Magpiestrike

Magpiestrike is a white, dark cream and black she-cat with a long floofy tail and lime-green eyes.

Kithood
Magpiekit was born to two warriors named Mouseburrow and Waspwing, the latter of which is the deputy's brother. She had two other siblings, Sparrowkit and Heronkit, and got along great with them as kits. However, a pandemic in the clan led to the death of her siblings before her 3rd moon of life. At that time, her mother kept trying to return to her warrior duties while Waspwing's elder sister Dotfur moved into the nursery to give birth to her own son Longkit. Magpiekit became friends with Gingerkit, another kit in the nursery.

Her father was very strict with her, since she was his only surviving kit. He would take her to the moors and spend literal hours lecturing her about how she needed to succeed in life, being the descendent of leaders and deputies, and her own aunt being the deputy after her. The pressure from her parents, as well as eavesdropping on other cats about Longkit being half-clan, caused her to start bullying her younger cousin and the other tom in the nursery, Bigkit. She genuinely cared about her friend, but just got used to bullying others.

Apprenticeship
Magpiepaw was hyped to actually get out of the nursery and be able to have fun and run on the moors with her friend. She craved the freedom to make her own decisions. She was given the warrior Harehorn as a mentor. Things started off alright, their relationship was like that of a normal mentor and apprentice for the first half-moon. Then... Harehorn's behavior got weird and twisted. He started playing into her own self doubts, her fear of disappointing her parents, her anxiety and loneliness. He started preying on her and using her for his own sick pleasures.

When Magpiepaw tried to fight back against his behavior, threatening to spill the beans of what he was doing to her, he threatened to tell Aspenstar to demote her back to the nursery, under grounds of her bullying the other apprentices and behaving like a child. Magpiepaw kept her mouth shut, afraid of her parents shunning her, and started actively avoiding her mentor. Of course, she couldn't ask for another mentor without being told she was being ridiculous- Harehorn was an excellent warrior. She also couldn't avoid him for long, as he was still required to spend a lot of time with her for training, and then his idea of "training".

She started to isolate herself a lot more, spending more time with just Gingerpaw and no one else. She could barely eat, and barely took care of herself right after the first incident. She also started to hate her cousin, who everyone seemed to trip tail over paws to help and defend him, despite the fact in her mind, he didn't deserve it. He got to go to all the gatherings, he got to get away with fighting with everyone- just because he was Aspenstar's favorite. Where was all this 'for her?! Why couldn't she get that kind of love?! WHY COULDN'T ANYONE LOVE HER?'

Out of sheer stress and anxiety, Magpiepaw started turning to other methods of venting. One of them was bumping up the harassment of Longpaw and Bigpaw, with Gingerpaw at her side. However, it didn't always work out since Longpaw was a ticking bomb half the time and wasn't afraid of attacking cats who harassed him. The other coping mechanism she got was huffing heather. Heather is a calming herb, often spread in nests to help those with stress or grief, but Magpiepaw would huff it to a concerning degree. She would even spend nights out in the heather fields, just inhaling the flowers.

During the aftermath of the curly storm that devastated Moorclan's camp and prey, Magpiepaw turned her aggression to the Duneclan medicine cat Sunnyrivulet who'd come to help with the Caveclan medicine cat Nightingalesong. She and Gingerpaw attacked Longpaw and Sunnyrivulet when they went off to get supplies for the injured clan. Longpaw busted up her paw severely, getting bitten by his freakishly long fangs, and then attempted to blame Longpaw for the fight. However, Sunnyrivulet offered his word as a witness and the two she-cats got in trouble.

Magpiepaw's paw was badly hurt so she had to stay in the medicine den for a while. Her mentor had mentioned they would have a 'word' when the two of them recovered- Harehorn having been injured during a border scuffle against Duneclan. Having to share a den with the cat who repeatedly hurt her drove her mad, and she snuck out of camp to go get her fix of heather (and so she could have a panic attack where no one could see her.).

That was when she ran into the loner named Viper, a druggie and former clan cat. He tended to lean more towards catmint, the stronger stuff. Magpiepaw was distrustful of him at first, thinking he had poor intentions towards her. However, the pair of them became friends and even had an older brother/younger sister dynamic going on. Viper had opened up to her about his past demons, and Magpiepaw considered opening up to him. She eventually told him what Harehorn had been doing to her for almost her entire apprenticeship, and she was in tears of happiness that he actually cared and was genuinely angry with Harehorn, not her. However, she was still hesitant to actually do anything against Harehorn- she was afraid her clan would believe her mentor over her and a loner's words.

Once she healed she threw herself into hunting to restock the freshkill pile, trying to distant herself from Harehorn as much as possible. She continued to hang out with Viper when she could. She and Gingerpaw went out one day to go hunting together and hang out, and she got to introduce her two friends. However, Gingerpaw got the wrong idea and thought the two of them were together. Magpiepaw assured her friend that Viper and her were not together, and Viper showed them the way to a rabbit warren. The pair of them made a plan to keep the location a secret and farm the rabbits to feed their clan and possibly earn their warrior names.

However, her happy mood didn't last long, as spotting Harehorn caused her to freak out in front of her friend, who didn't understand why she wanted to avoid her mentor to the point she literally ran from him. Magpiepaw didn't feel like she could open up to Gingerpaw about the abuse, and ended up snapping at Gingerpaw in the ensuing argument. She didn't know about her friend's feelings for her, and how Gingerpaw had made the assumption that Viper and Magpiepaw were a thing. Magpiepaw went to isolate herself in the apprentice den, feeling miserable.

Warrior
Magpiepaw earned her warrior name a few days after her argument with Gingerpaw, the two of them gaining the names Magpiestrike and Gingersnap. Magpiestrike earned the approval of her father for once, but her friend was still angry with her after snapping at her. Magpiestrike had meant to say that she felt more comfortable telling Viper about her personal troubles because it was less likely to become heard amongst the clan, but Gingersnap had read it as her friend not trusting her enough to keep a secret.

Magpiestrike ran off to decompress and cry, when she stumbled across the last thing she expected- an abandoned litter of kits, starving in a cluster of trees. Magpiestrike quickly fed the starving kits, as one of them was in rough shape and another had been stung by bees. The two tom kits, Wild and Four, took a pretty quick liking to her, and soon all the kits had become attached to her as she treated them much better than their abusive mother.

Magpiestrike had a lot of explaining to do when she was caught with five young kits, but the decision was made to keep the kits in the care of Moorclan when they were checked out by Birchroot- provided that Magpiestrike took primary care of them. Magpiestrike originally didn't want to- she wanted to help the kits, sure, but she didn't want to become a queen and sit around all day when she really needed to make up with her friend.

However, after a confrontation with her abuser, Magpiestrike warmed up to the idea of caring for these kits. Harehorn had come into the medicine den to see what the fuss was about, she felt a rush of protective energy she'd never felt before and had put herself between the kits and him, hissing and spitting. The kits automatically labeled Harehorn as a threat- unlike the clan kits, who were raised in close proximity with the black tom and taught to trust the warriors, these kits only knew to trust each other. And when their new mama became distressed by the mere presence of this tom- it put them into high alert. Zero gave a signal of danger to her siblings, and the tom kits went on the offensive, all of them ready to fight off a tom twice their size.

This filled Magpiestrike with a warm fuzzy feeling that she hadn't felt in a while- hope. She started taking care of them, trying to keep them from destroying camp while they regained weight. Anytime Harehorn came near her the kits would behave defensively, giving her enough warning to get away from him. Her father Waspwing, whom she hadn't really talked to much since she became an apprentice, came to visit her from time to time. When she expressed her discomfort about Harehorn being near her and the kits, he immediately went to Aspenstar and demanded that Harehorn be forced to stay away from her. This wish was followed, and Magpiestrike finally had room to breathe without feeling panicky all the time.