Briarpelt's physique is a fairly average, though he stands a little shorter than some of his lankier clanmates with his stocky legs. Still, that gives him an advantage in combat, as a low center of gravity makes it easier for him to knock an opponent off balance.

His pelt is solid brown with no adornment of stripes or spots, making him a bit plain to look at, but he's not unattractive, per se; he's well-groomed and has his fair share of eye-catching scars, and sometimes the sun brings out a nice reddish tone in his fur.

His eyes are deep-set, which would give him a mysterious air if he didn't furrow his brow all the time. As it is, he tends to look more unapproachable than anything, which further holds up his reputation for being a grump. But really he's—well no, he's actually just a grump.

Brindleflame and Barktail's relationship was already crumbling when they decided to try for a litter. As a weaver, Barktail was familiar with using cords of briar to mend holes in nests and barriers and so, when Brindleflame gave birth to a single son, he was named Briarkit.

Hopefully, he could mend what was broken between them.

All Briarkit knew as he grew, however, was how much his parents argued. The other queens would make them leave the nursery when they got too loud, but Briarkit could still hear them screeching at each other in the clearing. His realization that this wasn't normal came in the pitying looks the other families would give him.

He grew jaded and mean, taking out his anger on the other kits during playtime. Soon enough, he became something to be avoided. The loneliness that gnawed at him just fed into his bad behavior.

It was a relief to finally leave the nursery. His mother groomed him roughly, eyes narrowed as she made sure her son was presentable for the ceremony. Briarkit stared straight ahead, ears pinned back.

"Stop bristling," she snapped. "You're undoing all my work."

He hissed but complied, smoothing down the fur on his back as Brindleflame smeared clumpy red paint on his forehead: two arches for a bird spreading its wings, symbolizing an apprentice's first flight from the nest. One dot above for the moon, calling on StarClan's guidance. One dot on his muzzle for MistClan's connection to the earth. And, finally, a curving line on each shoulder to symbolize his family; cats with bigger families would have more markings.

As Briarpaw received his new name, he wished his shoulders were bare.

His mentor was... nice. Fernstripe was soft, and sweet, and never yelled at Briarpaw. She constantly assured him that they'd train at his own pace. Her critiques were constructive and gentle.

He hated it.

Every kind word made his pelt itch with discomfort. Every morning she greeted him cheerfully and irritation crawled through his pelt like ants. One day, a moon into his training, she gave him an affectionate lick over his ears.

He slapped her. Claws unsheathed. The molly recoiled with a shocked gasp, eyes wide and watery, and Briarpaw snarled. "Don't touch me!"

His mentor was reassigned to none other than Russetstar himself. Briarpaw hated him too; the tom's patience was endless. Sometimes, he asked Briarpaw questions about his parents. How they were doing.

Badly. They'd taken to pitting Briarpaw against the other in their petty arguments, each trying to sway him to their side. But he didn't care.

He didn't care.

Despite his anger, Briarpaw didn't excel at combat. He was too hasty, too violent, that he ignored all defense in favor of leaping directly at his opponent.

By his tenth moon, his parents' relationship reached its limit and they separated.

During combat training, Briarpaw finally snapped and attacked Russetstar. The older warrior could have fended him off easily, but he allowed his apprentice to rush him again and again, claws raking across his shoulders and face until blood stained his orange fur dark.

The sight of it dripping off his mentor's muzzle made Briarpaw freeze. Something in him cracked and he collapsed into the grass, sobbing into his bloody paws.

"Do you feel better?" Russetstar asked, far too gently.

"No!" he wailed. "Why are you doing this?! Why didn't you stop me?!"

"You needed to see what happened."

Everything changed after that. Briarpaw started to listen to Russetstar's lessons, actually taking in his advice; he learned to use his shorter stature to his advantage, and by the next moon, he was able to reliably knock other apprentices off their paws during combat training.

Hunting was a little more difficult. He didn't really have the patience for it, but eventually he became passable; at least he was quick in the trees. More than once, his clanmates would jokingly call him Squirrelpaw.

"What do you think of Briarstorm?" Russetstar asked. He'd taken to doing this, sometimes, springing an idea for a name while they were on patrol or drilling moves.

Almost thoughtlessly, Briarpaw finished his execution of a battle maneuver, paw batting soft against the leader's shoulder. Playfully, Russetstar cuffed him back before he could fully withdraw.

"I don't think so," he said, sitting back and quickly grooming down the fur on his chest. "Too ostentatious."

"Ostentatious!" Russetstar lifted his brows. "Ouch. And here I thought it would compliment your stormy personality."

After scuffling their way through another couple of moves, they both sat again, panting, and the orange tom made another suggestion. "Briarbranch?"

He snorted. "Trying to be funny? I'm not exactly supportive, Russet. Just give me something simple."

In the end, Russetstar called him Briarpelt. "StarClan honors your growth and perseverance, and we welcome you as a full warrior of MistClan."

This time, Briarpelt had been able to choose how he wanted himself to be marked. As tradition, it was his mentor who applied the paint, orange by Briar's request, with a sharp vee on his forehead for wings outstretched, two dots above for the moon's guidance and sun's strength, one below for the earth's support. He declined marks for his family, opting instead for three stripes across his back in honor of his mentor.

In the warriors' den, he already had a reputation for his sharp tongue and standoffish personality, so most cats seemed content to leave him alone outside of his duties. That was fine by him; Briarpelt preferred to focus on his work.

There was one cat, however, who didn't seem to get the memo.

Whiteberry seemed fascinated with him in a way Briarpelt couldn't wrap his head around. Somehow, she managed to make her way into almost every patrol he was part of it, chattering at him as cheerfully as a bird. Over time, his annoyance faded into acceptance, then begrudging amusement, and then it seemed like there was an expectation for the next step.

"She's a good friend," he admitted to his mother, after a considerable amount of probing. There was a smug, knowing look in her eyes that made him prickle with discomfort.

"That's it?" she prompted.

Was that it? Briarpelt suddenly didn't know, but everyone else seemed to; she liked him, and he liked her, so... When he asked Whiteberry to be his mate, she immediately tackled him with a joyous laugh, purring and licking his nose. "I thought you'd never ask!"

He figured he'd start to love her like he was supposed to, in time.

But as time passed, he started to wonder if there was something wrong with him.

"You know, you could at least pretend you like me," Whiteberry complained at him. "You were sitting so far away from me at the Gathering, Fishtail thought we were strangers."

Fur crawling with discomfort, Briarpelt stared straight ahead, watching tufted grasses wave on the other side of the clearing. The air smelled brisk, trees already starting to turn. He felt distant from Whiteberry now in a way he never had before; it'd been easier when they were friends.

"Maybe we should have kits," he said idly.

At the ring of silence that answered him, he turned to look at her and found her face frozen in shocked incredulity. She huffed, turning away, ears angled back. "Seriously, Briar?"

Wasn't that what mates did? Wasn't that supposed to be the right thing?

"What in StarClan's name do you want from me?" Briarpelt snapped. "We're mates now, you got what you wanted, so what else is there?"

"I hoped you'd be able to figure it out by now," she said, words colored now only by sadness. The frustration had left her shoulders, leaving her looking small. "I want you to love me."

"I do." Even to him, his words sounded empty, and Whiteberry's eyes said she didn't believe him.

"We're done, Briar."

And that was the end of it. Without his best friend at his side, Briarpelt's patrols got a whole lot lonelier. He started to permit his mother to take her meals with him again.

After enough impatient sighs, he finally asked her what she wanted to say.

"Nothing," she said blithely. "Just disappointed."

"No change then," he spat. "That's all I've ever been to you."

"Yeah."

At least he still had work to focus on. He threw himself into it, butting his way into extra patrols until Russetstar finally told him he needed to take more time to relax. For the first time since his apprenticeship, he hissed at him, walking away without another word.

Two weeks later, he found himself on a small patrol with only Russetstar.

"I'm giving you an apprentice," the ginger tom told him.

Briarpelt's ears angled back and he looked away. "Why?"

"Because I want to terrorize the kids." When he looked back at Russetstar in disbelief, his leader laughed. "Only teasing. Genuinely, I think it'll do you some good."

"Some good," he echoed skeptically.

'Some good' came in the form of a little molly called Mothpaw. He could see how she got the name: she was about the size of one.

And just as timid.

After he showed her the territory, as was tradition of an apprentice's first day training, he confronted Russetstar in his den.

"Are you insane?" he snapped, tail bushed out and claws sinking into the the moss.

His leader watched him with a bemused expression. "It depends. What's this about?"

"About her." He tossed his head to indicate the clearing below. "You expect me to train that tiny thing? I'll crush her during training, if I don't crush her spirit first."

"You won't," Russetstar said calmly, with that infuriating air of patience that Briarpelt hated so much.

He hated it even more when it turned out he was right.

Mothpaw was sweet, gentle, and curious. The first moon was the hardest for Briarpelt, filled with a new, fumbling awkwardness that he'd never encountered before. During combat drills, she'd giggle and pap him with soft paws, in such a drastic juxtaposition with his own experience as an apprentice that it'd leave him reeling. He'd stare at her and she'd stare back, eyes full of warm curiosity and not an ounce of harshness.

How could he expect this kit to become a warrior?

During a patrol to teach her how to fish, he ended up soaked and empty-pawed, and her laugh was so kind and when she said, "It's okay!" like he was the one who needed encouragement, his embarrassment melted away like frost in sunlight. And he laughed too.

At the end of the day, it was Mothpaw who carried the most fish back to camp, her tiny white chest puffed out with pride, and Briarpelt found in himself a love so gentle that it ached.

It wasn't long before he noticed himself leading patrols more often than not. His clanmates seemed to respect him; when a question came up, heads tended to turn towards him first, and despite the bluntness of his answers, they were taken without a second guess.

While uncomfortable at first with the new lean of responsibility, he started to grow into it and learn how to organize and delegate his peers as a senior warrior. He even found a new friend in Lichenflight, who—much like Whiteberry had done, once—imposed her company upon him until he found himself enjoying it. Unbeknownst to him, Russetstar looked on with pride.

"I'm retiring," Russetstar told him one day, on one of their frequent two-cat patrols. Briarpelt shot him a surprised look. The orange tom smiled, and he noticed, as if for the first time, the gray around his muzzle. "I'm getting old, Briar. I want to enjoy my time in the elders' den before I join StarClan."

"And Birchclaw?" he prompted.

"He's retiring with me."

Briarpelt huffed, turning his gaze forward again. "Who will be replacing you?"

"We've decided to ask Hailfall," Russetstar answered.

He was a good choice, Briarpelt thought. The tom was patient, hardworking, and while he was a bit quiet socially, he still managed to be approachable.

When the newly named Hailstar returned to camp, Briarpelt couldn't help but notice he looked a little worse for wear. Still, there was a blazing energy behind his eyes. To his surprise, the new leader approached him in the shadow of the Skytree.

Hailstar's question left him reeling. "Why?" Briarpelt asked.

"You're reliable," was his quiet answer. "Our clanmates trust you." A glint of amusement. "And I know you won't lie to me to spare my feelings."

As was tradition, Briarpelt was elected deputy before moonhigh. His clanmates looked satisfied, for the most part, but there was a cold glitter in the medicine cat's eyes. Lotusfire was unreadable when they congratulated him on his new rank, but he still found himself vaguely unsettled.

He didn't have long to dwell on it, though, as Briarpelt adjusted to his new responsibilities and learned to balance them with Mothpaw's training—even if, sometimes, they had to train at night. But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing; honing her skills in the dark would make for a well-prepared warrior.

It was on one such night that everything went sideways. They were training on the ridges up-slope from camp when the wind shifted, and Mothpaw's nose wrinkled. "Smells like RidgeClan," she commented.

Then the first shriek cut through the night.

They came upon cats already locked in battle; a RidgeClan patrol had crossed the river into the territory, ambushing the night sentries. Briarpelt launched himself at the nearest RidgeClan cat without a second thought, claws shredding through thick fur until they released their grip on his clanmate.Then their paw connected with his head. White flashed behind his eyes. His ears rang. His cheek felt hot where claws had raked him.

Shaking his head to clear it, he found Mothpaw had leaped onto the warrior's back, distracting them from further injuring her mentor. They thrashed and snarled, dislodging the tiny apprentice, and their paw raised in preparation to strike.

Rage seized Briarpelt's body and he barreled into the warrior's side, knocking them off their paws. "Don't touch her!" he snarled, claws sinking into their belly. They shrieked and tore away into the dark.

More MistClan cats came pouring up the slope; the night sentries must have sent a runner. Hailstar's silver pelt shined in the moonlight, as if touched by the grace of StarClan itself, as warriors clashed against each other in the dark.

He tried to stay close to Mothpaw. Whenever a warrior got too close to her, he shouldered his way between them, taking the brunt of it; sometimes, when they saw, Briarpelt's clanmates leapt to his side to help him send the enemy away.

At one point, he noticed that the cat who aided him smelled like flowers. When had PrairieClan gotten here?

By the end of the battle, Briarpelt's entire body ached. Tufts of fur hung from him in tatters, skin stinging in lines from the rake of enemy claws; the bite on his neck throbbed deeply. Dizzily, he realized the strike had been intended to kill. RidgeClan's warriors had attacked with a ferocity he'd never seen before, cats possessed by rage and hate.

His suspicions were confirmed by the sight of bodies lying in the moonlight. There were so many. Somewhere, a cat wailed. Briarpelt stumbled through the fallen cats, sniffing at tattered pelts for signs of life. "Lotusfire!" he called hoarsely, finding a silver cat still breathing; they smelled of RidgeClan, but it was all the same, wasn't it? They needed help. The medicine cat approached, calm and cool, and set themself to methodical work.

Mothpaw's sibling, Nettlepaw, lay among the injured. Their body looked so small when warriors picked them up to carry them back to camp. They would survive, but not without losing an eye.

As deputy, Briarpelt stayed on the battlefield to help organize the relief efforts. Medicine cats and their apprentices moved through the fallen cats, and Briarpelt, along with other warriors, helped to collect the bodies. Cats of all clans worked side by side; when the battle ended, the fires of hostility had been doused in the face of the consequences.

Was it worth it? he thought bitterly, gently laying Sunwind next to her mate. She'd been bitten in the throat, a killing blow, but she wasn't the only one. It wasn't only RidgeClan who'd dealt death by their claws tonight; they'd all been complicit in this violation of the warrior code. Even when the sky had darkened with clouds, they'd all continued to fight.

He barely remembered returning to camp, dawn just beginning to stain the sky with red. If he was a medicine cat, he would've called it a condemnation.

Life went on. Mothpaw finished her training and passed her assessment, as savvy a hunter as any warrior, and soon she joined them. It was a moment of joy in the grimness that had gripped MistClan after the battle; the clan celebrated with fervent relief.

Warmth filled Briarpelt as he applied green paint to his little girl's pelt, paw tracing the same sharp vee and three dots that his mentor had done for him so many moons ago, and if his eyes watered when she asked him for a briar marking on her flank, well... That was between him and Mothdapple, wasn't it?

But it seemed like StarClan wasn't done punishing them.

The sky was just starting to lighten at the end of his shift as a sentry when a wail cut through the camp. He'd been tired, but his body flooded with adrenaline at the sound as he turned and sprinted into the heart of camp. The other sentries had converged as well, pelts bristling with the same urgency. Irisfrost, a misty gray queen, emerged from the nursery with another wail.

"My kits! Where are my kits?!"

They were gone. Briarpelt sent out patrol after patrol, heading a few of them himself, but all they found was a cat-scent obfuscated by crushed ferns. Their best trackers were able to follow the scent all the way to the Whispering Reeds, but it ended there, along with the scent of the kits, swallowed by mud and water.

Some cats suggested the kits drowned there. That didn't sound right to Briarpelt, but patrols kept coming back with nothing. After a few days, it rained, destroying their last hopes of finding an unspoiled trail.

Briarpelt took to bringing prey to the devastated queen, carefully hunting and picking out the best pieces. Sometimes he brought other things too, gifts of rosemary and lavender to provide a comforting scent in her nest, downy feathers to pad it, and sturdy lengths of carefully stripped briar cord to keep it supportive.

She looked hollow and shattered. She never stopped looking for her kits, joining every patrol possible.

His heart broke for her. He was her deputy; he was supposed to protect her, protect her family. And he'd failed. So he committed himself to taking care of her and, gradually, she became part of his family too.

Just four moons after Mothdapple's graduation, Briarpelt took on another apprentice, a troubled young tom named Wolfpaw. With a name like that, no wonder he was troubled; his fellow apprentices didn't seem to let him forget it.

Wolfpaw had a spark in him. He was brave and protective, the eldest of his litter, and there was an edge of ambition there that Mothdapple had lacked. He certainly presented a unique challenge. It wasn't long before Briarpelt grew fond of his sharp tongue and strong will.

By spending time around apprentices again, he also got to know Elkpaw, a driven boy with a tattered sense of family; Briarpelt could relate—but at least Elkpaw had a better personality. And, with Hailstar as his mentor, Briarpelt was able to join his leader for joint training sessions.

Trouble still brewed on the horizon. Briarpelt wasn't sure they were done atoning for all the blood spilled on their territory, but, for now, life went on.

Life went on.

Briarpelt fulfills the role of Cloudpelt from Mothdapple's wanted ad.
He's also involved with the Time Makes You Bolder wanted ad, as part of a group of elders who gossip at Gatherings.
His political alignment falls closest to Bark, due to the sense of protectiveness he feels for his clan; he doesn't believe the other clans are inherently more or less trustworthy, but cats are cats, and all cats are capable of good or bad. As such, he keeps a close eye on the refugees from RidgeClan, Dawnclaw and Goosefire, but makes a point not to treat them any different because of their origins.

---

It's hard to build a family on cracked foundations. Briarpelt's parents presented to him a warped, toxic version of what family meant, and it's taken him a while to learn that family can come in many forms.
His relationship with Mothdapple, his former apprentice, developed in such a way that he began to harbor fatherly feelings for the little molly, and has since embraced it; nobody messes with his girl. And ever since she broke through his crunchy exterior, he's found his heart opening to other cats at well, discovering a penchant for collecting troubled kids. It seems like family is what you make of it after all.

Most of his friends are "work-friends," but he does harbor feelings of genuine closeness with a few select cats. Lichenflight, for one, had seen fit to attach herself to his side, much like Whiteberry did so many moons ago; this time, however, it seems both are content with their friendship remaining uncomplicated. Irisfrost was another surprising friend, as after her kits went missing, Briarpelt began to spend more time at her side and they grew close.

Unlike many of his peers, Briarpelt has never felt that sweet inclinations of romance. The closest he'd ever come was with Whiteberry, but as soon as they were official mates, the label felt more like a burden than anything; he'd been so much happier when they were just best friends without further expectation. Briarpelt's ideal life partner would come in the form of a strong, platonic bond, without the pressure to perform to the ideals of romance. It's even possible he'd consider having kits with his platonic partner, if they wanted, though he wouldn't trust himself to be the one to suggest it after the falling-out with Whiteberry.

With a sharp tongue and stern attitude, it's easy for Briarpelt to get on a cat's wrong side. His main rival, however, is the clan's medicine cat; it's a quiet rivalry, never spoken or acted on, but a frigid layer of distrust and dislike remains between them. But they remain professional... for now.

—