Sootcloud

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Sootcloud
Biographical information
Age	30 moons
Pronouns	He/Him
Cause of death	Wounds, smoke inhalation
Names & Titles
Current	The Smoke Spirit
Past	Soot Sootcloud
Affiliations
Current:	The Place of No Stars
Former:	ShadowClan Rogues
Relationships
Mother	Titmouse
Father	Badger
Siblings	Ferretmask, Storm, Thorn, Thistle, Mist
Grandnephew	Slatestrike
Great-grandniblings	Magpietalon, Rookfeather

Sootcloud was a warrior of ShadowClan in the forest territories in an unknown era of the Clans. He was born outside of the Clans to the loner Titmouse and the rogue Badger alongside his brother Ferret.

Before he was born, the Clans disbanded under mysterious circumstances. Soot and other Clanless cats reformed the five Clans after StarClan guided them to Fourtrees.

Lingering Dark Forest spirits contacted Sootcloud in the hopes to manipulate him and other cats into destroying the Clans once more. He was unable to fulfill his goals before another Dark Forest contactee set fire to ShadowClan territory, which spread quickly across the dying foliage of Leaf-fall. Seeing his plan to exterminate ShadowClan fail, the arsonist attacked Sootcloud, resulting in both of their deaths.

History

Soot was the runt of the litter of 2, born in late Leaf-bare to young parents Titmouse and Badger. The brothers were watched over like hawks. The family lived far south of former SkyClan and ThunderClan territory, deep in the forest. Due to scarcer prey and increasing dangers like foxes and territory disputes between cats, Badger moved his family closer to Twoleg territory.

Around 4 moons old, Badger began to teach his sons to be independent. While learning how to live on his own was intimidating to Ferret, Soot was eager to learn. He looked up to his father immensely, and wanted to impress him however he could. Whenever Badger would go out to hunt or patrol their territory, Soot would instantly be up and ready to tag along with his father (although Badger didn't let him come often; Soot's scatterbrained tendencies led him to danger often).

Successful in raising their first litter, Badger and Titmouse decided to have another litter of kits. Ferret offered to stay with his parents and care for his new siblings (Ferret would later join the new SkyClan as Ferretmask), but Soot didn't like the idea of playing older brother to a bunch of screaming, squirming little grubs. He left his family behind, exploring the wilds by following flocks of crows and other carrion birds and sleeping in hastily-made nests at the roots of great oaks.

The Verdant Forest

This section contains spoilers for the Verdant Forest roleplay.

Soot followed the crows north, settling in the area around the Twoleg farm west of River Chell. Other cats settled in the area, surprising Soot at their ability to keep peace between one another. He grew wary as the cats began congregating in larger and larger groups, believing they would soon devolve into infighting.

One day, Soot awoke to the farm deserted. All of the cat-scents he grew familiar with traveled in the same direction: towards the large island situated on the river. More than a dozen cats drifted here as the land "called to them," clearing the island from badgers and constructing sleeping quarters. Soot stayed with the island camp for a while, helping with the hunting patrols. When the camp became too crowded and prey dwindled, Soot went with a scouting party to check the east side of the river for a new site to make camp. This party discovered a sandy ravine in the woods, clearing the old shelters within from adders. He enjoyed living under the towering trees, but something about living in the forest felt wrong to him. Something to the north, across the Thunderpath, pulled him. Was this what the river islanders were talking about?

The new camp grew, tensions rising between members of the soon-crowded ravine camp. When it came time for the cats to split again, Soot suggested traveling northward. A party of ten or so cats came across a muddy hollow deep in the northern marsh infested with rats. Before the party launched their attack on the rats, Soot spotted something unusual. A pure white cat sat in the middle of the hollow. Frozen in fear from the unexpected sight, Soot missed his cue to strike. The attack had a rough start, but the party was able to clear the rats from the marsh camp. Soot was given the name Sootcloud for his wispy fur and laid-back personality, becoming one of the founding members of the new ShadowClan.

Several moons later, the daughter of ShadowClan's leader went missing. Sootcloud was among the search party that went looking for her. The search led them to WindClan territory, where they crossed paths with a WindClan patrol. Accusing them of kidnapping, ShadowClan's leader launched an attack against the WindClan cats. Sootcloud severely injured a WindClan warrior, almost killing him in the heat of battle, before a shriek rang out at the edge of the gorge. He watched as his leader fell into the gorge, WindClan's leader watching him plunge into the raging water below. Sootcloud is traumatized by the event. He fell into a depression; scorning WindClan, blaming himself for being caught up in the fight, and struggling to keep a decent sleep schedule.

After losing their leader, Sootcloud begins to have strange dreams. He was visited by twin white she-cats whose personalities were so intertwined that they considered themselves the same entity. Refering to recent events, they criticize clan life and all the strife it brings. They offer Sootcloud a more relaxed Warrior Code and the position of the Clans' great peacemaker if he would continue visiting them in his dreams. He then awakes with a quest: convince his leader, now returned from being swept far downriver, that "there can be little restraint on us wild cats, for if we are conditioned, we are no better than the kittypet".

On the second half-moon of Leaf-fall, the forest went up in flames. Sootcloud led a small group of ShadowClan refugees into ThunderClan with the help of ThunderClan's deputy. The mixed group of refugees fled to RiverClan's camp, lungs burning and fur lightly singed. Before he could rest, Sootcloud was attacked by ThunderClan's healer. It was easy to put down the healer with his inexperience in fighting, but he was still able to significantly injure Sootcloud. He fell unconscious from blood loss and smoke inhalation. RiverClan's medicine cat tried to save him, but was unsuccessful. Sootcloud was cold by the time the sun rose.

Post-Death

he turned into a fucking creepypasta for kitty cats brah

Personality

Sootcloud was known for his energy and airheadedness. When he was physically and emotionally well, Sootcloud always had to be doing something. He hated being bored. Without a task to do (even with a task, sometimes) he was lost in his thoughts and struggled to pay attention. He was awful at multitasking and could get overwhelmed if given too many objectives at once. With singular tasks, he was determined to succeed and generally did his job well. He was prone to forget the important things while remembering useless information with perfect clarity.

He was quite social with other cats, always trying to strike up a conversation with someone. Keeping conversation helped keep his head in reality. The cats he knew considered him easy to get along with. Though he could be sarcastic, Sootcloud never hid things from others. He didn't like to obscure his emotions or keep secrets. He would cry in front of you, nothing held back.

Despite an overall positive and outgoing personality, Sootcloud's mood was prone to changing unexpectedly. He would alternate between shyness and openness, happiness and sadness, positivity and negativity. On surface level, we was seen as calm and courteous, but in reality was impulsive and playfully rude. He believed in kindness and diplomacy, but also wanted to rebel and create tension between cats. He liked to stir up trouble and then leave the scene to watch the fallout from a safe distance.

Though he desired a close relationship, Sootcloud found the idea of long-term partnership difficult to grapple with. He wanted to stay free, not restricted by the rules a mate might have set upon him.

After witnessing his leader fall into the gorge and nearly taking a life himself, Sootcloud became very thanatophobic. Thinking of death could cause him to panic at the fact that he hadn't done anything notable in his lifetime. He wanted to be remembered and not fade away into obscurity. After death, this fear perseveres; urging Rookfeather (or any cat he can get close enough to) to continue his work where he failed so that his life was not lost in vain.

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