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GOOSESTAR

Goosestar is built for agility - somewhat on the taller side, with a limber frame. His short, thick fur is usually windswept, though well-groomed enough to be passable, a frequent aftermath of his lifestyle. He has soft facial features, somewhat rounded, with long, straight whiskers and earthy hazel eyes. His fur is a soft grey-blue, with thin staggered stripes, his undersides countershaded gently into a slightly paler shade. His ears are nicked, his musculature lean - it is not until closer inspection that one will generally be able to discern his physical ability. He also has a long tail, well suited to keeping his balance in the trees.

Laid-back and fun-loving, those that haven't seen the way Goosestar leaps into action may well assume him to be lazy. He makes the most of his downtime, mingling openly among his clan without a care in the world for his rank, sunbathing when the light filters through the treetops just right, or engaging in frequent runs through the canopies. It's easy to underestimate him, and he knows it - and he uses this to his full advantage if he feels he needs to, picking out who is most trustworthy from even the smallest interaction. Generally, he puts on appearances for those he is unsure of the intentions of, almost by habit after Sorrelstar's death. It is difficult, to the untrained eye, to tell when the mask stops, with how he plays up his well-meaning slips and ineptness.

He can be obstinate on occasion, especially when it comes to his clan's wellbeing, but he works hard to ensure every voice is heard and that his decisions are not ruled by stubbornness.

He prides himself on diplomacy, on thinking before he acts most of the time, and talking things out with others if he is able to. He is usually a staunchly neutral party until his paw is forced or he feels strongly about something. It is wise, though, never to mistake his laissez-faire attitude and middling outward opinions for complacency - he leads his clan from the front without second thought if the situation turns sour.

Robinglow's pregnancy - the first and only she would ever have - was either an accident or a softly smothered fling, and due to it being her first litter, it was not unusual that only one kit resulted from the long labour. She and the tomkit's father, an esteemed senior warrior named Frosttail, maintained a respectful, yet somewhat awkwardly fraught, distance for most of Goosekit's kittenhood. His parents were more obsessed with avoiding each other than really parenting their son for a long, long time, thus losing out on bonding with him when it mattered most. He was a placid child, generally content with most things until he learned how to run, and for several moons before his apprenticeship he ran the warriors ragged in trying to rope them into games of whatever he felt like that morning. He was by no means troublesome, polite and respectful of his elders, but he was a pawful regardless.

Whether Batstar knew of his parental issues or not is relatively unknown, but it seemed to matter little once it became time to begin his training. Goosepaw, already half a head taller than most of his peers, was entrusted to Frosttail’s tutelage in the hopes that it would calm him down. In some ways, it worked - his wild side settled, though how much of that can be attributed to his mentor versus his age is still up for interpretation - but the two never quite got along, mostly due to the lack of effort on his father’s part during his early life. Goosepaw never quite trusted him, nor his efforts to reach out, and it was at this point that he learned how to pretend, at first for the sake of getting along with his mentor, but later for the sake of getting what he needed - and sometimes, just what he wanted. He became well liked, or well tolerated, among most of his peers, either due to genuine likeability or subtle attempts to get people on his good side - Goosepaw learned early that whilst it didn’t bother him if other cats didn’t like him, it did one a lot better to be liked. He didn’t really know what it was to be loved entirely, not with the problems that begot his birth, and thus never truly knew how to trust properly, but did his best to be friends with whomever he could anyway, striking up random conversation and running little errands for others where he could.

It was during his apprenticeship that he met Cherrypaw, a tom so close to himself in age he swore he remembered him from the nursery. He’d often see the red and white shape doing his best to make himself as small as possible despite his large stature, and he swore he saw him slip out of camp at least once. The other cat’s introversion intrigued him, and he cemented himself on befriending this other apprentice, having not really formed any actual close attachments throughout his life, especially not one his own age - he had plenty of other friends, yes, but nothing he would say was quite close to his heart. He chatted to Cherrypaw as often as he could, brought the other tom his favourite prey a few times a moon - none of it ever quite felt like Cherrypaw returned the sentiments, but he kept going anyway, part in hope that he’d respond someday, partly because spending time in quiet company was… kind of nice, actually.

Those walls he put up as a young tom would never quite come down for the rest of his life, not quite thorned in bramble, but as he grew older, the vines only grew thicker. He failed his first warrior assessment, and blamed it on his parents’ distance even then. He worked so hard to pass on his second try that he made himself ill, and when Frosttail died following wounds sustained in a coyote attack, he sat the Starwatch almost purely as a formality. Goosebreeze continued his attempts to befriend the newly-named Cherrydawn, and finally, it seemed like they were getting somewhere. It was slow progress, so slow, but they got closer, certainly; it could almost be said that Cherrydawn, Goosebreeze swears, smiled once when he approached to sit with him and talk his ear off in a sunbeam, as had become their routine.

Sorrelstar had taken over around his naming, after Batstar’s heroic death, and immediately became notorious for indecision. Going through two deputies in ten moons simply due to stripping them of their position was a lot, and Goosebreeze knew that. He had gained his first apprentice quite quickly, Kestrelpaw, a little spitfire of a she-cat, and this inspired him to develop his own integrity, to be a better role model for her, to show her how a cat should connect with others, what trust and care was like. He worked just as hard during her training as she did, teaching her carefully everything he knew, and she taught him how to slightly, just slightly, open himself up to others. It was little surprise when Sorrelstar once again decided to swap his deputy after demoting yet another one that Goosebreeze was the pick with the way he turned himself around.

Somehow, he managed to work his charm on Sorrelstar for long enough, making himself smaller and bigger and smarter and more lax in ways that were amicable, that he did not meet his leader’s ire. When the Sickness hit, Sorrelstar was one of the first to get it, and he pushed it down, claiming it to be a cough, nothing more, until it rendered him unable to move from his nest. Goosebreeze petitioned Summitclan for their aid, asking their leader and medicine cat for the herbs they needed to heal their Clan seeing as Summitclan was the only territory that it grew on. They barely coughed anything up, after some hushed conversations, not enough to save Sorrelstar’s life.

Goosebreeze, Goosestar, blamed them for it ever since, and in his short tenure as leader so far, the secret has not quite been quiet, but his Clan’s harmony comes above all - does it come above war?