Conchsong

Conchsong is currently a warrior of HorizonClan.

Name- Conchsong

Gender- Tom

Clan- HorizonClan

Rank- Warrior

Family- what’s that... never heard of them. In other news, he has a crush on Lupinepetal

Friends- Rascal and Tulip (formerly)

Enemies- eh

## Appearance & Personality

#### Appearance

Pretty boy. He's a bit on the small side, but he has long, thick, creamy-white fur with stripes of pale silver-blue and gold, as well as a few tiny brown and gray flecks. His chest, paws, and tail-tip are white, and his eyes are light blue.

#### Personality

Conchsong is reserved and keeps to himself most of the time. He’s rather impulsive and emotional, though, and has a tendency to get defensive far too easily, feeling the need to justify everything he does. He’s insecure like that. He’s a little on the lazy side, but passionate in most other things, and is a very honest and straightforward cat. He does overthink a lot of stuff, however, and often takes things literally. He still has a good heart, though, and is fairly selfless and very loyal to cats that he cares about.

## Backstory

#### Kithood / Early Life

Conch was born a kittypet and adopted out at only one week old, so he doesn't know his biological family or anything. He existed for a lil while. Things were good and chill. His twolegs had another cat - an older tom named Rascal who pretty much taught him the basics of everything. Rascal was great and sort of a father figure to Conch. They enjoyed sitting in windowsills and watching birds. In fact, Conch came to appreciate birds a lot simply because of Rascal’s passion for them. He’d often sneak outside and catch birds to bring inside and show the old tom, and Rascal would in turn explain to Conch what type of bird it was and sometimes even share information on its anatomy. Conch also found that he enjoyed the taste of bird. He never had much luck when it came to catching anything else, but he thought birds were great. The fact that his owners had a hummingbird feeder outside only served to heighten his interest, as hummingbirds were far more intriguing than normal birds. Whatever. My point is that everything was great throughout all of Conch’s kithood.

But the thing was.... Rascal was a super-duper old man cat. He was developing health issues — tumors and the like. When Conch was still six moons old, Rascal stopped eating. Conch was of course concerned, but when he asked him about it, the only thing Rascal said to him was “don’t let them clip your wings”. The following day, he was put down.

Conch was very distraught over it. He didn’t understand what exactly had happened — Rascal had just been taken away by the twolegs and he hadn’t come back. He had an idea, though. He’d seen squirrels and things being hit by monsters on the thunderpath before. He knew what death was. He didn’t know that Rascal had died, but he could feel somewhere that he wouldn’t be seeing the old tom ever again. For about a week, he was kind of withdrawn and mellow. He lost most of his kitten-energy. He was depressed about having been left alone... but then he took Rascal’s last words to heart. He wasn’t going to waste away being unproductive; that would’ve been the opposite of what Rascal would have wanted. Conch became more restless, always frisking around the house, tipping things over, shredding curtains... just generally causing trouble. He wanted to *do* things. He kept trying to sneak outside in spite of his owners’ efforts to stop him.

Then, one day, after nearly three weeks, he finally managed to slip through a cracked window while the twolegs weren't home. He hopped outside and went trotting down the street, as was typical. He’d done that very thing several times before, but not since Rascal had died. He had a route that he liked to follow — simply follow the sidewalk along the side of the thunderpath, and turn with it until he reached his house again. Simple enough, right? Well, no. Because on this particular occasion, Conch spotted a butterfly. He had never seen a butterfly before. He thought it looked like a bird, but... prettier. He decided to chase after it. Bad decision, Conch.

Conch chased the butterfly around for... probably a good hour, actually. He strayed off of his usual path until he realized he was someplace he didn’t recognize — an entirely different neighborhood. He abandoned the butterfly after coming to that realization and started wandering around aimlessly in hopes of finding something he recognized... but he didn’t. The thunderpaths were broader, and he nearly got hit by a monster while trying to cross one. *That* had never happened before. Back by his home, they usually stopped before coming close to him. He was hopelessly lost and scared now, and it was getting kind of late. He’d accidentally made his way into a big city. He curled up in an alleyway for the night to sleep amongst the trash bags, but in the morning, he was chased out by a stray dog. That was also new. All of the dogs he’d seen before had been friendly and relatively small. Conch was encountering all kinds of unfamiliar and frightening things, and he didn’t like it at all.

For the next moon, he was lost in twolegplace. He survived off of garbage scraps. He couldn’t hunt to save his life. He caught a few pigeons and other city birds, but they only reminded him of Rascal and the good days he’d spent chasing birds in his owners’ backyard. He was attacked by a rat over a piece of raw meat once, and the rat ended up winning. The bite it had left on Conch’s leg got infected and left him with a limp. He eventually found his way out of twolegplace and into the surrounding mountains, but he was sort of injured and starving by that point and kind of just collapsed in the nearest cave.

As it turned out, that cave already belonged to a young loner named Tulip. Tulip was an experienced and knowledgeable cat, and she felt terrible for Conch. I mean, he *was* pretty pitiful. She helped him heal up his leg and showed him the basics of hunting. She also advised him to take off his collar, as it would hinder him during fights. Conch heeded her advice and buried it, deciding that he would remain a "wildcat" from then on.

He stayed with her for another moon. After learning about how he was fond of birds, Tulip also taught him a whole lot about them — she seemed to know everything there was to know about nature. She helped him identify different types and where particular birds liked to hang around and when. She taught him how to recognize and even imitate bird calls. He was grateful for the information and glad to learn more, but he remembered what Rascal had told him — not to let his wings be clipped. He thought he understood what that meant, and he didn’t want to stick around in one place for too long. So once Conch was confident in his ability to survive on his own, he and Tulip parted ways.

He was eight moons old now, and he continued making his way through the mountains. Eventually, he discovered HorizonClan territory, and after being brought to Aspenstar by a patrol, he found that he was fascinated by the Clan cats. He requested to join as an apprentice, and Aspenstar accepted him.

#### Apprenticeship

His name was changed to Conchpaw, and his assigned mentor was Flamethorn — none other than HorizonClan’s deputy. *That* was a little intimidating. Conchpaw was proud of it, though. He might have been starting his training at an older age than all of the other apprentices, but his mentor was the deputy! That had to mean that expectations were still high for him, right?

Conchpaw vibed for a while, doing his best in training. He excelled in hunting and... was fairly average in battle training. Flamethorn was strict. He liked to train with her, although he knew he couldn’t get away with any nonsense. That was fine. For once, he didn’t feel like starting shenanigans. He *liked* being part of a Clan. It felt like a place he could feel free and unrestricted. It was far more of a challenge than being a kittypet, but certainly easier than life on the streets had been. Sure, perhaps he didn’t particularly get along with any of the other apprentices... but that was fine, wasn’t it?

Speaking of that, he started crushing on a slightly older apprentice named Lupinepaw pretty quickly. He found her quiet and placid personality endearing, and he greatly admired her skill and competence. Plus, she *was* rather pretty. He was too reclusive to really make any friends, though, and Lupinepaw seemed to always be with her sisters, Amberpaw and Alpinepaw. He couldn’t seem to catch her alone. He never really went out of his way to instigate anything, either, so most of his training went by pretty uneventfully.

However, when the second wave of the plague struck, Conchpaw fell victim to it. He was pretty sick for a moon, but he was able to recover, and was soon back at full strength. Unfortunately, though, his Clanmate Lightningflower — the medicine cat’s sister — was not as lucky, and died from the same surge of illness that had nearly ended Conchpaw. Conchpaw felt somewhat guilty about that for reasons he couldn't quite put into words, but by this point, he had nearly completed his training, and was determined to continue pushing forward.

For the rest of his apprenticeship, Conchpaw just vibed. He was happy for Lupinepetal when she became a warrior, but he was still too much of a nervous boi to confess. So he just chilled awkwardly. Oh yeah, he hated it in the apprentices’ den - it was absolutely packed. There were seven other cats in it: Starlingpaw, Magpiepaw, Asterpaw, Lilacpaw, Riddlepaw, Hootpaw, and Junepaw. Poor Conchpaw.

#### Warrior Life

He passed his assessment and earned the warrior name of Conchsong. He was a little embarrassed by his new name at first, thinking it sounded dumb and sort of girly, but he grew to like it with time. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he supposed it *did* fit him in a way. It did have a nice ring to it. And he was happy to be a warrior, although he felt pretty terrible when his former denmate Junepaw died of the plague — he feared that he may have passed it on to her, and so he made sure to have a talk about it with her brother Hootheart once he became a warrior. Hootheart didn’t blame Conchsong for her death, though, and so they remained on relatively neutral terms.

In any case, he didn't really do much for several moons. He just sat around and was lonely. He mostly just went hunting and took naps during his free time. Hunting was one of the few things he felt like he was actually good at, so he took advantage of it... but one can only track down and kill specific birds for their own pleasure for so long. He eventually got sick of it. After that, he tried to entertain himself by starting a collection of various feathers to keep in his nest with the goal of getting at least one from every type of bird he encountered... but after only about a moon of that, they were accidentally scattered and messed up by an apprentice named Grasspaw when he was being forced to clean out the bedding in the warriors’ den. Conchsong was sort of upset about it, but he tried not to let it get to him. It hadn’t been intentional anyways. He just gave up the effort after that, though.

The thing was, without even his feather mission, he had nothing to really focus on anymore. He was bored. And unhappy. So he worked up his courage and decided that the next thing he ought to set his mind to should be flirting with Lupinepetal. He waited until one morning in particular when he came across her about to go hunting with her friend group — Alpinefeather, Ambershine, Starlingtuft, and Magpiefur — as usual. Then he approached, and, trying not to be awkward, asked if he could join them. They agreed to it. It was something of a competition in which they split into two teams— Lupinepetal and her sisters on one side with Magpiefur and Starlingtuft on the other. Conchsong joined the latter team due to the uneven numbers, which he was sort of disappointed by, as he’d been hoping to spend time with Lupinepetal — but that was fine. At least they were hunting, and he’d have a chance to impress her.

It went well, all things considered. Conchsong’s team still lost, for Lupinepetal had led Ambershine and Alpinefeather to a clearing full of rabbits. Conchsong was very impressed by Lupinepetal’s tracking skills. He tried to show off the bird he’d caught to her — a white-winged snowfinch — and talked a bit about how uncommon it was for them to be around during that time of season. After they returned to camp, he got some time alone with her, which he found to be more scary than he’d anticipated — but he went along with it. They shared his snowfinch and talked about how between Lupinepetal’s good nose and Conchsong’s good aim, they’d make a fine hunting team, and even agreed to try going hunting together some time. Lupinepetal mentioned how she’d wanted to be a medicine cat, and Conchsong told her a little bit about his time as a kittypet. It was nice.

Not much else has happened yet. But hopefully LupineConch might end up happening, because this lonely man needs someone to love.

## Other

#### Trivia

* This man loves birds. He really loves birds. He is a bird encyclopedia. He knows everything about birds.
* Do cats know what conches are? Probably not. Do I care? Probably not.
* I might make Rascal be the father of Bluecloud and Graydusk or something, although they'd never learn about that.