Difference between revisions of "Alderheart"

Alderheart's coat is a focus on none-too-subtle contrasts. Made up, as it is, of a light and dark color scheme of tawny and deep umber, it seems as though little bands of fur have been charred by nature's hand in a pattern might serve best as a reminder of the play of shadows and light beneath the forest's many trees, with the lighter tawny shade fading into a sizable dollop of cream white that marks his chin. Further down, a smaller dollop of cream coloring is set directly in the center of his collarbone. The small blaze, one would thus assume, would serve to call an equal amount of attention to itself for its placement as for the contrasting color scheme that it helps to enhance, much like the ring of umber surrounding lime green eyes that, upon closer inspection, contain a dusting of yellow and tan flecks.

Despite the fact that Alderheart prefers to gravitate toward those cats appearing to suffer from some form of mania or another (or perhaps it is they who seek him out for their own reasons), the kindness and care with which he tends to handle these unpredictable fellow felines, his attitude is, generally speaking, is a spurious one. His kindness is not precisely genuine (8 times out of 10), and declarations of friendship are not always heartfelt, but more moods and tones affected for the sake of simple necessity. Simply put, he has found that it is generally easier to act and interact with fellow clan members and others when they have reason to trust him or, at the very least, no particular reason to distrust him.

A layer of kindness surrounding a manipulative disposition, a favor for a cat in need, these are the things which he believes will allow him to better the clan and thereby make his mark on history. The world, after all, is always much easier when it's going your way and he serves to prove this at every turn; forming alliances, taking the words of others to heart in case they may be of later use, attempting to form lasting friendships with the more promising members of the clan, those that seem surely destined for greater works in their lifetimes. Thus he always makes the greatest of attempts to keep in control, adjusting his disposition to suit to the given mood of situation, carefully constructing and reconstructing it as needed, simply because it is easier to wear a clever mask, than to bear one's truest soul. So, if there is an ego in need of a good stroking, then he shall be the one most likely to stroke it.

In essence, nothing could so surely suit him as the mask he has adopted in attempts to hide his true feelings and aims. With his tarnished soul (or what he believes to be a tarnished soul), rife with a power hungry ambition as it is, this masking effect allows for any longings for a true companion to be set aside with something nearing, but not quite reaching, a certain level of ease. But nothing worthwhile is ever going to be easy, is it? No principle can stand on itself, and yet, what else does it have to stand on? These are the kinds of thoughts which often occupy his ever cluttered mind, questions racing past one another, colliding with statements, each vying for dominance at one time or another. And what does he have to show for it? Nothing yet, but his relative youth allows him to remain jaded, to cling to the hope that he is one destined for greatness within RiverClan, the one upon whom will fall the task of altering, and thereby stabilizing it from the shadows. His views and high self-expectations make for much frustrating at the best of times, and a goodly number of trees suffer claw marks of frustration as a result, for he believes that unleashing his temper upon his fellow clan members would be a mistake, if not altogether detrimental to his personal aims.

As is the way with most kits, Alderkit was named an apprentice at the ripe age of six moons, and granted the name Alderpaw, so that he might display his new-founded status as an apprentice. The task of mentoring him was assigned to Fancyfoot, and the two seemed well suited to one another's moods to say the least, making it a very enjoyable apprenticeship as far as Alderpaw was concerned at the time. Looking back upon it, there are a number of things that he might have done differently during the earlier stages of his apprenticeship, but the name of the game is live and learn and, under Fancyfoot's careful tutelage, he did just that, finding that he enjoyed his lessons immensely more often than not.

His first expedition around the territory inspired a certain awe and an anticipation of what would one day be his job; patrolling. At that stage in his life, the hunting and border patrols both had seemed marvelous things, great things that he aspired to reach all the sooner for having been able to witness and learn about them from afar. However, whereas a good number of cats came to an instant liking to hunting and fighting, Alderpaw was more fascinated by the Warrior's Code, and all that it meant to their great Clan. To him, their could have been nothing more worth memorizing than the Warrior's Code, for it dictated the way in which they were to live their lives to a great extent. Though, admittedly, at first, it puzzled him. Why was there a need for such a code? Where did it come from? But in time, the majority of his code based questions found themselves answered. It appeared that occasionally, time really did tell all.

When Fancyfoot finally felt that he could hold his own in both fighting and hunting, which happened to be around the time that he'd started taking his growing restlessness out other apprentices who, (in his own personal opinion, biased as it was) seemed to go out of their way to rile him at times. Alderpaw’s final hunting assessment was set soon after and, upon meeting with the success that his mentor seemed to have expected he would all along (for, by then, he'd had time enough to prove himself to Fanyfoot), Fancyfoot met with Duskystar to inform him that Alderpaw was, indeed, ready to become a full-fledged warrior.

At twelve moons, Alderheart was ready to move on, to join the patrols, and do his part in order to prolong the survival of RiverClan. In his mind's eyes, he could see himself dong anything it took to prove himself in the eyes of those who saw him as nothing more than another young upstart of a warrior, too anxious to get himself into combat because, in the end, he wasn't at all anxious to find himself in a fight with anyone (though he could hold his own well enough when provoked), let alone a rival clan member. Instead, he found himself looking forward to the solitude that came with venturing being both allowed to and capable of venturing out on his own, and the heady rush of feeling that came with helping a fellow clansmate. That being said, he was all set to make friends with those closest to him in age and, at 14 moons, had amassed quite the network of cobwebs to tend to (or so he seemed to believe), which included several younger warriors and apprentices, as well as a senior warrior or two, though their actual feelings about him often tends to differ in a various array of ways from what he perceives, as is often the way with such things. He was both ready and willing to make his mark on the world; or rather, he'd thought he was and, while border patrols, having been remarkably quiet and simple whenever he was sent off (which wasn't overly often), reinforced his feeling of self-worth, hunting patrols were generally another matter altogether.

In a single day, fish had suddenly become the bane of his existence. The pool to which the fish were gravitating, at the time, had made it an ideal spot for catching them, and he'd hoped to snatch one up without a hitch and return quickly, thus further proving his usefulness. Unfortunately for Alderheart, the fish themselves seemed to have a different idea of his altogether. Instead of the victorious food-bringer, Alderheart found himself party to much laughter and many a snickering jest about his dewy paws (because dew always tended to make things a bit slippery) as fish after fish slipped away and disappeared back under the surface. Eventually, finding himself beyond all measure of tolerable frustration, he'd stalked off, only to return later in the day, his fur matted down with a sticky mixture of mud and water, an exhausted look about his slumped form, and a single wriggling salmon clenched between his teeth.