ROOK

Rook
Age. 3 winters (32 months) Colony. Unaffiliated Pronouns. He/Him Occupation. Herbalist

rook is the blackwood region's sole herbalist.

rook was born and raised in the haven colony and was trained by the herbalist heartwood. after a large battle between the haven and deepwood colonies, rook refused aid with treating the injured. several cats died under his care, shaking his confidence and the haven colony's respect for him. he has since lived in self-imposed exile.

he has taken on the haven cat cricket as an apprentice. he makes it a point to not stress her out with her studies and encourages her to take everything slowly. this mentor-apprentice relationship has helped rook to grow from his irritable demeanor to some degree.

Personality

rook is commonly described as being cold, irritable, and impatient. he speaks little, intently listening and only butting in to correct facts or to challenge something he disagrees with. it is difficult to change his mind or make him back down. he is the kind of cat who, if you told him you made a mistake, he would tell you to not fuck it up next time instead of comforting you. he is very lonely inside. he would rather die than let you know that. the presence of sleet and cricket in his life are helping him heal. he lets the rook that was before come to the surface when he is with them. warm, understanding. caring to the point of smothering. he wants to apologize to everyone for what he did. he wants to go home. he's too scared to admit he was wrong.

Early Life

rook was born in mid summer to slade and gale of the haven colony. rook and magpie were raised alongside sleet, the son of the colony's leader at the time; shimmer.

rook was often seen as the inverse of his sister. he was often quiet and mild-mannered, while his sister was energetic and spoke before thinking.

rook began showing interest in the medicinal properties of herbs when his mother began showing symptoms of a rare, often terminal disease. gale would occasionally visit the herbalist heartwood and her son would always try to pry into the medical details of the meeting when she returned. eventually she would start bringing him along. heartwood was charmed by the boy's enthusiasm. he offered to take rook under his wing if he survived his first winter.

Apprenticeship

rook was a very diligent apprentice to heartwood, eager to learn medicine and help his community. the other haven cats respected young rook due to how attentive and careful he was to those seeking his aid. however, with the intense focus on his studies, rook found less and less time avaliable to spend with his sister and sleet. his mother's passing sometime after his first birthday caused him to isolate himself from the two even further.

training as an herbalist tends to take years; but rook's hard work earned him the title within just 2 years. he continued to work with heartwood, offering their services to the first colony, the haven colony, and wandering cats (the deepwood colony refused to let them enter their territory). heartwood passed of old age in the winter, leaving rook the sole herbalist for the whole blackwood region.

The Battle at Trip Creek

in the spring, the haven colony's territory in the mudmeadow faced extreme flooding from the winter's unusually heavy snowing. the cats were desperate to find land they could hunt and take shelter on. shimmer led them to a skirmish on the deepwood colony's southern border, near the mouth of trip creek. the battle was vicious. a few cats on either side of the fight were pronounced dead at the battlefield, including shimmer herself. several more cats were wounded to varying degrees and retreated to their soggy camp in the mudmeadow, the deepwood cats victorious.

his first job alone, rook was called in to treat the wounded cats. the new herbalist stretched himself thin amongst his patients. some of the less wounded cats avoided the sick shelter to ease his workload at the expense of risking infection. others offered to help, but rook turned them away. he believed that he was the only one who could properly treat these cats and save their lives. he lost sleep. he didn't eat or bathe. he began to snap at anyone trying to enter the sick shelter or offer any sort of relief. through countless days marked by the smell of blood, infection, and herbs, most cats recovered. scarred, mentally and physically, but alive. the ones that did not make it haunted rook's mind. when it came time to dispose of their bodies and honor the lives lost, rook did not show. he stayed in the sick shelter, frozen.

magpie was among the cats who fought at trip creek and refused medical care. her first real battle, she was heavily impacted by the event as well. while she thought it was best to let her brother do his duties at first, the loss of more cats under his watch infuriated her. even more so when he did not respect the fallen by attending the vigil. she confronted him after the event, calling him out for his selfishness. the siblings hissed and spat at each other until rook backed off, fleeing into the wilds.

while rook continued his duties as an herbalist as well as ever, his demeanor permanently changed. he was colder. giving hurt or sick cats the best care he could, but not offering much comfort. he would chide his patients for getting injured in the first place. he began to resent cat colonies as a concept for establishing borders and refusing needy cats the basic rights of food and shelter. outside forces noticed the drastic shift in rook, and took interest. the legendary smoke spectre attempted contact with rook several times, but rook refused any discussion with the ghost. it still hangs around; watching him just out of sight, wating for a moment of weakness to manipulate him into doing its bidding.

Aftermath

rook spent a few months alone before his solitude was interrupted. his childhood friend sleet had fled the haven colony after magpie gained control of the colony with the aid of her and rook's father. the colony was becoming stricter about who would be allowed among their ranks, and what happens to cats who don't pull their own weight. subject to threats and verbal abuse, the meek sleet ran from home and sought sanctuary with the only other cat he knew. rook was not happy with having to share his space with another cat again, but begrudgingly allowed sleet to stay as long as he kept his distance.

the two have been slowly (achingly so) reconnecting with one another and rebuilding their friendship. the relationship is skirting into something more. rook wants it, but it scares him to death. he knows how much sleet cares for him and it upsets him greatly. he doesn't believe a cat like him deserves such attention. he thinks that sleet deserves someone better.

recently, a young cat from the haven colony named cricket rushed to rook's home west of the trip creek bridge with a sluggish bee, begging him to help it. rook tried to shoo her out, but sleet insisted that he helped the kitten. he fed the bee fresh juice from a berry, and cricket was delighted to see the bug regain its energy and fly off. rook thought that was the end of it when she was satisfied and returned to the mudmeadow. not even days later, she returned and asked to be his apprentice. rook was mortified. he sent her back home. he and sleet discussed it over the next few days, where sleet argued that training another herbalist would help take strain off of rook's workload if a nightmare scenario like the trip creek battle ever happened again. rook showed his face in haven territory for the first time in months, arriving to tell cricket that he would accept her as his apprentice.

he sees his young self in cricket, full of energy and enthusiasm for her interests. he refuses to let the past repeat itself, teaching cricket very slowly and encouraging her to take breaks to see her family and just be a kid. while he still hasn't returned to his warm, always eager to help self he was before (and likely never will), rook is becoming more tolerable to be around. with sleet, cricket, and himself, they make an odd family.

Trivia

• rook is related to the founder of the haven colony. his father, slade, is the son of grimm, who is the son of broc and the brother of soot.
• the bird species rooks and magpies are not found in the area of north america in which blackwood is located. rook and his sister are named after stories their mother gale heard from her parents, passed down to them by their family who came across the atlantic from europe.

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