Bluecloud

Bluecloud is currently the mediator of MarshClan.
Name- Bluecloud
Gender- She-cat
Clan- MarshClan
Rank- Mediator
Family- Graydusk (brother)
Friends- Rillwing, and... maybe Chivethistle? She's also sort of acquaintances with Torrentcall?? 
Enemies- Also Chivethistle, sort of... kinda... they're chill now tho
== Appearance & Personality ==
==== Appearance ====
Bluecloud has thick, medium-length blue-gray fur with a few darker markings and bright amber eyes. There are a couple of faint, barely-visible scars on her left forepaw. This paw is also weaker than the others due to an old injury that never properly healed.
==== Personality ====
She’s generally very quiet and reserved. She’s really shy and doesn't think highly of herself at all. She second-guesses everything she does and is quick to assume she’s doing something wrong. She also has a tendency to overthink almost everything and has pretty horrible social anxiety. On the bright side, though, she has something of a funny streak with cats she trusts and is comfortable with, and is overall pretty sweet and empathetic. If someone is able to get through her shell (which isn’t hard; she’s not confident enough to have a strong mental defense), she’ll usually open up to them right away. She also really wants to find a mate and have kits one day, although she'd be very embarrassed to admit it.
== Backstory ==
==== Kithood ====
Bluecloud and her brother were born as kittypets to a family that was trying to breed a specific coat pattern. Not any sort of organization or corporation- just a random family. She and her brother never had names, because as soon as they were a moon old and their fur was really puffed out and visible, the family realized that they weren't what they had wanted and decided to leave them out on the streets somewhere. Fortunately, the family's youngest kid felt bad about it and pretended she'd gotten rid of the kittens, but she actually kept them and tried to take care of them in secret until they were old enough to survive on their own. When Blue and Gray (that's what I'll call them) were three moons old, the kid got busted, and the dad of the family took them and drove off to dump them. Unfortunately, he was drunk at the time. Don't drink and drive, kids. It'll make you do dumb things. Like yeet kittens out the window of a moving vehicle. That's exactly what this dude did. Blue's paw was broken and all messed up from the impact of hitting the street, and Gray dragged her off of it to avoid getting run over. 
Blue couldn't really do much of anything without the use of her paw, so Gray basically provided for them both. They found their way back to the city and lived there for the next two moons. Blue's paw never healed properly, and there was an occasion where the two of them were attacked by rats that she still hasn't forgotten. That was indirectly Gray’s fault, although he never mentioned that to her for obvious reasons. They managed to escape, though it was still sort of traumatizing. Anyways, she and Gray were pretty close. They eventually found their way out of the city and wandered around until they ended up in MarshClan territory. Adderfrost found them about to crawl into a rabbit burrow for shelter and warned them that such a thing was probably a bad idea. They decided to just join MarshClan instead, since they were now six moons old anyways.
==== Apprenticeship ====
Bluepaw was accepted into the Clan by Minkstar, and was apprenticed to Jaggedwatcher. She expected to do everything with Graypaw, as she had in the past, but to her dismay, Graypaw moved to FallClan before they'd been apprentices for even a moon. Bluepaw was very unhappy about this, and felt rather lonely and excluded. Whitebird was able to treat her paw, although it was still weaker than her other paws, and she would never be able to put too much weight on it.
When she was seven moons old, she was hunting on the edge of her territory when she was attacked by a young loner named Chive. She explained to Chive that she was the one trespassing, and Chive agreed to join MarshClan herself. She took the name Chivepaw, and immediately began harboring an intense dislike for Bluepaw. She would antagonize and tease her without end, and Bluepaw felt more out of place than ever in MarshClan, almost missing the days she'd spent on the streets with her brother.
Later that same moon, though, she saw Eggpaw at a gathering and started developing feelings for him. She thought he was cute with his puffy yellow fur and optimistic demeanor. never planned to act on her feelings, though, for she knew that someone as good as him should never want anything to do with somebody like her - but she wasn't quite able to shake them off, even after Eggfur became a warrior. She would often torment herself with thoughts about how he would probably hate her if they were ever to formally meet.
Bluepaw considered trying to befriend Viceroypaw, an older apprentice who had also been a loner, and who seemed shy and uncomfortable like her. She felt like they could get along, but in the end, she was too nervous, and just couldn't really bring herself to approach him, having no idea how to initiate conversation.
Then she became friends with Rillpaw. Bluepaw had always been sort of nervous around Rillpaw - between her strong personality, the scar on her nose, and her prominent odd eyes, she'd always found her intimidating. But on one occasion, Rillpaw brought her with her on a hunting expedition. There, Rillpaw had the idea to crawl into a rabbit burrow in hopes of catching some of the baby rabbits. Bluepaw wasn't sure about that idea, but she followed her in anyways after Rillpaw falsely assured her that she'd done it before. They got to the bit where the baby rabbits should have been only to find that a badger had gotten to them first. Then tunnel collapsed on top of them. Oops. They managed to dig their way out by working together, then washed off in a stream before continuing on to do some real hunting. Bluepaw realized that Rillpaw wasn't some frightening perfect idol, and she also found that a little bit of danger, while terrifying, was somewhat fun. The two of them became friends after that incident. I mean, it's sort of hard not to become friends with someone you've nearly died with, isn't it?
Anyways, Bluepaw struggled in training because of her weak paw, so Rillpaw offered to help her improve her battle skills. They'd sometimes train with each other after their mentors were finished with them. It was nice. Oh, and speaking of that - Bluepaw did what she could to comfort Rillpaw after her mentor, Mintfang, died. She for some reason thought a good way to cheer her up would be by sharing her own depressing backstory. Good job, Bluepaw.
But then, less than a moon later, her own mentor died. It was pretty jarring for Bluepaw. She missed Jaggedwatcher and his relaxed training with his carefree attitude, but was reassigned to Sparrowbreeze, and she vowed to do her best to still train well. She spent most of her time training with her new mentor alongside Seedslip and Rillpaw, because Sparrow & Seed had sort of been taking over Rill’s training since Mintfang died.
Also, Chivepaw continued to be a problem. She was a very salty young lady and pretty much took every opportunity she got to be annoying. Rillpaw didn't like Chivepaw. Rillpaw and Chivepaw fought a lot. Bluepaw felt kind of bad about that, but there wasn't much she could do about it. I mean, it worked. Rillpaw was sort of intimidating, so Chivepaw eventually backed off. Kudos.
Anyways, Bluepaw was pretty upset about how serious the plague had gotten by this point, and was more than a little bit frightened for Graypaw, particularly since cats were being discouraged from crossing borders now that the illness was running rampant. A large number of MarshClan cats were killed by it, including but not limited to Minkstar and Viceroytuft. It was extremely stressful for everyone, Bluepaw included, because Bluepaw was a freaking stress magnet.
Once Rillwing became a warrior, Bluepaw felt kind of lonely again, but it was still somewhat better than it had been in the past. Chivepaw started being kinder to her, and they even began almost bonding over their shared grief, particularly over Viceroytuft. Chivethistle soon became a warrior, though, and Bluepaw was then MarshClan's only apprentice. She was pretty bummed about that.
On one occasion, when she tried to visit Graypaw in FallClan, she instead encountered Torrentpaw at the border, who informed her that Milkweedstar had died, and Weepingstar was now FallClan's leader. In turn, she told him about Minkstar's death and Canyonstar's ascent to leadership since messengers had not been moving about as often due to the plague's severity. Torrentpaw warned her not to leave her territory for fear of spreading the illness, and after asking him to tell Graypaw hello for her, she anxiously obliged. She returned to her camp and shared this news with her Clan, making everyone pretty upset.
At the next gathering - her last gathering as an apprentice - she received word that Eggfur had died of the plague, too. She was pretty devastated by that, and sort of spiraled back down into depresso mode. Spiderpaw, Gingerpaw, and Flickerpaw joined her in the apprentices' den not long afterwards, though, and while she was glad to have company again, she was also sort of uncomfortable about it since she barely knew them.
For the next moon or so, Bluepaw just vibed.
==== Warrior Life ====
Bluecloud passed her assessment and earned her warrior name. At the previous gathering, the decision had been made to close off all borders, so she was unable to celebrate her new rank with her brother, and she wasn't even aware of what his warrior name was. But on the bright side, she got to hang out more with Rillwing. She also connected a little more with Chivethistle, and they were actually aaalmost on friendly terms after that. Wack.
I mean, at one point, Rillwing got into a fight with Cardinalflutter - one of their old denmates - and pretty much terrified her into leaving MarshClan temporarily. Bluecloud was pretty upset about that, partially because Graydusk had a crush on Cardinalflutter and she would feel kind of bad if her friend messed up her brother's love life. She was also just generally worried about Rillwing, though. They had a chat about it in which Rillwing told Bluecloud all about her intense edgy backstory. She also vowed to stop running away from things and to just generally be better. Bluecloud was happy about that and in turn promised to stay by her side. It was sort of sweet.
After about a moon, to Bluecloud's own shock, she received an apprentice: Warrenpaw. She was pretty dang terrified. Being a mentor was a ton of responsibility in her eyes, after all - she would have to train a young cat into a warrior, and if she were to do it wrong, it would probably mess up said young cat's whole life. No pressure. She was, however, a bit calmed down by the fact that Rillwing had gotten Warrenpaw's sister, Lapwingpaw, so they would be able to train their apprentices together. She decided that she would do her very best to not mess everything up the way she always does.
They did that for several moons. Then Rillwing and Firsong, Cadinalflutter's sister, left the Clans for a bit in search of Cardinalflutter. Bluecloud temporarily took over Lapwingpaw's training during that time. She struggled a lot with it, because not only was she terrible at dealing with responsibility, but Lapwingpaw hated her. Luckily, though, Chivethistle actually decided to be useful and stepped in to help. Bluecloud thought that was awfully kind of her. Chivethistle was much better at the whole 'mentoring' thing than she was anyways. With Chivethistle's help, she was able to actually figure out what she wanted to be doing with both apprentices and kind of do it. She also sort of became almost friends with Chivethistle after that, although Chivethistle was like "yo as soon as Rillwing's back, I'm going back to picking on you, a'ight?" and Bluecloud decided that was fine since it was more playful teasing than actual ridicule by that point.
Eventually, after a couple of moons, the training was completed. Warrenfire and Lapwingfeather became warriors. Bluecloud was mostly just relieved that it was over. Rillwing came back not long afterwards with both Firsong and Cardinalflutter and Bluecloud was thrilled to see her again. Not so thrilled to have Chivethistle go back to bullying her, but you take what you can get, right?
About a moon later, MarshClan’s mediator - Conifercob - died, leaving the role wide open. A few days passed and no one came forward to take it. Then Bluecloud got to thinking - what if she tried to fit into the role? She knew she was empathetic, and she wanted to help her Clanmates settle conflict. Besides, mediators didn’t have to take apprentices. She wasn’t sure if she could do it, though - she knew that the job required courage and a certain amount of charisma that she doubted she had. So she talked to Rillwing about it. Rillwing was like “idk girl, if you want it then go for it” and Bluecloud was like “yeah, okay. i’ll go for it!!1!1!” so she asked Canyonstar if she could be the new mediator. He said yes. Yay, Bluecloud.
==== Mediator Life ====
Bluecloud was suddenly the mediator. Good for her. She knew that since gatherings were called off for a while, she had some time to get used to her new position before she’d have to sit in front of a crowd on a ledge - so until then, she figured she’d be fine.
She wasn’t great approaching cats, though, and that was a bit of an issue since her job includes a whole lot of talking to her Clanmates. She knew it would be good for her in the long run, though. And because of that, she decided to have her first move be to talk to Chivethistle and figure out what the heck her problem was. She pulled her aside one night and was like "ey, what gives??" and it took a while, but she eventually managed to get Chivethistle to admit that she'd bullied her out of insecurity. She couldn't quite get an apology out of her, but she did get an "I'm sorry you're still mad about it", and she figured that was good enough. And if nothing else, it gave her an idea. She was able to (mostly) get along with Chivethistle - so now she wanted to be able to say the same for Rillwing.
Currently, she just kind of vibes and is low-key terrified, as usual. She's also trying in vain to make Rillwing and Chivethistle stop hating each other. It's not going very well so far.
== Other ==
==== Trivia ====
*Since she and Graydusk didn't have names before joining the Clans, they were just named for their fur colors. Before then, they only referred to each other as "Brother" and "Sister".
*Her paw doesn't really bother her unless she's using it a lot, such as in battle practice or if she's climbing or doing a lot of running.
* I'm considering having her be related to Rascal. Info on him is on Conchsong's page.
* During her two moons of living in the city, Bluecloud developed the habit of eating her food very quickly to avoid having it be taken from her. She still hasn't lost this habit, even though she knows it isn't polite or natural.
*Will she ever interact with Torrentcall again? Who knows? I sure don't.
*She also might end up with Tiltshoulder. I dunno. It's a possibility. I kind of hope she does tbh. She deserves a nice husband. She also deserves to move on from her utter failure of a crush on Eggfur. BlueTilt? BlueTilt, perhaps???? Yes?????????
==== Quotes (get ready to say "mood" at your screen) ====
"Um - Rillpaw? Maybe we should go back..."
.
Bluepaw: "Have... have you done this before?"
Rillpaw: "Oh, yeah, plenty of times."
Bluepaw: "Oh... okay."
.
"I don't think investigating would be the, um... wisest course of action. We... we should probably let some of the warriors know."
.
"We should go, then. It’s... not cowardly to turn around and get out of here. It's smart. It would just be... kind of stupid to keep going, I think. It wouldn’t prove anything, really. Getting ourselves killed wouldn’t prove anything.”
.
"Th-that was... new. Not like any other hunting trip I've been on before." - (after almost dying twice on the same hunt)
.
""That's... sad. I'm sorry. It's... it isn't a good feeling to be abandoned."
.
"Um... maybe no more venturing into rabbit holes, if that's good with you."
.
Rillpaw: "What are you doing?"
Bluepaw (mentally): My best and a poor job.
.
*incomprehensible panicked mumbling* - every conversation she's ever had
.
"That was fun. Um, the training, I mean. Not that the eating wasn’t fun, but— um— you know what I mean.”
.
Why can't I just talk?
.
"Um... would... going hunting or something make you feel better? Like, maybe it’ll take your mind off of things... if you want that, I mean...” - (to Rillpaw after Mintfang dies)
.
"It'll eventually be okay."
.
Bluepaw: "Are we... going to be doing something?”
Sparrowbreeze: "Right now? Probably not, but later today I have a couple things planned."
Bluepaw: "Ah, okay. Um, sorry. With Jag— I — I used to start early, but this is okay. I mean, it’s fine. I’ll probably like it more. I’ll get to, um — to, um... like, sleep more. S-sorry."
.
There's someone here? Oh no. I might have to interact.
.
Bluepaw: "Um, wait. Aren't you... Milkweedstar's son?"
Torrentpaw: "Yes... yes I am."
Bluepaw: "Um. Sorry, that’s probably embarrassing, isn’t it? I mean, I-I’d be embarrassed to only be recognized for who my parents are. Um... sorry. But - but isn’t it cool to have a leader and a deputy as your parents?”
Torrentpaw: "Two leaders, actually. M-my... Milkweedstar is dead. Weepingstar's leader now."
Bluepaw: "...I... I thought he still had all nine lives..."
.
Torrentpaw: "Look, Graypaw's okay. Go back home. It's a plague, a disease. Don't come here. We've lost so... so many cats..."
Bluepaw: "So've we. It's... we... Minkstar... we lost Minkstar."
.
"I'm - sorry for still... for not... stopping - talking. I don't mean to - to be, um - I'm not... sorry. I mean - I mean - I am sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm--"
.
"Um... if you wouldn’t mind, could you maybe tell Graypaw I said hello? And, um, good luck? Uh - no, that sounds too ominous, um... um - well, you know what I mean. Maybe. Sorry.”
.
I'm so stupid. I'm stupid. I'm stupid. Holy StarClan, am I stupid.
.
"What - what happened to your legs?"
.
Rillwing: "I never said goodbye to Panda... I just left. I ran away again."
Bluecloud: "I'm... I'm sure it was for the best if it was what you wanted. If... you weren't happy there..."
.
"You're brave. You’ve been through more than anyone should have to endure. I respect that. And you’re still trying. Maybe... maybe not your best, until now - but I believe you can make it alright again. It’s your problem to fix, but I... I’m going to do what I can to be helpful. You’ve been the best friend you could to me over the past moons. I want to repay that.” - (to Rillwing)