Character

Blackhush

From Children of StarClan


Blackhush
A Player Character belonging to Hawke

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Affiliation
 
Warrior of ThunderClan
Vitals
 
A Tom by Ashdown out of WhitechinBorn Jaykit in the Moon of Running Prey (2007)
Living at the age of 28 Moons (2 years & 2 months)
Appearance
 
Short Description :
A leggy, long haired black smoke tom with blue eyes, a facial scar and an occasionally twitching lip
Long Description :
Blackhush is tall and long-legged, with shaggy fur that makes his lanky frame look bulkier than it is. He appears uniform black when still, but each individual hair shades lighter close to the skin, so that his coat ripples pale gray with every movement or touch of the wind. His almond-shaped eyes are the color of a clear sky at midday. A single scar runs in an unbroken line from the side of his nose and down his muzzle, almost to his chin. The area around the scar occasionally twitches involuntarily, a relic of a nearly-disastrous run-in with a deadly snake.
Personality
 
 
Blackhush is a high-energy cat who hates sitting still or being idle for any length of time. He can sit still if necessary; he's built up a lot of patience over the moons, and in his mind he could outwait the moon if he had to (and even takes a certain amount of pride in this ability), but as soon as a long spell of sitting still is over, he'll be up and moving, and then you'd be hard-pressed to so much as get him to sit down again. He's not one to lounge in the sun, in other words.


In direct counterpoint to his dark coat, Blackhush's disposition is typically a sunny one. He's gregarious, talkative, even downright goofy at times. He is an optimist through-and-through, meeting setbacks with calm good cheer, and sees inherent humor in most situations--which, admittedly, often leads to him making jokes others may find in poor taste. This is compounded by his unfortunate tendency to speak without thinking. Blackhush is often just as surprised by what comes out of his mouth as anyone else, leading him to be rude or tactless in spite of his good intentions. He does mean well, though; he cares deeply about his clanmates, both collectively and individually, and his sarcasm and jokes are generally meant to be humorous and uplifting rather than cutting.

Blackhush also has a near-bottomless confidence in his own abilities. Because of this, he's been known to take unnecessary risks on the principle that it's "not that risky" since he "knows what he's doing". He would describe himself as "self-assured" (although his former mentor preferred the term "reckless idiot"). In spite of this, Blackhush is a dedicated warrior, fiercely loyal to ThunderClan and aggressively protective of others, especially those younger than himself. In his eyes, it's all well and good for Blackhush--who knows his strengths and limitations--to do something dangerous; it's another thing entirely for someone else to play fast-and-loose with their safety. Everyone else, especially young cats, should be careful. This does not seem remotely hypocritical to him.
History
 
Key Dates  
Full History :
Jaykit's mother Whitechin had chosen to mate with an old friend out of convenience, and never cared to identify him, which suited them both just fine. She was merely proud to bear a small piece of what would be the future of ThunderClan. Expecting a strong future warrior, she had to swallow her disappointment when her son was born small and sickly in the Moon of Running Prey. Jaykit's constitution was so poor the medicine cat voiced doubts that he would even make it to apprenticeship, let alone become a productive member of the Clan.

As he grew, Jaykit's health remained shaky, but he was a bright and avidly curious young cat, as eager to learn as any. He recognized that he was different, of course--in games with his fellow kits, he was always the first to tire and the last one to get a second wind. This didn't particularly phase him, though. Throughout his kittenhood, Jaykit continued to face his uncertain future with unflinching optimism.

Eventually, hoping enthusiasm and hard work would prove a good substitute for a naturally sound constitution, Jaykit was apprenticed to hard-bitten older warrior Dustwing. It was hard going at first; the newly-minted Blackpaw continued to tire quickly, earning the impatience of his mentor and concern from his mother. Determined to prove he could make it, Blackpaw chose to focus most intensely on his stalking and stealth-based skills--skills less effected by his poor endurance. His focus paid off. He became an excellent ambush predator, with the patience to wait as long as he needed to for the right moment, and the agility to strike quickly and accurately, minimizing a struggle with his prey that could wear him down.

Almost without him noticing it, however, Blackpaw's luck was changing. As he grew, he began to shed his kittenhood weakness like an old skin. By the end of his eighth moon, he found he no longer tired like he used to; it seemed that whatever had plagued him in his youngest days was merely a painful thing to grow out of, like his kitten teeth. He still had some catching up to do, though--his earlier moons of relative frailty left him with underdeveloped muscles, and his endurance continued to lag behind other cats his age. But by the time he reached eleven moons, he was matching his peers in strength, speed, and, yes, endurance. What was left behind in the wake of his early weakness was an exceptional patience, and a certain hard-nosed pragmatism: never waste energy unnecessarily, and work smart, not hard.

Sadly, his mother did not live to see her son blossom; an older-than-average queen when he was born, she passed to the elder's den and was defeated by a bout of greencough in his ninth moon.

That he attained a warrior's level of physical conditioning at a glacial pace was only one reason for his unusually long apprenticeship, however. The other is due to what he mentally labels "The Rattling-Adder Incident". At the age of thirteen moons, so close to his warrior ceremony he could taste it, he had gone hunting around the Sunningrocks alone and startled a rattling-adder. To this day, he has no idea why the snake chose to go after a cat his size; perhaps it had been ill, or maybe a bad shed had clouded its vision and made it aggressive. Either way, only Blackpaw's quick reflexes saved him; the snake struck like a bolt of lightning, and Blackpaw dodged away equally fast. Then the snake coiled back in a rattling tangle, leaving Blackpaw with a line of blood on his muzzle. He realized, dimly, that even the slightest hesitation or change or direction would have put the rattlesnake's fangs directly in his face, and he would already be dying. As it was, though, the snake had only scratched him with a fang. Blackpaw ran home, white-hot fire biting into his face, and lay for three days on the floor of the medicine cat's den in agony. Even after he recovered, the incident left him with a permanent, albeit transient, twitch in his lips, a certain involuntary spasm that occasionally stuttered his speech.

But he lived. After the third day, he bounced back with only a scar on his nose to show for his brush with death, which he escaped by less than the length of one of his long hairs. To him, it was a miracle; the snake hadn't had a chance to inject venom into him, he only got as much as the snake had at the tip of that one needlelike fang--enough only to make him sick, not to kill him. This knowledge made the foolhardy young tom feel almost immortal. So, after five days--after he was fully recovered, or at least, as recovered as he would ever be--he returned to the Sunningrocks, hunted down the rattlesnake, and killed it. It had taken time, and all of Blackpaw's considerable skill in stalking and tracking, but fortunately he was blessed with a deep well of patience to draw from. He waited until his position and the snake's were perfect. Then he broke the snake's spine with a single perfect blow from behind. Whether the snake had been ill or not, he couldn't say, but it had definitely been half-blind--and now it was dead, after failing to kill him.

But when Blackpaw dragged it back to camp, bursting with pride, Dustwing was livid. It was the first and only time Blackpaw seriously worried that his grumpy mentor would actually shred him like den-bedding. "I don't know what you think you're proving, Blackpaw," Dustwing hissed, "but to me all you're proving is that you're a reckless idiot. You're too smart a cat to take such stupid risks. I expected better from you, after everything. ThunderClan has no use for stupid warriors who get themselves killed."

Dustwing was deaf to Blackpaw's insistence that he knew what he was doing, he was careful, he did everything right, the snake was dangerous to the Clan and needed to be dealt with--no, in Dustwing's eyes, his apprentice had gone out of his way to tangle, alone, with one of the forest's most lethal predators, and in doing so nearly robbed ThunderClan of a protector and a provider. No amount of skill Blackpaw demonstrated made up for this transgression. Because of this lapse in judgement, this latent immaturity, it was another two moons before Blackpaw finally became a warrior.

Finally, though, he made it. In the Moon of Cheetah's Flight, Blackpaw was given the warrior name Blackhush, both as a nod to his hard-earned stealth skills, and a tacit reminder that sometimes the chatty young tom needed to hold his tongue. He always assumed this was suggested by his mentor, a prickly old tom at the best of times, although one Blackhush remained very fond of. In spite of his outward grumpiness, Dustwing was pleased enough by his former apprentice as well: maybe the youngster still needed to grow up some, but Blackhush was a hard worker, a skilled hunter, and a ferociously loyal warrior. This was enough for Dustwing , who knew that at his age this would likely be the last cat he would ever mentor.

In the end, though, it was not age that got Dustwing. Instead, a rogue fox attacked him while hunting, and he was dead almost before he realized it was closing in. Blackhush took the news of his former mentor's death in stride, as was his way, but he was particularly keen on fox-killing after that. He scoured ThunderClan territory for strains of the fox at all hours between patrols and hunting; deep down, he was halfway convinced (almost certainly falsely) that if he happened upon the fox's scent on his own, without the distractions of his Clanmates, he could have stalked it and killed it solo. To this day, he's just a little bit disappointed that he could not strike a killing blow on the beast that brought down his mentor and (somewhat reluctant) friend.
Family
 
Sire :
Ashdown (No Sdesc on File)
Dame :
Whitechin (No Sdesc on File)
Genealogy & Pedigree
 
Blackhush Ashdown Unspecified Tom
Unspecified Queen
Whitechin Unspecified Tom
Unspecified Queen
Detailed Genealogical Tree
Ashdown
Whitechin
Blackhush
Significant Cats
 
Mated with :
Mentor :
Dustwing (A skinny black bi-color tom with a scar on his shoulder)
Mentor of :
None
Others :
Player's Notes
 
Vol Populi :
Be the first to Leave VP About Blackhush
Relationships :
The player may Create a Page about the character's relationships.
Name Notes :
Name History investigation is required for Blackhush
Special Forms: Full Edit, Adoption
Additional Details
 
Bans Information:
Blackhush has been compiled into the bans records based on his/her physical traits.
Blackhush is a Male cat with Long Black fur.
He is of Medium-large size and Semi-foreign build. He has Blue eyes and a Normal tail. He is of non-purebred decent.