gale that foretells distant storm

Tribe of Floating Stones

bulky and longhaired blue tom with low white and olive eyes

+ virtuous, inventive, conciliatory
    Ever the gentleman, Gale takes pride in being a moral cat. He always strives to do what is right and what is good, and has choice words for cats who live without honor and the ancestor's guidance. More so seen in his younger moons when he let his mind flourish, Gale has a wild, creative imagination. He enjoys thinking up out-of-the-box solutions that make his tribemate's lives better, and has been trying to figure out a trap for coyotes for moons now (but he can never get it right). Unfortunately, his mind is not always his playground—sometimes it forces him into a maze.
    Similar to many of his tribemates, Gale favors times of peace over war, and generally tries to be a mediator amongst his fellows. He does his best to be impartial, not take sides, and compromise whenever possible to keep the peace. This also leads him to want little interaction with the clan cats, seeing them pick fights between one another, and thinks their influence will only bring trouble.

- nervous, talkative, awkward
    Though one might not expect such a big cat to be so highly strung, Gale can certainly be described as nervous. A worrier, he is constantly afraid that things will go south, and the majority of his headspace is devoted to trying to predict the future. It is very easy to catch him off guard and scare him, if you can find him in the little spots he holes away in to think. One might even describe him as paranoid.
    Oddly, despite his nerves, Gale is quite chatty. He fills silence with his rambles, and is more likely to over-explain things than under. He is aware of this, and is embarrassed when he thinks he's said or shared too much. Deep at the root, Gale is an awkward cat. He is not at all graceful in social situations, and his skittish air makes him harder to handle. It takes a cat with delicacy and knowledge to talk to him and make him comfortable enough to open up.

loves: His sister, his tribe, making dens and arranging rocks.
likes: Swimming, eating grass, ducks and geese, cloud-watching.
dislikes: Hot weather, blood, his grandmother maybe just a little bit, tall trees.
hates: Coyotes, the smell of lavender, thunderstorms.
secrets: You know his secret. That one—that's the one.
fears: His dreams, bad storms, anything that threatens his loved ones that he can't fight off.
dreams: To leave the tribe better than the one he was born into, and see his parents again when he joins the stars.

    Gale is born to Daisy that Flowers by Midday sun and Pine that Sits Alone on Hill with one littermate, his sister Shell. The teller, the kits' grandmother Rain, saw visions of great winds upon his birth, and a dark cloud looming on the horizon. Thus, he was named Gale that Foretells Distant Storm. Though their names were rather ominous, Gale and Shell had a carefree kithood, with many family and cousins to play with.

    Rain especially took a liking to Gale, and he was very close with her even from kithood. He loved listening to her stories, and seeing her grandson always brought a smile to the troubled teller's face. Gale later found out that their closeness may have been due to his resemblance to  Jaw of the Wolf, her teller apprentice. It disheartened him to believe that his grandmother liked him only because of that... but he was happy to bring her joy, either way.

    Gale was also very close with his sister, and even when they become to-bes, they train together every day. Gale is positive that he will become a prey-hunter like his sister wants to be, and learns all about the best ways to stalk and catch just like she does. That was his sole dream, until the night of a great big storm that swept the island, downing trees and wrecking dens and bringing destruction.

    His family in particular was torn apart by that storm. His father, Pine, was stuck in the territory during the downpour... and a patrol found his body beneath the hefty bough of a tree afterwards. Gale had wanted to go out to look for him, but his mother had not let him. He realized, then, what was most important to him... if he had been there, he could have pulled that branch off of his father and saved him. But prey hunters didn't do that. Stone guards did. So that became his new dream. He would be there his sister and his mother and his grandmother, like he should've been there for his father.

    From that day onward, he switched gears. He trained with the stone guards, bulking up his muscle, working on his skills to take down all the fearsome creatures that plagued the tribe isle. He realized, that however much he enjoyed hunting... this was his calling. His heart sang with pride when he took down his first eagle (with the help of his sister, of course). They were named full tribe members together, just before their twentieth moon.

    It was seemingly smooth sailing those next few moons, but the tribe and Gale's family had all noticed Rain's mental heath decline. The loss of her dear apprentice Jaw of the Wolf had caused her great distress. She had been more unreliable and volatile since his death, and the tribe was quietly relieved when she named young tom Creek as her next trainee. Creek was roundabouts Gale's age, and he was glad Rain had chosen someone. But he was worried about the fact that she was still worried... he could tell that she was.

    On her deathbed, Gale was called in to soothe his grandmother, and she asked to be alone with him. She confessed to something that changed the rest of his life. If his father's death had not made him grow up, what Rain told him forced him to grab life by the throat. He remembers how lucid she was in those last few moments. Otherwise he would have thought it was a dream she'd had—not really real.

    She told him what Black Bear asked her to do, to save the tribe, and that she'd done it. His tribemates had unknowingly eaten the flesh of their teller, thinking it was prey. He was the only one Rain had told. Shell-shocked, he curled up next to her as she drew her final breaths. He called his family and the rest in soon after, and his muteness and dizziness was dismissed as grief for the grandmother he'd been so close with.

    Gale was never really the same after that night. He had always been quiet, but not so nervous around other cats. He was friendly and charming, but after Rain's death, he could not often bear to look his fellows in the eye. He stumbled over his words. Knowing what she'd done, what they'd done... it was a lot. It haunted his dreams, for nights on end, bad enough to where he'd deprive himself of sleep rather than face the nightmares. He'd never had the strongest heart nor stomach, and to this day, thinking of the story makes him ill.

    He wants to still be kind to everyone, and talk with his sister, tell her everything like he used to. But he doesn't know how she'd feel. She looked up to Rain so much... would this break her like it did him? No, no, it was his burden to bear. He was a stone guard, he'd protect them, it was his job. But... what could he do with this? He kept Rain's secret, and it ate him up, for moons and moons until he would not recognize the cat he was in his youth.

    He held some grudge towards Rain, for telling him this, and not Creek, not Wolf, not anyone else. He always sees her eyes in his dreams, he knows it took a weight off her shoulders to tell him, but in the process it put the load on his. And the burden was crushing. He drew even more distant from his kin when his mother passed, perhaps only a year after her own mother.

    Daisy died due to sickness... something that Gale could not fight. He would have, if he could, and he was at her side until she was gone. She was buried, next to Pine and next to Rain, her kin and littermates, at the Stone that Never Ends. He was perhaps a little bitter towards Creek, that their teller whose job it was to mend bodies had been not able to heal her. He alone had the power to fight sickness. He couldn't help but wonder if Rain, or even Wolf, would have been able to cure her.

    After all, Creek had been trained for little more than two seasons before being given the full responsibility of the tribe. To-bes trained for moons and moons, and yet he could lead the tribe after only six? Remembering his grandmother's instability of mind, he worries whether Creek had truly been chosen by the tribe of Endless Hunting. Or whether he had simply been chosen in a panic by Rain. He knew, first paw, how much that had gripped her in her last few moons.

    This feeling grew immensely as Creek had the tribe more and more involved with the clans—which in Gale's mind, would only cause them harm. When the sandbar that is their passage across the channel was flooded, he took it as a sign that their ancestors would not like them to meddle with the clan cats any longer. They may help and give herbs, yes, but what will they ask for in return? There was no such thing as free prey.

    Leafbare comes around again. Sickness is rampant throughout the tribe, and few families are spared. With only his sister left as his closest of kin, Gale self-isolates when he finds himself sick, taking to a den out in the woods, hunting for himself, and not coming into contact with any cat until he is better. His dreams are the worst then, when he is feverish and too ill to move, but he slowly, surely gets better.

    Thankfully, Shell was well when he returned in newleaf, but he mourns the losses of lives alongside his fellow tribe members. He is foolish to hope that things will begin to get better after this... they only get worse. While the lead prey hunter Sunrise and other keen tribe members are gone to deliver messages to Redwoodclan, Creek dies suddenly. He did not have an apprentice, nor did he name a successor in his final moments. As soon as the news is broken to the tribe, Gale's heart sinks.  How could Creek have let this happen? What were they going to do?

    Whispers spread, but nothing could be done until Sunrise returned. Lead stone guard Talon took the place of teller temporarily. Gale thought that things would get better with the return of their wandering tribemates, but when Fog arrives home with Sunrise and reveals that he had been getting dreams from Creek... Gale cannot help but doubt. Creek could not vouch for him, nor had anyone but he heard from the ancestors. The tribe seems happy to accept Fog as their teller... but he is so young, he has no training, how would he know how to lead them?

    A heavy mist rolls in, and as cold weather begins to settle, so do the coyotes. The already scarce prey is snapped up by the feral creatures, and the dogs soon begin to target cats as well. Every spare paw is sent to hunt, and every stone guard is sent to seek out coyotes and kill them. Gale wonders whether they might be able to eat the beasts, but they are not able to do more than scare off those they meet. He blames Fog, as cats are killed by coyotes and starvation alike, for being helpless to save the cats he's supposed to protect.

    He could not help but think, was the mist a sign? Were the ancestors telling them that Fog would only bring destruction? Gale is unsure, knowing what he does, wondering that even if Creek had given his blessing to Fog, whether that would be enough. Whether the mistakes went back further. Whether it went back to his grandmother, and how upset she was on her deathbed. Could she have perhaps chosen incorrectly, after all that she'd done?

    The warm season is coming, Gale is as anxious as ever about the state of the tribe, and then Sumac ascends the teller's stone and addresses them... he listens.