Thistlegaze | Riverclan Warrior

• Name:: Thistlekit → Thistlepaw → Thistlegaze
• Age:: 47 moons
• Gender:: Male
• Clan:: Riverclan
• Rank:: Warrior
• Name Analysis:: His name refers to his unusual eye colour.
• Summary description:: A handsome brown tom with rare purple eyes.
• Detailed Description:: Thistlegaze is a handsome fellow, tall and well-muscled from fighting and swimming his whole life. He has a sleek, brown pelt that lightens as it reaches his lower body and darkens to almost black along his back. He has long, sleek whiskers and in the sunlight his fur gains a russet tinge. His most notable characteristic (and the reason behind his name) are his eyes. The unique purple orbs are usually void of emotion, half lidded in disinterest.
• Breed:: Somali mix

• Summary:: stone-faced | charming | driven | cunning | violent | conflicted
• Detailed Personality:: Thistlegaze almost constantly wears an impassive expression, broken only by frowns and vaguely sinister smirks. His smiles are even rarer and certainly swoon-worthy, a weapon he uses to woo others into doing his bidding. His flirtations towards others are commonly highly successful as the idea of such a dark tom only caring about them is quite alluring for most cats, yet he has no intentions to take a mate. However, he is happy to pretend to be one until the she-cat has had kits - youths with his strong blood to provide for Riverclan.

While Thistlegaze might be many bad and broken things, nobody could deny that he’s determined. He is surprisingly focused and intelligent with a sense of careful practicality and resourcefulness, and will not rest until he has completed what he has started.

He is not above criminal activity and underhandedness to get what he wants; savagery is quick to get the point across, and fear is a useful technique. He is certainly not against taking it "too far" in battle, because honour has little purpose to him. He will kill a cat if he feels it is appropriate so it's best to avoid his purple stare on the battlefield - especially when there's water around (it's child's play for a Rivercat to hold down a non-Riverclanner under the surface until they cease to breathe). He plays dirty, in politics, in business, and in war - nothing is really beneath him.

Thistlegaze is not okay in any definition of the word. While he is doing his best for his clan (or what he has been moulded to believe is "best", at the very least) he is, and always has been, in the process of coming undone. This has made him prone to unreasonable acts, including violence and straight-up murder. Despite him telling himself it's all for the greater good, he is constantly troubled over what he has done in the pursuit of righteousness and good leadership. A part of him tugs at the fact that he's doing something wrong. Always wrong. He has constantly battled with himself, but neither side has yet to win, leaving him bitter and confused over what he has been forced to believe and what is actually good for himself and his clan. 

• Family::
Mother - Brownbird (NPC)
Father - Violetstrike (NPC)
• Mate:: N/A
• Kits:: N/A
• Mentor:: Dogclaw (NPC)
• Apprentice(s):: Troutsplash (NPC), Reedshiver (NPC), open

• History:: Brownbird birthed a single kit who remained nameless until his kit-blue eyes darkened to purple, earning him the moniker Thistlekit. Violetstrike, the child's father, was dead before Thistlekit could form memories of him.

Despite constant and nagging protest, Brownbird soon made the decision to return to her duties, leaving Thistlekit under the care of the other mothers and his own vivid imagination during the day. She did not ignore her maternal instincts and tended to her son when necessary, but the distance between them was growing with each passing hour.

This distance became more apparent as Thistlepaw, now an apprentice, began growing. His mentor, Dogclaw, had never been forced to raise his voice at him, despite being incredibly strict in his teachings - but Brownbird insisted her son was the most challenging of the apprentices in the clan. The young tom would grow extremely bitter in the wake of their emotional gap, but his rebellion was only met with cruel and fierce resistance from Brownbird. The senior warrior, strict in faith, would shove her unmatched belief in Starclan down the throat of her kit so severely that Thistlepaw could not help but gag and struggle. When he displayed symptoms of illness in his neglect, his mother would only snarl that his lack of love for his ancestors were the reason behind his suffering. Their relationship crumbled into ruin with the escalation of emotional abuse. Arguing became commonplace, as they no longer could seem to hold a civil conversation.

Dogclaw pleaded that the apprentice simply avoid Brownbird altogether, as the two could not be in close quarters without resorting to violently screaming at one another. Thistlepaw considered fleeing the clan, or simply swimming out to the centre of the lake and waiting to drown, unable to handle the presence of his mother any longer, but his poorly-planned attempts were always stopped by a vigilant Dogclaw, who would divert his attention to training instead of attempting to console him. Thistlepaw progressed through his apprenticeship feeling completely and entirely alone, surviving on nothing but spite.

Thistlepaw quickly became Thistlegaze. Brownbird did not seem very keen on repairing their relationship, and so the unwanted son simply kept her at a reasonable distance, no longer willing to fight to fix things. It was especially frustrating when his clan, fond of Brownbird, did not see the reason for his discomfort. He would writhe under his skin, feeling the heat in his blood with each question about his mother - "she's such a nice cat, why you don't like her?" but as he swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, he would enter a new stage metamorphosis with a gnarling hunger that he could not name.

Time passed and Thistlegaze trained two younger cats until they became warriors: Troutsplash and Reedshiver. He became starved by his own ideas - ravenous. His purple eyes fixed their attention on his leader, and he felt his mouth water in his hunger. He was no longer satiated with simply being liked by his clanmates. No. The tom felt that he deserved power.
• Trivia::
• His unique eye colour was inherited from his father, and his father inherited it from his father and so on; the purple eye gene seems to be passed down though the male lineage.
• He has a shaky relationship with Starclan; his mother's devotion to them makes him want to despise them.