◤ coralpaw ◥

♔ cisgender. he/him. ♔

♔ slender, pretty, coarse-furred white tom with ginger splotches, a ginger tabby tail and amber eyes. ♔

♔ confident. bold. likes battling. has a soft side. dislikes intimacy. dislikes pretending. sensitive to others' opinions. fiercely loyal. firm minded. rude. easily embarrassed. hotheaded. resolute. good at heart. hates being called cute or pretty. definitely a tsundere. ♔

◣ ❝ remember not to get too close to stars ❞ ◢

❦ story ❦

coralpaw had always had a stone-sharp shield with a personality only slightly softer.

perhaps he simply took after his rogue-like father. thornslash was the most battle-hungry warrior in the forest. cats claimed that he fought like a rogue and acted like one too. his mother, sprucewing, who was conversely the most pacifistic warrior, tried her best to mediate her mate, but she could not.

after killing one many other cats in battle, cloudstar banished him for these reckless breaches of the warrior code.

coralkit tried to be happy with just a mother, but he knew that cats whispered behind his back, wondering if he would follow in thornsting's footsteps. his loyalty wavered; who would want to fight alongside cats who didn't trust him?

when coralkit's sixth moon came, cloudstar assigned dolphinsplash to mentor him. she was patient, yet a bit too laid-back. she was wise, and yet she was silly. what kind of cat was this?

she was a cat who knew how to hone coralpaw's potential perfectly.

unlike the majority of the warriors, dolphinsplash held nothing against coralpaw because of his father's actions. she found it ridiculous that someone had to bear the blame of another's actions. so she was able to train coralpaw without bias.

gradually, coralpaw's loyalty became stronger, along with his skills and his mind. the rest of the clan, impressed with dolphinsplash's steadily growing apprentice, slowly began to forget about his father.

the one thing that didn't change was his sharp exterior.

though coralpaw didn't talk back to the warriors, he wasn't exactly warm and friendly to the apprentices. he always had a stinging retort to give whenever someone tried to make him talk... but he could get pretty engaged whenever the rare times came that he actually wanted to socialize.

in reality, coralpaw was scared that the others would hold his father against him, treat him badly for things he couldn't control. was he so wrong to worry? but he was still rude to those who he wanted to talk to, so much so that it was difficult to tell when coralpaw was joking with someone, or truly insulting them.

but coralpaw had no idea how to talk to others in a way that would actually make them feel good, and this later became a problem.

coralpaw grew a grudging respect for the transgender apprentice seapaw- his willpower, his strength. then, against coralpaw's will, his respect evolved into something else.

was it because seapaw was the one who didn't flinch at his sharp tongue, or because he could somehow see he didn't mean any of his insults? or was it because seapaw saw him for who he was underneath- an apprentice who was full of memories and drained of social skills, afraid to act softer lest the others make fun of him. coralpaw tried to shake off his feelings, but it was no use.

how could coralpaw hope to be with someone as sweet as seapaw, when he himself was so brash and brazen? did seapaw even like toms?

still...