Ladybird [WindClan]

Appearance:

A purebred Somali cat, Ladybird's unique appearance sets her apart from her fellow Clanmates. Her fur is a vibrant shade of dark orange ticked with red, unmarred by stripes or markings of any kind, save for a dark streak across her forehead, and a soft white rim enclosing her mouth. The she-cat's thick coat is light and airy, with each individual hair hanging loosely and delicately from her skin. Her pelt keeps her warm in the coldest of leaf-bares and surprisingly cool in green-leaf, despite its layering. Her wide face and large golden eyes give her a welcoming appearance despite her introverted nature. Perhaps her most striking feature is her tail, a fluffy dark plume that she carries proudly. Her tail color is a soft gradient, tipped with a rich earth color and tapering down to a soft, muted gray-brown. Another area of interest that is also particularly fuzzy is the space between her toes, where wild puffs of fur stick out in great warm tufts and act as perfect "snow shoes." As the runt of her litter, she is short in stature for her age, but her legs are unusually long and lithe, carrying her swiftly along the ground as she runs and allowing her quick and nimble reflexes. As a Somali, she is also a tad more muscular than the average cat, but only just.

Personality:

Ladybird is not a timid creature, though she does not particularly enjoy company. She keeps to herself, preferring to observe rather than join in on extroverted activities. As a kit, she hardly mewed a word, but with her transition into Clan life, she became somewhat more accustomed to socialization. She will entertain the odd question and even strike up a short conversation, but talking is not her forte. When she does speak, Ladybird selects her words carefully, and is not prone to speaking her mind without a great deal of inner reflection and thought. A pleasant and quiet session of sharing tongues is a much more acceptable past-time in her mind.

Some cats may view her as cold for her stern replies and strict adherence to the warrior code, but Ladybird is a gentle creature at heart. Her kittypet origins have pushed her to take no nonsense when it comes to rule breakers, and her apprentices have been known to be particularly obedient to avoid her scorn. While her reprimands are rarely made in anger -- in fact, it is quite difficult to get under this cat's skin -- her gaze can burn if she allows it, but only when she needs to make a point. Although she is serious and can be harsh at times, yes, she is and more apt to listen to logical reasoning than emotional feelings. Despite her experiences as a kit, she is soft-hearted and patient.

History:
Ladybird, along with her two brothers and three sisters, was born as a kittypet to a Twoleg Somali breeder in a well-renowned cattery. Her parents, Firefly and Miss Mantis, were both well-known for their conformation in the show ring, a quality which they passed on their kits. Despite her prestigious lineage, as the youngest of six in a rather large litter, Ladybird, then called Priestess, was a feeble runt. During her kit hood, she was highly susceptible to allergies, coughs, and general sickliness, a fault which greatly hampered her growth. She remembers little from this time but the bright artificial lights of veterinary hospitals, painful shots, foul-tasting medicine, and the poking and prodding of doctors.

This frequent trauma hushed the kit into what seemed like a permanent silence to her fretful parents. She spoke very little, if at all, enduring her treatment period with hard set eyes and a firmly shut jaw. She did not play with her siblings and did not attempt to build a relationship with any of her brothers or sisters, confiding only in herself and her own thoughts. Her brothers and sisters were oddly respectful of her wishes, though less for the sake of her mentality and more because she was, as her brother Sherlock had put it, "not even mouse tail's worth of fun!"

Her suffering was magnified when, at the age of not quite two moons, she and her siblings were taken from their mother's nest by a pair of greedy thugs in the pet trade. Though her Twoleg owners frantically filed a report to their local authorities, the thieves' craftiness -- at least for the time that Ladybird spent in their "care" (or lack of it) -- was too great. The police would not locate the guilty Twolegs until long after Ladybird and her siblings had left their posession.

The kits were taken to an abandoned Twoleg nest and housed in small cages with sharp wire mesh floors that bloodied their feet and made their tiny legs ache. Joining them were a variety of other purebred kits, most somewhat older than the Somalis, but none more than a dozen moons of age. All of the cats were permitted out of their prisons once a day at sunset, during which time they were allowed to stretch their legs on cold, grimy floors and interact with one another. This was the only activity the kits could look forward to, and many took advantage of it to share tongues and lift each others spirits. Ladybird, however, avoided the other kits, as their presence and rough and tumble play mentally exhausted her. She preferring instead to watch them from a dusty corner.

After a quarter-moon of this horrible captivity, one by one, Ladybird's siblings began to disappear, sold on the black market to the Twolegs would pay the highest price for their pedigrees. Though she was not close to any of her brothers or sisters, Ladybird began to miss the sound of their chatter and laughter, as infrequent as it had become since their kitnapping. At last, Ladybird was the only remaining Somali kit. While she was still let out for "exercise," her time outside of her confinement brought her little pleasure.

At the age of roughly six moons, lonely and miserable, Ladybird finally decided to put her paw down, and began to craft an escape plan alone. As the seasons turned to green-leaf, the Twolegs were forced to open their windows to allow air to circulate throughout the abandoned nest. Mesh wire prevented Ladybird from escaping immediately, but over the course of several days, she chewed and scratched away at the base of the mesh and was able to tear a hole in the wire large enough for her to slip through unnoticed, leaving but a few of her golden orange hairs as a testament to her newfound freedom.

Now liberated from the rule of Twolegs, Ladybird sought the safety of the hedges that separated the Twoleg nests from the moorland beyond. She sheltered there for several days, surviving on sparrows made gritty from their pursuit of food in nearby Twoleg parking lots. It was on morning of the third day that she was discovered by a WindClan patrol. Among them was Sunstar, then Sunpaw, who persuaded her mentor to allow the kit to join the clan. Ladybird later discovered that Sunpaw, once a loner, empathized with the scruffy kit and unfortunate state.

Upon returning to camp, the young Somali explained her situation and her kittypet past. She was dubbed Ladypaw, the prefix mocking her life with the Twolegs. Because of her kittypet roots and the biased opinions of some of her Clanmates, she did not receive her warrior name until several moons after her friend Sunpaw, but this added time as an apprentice only served to allow her to prove her diligence and loyalty to the clan even further. She mentored three apprentices in her time as a warrior and hopes to continue to pass her knowledge of the warrior code on to future kits, along with the message that the circumstances of one's birth do not necessarily speak of one's character.