Jaywhisker ;; TC ;; Deputy

[spike]

Name: Jaywhisker
Age: 46 moons
Gender: Tom
Clan: ThunderClan
Rank: Deputy
Apprentice: Duskpaw
Love Interest: None
Kin:

Shadowtail;; father, deceased
Ravenclaw;; mother, deceased
Lilypaw;; daughter, Amber
Rookpaw;; son, Syd

Appearance:

Picture

Had there ever been a cat that could be described as a tank, this would be the one. While definitely not tall, Jaywhisker is very well build and thick in bones. Even in leafbare he’ll look quite terrifying with his build. He’s not a sort of cat that is meant for quickness but rather pure strength. He’s clumsy and lumbering when it comes to his gait, slow moving and seemingly unrushed. He’s always like this. Jaywhisker has paws and legs too big for the normal cat, merely each being trunks more than legs. And each paw is huge, better off for a bat to the head than catching tiny mice. Accompanied is his too-small head, one with softly rounded features that are regal and for sure. A tiny triangular nose, pure black in color, rests on a small muzzle. On top, ears that are small in width but thick in skin, fluffed out with streaks of hair from within and out.

His coloration is a grayish color that once carried a shimmer of lightest blue. But due to lack of care, it has lost its luster and shine making him more of an ashy gray, dull and faint in quality. Jaywhisker’s coat is long-haired and fluffed with an undercoat of much paler gray, this same color reflecting across his muzzle slightly and the ear hairs. His whiskers are stark white and very long for a cat, an obvious trait he has not forgotten, especially in his name. What remains are his eyes, a pale yellow that looks like time had worn them out already, what once might’ve been silver now highly tarnished into a weary, misunderstood shade of gold. While a powerful warrior, Jaywhisker looks as cold as he has turned.

Personality:

Stern & Serious;; This is a no-nonsense tom. What might’ve once been a very fun-loving and active creature, Jaywhisker has lost all will to play and such. He doesn’t like seeing rule-bending and most certainly will not have his warriors goofing around. Any apprentice of his will have to learn that it takes a very long time for him to ever warm up that much. He doesn’t like jokes very much though perhaps deep down he does. What one sees as a very strict character might just be a cover up for something else. He pulls it off well though and he does it every day. It hides the scars of the past he has made on himself and others. Maybe it is fear that causes him to do this, fear of being hurt or hurting others.

Dedicated & Work-Oriented;; What is true though, even if he hides something, is that he is well concerned over his work. It seems as if he cares very little about a family life or friend life as much as he does keeping the Clan moving. Even as an apprentice he would spend more time doing work over friendship. A workaholic, more of. He likes to work and stays true to it because it seems to be the only thing he knows he can’t mess up badly. He’d prefer to work because at least with work there’s straight lines, rules, easy ways to follow and no emotions to get involved with it. If all goes well.

Self-Abusing & Depressed;; Due to his past, however, he constantly gets down on himself and has to cover only more up. A face of lies he puts on to make sure none see how badly torn up he is over Sunny’s death. He tends to find himself haunted by the cries and his mistakes and does anything he can to avoid even coming into contact with those memories. This uncontrolled side of him is banished from his mind as much as it can, but when it arises, it’s fierce and loud, intense and feral. And it takes all its rage out on himself. It’s no surprise very few cats see this side. It’s the Jaywhisker only Sunny knew.

Afraid & Romantically Scarred;; He puts up this tough side because he’s actually very scared. When his mate died and he gave his kits up, Jaywhisker started to worry about the bonds he made. He never really recovered from the emotional shock of losing the ones he loved most. So he has blocked off his heart to romance forever because it crumbled under that blow. Jaywhisker has to try so hard not to collapse and just give up because he doesn’t like knowing what he’s lost. He’s very afraid and inside there’s a coward trembling.

Secretive & Protective;; The reason nobody sees these parts is because he’s very secretive with his life. Hence why nobody found out about Sunny or the kits, minus the rogue. Jaywhisker is good about keeping himself protected from that and so the grumpy tom everybody knows is what was created. And naturally he’s always had a sense of need to protect since his kits. He had been so excited to be a father that the paternal needs washed over to others when he lost the youngsters. Subtle and sometimes misread, his angry take is just how it goes. He does care, he does have a heart… somewhere.

History:

Shadowtail and Ravenclaw were not the classic story. Or rather they weren’t the classic cats. Shadowtail was bubbly and friendly, Ravenclaw being childish and outgoing. They were loving and young when they had their only kit. And when they did, he was very, very different from them. Though yes, Shadowtail and Ravenclaw were not concerned with looks, it was how he was that made them concerned. He wasn’t nearly as friendly and outgoing as they were. He didn’t interest himself in kit games, rather preferring to watch and only join when he had a plan made. For Jaykit, he was constantly used to the embarrassing fact that his parents were more the kits and him the adult.

Being a single kit in his litter, he didn’t have many companions minus young apprentices or kits born after him. Not that he was concerned about that, he always had done better alone. His mother showed a lot of concern over Jaykit, trying to make sure he wasn’t going to end up lonely. Yet he personally avoid her and others because he had more fun lounging in the shade, listening in on the talk of the elders or pretending to hunt with leaves. It wasn’t exceptionally extravagant, his kithood moons, but they passed with a slow agony of wishing for apprenticeship.

And the day finally came when Jaypaw was given his name. The tom’s mentor was an older she-cat, Berryheart. She wasn’t as sweet as her name suggested though. If anything, she was closer to a deathberry in his mind. And yet nobody had more influence on him than her. She was stern and unforgiving with her training, sure that if he was going to work, he’d work hard for it. She never had an apprentice that didn’t go through such rough treatment, but they always ended up great warriors. She saw he was a good fighter and hunter, average at best. But when it came to determination, she had to give him credit for withstanding her fighting spirit.

Jaypaw for the most part enjoyed those days with Berryheart. If she was going to be a crazy mentor, let her. He was just glad he wasn’t being treated like he was some lonely poor kit anymore. And it seemed like it’d be a relatively short lived time of pure work. Except he stumbled across a kit one day, a tiny red tabby with large, beautiful eyes of what seemed to be green earth and blue sky melding together. She was so small then, hardly more than three or four moons old. Jaypaw was unconcerned for kits and decided to attempt ignoring her. She smelled of loner lineage anyways. But the kit laughed and followed him for a while. She was definitely annoying then.

But she busted through something that Jaypaw had been resisting. He stopped and decided to help the kit find its mother, since he assumed it couldn’t just be a random loner kit. She told him her name was Sunny and the then ten moon old apprentice decided he’d keep Sunny as a secret. Nobody would care if he helped a kit, right? After a wasted hunt spent searching, he did manage to find Sunny’s mother. Lola thanked him immediately before walking off with the youngster. That should’ve been the end. But fate is not so simple like that. It’s a very twisted, evil thing that entwines two pathes together time and time again.

Jaypaw earned his warrior name of Jaywhisker and had, at this point, forgotten Sunny. He continued to keep that one time thing out of his head. Then when he reached his twentieth moon, fate stepped in. While out for patrol, a couple of loners attacked his group. It was a quick skirmish, hardly more than a few heartbeats before the loners decided it wasn’t worth their fur and tucked tail, running for the hills. Jaywhisker, being a young and foolish warrior, raced after them despite the warriors telling him to come back. He wasn’t going to let loners get away with that. The chase drew him all the way out to four trees where he managed to capture the two that had attacked him. And he was astonished to see faces of long before.

Lola and Sunny.

Sunny was no longer a fluffy little kit though. She had turned into a beautiful young cat, slim and staring at him with those eyes of blue and green. Beauty. “Jay,” she whispered, recognizing his face in return. Lola was in too much shock to approach but Sunny had never been a coward. She was bold and foolish when she just walked over to Jaywhisker and grinned at him. “Jay! Remember me?”

Another secret was born then. His “old friend” the loner. Jaywhisker tried to scare her off but Sunny could only chuckle and swat his nose lovingly, saying how he never changed from when he tried to ignore her as a kitten. Which was true. Another lock was undone in his heart, familiarity he had not shared with anybody. Since that day, he and Sunny met up at random times, often she went searching for him on his hunts. While the warriors were well aware of an unknown cat on their territory, she was very careful and managed to avoid it for a long time. Well, until Jaywhisker convinced her to meet him away from ThunderClan. No reason to cause unneeded trouble.

It was just a friendship, he thought. Just something he could have until it was time to let the dream end. But the dream never did end. The dream never ceased to surprise him as friendship grew into true friends, then a crush, and eventually something far more. In the diminishing warmth of leaf-fall, both Shadowtail and Ravenclaw fell ill and died. It was very sudden and Jaywhisker was horrified that his parents had to end in such a way. He had always loved them but regret overflowed when he realized he had never treated them as if they were his parents. When he met Sunny the night after, he cried. Cried long and hard until he pleaded her to be his mate. Sunny was all too aware of the warrior code and tried to tell him no. She knew what it would do.

Jaywhisker wouldn’t have no for an answer though. He said he’d rather she knew how much he loved her and to father her kits, to love her true and dear, before something happened to him or her. She was uneasy about it. However, the two did share a love that was true, honest and built on long time. He was thirty-four when she became his mate. But he realized how stupid he was when leafbare hit stronger than ever. It was so bad, everything went downhill from the moment they met up, his mate heavy with kits and him swelled with pride. When she went into labor and gave him two little ones.

The black tom which reminded him so much of his father, Jaywhisker and Sunny agreed to call Shadow. The other, a pale replica of her mother, was named purely by the mother. For some reason, she wished to name her daughter Dakota. She said it was what her sister’s name was to be had Lola not had a stillborn kit. That moment, it should’ve just stood still in time, stopped there before the rocks tumbled down. In that moment, Jaywhisker was honestly happy and in love. For a little bit.

When his kits neared a moon, something happened, something that seemed to be unrealistic. Sunny got sick. An infection, something that her body could not fight. He wanted so bad to bring her to the medicine cat, reveal his mistake just to save her. Her wishes were to avoid the clans though. She did not want to ruin poor Jaywhisker’s life all over her. Besides, the infection was quick, there was no time to act. Her body was too weak to handle it and in the middle of the night, with Jaywhisker at her side, she just slipped away and disappeared from their lives, his, Shadow’s, and Dakota’s.

Claws tore his heart from the very core out of his body and cast the remains before him. It was like he had lost the will to bother, to try anymore. Jaywhisker could not go on with this and he refused to bring back the reminders of his lover to his Clan. He could suffer only once and no more. He took Shadow and Dakota and raced for the barn he knew the loners and rogues inhabited. He knew Sunny had had friends here and he was determined to find one that could take the kits away from him forever.

Frostflower was the cat he left the two kits with. He didn’t give many answers besides the whereabouts of Sunny’s body to have her be buried by them. Then he knelt and nuzzled each kit a final time. He had nothing to say that could make up for what he was doing. So he merely murmured in their ears, “daddy loves you very much. I’ll always love you.” But he couldn’t say more than that before he ran away from them, from the past.

He thought it’d be forever. Least he hoped it would be. He returned and was shocked when life did seem to go on naturally. He became Ashstar’s deputy eventually, sad that the old leader had died but glad to serve and show the loyalty he had forgotten with Sunny. Jaywhisker never really did say it was for love or the kits that he disobeyed the warrior code. He just seems to forget he ever had a mate or kits at all. The scars left with losing Sunny prevented him from giving a damn. Life had no meaning besides working for the Clan, making sure others stuck to the way the warriors were meant to be, perhaps protecting them from having to suffer the pain he went through.

Except they came back.

When Dakota and Shadow were welcomed into the Clan as Lilypaw and Rookpaw, Jaywhisker had to run away where he fell and cried, only being reminded of Sunny when Lilypaw looked into his eyes. He wanted so bad to either cast them out of the very Clan they are partially made of or tell them who he was, tell them again how much he loved them. But it was impossible. He feared telling them, feared their reactions. Sunny would want them happy anyways, and the deputy was convinced he could provide no happiness.

Every day Jaywhisker finds himself torn up more and more over seeing them. He personally avoids them because he doesn’t know how much his heart can take before it gives up. Nobody knows pain until they know what it’s like to watch the happiness of your kits grow without you. Jaywhisker asks himself every day if he is truly their father or merely a figment of forgotten imaginations.

”Daddy loves you very much. I’ll always love you.”

Roleplaying Example: See Mudpaw
Name Meaning:

Jay-;; for his pure gray fur
-whisker;; for his tracking abilities

Other: 000F73
Status: Healthy

[. s p o r e l e t t ♪]