[attr="class","arrgenMAINTEXT"]to put it simply, violetdawn is a spitfire of a she-cat.

she has never been one to take anything at face-value. she is constantly critical in her thoughts and actions, knowing that everything has a reason, a purpose, a value. nobody ever does anything because they can, because they have to - there is, always has been, and always will be choice. no cat exists without ulterior motives, without seeking some kind of self-fulfillment in their life from either themself or others. she is a nihilist at heart, and firmly believes that the world that they live in has been cruelly carved into stone, and only many years of gentle tides can wash that wear and tear away - but spilled blood can never be forgotten. her view on the world and everyone in it has never been anything but cynical, and she will fight tooth and nail to prove that everyone and everything was created bad, that to be good is a choice, and a constant one at that.

she is rather puritan, a firm believer that shadowclan blood is strong and doesn't need outsiders muddying it with their filth. she is vocal about her opinions and does not back down - to engage in debate with her is to choose to spend the rest of your afternoon arguing all the breath in your lungs away. to lose is a cardinal sin in her eyes, a mark of shame that can heal, but always leave a scar. whether this be a battle of wits or blood, she will fight until her dying breath is she have to, as she wants, no, needs to be victorious to keep her pride.

violetdawn is intelligent, calculating, observant. she is not impulsive but rather a quick-thinker, and doesn't dare take a step forward until she's analyzed every possible outcome of her next move. her tongue is sharp but her wits are sharper, her claws sharpest, and she isn't afraid to flaunt any of that pure willpower that pulses through her veins. her stubbornness is only one of the many facets that overall build up a she-cat made of pure attitude.

[attr="class","arrgenMAINTEXT"]mother: warblerthorn
siblings: wheatwhisker [m], adderkit [d]
mentor: hawkshadow [m]
apprentices: claystorm [m], pinefrost [f]

it is a hot, humid, blazing summer when you are born. you are named violetkit, your brother wheatkit, and sister adderkit. while you and wheatkit are healthy kits, born crying and howling at the world, adderkit is quiet, small, and sickly. the three of you are born to a single mother named warblerthorn, a molly angry at the world, and certainly none too pleased to be bringing kits into it - kits she didn’t want, no less.

while you and wheatkit thrive under the bare-bones of attention that your mother gives you, with ravishing appetites for milk and the eventual fresh-kill that she begrudgingly brings you, it is adderkit who soon succumbs to her sickness, and passes before you are even two moons old. you and your brother survive the summer, and come leaf-fall, you are healthy and bustling and ready to get out of the nursery. your mother, warblerthorn, is quick to leave once you are fully weaned off. you and wheatkit don’t take this kindly - while guilt seems to build in wheatkit, a breed of sadness, longing for a mother who didn’t wish to have a hair of presence in your lives… anger seemed to begin to burn in you, a spark of an ember, something that would eventually turn into a fully-fledged flame. internally, you place your mother at fault - it wasn’t you who asked to be brought into this world, and yet she seemed fully intent on treating you like the mistakes she saw you both to be. you accept nurturing from the other queens in the nursery - you do not accept coddling, however, and duck away from anything that seems to be an attempt to fill that hole that warblerthorn has left within you.

at the end of leaf-fall, you are apprenticed and named violetpaw, along with your brother being named wheatpaw. your mentor is an experienced, well-respect senior warrior named hawkshadow, a large tom with a stark black pelt, like the night sky. he is huge compared to your tiny frame, but his attitude is bigger. he’s mean, you think, a nasty tom, and though he’s patient, his training regiment is tough. he forces you to train in the cold of leaf-bare unapologetically, and seems intent on passing on his patience to you, as he keeps you crouching in the snow for what feels like hours at a time before finally allowing you to charge through the frost and make your kill. at times, he treats you like a kit, plucking you up from the ground and carrying you as though you didn’t have four fully functional legs of your owns. it drives you mad, and rather than argue with you when you open your mouth to complain, he silences you.

of course, this means you hate him. you hate him, despise him, think the worst things of him and ask that eagles swoop down from the sky and carry him away each night. you tell him this, determined to get under his skin, to see that perfect guard of his break, but he never quite lets you through, never shows an ounce of agitation. it’s infuriating, and what makes it worse is that one day, he sits you down and tells you that acting out on him because of your mother is no way to misplace your anger and handle it. this shakes you to your core, leaves you feeling red hot with rage, and that same day, you leave your sparring partner with a knick in their ear as you feel your emotions get the best of you. hawkshadow isn’t angry - he’s just disappointed. this cuts deep, too deep, and you hate it, and you hate him, and for as much as you threaten to bitch and whine to the leader, he doesn’t seem to care at all.

one day, you learn from one of the older apprentices that, before you were born, hawkshadow had been courting your mother, warblerthorn. that he had fully intended on becoming mates with her. but then she went and had kits with another tom, your father, who you still don’t know the identity of, and… this angers you. bothers you. creeps under your skin like you can’t get under his. you approach, no, confront him about this, and demand to know why he hadn’t become mates with your mom. that maybe, if she had someone, she wouldn’t be such a loser of a warrior. he tells you that she broke his heart, and you demand to know why he doesn’t treat you poorly for this. that you’re the spitting image of her, and how could he not take that anger out on you. he brushes his tail over your shoulders, and tells you that that’s not what good warriors do.

maybe, you decide, you could be a little nicer to hawkshadow. you feel even angrier at warblerthorn - how could she do that to such a well-behaved, kindhearted warrior. him and his unending patience… she didn’t deserve that.

wheatpaw, on the other paw, still seems determined to win warblerthorn’s affections. you tell him he’s stupid for trying, that she’ll never care about either of you. he seems hurt by this, but says nothing of it, and curls up in his nest.

during your warrior assessment, you pass with flying colors. battle is your expertise, though you still do rather well on your hunting assessment, and at the end of the day, you are named violetdawn, and your brother beside you, wheatwhisker. hawkshadow, ever stoic and rare to praise, greets you after the ceremony with a soft, small smile. you hide your own by batting him away from you as he ducks his head to nuzzle your cheek, and you sit out in the warm newleaf air for your vigil.

a moon after you are named a warrior, cypressstar passes, and his deputy, ramfur, becomes leader. finchclaw is named the new deputy of shadowclan. something in you is a little angered by this - from what little you’ve seen of ramfur- ramstar- he’s a rather rancid tom, you think. that fire within you, stoked to a small flame, continues to grow.

with hawkshadow still behind you, and wheatwhisker beside you, you feel unstoppable as the newest warrior of shadowclan. you take your new responsiblities on by storm - trespassers are met with impudent questioning, and prey-stealers are met with the fiercest of teeth and claw. you make sure that the fresh-kill pile is never empty, an endless unrest within you, a need to put your paws to work. this fire within you keeps burning on, keeps growing, gets hungrier and hungrier, and it’s only when you are given your first apprentice that you feel… mildly sated.

his name is claypaw, and he reminds you very much of your brother. he’s overly-empathetic, something you view as a weakness rather than a strength, and far too much of a social butterfly than an apprentice should be for someone being taught to be the next warrior of shadowclan. you decide to take the harsh route with your training - harsher than hawkshadow was with you. you are up and at it with the rise of the sun each dawn, and if you had it your way, he’d be training until it set. however, you do have to cut him slack, and only allow him to return to camp when the sun is high in the sky, directly overhead. he begins to straighten out, you think, not spending so much time after training slacking off and goofing around with his friends. one night, you find him out in the territory with his littermates, and you nearly chew his ear off as you drag him back to camp, his siblings in tow. he doesn’t hear the end of it until the sun has risen, your words cutting him to the quick as you lecture him about sneaking out, and what dangers could be out there, and what would he have done if some kind of predator had come for him and he and his under-trained siblings were left to fend for themselves. he doesn’t misbehave again, after that, and by the end of his six moons of training, he is named clayfur, and like hawkshadow did to you, you give him some reassurance of pleasure with him - a quick dip of your head. he’s straightened out a whole lot since he was six moons old, you believe, but you keep your pride close to your heart, where only you will see it.

sated as you were, your fire isn’t put out by having had an apprentice. you still feel a desire to do more for your clan, and after a dispute with windclan that ends in the death of one of their warriors, you take it upon yourself to start taking on more responsibilities. when finchclaw is busy, you take to rallying up a patrol for yourself to lead and go out, to re-establish the borders, to keep the fresh-kill pile full. you take out apprentices whose mentors are on patrols and make sure that they’re getting their hunting experience in, and yet still, none of this satisfies you. even when you are given a second apprentice, pinepaw, a she-cat with a mouthy attitude like yourself that needs to be whipped into shape, you still find yourself needing more.

after completing pinefrost’s training, you know what it is that you want. you want to lead.

and, moons down the line, when finchclaw is killed, this presents the perfect opportunity for you. ramstar is an excellent leader, yes, and while he can keep the clan in shape, he is pigheaded, and you see the way he treats she-cats all too clearly, especially after what he did to leafjaw. as ramstar goes to name a deputy, you come into camp hissing and spitting, practically demanding that he name you deputy. you’re experienced. you’re smart. you’re one of the best warriors shadowclan has to offer and he knows it, and you refuse to be denied this opportunity simply because you were born a molly. you call him a coward, you call him ignorant, and tell him that he would pick a mediocre tom over any overqualified molly any day because he’s too afraid to put a she-cat in charge.

to your (hidden) surprise, it works. he names you deputy. but you don’t miss the gleam in his eye, the dark look he sends your way.

something tells you that this is going to be a difficult ride.