Cricket

Dark forest (current)

### Apperance

Cricket is a slender, lanky dark grey she-cat. she has yellow eyes, claw mark across her right eye, and her right ear torn in half. She also later has a scar running across the back of her neck.

### Personality

Cricket is generally very standoffish and aloof. She often mumbles or seems disintrested in conversations with cats shes not close to. Much of the clan avoids her due to the fact that she seems to be disintrested in them, and her status as a non-clan born cat. With the few she is close to, she's generally over protective and can tend to overshare since she dosen't engage with many cats otherwise. She's quite over-confidant and cocky, seeing herself as above most cats she knows.

### Kithood

Cricket was born on the outskirts of Riverclan territory to a loner she-cat, Bee, along with her sister Moth. They lived below tree roots covered by bushes in a crevice bellow the large roots and ground. They went unnoticed by Riverclan patrols until Cricket was around 5 moons old.

At this time, her sister Moth, was very ill as was her mother, and Cricket was lucky enough to be uneffected. However, this meant Bee was too unwell to hunt and both kits were malnourished and appeared younger than they were.

A patrol notably consisting of Silverfin and his apprentice Birchpaw (7 moons old) among others found them while Bee was attempting to teach Cricket to hunt, as she suspected she would pass soon due to her illness, and Moth was in their den. When Bee begged the warriors to allow her to stay, or join them, to keep her kits alive-Silverfin slashed her chest very deeply. Cricket had been hiding behind her moth and did not see which cat attacked her, however Birchpaw procceded to give Cricket the scar on her face and ear. He was shortly after scolded by Silverfin for attacking what he believed to be a young kit. Cricket, not seeing Silverfin had been the one to attack her mother and scolding Birchpaw for his attack, presumed the apprentice had harmed her mother.

the patrol walked away, presuming Bee would now feel she should leave, or would die. Bee died about an hour later, with Cricket by her side and Moth still unaware. After Bee's death, Cricket returned to their den and told Moth two cats (who she did not know *which* clan they belonged to) had killed Bee and given her the wound. She only knew Birchpaw's name out of them all due to Silverfin's scolding, however she felt no need to share any details with Moth.

### Apprenticeship

the young cats struggled to live alone with Cricket being the sole hunter and Moth's illness worsening. They were found by a different patrol which included Meadowstar, who was unaware of the attack, back to camp after seeing Moth's condition. Not many cats were happy about their arrival, but Meadowstar didn't know what else to do with two nearing death cats that appeared to be very young.

After arriving in the camp, it was not long before Cricket saw Birchpaw. She was furious but knew both her and he sister would die if they did not accepted help. About a moon after they arrived in Riverclan, Cricket had been taught some fishing skills by one of the only cats aside from Moth and the Medicine cat and her apprintice she got along with, Larkpaw. Meadowstar offered both Moth and Cricket the opportinity to train as warriors, and Moth excitedly accepted, having become much more intigrated and pleasent with the cats in Riverclan. Cricket didnt want to leave her sister, and tentativly agreed to stay.

Cricket was given a senior warrior, Badgerfoot, as her mentor. Badgerfoot somewhat resembled her mother, being a black cat with a white belly and face. She quickly grew attatched to her mentor who became one of the few cats who didnt find her standoffish or rude. Through out her apprenticeship, Cricket became heavily fixated on battle training and heavily slacked or complained reagarding fishing or hunting, making her fellow apprentices rather frustrated, and other clan-mates to find her unhelpful. However, her enthusiasm towards battle training made her a do quite a bit better than other's her age in that area, though she was over-confidant in her skills. She was good, but not *that* much better than any one else, however her mentor's praise and underlying reason for this fixation would later make her over estimate her ablities.

### Young Adult/ New Warrior

Cricket and Moth were made warriors a few moons after Birchpaw, now Birchfur, and a few moons before Larkpaw and her littermate Pebblepaw. *(Note here: there are other apprentices around 2-3 moons younger than Larkbreeze and Pebblepelt at this time as well)* Moth took a warrior name, Mothfrost, and Cricket asked Meadowstar to keep her name, and was allowed to do so.

During her apprenticeship, she had grown very attatched to Larkpaw, who would be made a warrior two moons after her taking the name Larkbreeze. Her and Larkbreeze soon became mates, and Cricket confessed to her that she had met Birchfur as a kit. Her reason for saying this, is that he unaware sister had become mates with Birchfur despite during their time as apprentices Cricket heavily discourging her friendship with him. She did not tell Mothfrost what happened to protect her feelings, and it had gotten past a point of no-return to where she wasnt even sure Mothfrost would believe her.

Larkbreeze however, was horrified to hear this. Cricket begged her to not tell anyone, as she feared Mothfrost finding out and it crushing her. Larkbreeze reluctantly agreed to not share with anyone.

### The Gathering

a few gatherings past becoming a warrior, Cricket meets a Windclan tom, Rabbitear. Riverclan was currently in conflict with Windclan over the belief that they had been hunting on their land, with Windclan refusing to admit or deny, but stating it didnt matter since they had the river anyway. Cricket saw an opportunity as Riverclan had been planning an attack on the Windclan camp, and Rabbitear seemed romaticly intrested in her. Cricket had no intrest in him, however led him on to attempt help in a plan she had been formulating for a few moons to kill Birchfur in the chaos of the battle.

She would begin to regularly meet Rabbitear just outside both clans borders, not yet telling him of her plans. She did let Larkbreeze know about this after her repeated sneaking away, and assured her she had no real intrest in him but "needed his help". This would strain their realtionship, but Larkbreeze tentaivly trusted her.

As the attack neared, Cricket asked Rabbitear for his help. he would corner Birchfur in the entrance to the tunnels Windclan still used at this time, and yowl as though he were in pain to alert her to come. There, Cricket would kill Birchfur and it would be suspected to be a casuality of the battle.

However, during the battle, this would all go to plan until the Windclan deputy, Sandwhisker, hears the yowl and comes to protect Rabbitear, who happened to be her littermate. She would give Cricket the scar across her neck which almost kills her.

Cricket goes unconsious and is carried back to camp. Riverclan retreats. She is inthe medicine cat's den for around half a moon, and is terrified Birchfur will inform Meadowstar what she did. However, while she is still in the den, Birchfur comes to see her while the med cat is out. He apologizes for never talking to her about what happend and says he understands why she did what she did, and he won't tell anyone because it would crush Mothfrost, who has recently had his kits, if she were to be sent away. Birchfur does not know Cricket thinks he killed her mother, only that he was there and he gave her the scar. She pretends to accept his apology, and they agree to not speak of it.

While Cricket is there, she begins formulating a plan to make Birchfur suffer how she did, with loss, as opposed to physically. She sees how much he cares about those around him and wants to use that. His brother is the medicine cat, whom she knows has no fighting ability at all as his apprenticeship was cut short by his mentor's death, meaning he never recived the basic minimal self defense taught to med cats.

### The Plan

After Cricket is well again, she persues this when given an opportunity around a moon later. Specklednose (med cat/ Birchfur's brother) leaves camp to gather herbs. Meadowstar had just sent out two patrols to the opposite side of the territory to where Specklednose had said he was going, so the campwas mostly empty and would be far from her and Specklednose. She follows him to the river, where hes collecting herbs and unaware of her. She pounces on him and holds his head below water, drowning him. However, Cricket did not account for the fact that queens were still in camp, and her sister had seen her following Specklednose, very clearly trying to not be seen.

Mothfrost begins to cry and ask why she would do this, and Cricket both sees an opporutity that it was Birchfur's mate who followed her, and her desire to not be caught. She pretends to emotionally explain what Birchfur "did", only to catch Mothfrost off gaurd when she lunges for her throat. The queen is killed in a matter of moments.

Cricket is admitdly very upset that her sister is dead, but had resented her for her realtionship to Birchfur and had caused them to grow apart. She somewhat quickly moves on, or more so pushes away, this greif, and covers her tracks, washing her paws of blood in the river and being sure her fur is not left anywhere. she catches a fish to explain her absinse, and tells the current deputy, Pinetooth, about the bodies she "found by the river while fishing", allowing the genuine greif for her sister and friend to come through in attempt to give a genuine looking preformance that she had no part in their deaths.

Their bodies are brought back to camp and Birchfur is beyond devestated to have both his mate and brother dead. he stays by their bodies all night before theyre burried in the morning.

Cricket tells her barely hanging on mate, Larkbreeze, what she did. she expects Larkbreeze to be proud of her for some reason, but is met with horror. She threatens Larkbreeze to not tell anyone, and the she-cat agrees under the condition they they break up and Cricket leaves her alone. She reluctantly agrees.

### Death

six or so moons passes, and the deputy retires being replaced by Silverfin. Birchfur, to Cricket's dismay, has bounced back from the death pretty well, and as a result of losing most cats close to him, become even more close with his previous mentor Silverfin. His kits have now become apprentices and one, Petalpaw, is trained by another clan's medicine cat to take Specklednose's place, while her brother Puddlepaw is his father's apprentice.

Cricket, still unaware Silverfin killed her mother, and very over-confidant in her skills, decides she should kill Silverfin as well, to take away the last cat Birchfur has left. She follows him one night as he leaves camp to make dirt, and attempts to attack him. they fight for a decent ammount of time as Silverfin does not want to kill her, however he ends up pinning her to a tree and biting her neck.

Cricket dies, and is sent to the Dark Forest.