Lithe and long legged, Birchshade was built to become a weaver. Long whiskers and large ears frame her face. Dark green eyes stand out among the paleness of her face and coat. Her coat is white, with large patches of silver tabby markings. Most of her fur is medium in length, though like her sister it's thicker around her neck. 

The river defined and shaped Birchpaw's life long before she took her first breath. An accident, a tragedy. A young warrior, Goosebelly, is snatched by the current. A child and an expecting mate left behind.

When the two kits are born, their pale coats match their elder sibling. It isn't their mother who names the newborns. Frostfern passes not long after their birth, leaving young Aspenpaw an orphan with two nameless sisters.

Junipercloud steps in to nurse the newborns, names them Birchkit and Lilykit. Aspenpaw is there in the nursery often, caring for their siblings.

As a kit Birchkit never quite understood the tragedy surrounding her birth. Her biological parents are faceless names, repeated by those around her. Lilykit and Aspenpaw and Junipercloud are enough. She grows and plays and slowly learns that maybe somethings off about her family. 

She's a few moons old when she overhears cats whispering about the river. About her father. About how it seemingly broke her mother. As a kit kept in the nursery its hard to imagine that water, something only ever found in small puddles, could hurt someone. Could take her father away.

It calls to her, this river. In her dreams she sees it, or what she imagines it might look like.

Things shift a little, and Aspenpaw decides to become a weaver. Birchkit doesn't quite understand why her sibling makes the change, but she's happy as long as Aspenpaw is happy. After all, Aspenpaw and Lilykit are her whole world.

Before long Birchkit and Lilykit are made apprentices. Birchpaw wonders if she should follow her sisbling, become a weaver as well. But she wants to try warrior training first, see how it feels. Pinestripe is her mentor, a young tom whose mate is expecting their first litter.

It's on one of her first trips outside of camp that Birchpaw finally sees it. The river. The thing that took her father... and it's beautiful.

Peaceful, at least on the surface. When she tests her paws in the water, she can feel the tug. The current. It grew as she stepped in further, until the rocks under her paws gave way. 

One second she is up and talking about how strange it feels. The next she is under the waves, water filling her senses and lungs. Everything was the river, it felt impossible to escape. 

And then someone grabbed her. Pulled her out. The memory is faint, filled with pain and confusion. Birchpaw found herself on the shore, coughing up water as it burned her lungs, but others are still staring at the waves, trying to find someone.

Her savior dies in her stead. Her mentor.

Pinestripe sacrificed himself for her.

The memory, blurred by pain, haunts her. She is shaking and shivering from both the river and the guilt. Someone is near her, wrapped around her to keep her warm. They tell the story to the medicine cat, and all Birchpaw can think about is his mate and unborn children.

The guilt only grows, when she is dragged to camp and learns that his kits were born. And he wasn't there to greet them, to help his mate, because he was busy dying for her. She hears the wails from the nursery, when his mate learns the news. 

Elkkit is the only kit of the two who survives. Birchpaw can't bring herself to speak to him, or his mother. Every time she spots his coat in camp, it's like a claw right to her heart. 

It's her fault. She knew how dangerous the river was. But she approached anyway. And now it's her fault that Elkkit will grow up like she did, without a father.

He must hate her, or he will one day when he's old enough to know how to hate.

Nightmares haunt her from then on. The soft dreams she used to have of the river are replaced with the terrifying reality of the beast. Of water in her lungs, of no sense of up or down, and of Pinestripe disappearing below the water.

Birchpaw quickly asks to be made a weaver apprentice instead of a warrior apprentice. She wants to keep people safe, keep the camp in good shape, rather than risk being out there and getting others hurt.

It's hard to move on, but Birchpaw tries. There's no other choice. Pinestripe's sacrifice can't be in vain.

There are still good moments, and Birchpaw does her best to cling to them. Like watching Aspenrain receive their name. At times she can almost forget what happened, before catching a glimpse of that brown pelt through the crowds of Mistclan. Elkkit.

There are bad moments too. The war, the fighting, Birchpaw is curled up against her siblings in the nursery as Junipercloud tells stories to distract them. 
 
Eventually the fighting ends, and life moves on.

Until the next bad moment. Irisfrost is a friend of Aspenrain's, and her kits are taken from the nursery.

But still time ticks on, Birchpaw grows more skilled in her weaving. Weaving is an escape as well as an art. Something she can do and see the good from with her own eyes.

Elkpaw becomes an apprentice, Hailstar's. The guilt still eats at her, the nightmares still haunt her, though Aspenrain and Lilypaw are there to comfort her. 

Pre-Plotting: Birchshade is Aspenrain's younger sister, adopted from her wanted ad. Additionally she fulfills the waterlogged role in Elkpaw's wanted ad, as she almost drowned and was saved by Elkpaw's father, and her mentor, who died in the rescue. As a result she feels immense guilt at being the reason he never got to meet his father, in part caused by the tragic drowning of her own father before her birth.

Family: Birchshade is incredibly close with her siblings, who are the center of her world.
Friends: She'd love to have more friends her age.
Romance: Now that she's named romance is more of an option, though she's never really considered it before.
Rivals: While Birchshade doesn't have rivals she assumes that Elkpaw hates her for what happened to Pinestripe.