaning. She is comfortable in chaos and finds little meaning in putting things away if she is just going to get them out later.



Goldenpaw cares deeply. She acts primarily based on emotion and feels very strongly about everything she does. She loves her clan and each cat within it. She hates rogues with every fiber of her being. Her feelings towards the other clans vary from cat to cat, but each feline she meets she rarely has no opinion about. Her passion for life, both living it and preserving it, is enough to push her to fight for what she believes in. She does not hesitate to spring to fight whoever might challenge one of her many beliefs, no matter how likely she is to lose. Her willingness to battle with anyone, including those of higher station, is likely to lead her into trouble.



There is little point in lying, so Goldenpaw often finds herself on the end of truth. She seeks to understand others, and revels in allowing others to understand herself. Because she acts so willfully and with so much passion, she is very genuine in her interactions. One never has to guess what she is thinking or how she feels, leading to an open-air of conversation rather than one confined in mystery and deception. She expects little else from others but is not gullible in believing others' dedication to truth is always as strong as her own. She thinks less of those that would lie to get what they want.



One of Goldenpaw's biggest struggles following her injury is a strong sense of jealousy that follows her. She sees her siblings and fellow apprentices growing and changing, and wishes beyond anything that she was among them. While she would never wish anything vile upon her clanmates, she does have a tendency to become weighed down by her angry feelings about herself and her situation. Ironically, this is partially due to an underlying belief that she has something no one else does. She tends to think she is more skilled than many, especially when she had the use of her legs. The dichotomy of believing herself better than others and also finding herself falling behind leads to a significant amount of distress for the apprentice, hopefully something she will grow out of as she ages.

Some may say that in naming her kittens, Coaltooth was unoriginal. But naming the kits plainly based off the colors of their pelts felt natural and easy. Her litter was sizable, including four kittens. Named Black-kit, Dark-kit, Dapplekit, and Goldenkit, she was content with a simple description rather than determining complex plants, animals, or weather phenonema to name them after. If her mate had been present, perhaps she would have been more creative. But he was dead, her lover was dead. And Coaltooth was tired.

The kits were born in the middle of the night, and Goldenkit would prove to not survive to sunhigh the next day. Coaltooth was devastated. The tiny she-kit had been a mirror of her deceased mate, her fur almost pristinely red in color. The kitten was destined to be her beautiful, golden child, a special baby above the others. But with her gone, Coaltooth decided not to let the name, nor the title, go to waste. Goldenkit, her dark dappled kitten, would be her favorite.

As the kittens grew, Coaltooth's favoritism was made abundantly clear. She made sure Goldenkit was always the first to eat, the closest to her belly when sleeping, and the first to get bathed. She was given free rein of the nursery first, though her mother always kept an eye on her adventurous child. Her two brothers, Black-kit and Dark-kit knew of their lower status in their mother's yellow eyes. They tried to gain her favor, but nothing worked. As they grew in size and age so did their resentment for Goldenkit.

She was rarely allowed to join their games, leading to frustration from Coaltooth. After receiving stern words her brothers would allow her to play, but only begrudgingly, leading to an even more strained relationship. Goldenkit's naturally personable personality allowed her to create other friends in the nursery, but her desire to gain her brother's approval made her bitter towards her mother in specific. While she adored the attention, she wished that Coaltooth would show her siblings just enough love for them to let her join their games.

Goldenkit was made an apprentice promptly at 6 moons old with her siblings. She was given ___ as a mentor, a cat she grew to admire greatly for their ___. She was a good apprentice from the beginning, showing promise to be a talented warrior specifically in fighting. While she was young, her mentor was eager for her to continue to grow.

Goldenpaw was never the type to follow rules without question. Despite her mentor's words against roaming the territory alone, she found the solitude comforting and enjoyed the rush of standing near the border. It was on one of a few trips to the edge that she had a fateful meeting with a rogue. She fought valiantly, but her battle prowess was still little more than that of a kit.

A patrol came across her battered form, lying largely unmoving on the soil and crying for help. She had to be carried to the camp, her small body aiding her rescuers in that sense. She was laid in the medicine cat's den for Shadepaw to heal.

Shadepaw examined her, finding largely superficial scrapes and bite wounds. However, it was challenging to diagnose her when she refused to cooperate. All day, Goldenpaw would just lie in the nest and do nothing. She barely talked except to turn visitors away, and ate even less frequently. The medicine cat believed that she was simply depressed, but eventually, he noticed there was a physical problem involved in her refusal to move. Goldenpaw's hind legs were paralyzed.

It was several days before it was decided that she would never walk again, not like how she used to. There was a debate on what to do with her after that. Could she still be a warrior, or would she be forced to become an elder at such an early age? It is her deepest desire to complete her training. She wanted desperately to do something to make her clan a better place, her biggest fear being to rot away, waiting to become old and die.