[Fawn]

Name: Beetlekit -> Beetlepaw -> Beetlejaw
Age: 9 Moons
Gender: Tom
Clan: StoneClan
Rank: Apprentice

More images here

Photos copyright Helmi Flick (Photographer) and Beaux Mondes Bengals (Owners)

Description

Cicadapaw and Skunkspots share the same feathery white and black-blotched appearance. Beetlepaw instead, resembles his father much more closely, though his markings — a handsome leopard spotting, with a thick black stripe along his spine, and dark paws — lack the warm brown tones of Valiantstride’s. Instead, distinctive marks lay overtop a short charcoal coat, his feet are some of the most darkly pigmented, along with the end of his tail where the rings merge into a single black tip.

Pale fur highlights his yellow eyes as if someone’s taken a paint brush and dabbed it carefully around each one, careful to keep the rest of his face that same even gray. His nose is black, whiskers carry a touch of gray. Beetlepaw’s features are more petite like his mother’s; he doesn’t have such a dramatic profile as say, Hawkstar or Eagletalon. There’s a roundedness to his jaw and ears that give him a smaller, more compact look. He will be about average size, perhaps a little under, when full grown. Being young and with a permanent injury everyone can see, Beetlepaw is often mistaken for fragile; his bone structure is solid, decent for a StoneClan cat. He’s more durable than his physical disability leads others to believe.

The fox attack so early in his life has left a few permanent reminders. Apart from missing his left back foot all the way up to just past the ankle joint, there is a dense collection of scars surrounding the remaining stump. The fur grows sparsely around it, and there’s scarcely any at all on the rounded bottom. Due to putting his weight on it by mistake or banging it into things, the thin skin covering the stump does not stay closed for long.

The loss of half a limb has hugely impacted Beetlepaw’s movements and his future as a warrior’s apprentice. He can move quickly if its called for, but his hunting and fighting abilities suffer while he tries to find balance and strength with only three good legs. He needs to be very careful when jumping or climbing; by knocking the stump against any rough surfaces, he often scratches it hard enough to bleed.

There is a high risk for infection from these repeated micro-injuries.

He’ll never be a champion fighter, but Beetlepaw certainly won’t be defenseless. His front limbs, perhaps to compensate for having only a back-leg-and-a-half, are quite strong, and the dark pads are well hardened against StoneClan’s terrain. If he can keep his balance, he may be able to fend off a similarly-sized opponent.

Description Summary

Charcoal-gray tom with black spots, stripes, yellow eyes, and a stump where his left back foot used to be.

Personality

Nifty quote will eventually go here

-Brooding, Cynical, Acerbic
+Sensitive, Loyal, Feminist, Tenacious

Due to a major traumatic event during his kithood, Beetlepaw had taken on a personality that’s almost in direct contrast with his initial one. Gone is the innocent, bright-eyed hopeful young tom of the past; all he ever wanted to be was to grow up big and strong and noble like Valiantstride. Instead, he is permanently crippled, and though he will still make it to warriorhood, he broods over the difficulty of the journey ahead and a past he can’t change. Being so difficult to befriend, for those that have somehow earned his respect and enduring loyalty, he will always take their side. He will always value them, and fight on their behalf. True friends are rare, and Beetlepaw understands this well.

Cynical of his fate, Beetlepaw’s grouchy disposition make him about as much fun as a crotchety old badger with a bellyache. He seems far too young to be so jaded, but it’s less about how he views the world--and more about how he views himself. Sensitive to the moods of others, he seems to absorb all the stress and sadness brought on by his injury (from Sootpaw’s blindness to his parents’ grief), and internalizes it.

What If’s keep him up at night. If he’d just been stronger, if he’d gotten out of the way quicker, if he’d been smart enough to realize it was a fox and not Valiantstride… Whether or not he will find a way to break this torturous line of thinking, only time will tell.

As harsh as his disposition towards others can be (especially apprentices his own age), Beetlepaw is always harshest with himself. Despite this self-loathing and poor outlook for his future as a warrior, Beetlepaw is surprisingly tenacious. There’s some part of him that bares his teeth in defiance towards what’s happened to him. There’s a part of him that hopes he can claw his way through this nest of thorns and into something meaningful.

Even if a fox were to attack him again, Beetlepaw wouldn’t simply close his eyes and succumb to his fate. He’d fight back, with everything he had. He’s already nearly lost his life once; he’s not going to give it up that easily. It would be disrespectful to all those cats who risked their lives for him.

Following that train of thought, it’s worth pointing out that Beetlepaw is a staunch feminist. How could he not be, when it’s the she-cats of StoneClan who rallied to his aid and turned a moment of chaos and horror into something like a victory? Sootpaw threw herself at the fox. Fallenleaf, Smokestorm and Sorrelclaw fended it off, even sustaining injuries themselves.

Dawnblossom oversaw the season-long healing process, and it was his mother, not his father, who did the actual hard work during the kitting. There’s no forgetting the impact Cicadapaw has on his life either; sometimes she feels like the only cat in the whole Clan that treats him normally. She’s a breath of peace in a storm of internalized pain and cynicism.

He wouldn’t have survived, let alone recovered without the help of these she-cats.

As a result, Beetlepaw doesn’t think very highly of his mentor at all. Hoping for Sorrelclaw or Smokestorm, he’d been very disappointed to find that Waspwing, the lazy, charming, ladies’ man of StoneClan, had become his mentor. He doubts Waspwing has anything of value to teach him - apart from learning what not to do. That Waspwing seems to attract the admiring glances and sighed gossip of the female members of the Clan doesn’t improve Beetlepaw’s opinions of him.

How can he learn how to work hard and overcome this disability, with a mentor whose never had to work hard for anything in his life?

History

Beetlepaw is the second born in a litter of two, to Skunkspots and Valiantstride of StoneClan. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Beetlenose, who was killed during the StormClan attack that drove StoneClan into the mountains 18 seasons (54 Moons) ago.

Ospreywing, the older, pragmatic senior warrior, is his uncle and his mother's littermate.

Two aunts and an uncle that died before he was born; Badgerfang (tom), Cricketleap (she-cat) and Pebblekit (she-cat, littermate to Ospreywing & Skunkspots). On his father’s side, Valiantstride had two young sisters who did not survive kithood.

When Beetlepaw was 3 moons old, a fox broke into the nursery. He was quickly snatched up by the predator, with savage teeth tearing into his soft fur and delicate skin - a memory of which still haunts him to this day. Sootpaw was the first to react to the screaming, and came to his rescue, throwing herself at the fox without hesitation; the battle cost him his foot, and Sootpaw her eyesight. His mother’s elderly mentor, Fallenleaf, already suffering from chronic pain from old injuries, was hurt further keeping the fox at bay.

The moments after losing his foot was something of a blur, though he was told later that it was Valiantstride who carried him to the medicine cat’s den. Hawkfall had rescued his sister, Cicadapaw, while Smokestorm and Sorrelclaw drove the fox out of camp.

The scent of blood and the smell of fox, either separate or together, can trigger a strong feeling of dread and nausea in Beetlepaw. This is something that will never go away; the scars of that encounter, physical and emotional, will never fade away.

He spent two moons in and out of the medicine cat’s den. The injury took a long time to heal, and Dawnblossom used a lot of herbs helping him deal with the shock and the painn of recovery. Plagued by nightmares, and suffering from guilt over the damage done to himself and his Clanmates, Beetlepaw considers those recovery moons almost as bad as the fox attack themselves. The sad faces of his parents still set his teeth on edge and make his belly roil with remorse.

With Dawnblossom’s and Sandblaze’s help (and the enthusiastic cheerleading of his sister), Beetlepaw learned how to walk again. He managed, despite the odds, and was even considered well enough to be made an apprentice alongside Cicadapaw.

Rather than be assigned one of his many she-cat rescuers (namely, Smokestorm or Sorrelclaw), Beetlepaw was given to Waspwing instead. A tom known for his charm and his style, Waspwing couldn’t be further from Beetlepaw’s idea of a mentor if he actively tried.

There’s no love lost between them. The first few moons of their apprenticeship together have been… rocky at best. Battle training proves particularly difficult, as Beetlepaw keeps accidentally hurting what’s left of his leg and having to get patched up by the medicine cats. Hunting isn’t fairing much better, though with less injuries.

Other:

Beetlepaw lost his leg during leafbare #4.

He has an antagonistic relationship with Ashpaw, a denmate with a bullying personality.
Ashpaw calls him “Nopaw” behind his back.

[♛ 𝔽𝕒𝕓𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟]

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NPC Information

• Beetlejaw has only three legs.
• He moved from GorgeClan to GaleClan after it turned out traversing the gorge was too challenging for him.