A small, ginger and white tabby she-cat with thick fur.

-

Brightpaw is a small she-cat covered in thick fur that gives her the appearance of being much larger and stronger than she really is. Her fur is an even mix of white and ginger, with darker tabby markings striping through the ginger patches. Predominantly, her belly, chest, and lower half of her face are white, while her tail, back, and top of her head are ginger. She sports long, regal whiskers that sit oddly on her round, kitten-like face and boasts an intense pair of amber eyes that give off the impression of being able to see through any lie.

With large paws and wide ears, Brightpaw likely still has a lot of growing left in her. However, due to a malnourishment in her kithood, there's a potential she will never grow into her full size.

CW for childhood abuse, notably starvation, neglect, and abandonment. There are no mentions of physical assault/injury. [For those familiar with the show, Eleven and One's plotline/past from S4 is not being included in this character.]

-

Eleven, he calls her, the same way she assumes he called the kit before her Ten, and the kit before them Nine. It's not until she's almost six moons old before she makes this assumption, when Papa looks at her with his cold smile and says, "Perhaps there's no need for Twelve, after all."

She knows about her youngest moons of life, but she does not remember them. She chooses not to. Each morning she wakes up and tucks away the memory of gnawing hunger, vast stretches of solitude, and the abyss of the cold in favor of curling up closer to Darkpaw and Owlpaw and awaiting her mentor's summons.

But she knows.

She knows she was born. (She's here, after all, isn't she?) To this end, she knows she must have parents. Parents like Darkpaw or Owlpaw have parents. Parents like [Hopper] used to be. But while she knows this, she doesn't know them. Doesn't know mom, or dad, or mom and mom, or dad and dad, or any combination of mom, dad, and parent that could exist under the vast sky. She knows Papa. She knows he's not her father, but he's Papa nonetheless.

Papa watches over her. Protects her. It's just them - Papa and Eleven, and the ghosts of the ten kits that came before her. They live in the mountains. Papa tells her of cats who live nearby. Warriors to the west, something else to the east. He never names the something else. She doesn't know them. What she does know is that they're dangerous.

Papa knows things. Knows more than her, knows more than she ever can imagine knowing. He knows about the mice that scutter under leaves and the hawks that soar between clouds. He knows how to hunt them. He knows how to track a rabbit through the mountains until it gives up and he brings it home for food. He knows how to fend off strange cats much bigger than either of them. He knows how to tend to the wounds the strange cats leave on him.

Badgers, he calls them. Not cats. She knows this, now.

What she doesn't know is what Papa knows. She doesn't know about the mice that scutter under leaves nor the hawks that soar between clouds nor the rabbit that runs and runs and runs and never escapes Papa's stained claws. She doesn't know how to hunt.

If she eats, it's on Papa's terms.

She knows this. She knows she must win his approval. He tells her that when she's young - too young to know really know what he means, but old enough to understand. To live, she must be the perfect daughter.

Papa knows of the warriors to the west. He knows of their gods. "Silverpelt," he says, looking up at the night sky with reverence. "That's what they call it."

"Who?" She asks. She doesn't know.

Papa smiles. It's how she knows he means the warriors, and not the danger in the east. Papa never smiles when he talks about the dangers. "Each star is their ancestor," he continues. She knows a star is a drop of light in the sky, farther than any cat can reach.

Except for her. She can reach them, because if she doesn't, she doesn't eat.

-

Her first dream from Silverpelt comes before she can remember it. She knows it happened because Papa tells her. He tells her of all her dreams. It's their routine: she wakes up, tells Papa what she saw, sits alone under a tree until he returns with food, and then falls asleep listening to Papa recount every dream she's ever told him. She doesn't remember most of them anymore, but Papa does.

"Why?" She asks one night, halfway between asleep and awake. Stars are on the edge of her vision but so is Papa, his maw moving in a faithful recounting of her dreams.

"Why?" He repeats, interrupting the dream about wolves and cats with starry pelts. "Why not?"

This doesn't satisfy her, but she doesn't know that word. Satisfies. She knows it in the full belly feeling that comes after a good night of dreams and the prey Papa rewards her with. She knows it in the half-loving look in his eyes when she wakes up and say, "Stars came last night." But she doesn't know how to tell him the answer isn't good enough, so she says nothing and lets Papa tell her more of her old dreams.

-

"Because one day," Papa says, answering the question she asked nearly a moon ago. She knows. She knows what he means. "Knowing what the stars have to say will protect us."

She is six moons old when he says this. 

That night, she doesn't dream. Nor the next night. Nor the next.

-

Papa disappears after three nights without dreams. It's not the first time. She knows what to do when he does. She seeks our their tree, with wide, arching roots and soft moss for nesting, and waits for Papa to return.

And waits. And waits.

He comes back after the fifth night without dreams, when she is weak from hunger. Moss leaves a funny taste in her mouth, she thinks, but she doesn't know how to find anything else. Papa stares down at the chewed on moss and flicks his tail with annoyance. She knows her mistake. She's not supposed to eat when she doesn't dream of stars, not even moss.

But Papa doesn't scold her. Instead, he guides her out of the nest and shows her a leaf with drops that look like dew nestled into its curled form. "Drink," he says. "Then eat." She does. The leaf tastes no better than the moss, with a bitter bite in the aftermath that makes her gag. "Now sleep, Eleven," Papa says. "And dream."

-

She dreams.

The dream is not her own.

-

"The stars came last night," she tells Papa in the morning. He beams at her. She feels small under his gaze. "But... not for me."

Papa tilts his head. "Not for you?"

"For someone else. I dreamed someone else's dream."

His smile is cruel. "Tomorrow we go east," he says. To the dangers. Her heart races at the thought. "First, you must eat."

The sound her stomach makes drowns any thoughts of fear she has.

-

She always knew the dangers were other cats, but she didn't expect them to look so much like her. Like Papa. He greets a wizened, old tom like they've been friends for many, many moons and doesn't introduce her. Instead, she stands and watches as they speak in strange ways that Papa understands and she doesn't. Another thing she never hopes to know.

The other dangers look at her with hungry eyes. Not the same hunger that keeps her up on nights she doesn't eat, but the hunger Papa has when she's telling him of her dreams. Now, Papa is telling the dangers of her dreams. He tells them she can do it any night, so long as she eats.

Her spirit brightens at the thought of food.

The dangers bring her a leaf, dotted with dew.

She eats it, as they instruct.

At night, she sleeps in a small den with a cat almost her size. He's young. Scared. He stares at her with wide eyes and she stares back. She's never seen a cat her age before, unless you count the ghosts she sees at night. She's never scared someone before, until she realizes it's not her he's scared of. He says his name is Owlpaw. She nods, but has no name to give.

Eleven isn't a name, she knows. It's a designation.

She dreams someone else's dream that night. And the next night, the dangers give her another leaf.

-

For six nights she and Papa stay with the dangers. She thinks, maybe, they weren't so dangerous after all. Not to her, but to Papa, at least until he brought her here. Now she makes Papa safe. The dangers feed her better than Papa ever did.

Each night she dreams someone else's dream. Before she sleeps, she talks to Owlpaw. Or Owlpaw talks to her? Sometimes, she thinks neither of them are talking to each other. Owlpaw talks about his home, his PrairieClan, and she says nothing, hoping that Owlpaw finds comfort in speaking to her. As much comfort as she finds listening to him.

On the seventh night, the dangers have no leaves to give. "Can she dream without them?" The wizened one asks through thin lips that hide a mouth missing teeth.

"Only sometimes," Papa says. He's nervous. She knows.

"If she can't dream, she can't be here," the wizened one says. "Stay the night. Leave in the morning if she doesn't dream."

For the last time, Owlpaw tells her of PrairieClan.

Papa takes her away in the morning, when she doesn't dream, but the dangers feed her before they go. They feed her, because Papa can't. His limp is too heavy. His tail drags on the ground. She doesn't remember when he aged so much. She doesn't remember a dull look in his eyes. They only lived with the dangers for a short while, but they lived comfortably.

The mountains are not comfortable.

-

Papa leaves her under the tree, like he always does. He says he'll be back with leaves. She knows if he returns, they can retreat back into the safety provided by the dangers. If he doesn't return, she'll die under the roots.

There is a third option.

She doesn't have to wait.

-

She only knows what the prairie looks like from what Owlpaw described. A flat world without trees seems impossible, but as she steps down from the hills that were born from her mountains, it's what she sees. Flat land, covered in grass and flowers, where warriors hunt and tunnel and share tongues. Just like Owlpaw described.

Boldly, she steps across the sharp scent marker made by another cat.

But her body and her hunger betray her, and she crumbles across the border.

-

"Hey, hey, she's awake!" A cat says as she rolls over and exhales, slow and painful and aching. "Are you okay?" They're hidden away in a bush. Her, the cat talking, and two more cats she can only see silhouetted by the sunlight trickling in through the gaps in the foliage around them.

"Moved?" She asks.

"Moved? Oh, yeah." The cat looks away. A tom. Dark fur. Young, like her. Like Owlpaw. "I moved you. Is that okay?"

"Hungry," she says, echoed by the awful noise her stomach makes. The three cats share a look between them before the first cat speaks again.

"Er, I'll go hunt."

"You can't," one of the other cats says. He's scared. She knows. "Queens and elders first, Darkpaw."

Darkpaw. Owlpaw mentioned Darkpaw. She shifts, trying to look more alert. "We're not even supposed to be out here," the third cat says.

"She's hungry," Darkpaw says. "She needs help. Doesn't the Code say to help everyone?"

"Not if she's dangerous," the one who mentioned queens and elders says. "What if she's a bad guy?"

"Not dangerous," she says. She probably smells like them, the dangers who lived further east. That must be why he thinks she's dangerous. "Hungry."

"I'm going hunting," Darkpaw says. "You two can go home or help me, I don't care."

In the end, his friends go hunting, too.

-

She doesn't like to be alone, she realizes, watching the sun set through the bush.

-

Darkpaw and his friends - [Lucas] and Dustpaw - come by every day with food. It takes time for her to feel strong enough to sit up. At least two days. Then, another two days before she can walk more than a few paces. She steps out into the open, away from the bush, and pauses under the intensity of the warm sun above them. In the cold mountains, hidden under canopies, she never felt warmth like this.

"Can you hunt now?" [Lucas] asks. He doesn't like her, she knows.

"Can't," is all she says.

"I'll teach you," Darkpaw offers. She doesn't understand the look that [Lucas] and Dustpaw share. She barely notices it. Instead, she smiles at Darkpaw and follows his lead.

-

"Will you tell me your name?" Darkpaw asks when the other two apprentices are gone. She shakes her head no. "Why not?"

"No name," she explains.

"That's impossible," he says. "Everyone has a name. What did your parents call you?"

"No parents."

"No parents-"

"Only Papa." She thinks about it before adding, "He's bad."

"Why?" She doesn't tell him. Instead he asks, "What did he call you?"

"Eleven."

Darkpaw shakes his head. "We can't call you Elevenpaw."

That's good. She doesn't want to be Elevenpaw.

-

On day five, she's found.

-

"Aw, sod," the warrior says, looking at her with narrowed eyes. "I knew those damn kids were up to something." Those damn kids, the warrior explains, are apprentices of PrairieClan. She knows this. Those damn kids fed her using their skills as apprentices. (Well, Darkpaw fed her. The other two watched. [Lucas] suggested chasing her out, once or twice.) Those damn kids kept her alive.

She liked those damn kids. She didn't like this warrior, who was ordering her to follow him. She didn't like the implication that she was in trouble. She did like PrairieClan.

At least, she wanted to like PrairieClan. She wanted PrairieClan to like her.

-

"She's just a kit," the warrior who found her said, standing between her and other warriors. She can see Darkpaw trying to push his way to the front of the crowd. It makes her nervous. She doesn't want him to think she's a kit. She's seven moons old, now. "Look at her."

She doesn't understand what happens after that. A she-cat takes her to a den that smells like milk. In the dim light of the tunnel, she can just make out a litter of kittens mewling for their mother, and the silhouette of another cat who stares at her with wide, hopeful eyes that quickly dim. "[Hopper] found her in the woods," the she-cat escorting her explains to the gathered cats in the den. "She's just a kit."

"Can you watch over her, [Joyce]?" The she-cat with kittens asks. "I have too many." [Joyce], the she-cat who once looked hopeful, only nods and gestures for her to join her. She does. She sits. She listens to the kits mew. She listens to [Joyce] breathe. Then, she closes her eyes and sleeps.

-

When she wakes up, [Joyce] is offering her food. The warrior who found her, [Hopper], is there, watching the two of them from the entrance. "You need to eat, baby," [Joyce] says. "Have you been eating okay?"

"Darkpaw feeds me," she says. [Joyce] seems pleased by that.

"He's a sweet boy."

"I'm not a kit," she says after a few bites of food. "I'm not a baby."

[Joyce] turns to look at [Hopper], whose whiskers were twitching in annoyance. "How old are you?"

"Eight moons." Papa made her keep track. "Almost."

She's positive she knows what [Hopper] is thinking. He thinks she's lying. "You might be in the wrong den, kid."

-

They keep her with the kits for a day before their healer (medicine cat, they're called) confirms she's older than she looks. She asks to be moved to the apprentice den, but [Joyce] tells her she's not an apprentice yet and isn't allowed. She asks to see Darkpaw. Again, she's not allowed.

She doesn't understand.

Finally, on the third day she spends in PrairieClan's camp, the decision is made. She stands before the clan, [Hopper] just off to the side, as the leader bestows on her a name. "Brightpaw," Littlestar says. She says much more than that, but the name is all Brightpaw hears. A name.

She's never had one of those before.

Brightpaw joins Darkpaw and his friends in the apprentice den, on strict instructions from [Hopper] to rest for a few more days before her training would begin. Darkpaw promises to show her the whole camp after a nap. [Lucas] scoffs at the suggestion, but even Brightpaw can tell he's more at ease now that she has a name like his. "Do you like it?" Darkpaw asks once they're bundled up in the apprentice den. "Your name?"

"I like it," Brightpaw says. "Brightpaw. Like Darkpaw."

"Yeah!"

"Like Owlpaw."

Horror falls over Darkpaw's face. "How do you know that name?" [Lucas] snaps, hackles raised despite the ease that finally set over them. "I knew it. She can't be trusted!" The sudden commotion causes [Hopper] to poke his head in, whiskers twisted in the frown Brightpaw is used to seeing from him. "She knows Owlpaw!" [Lucas] shouts almost immediately.

Darkpaw still hasn't said anything. "Come on," [Hopper] says, flicking his tail toward the entrance of the den. "Let's figure this out."

-

She doesn't explain herself, at first. She doesn't know how. She says, "The dangers have him," and is met with blank stares. She lacks the words to describe it any further. "Papa knows." But they don't know Papa. They don't know Papa. She gasps and sobs and asks them not to leave her alone under the roots as the warriors look at her with a disappointed expression, until [Hopper]'s tail rests warmly over her back.

"Calm down," he says. "It's fine. The dangers - that another clan?"

She shakes her head no. "Cats in the mountain," she says. It's enough. Brightpaw doesn't know how, but it's enough.

"Are they far?"

Brightpaw stiffens. She knows exactly how far. She can still follow the trail in her head.

But she doesn't want to. "Very far," she whispers.

-

[Hopper] brings her back to the den and chews out the other apprentices preemptively, even waits by the entrance until Brightpaw is settled by Darkpaw once again. "Sorry," Darkpaw says, pressing against her side. "For earlier. I should've said something. You really know Owlpaw?"

"Yes."

"Is he okay?"

She thought of Owlpaw, small and scared and just like her. "He's alive," she says, not wanting to lie.

"You know where he is?" Her throat feels tight.

"He's far."

The hope on Darkpaw's face doesn't fade. "But you know where? You can show me? Us?"

"He's far," she repeats. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Darkpaw is determined. She can see it in his eyes, his shoulders, the flick of his tail.

"I'm gonna get him back."

-

She thinks to lie. She thinks to stall. She thinks to do anything to stop Darkpaw from pestering her about leading him to Owlpaw. She doesn't want to leave PrairieClan. It's safe here. Safe. Brightpaw didn't know safety until she stepped onto the plains.

Papa is still out there.

She knows he's waiting. By the tree. With the dangers. If she goes to Owlpaw, he will take her back, and she never wants to be hungry again. So she does whatever it takes to keep her new friends in PrairieClan's camp.

-

Then one day, Owlpaw comes back.

-

The moons pass in a comfortable rhythm after Owlpaw settles back home. Brightpaw trains with [Hopper], assigned as her mentor. She learns to hunt. To track. To fight. She spars with Darkpaw and laughs when he purposefully trips himself. She grow close to Owlpaw and his mother, [Joyce], who says StarClan brought her two children home when she watches them play. She befriends [Lucas] and Dustpaw, for real this time. She meets [Max]. They grow close. They're friends. They're family, even. [Hopper] calls her that, once. Family. It makes Brightpaw happy.

Then, it makes her sad, because she thinks her family is out there. Mom and dad or mom and mom or dad and dad or any combination of mom, dad, and parent she can think of. They're out there. And Papa knows where.

But she doesn't know where Papa is. He could be dead. She hopes he's dead. She never wants to see him again.

She still dreams, though. Dreams of ghosts.

And Papa's never in them.

-

Brightfire was named a warrior at 15 moons. Her bio will be added to every few moons.

personality

relations