[Fawn]

Name: Strut of Ring-Necked (Rooster)
Age: 21 Moons _{as of leaf-fall #7}
Gender: Tom
Clan: Tribe
Rank: Cave-Guard



Additional Picture

Description:

A cat named Rooster? But why? At first glance, it looks like Rooster’s name makes no sense at all. He has no extravagant plume, no flashy colors, no bright red wattle. However, Rooster’s name is not meant to match his pale tabby coloring, but rather the power of his voice. He does bear some resemblance to the male pheasants his mother took the name from, with his brown-banded legs and swatches of warmer brown on his face, but the similarities end there.

Rooster is a broad-bodied tom with a dense coat, perfect for surviving the harsh times of frozen water. Hefty paws and tall ears are great tools for a cat in charge of looking out for danger. Pale green eyes, almost as green as catmint, help keep his face looking proportional despite his wide cheeks and broad, wedge-shaped muzzle.

Description Summary: Stocky pale-brown tabby tom with green eyes and a thick coat.

Personality:

Bossy | Argumentative | Boastful | Protective | Passionate

His sister once called him the bossiest thing on four legs, and she's right. Rooster prides himself on having all the answers, or at the very least knowing the correct way to do something. He generously doles out instructions (some of them obvious) and cautionary remarks, and even goes so far as to micromanage his siblings if they have the misfortune of being in his hunting party.

Rooster loves his job. It gives him a deep satisfaction and fulfillment to look out for his Tribe. That feeling of usefulness and pride is as much food for his soul as prey is for his body. Not just bossy but stubborn as well, Rooster can get argumentative. Unless the cat has senior status or has earned his respect prior, Rooster will argue and argue and argue until his opponents concede defeat or they decide to stop being wrong.

True to his namesake, he struts around the cave and speaks in a loud voice that few can successfully ignore. Seeing himself as a shepherd tending to his flock, any Tribemate would be careful not to have any private discussions around him - because he'll hear it, and he'll butt into your business, especially if he thinks he somehow has an answer to your problems.

Suspicious | Manipulative | Impressionable | Secretive

Despite being a bossy annoying furball, Rooster has a good heart. Despite the bickering amongst his peers, he really does wish everybody well.

As long as you're not a Clan cat or some shady loner come to join the Tribe, Rooster can be fairly easy to get along with. Tribe through and through, he holds his own in very high esteem, and turns up his nose at Clan-cats and their seemingly constant bickering. Rooster gives the former Clan-affiliated Tribe cats a wide berth, as if afraid their otherness might somehow rub off on him.

He is the same with loners, often suspect of their motives. Wanting to look out for his Tribe, he tries to field threats whenever he can, whether they have wings and talons - or claws and pointy teeth.

Rooster is far from a perfect cat. Given his youth and his high opinions of himself, Rooster is very impressionable, easy to manipulate. He may forgive a cat easily if they butter him up first. A well placed compliment can go a long way. The same goes for insults; should Skyteller one day announce that Clan-cats are wicked and should be chased out of the forest, Rooster would agree without question. If he thinks you've made a good case, his support is pretty easy to come by.

Rooster has his own manipulative trait, too. If he feels like he needs to coax his siblings into something or dissuade them from a certain course of action, it isn't uncommon to hear the phrase "but it's what mother would want" come out of his mouth to get his way. He'd feel guiltier about invoking his mother's spirit for these purposes if he didn't truly believe he knew best.

Though a pretty normal cat by most accounts, Rooster does have one secret pleasure he indulges in. Given his training as a cave-guard, Rooster wasn't trained to hunt. That didn't stop him from trying though, and he secretly likes to try his hand at catching mice and vole scurrying over the mountains when off by himself. Even sneaking out early if the weather's warm.

It's a struggle sometimes, to ignore that profound instinct to hunt. But Rooster manages, careful to hide his hunting habits from any cat that he feels may disapprove.

History:

Rooster was born the biggest and the loudest of his siblings, announcing his arrival with notoriously loud mewls. In fact, Osprey that Rides the Wind (father) and Light of Rising Sun (mother) had to endure the grumbles of the Tribe elders more than once; young Rooster always made sure to let the whole Tribe know when he was hungry.

Initially a pushy little kit, Rooster began to show the first few signs of the cat he is now; protective of his siblings during their games, though always so insistant the game be played a certain way (his way was the best, obviously). Rooster never suffered from an unhealthy self-esteem, let's put it like that.

His kithood was normal, full of elders' stories and silly games with his littermates and parents. It was his brother Rock, who first taught Rooster how to be patient. With the smaller tom's twisted leg, Rooster felt especially protective over his injured littermate, and this manifested even stronger when Rooster fell under the tutelage of Snake Sunning on Rocks, an experienced cave-guard.

In an unexpected tragedy, when Rooster was 9 moons old, his mothern, Light of Rising Sun, was killed in an avalanche. The whole family devastated, Rooster watched his siblings mourn and his father retreat into himself, burning the idea into his head that if he had been old enough and strong enough, he could have saved her. Could have spared his family this pain.

Rooster was moody and snappish for half a season afterward, struggling to process his grief and get rid of his self-imposed guilt. That guilt transformed into resentment for the cave-guards who had been with his mother's hunting party that fateful morning. If they'd done their jobs, Light would still be alive, and his denmate Moon on Still Water wouldn't have been traumatized.

Though Snake was his guide through tribe life, Rooster fell into his new role as naturally as a salmon took to water. Soon enough he was walking the walk and talking the talk, his ego pampered and primped by every successful hunting trip in which he was a lookout. Rooster undoubtedly caused a lot of eye-rolls with his bossiness and boasting, but his loyalty and compassion for the Tribe makes it easier to forgive.

To Rooster's immense surprise, Rock also became a Cave-Guard's to-be. It was hard for him to shake off the need to kitsit his brother or protect him from harm, but he managed to back off. Eventually. Even now he has trouble reconciling the little tom with the funny leg with the grown cave-guard his brother is now.

He's as much a rooster as he is a mother hen, and will butt heads with Rock when he insists his brother 'go easy on that leg', or he'll comment on the health of another cat who grew up alongside them, Moon on Still Water. Moon being so small and weak, in Rooster's eyes, he nags her to stay out of trouble almost as much as he nags his other siblings. He is even more of a mother hen after the avalanche that killed their mother and nearly took Moon's life too.

Now fully settled into young adulthood, with two seasons under his belt as a fully fledged cave-guard, Rooster doesn't seem to be getting any wiser or less annoying with age. Every scar is a badge of honor, every close call is a reason to boast of his guarding prowess or remind them all how lucky they are to have him.

RP Example: this is only required for leaders, deputies, medicine cats and their apprentices. At least 150 words.

Other:
Inspiration:
Soren (Dragon Prince), and the idea that Blazefang & Mudpelt got put into a blender and this is what you’d get.