Tigerstripe // warrior [vertigoclan]

[Tigerstripe ◂]

name tigerstripe
age twenty five moons
gender male
clan vartigoclan
rank warrior

reason for name for his tabby pelt, (tiger + stripe)

appearance description

being a rather tall, lithe cat, tigerstripe could find himself at a disadvantage during a fight, but would have the upper hand in hunting, stalking, scouting, and remaining hidden while providing his physical presence where he's not supposed to be. his pelt, a pale cream, almost white colour, is easily disguisable in most terrains, its only visible markings being darker brown stripes running around his back, legs, neck and face. his fur is short and rather rough to the touch, not requiring a lot of grooming, and drying quickly in the case it gets soaked.

straight, pointed ears lead down to amber-coloured, oval-shaped eyes, that however mostly appear dull, which only contributes to his generally hard-to-notice figure. nothing about him really draws one's attention, unless standing out becomes this cat's own desire.

quirks

• skilled scout
  
• capable of efficiently concentrating on the task at hand, while also decent at multitasking. once he's determined to get a job done, little can distract him.
  
• values his family more than anything else
• he remains well-informed and well-spoken
• stressful, intense situations pose no problem for him, as he's often quite effective as keeping calm and collected.
  

• has the potential to accomplish more than one would think, yet he's not motivated to try and achieve that.
• he's easily guilt-tripped, and he's always held himself partially responsible for his mother's death.
• once he's determined to do something, he's indifferent to how far he's required to go in order to do it. he will give in to any sort of darkness if he must, does it mean it will provide a shortcut to getting to his goal.
  

personality

as smooth as he likes to believe he is, this young tom's personality is a rather bumpy road. while he usually acts as 'the voice of the reason', attempting to make himself useful by providing the logical solutions to ordinary problems, he can just as easily become reckless and act impulsively when driven by emotion. he has no judgement where his family or loved ones are concerned, and he will heedlessly strike where he thinks the enemy could be without considering the consequences.

when not blindly following his gut, tigerstripe can, in fact, display exceptional intelligence in both planning a strategy and executing it. he's not a born leader, nor does he wishes to become one, but where his brother chose to turn to learning how to become one of the best fighters, tigerstripe chose to try to figure out how to use his mind against the enemy instead. he's skilled in diplomacy and knows how to avoid a fight if he needs to, since his regard for another cat's life is remarkably high.

although, despite all of his efforts to be on everybody's good side, and to help his clanmates the best he can, tigerstripe is constantly haunted by a side of himself that troubles him more than he would ever let on. his brother has been responsible for both fueling and subduing it over the moons, though it's never quite won him over, and it's never really vanished. it's always there to remind him of things that happened before he could be given the chance to stop them, and for which he's always blamed himself when there's no one else there to blame. on most days he will try to push those thoughts away, reassuring himself that things beyond his power will always happen, that he could never possibly have any control over them. and yet on some other days, or perhaps on a day that's yet to come, the truth will overwhelm him, and resisting the darkness might be too much, even for him.

family

» stormfang (father)
» lionwhisker (brother)

experience

tigerstripe has always been difficult with being forced into doing things, his own birth being no different. his single littermate, lionwhisker, then lionkit, was brought into the world with as much simplicity as there was to it, but things turned out to be more complicated when it came to tigerkit's turn. due to his delayed birth, and the consequences that complication held for his mother, the litter was raised by one of the other queens, as their mother died less than a moon later.

growing up, tigerkit didn't quite understand what had happened, or why the queens looked at him with such pity in their eyes, but he felt his mother's loss all the same. it was only after he became a paw that he began to grasp exactly what had happened, and why his own brother seemed to always be avoiding the subject of their mother. still, the young cat was not yet brought down by that, attempting to focus on his training as much as his angrily whisking thoughts would allow him to. his brother, however, somehow managed to dedicate all of his time to practising with his mentor. after their father's death, lionpaw's ambitions only grew, and the tom made it to his warrior ceremony before tigerpaw even had the chance to get halfway there. what was going through the young cat's mind instead was getting to know his clanmates, developing friendships which he hoped would last a lifetime. he still admired his brother for his commitment to his clan and to him, well aware of what his remaining family meant to lionwhisker.

upon receiving his warrior name, tigerstripe was satisfied with his skills, even though they were no match for lionwhisker's. his brother had turned into a ferocious fighter, one almost as formidable as stormfang, and the resemblance between them both fascinated and terrified the young tom. he'd never been comfortable with how eager to fight their father had always been, considering it had eventually led to his death, and tigerstripe knew he wouldn't be able to cope with watching his brother headed down the same path.