Widowflame

Widowflame is an interesting cat, to say the least. Her struggles with identity, self-worth, and expectations have been present through her whole life and that isn't likely to change any time soon. Her parents' heavy favoritism of her siblings when they were kits has left Widowflame with some issues to work out.

## Appearance & Personality

### Appearance

Widowflame is a medium-furred cat with a dark tortoiseshell pattern. Her black fur is mottled with red patches. She has some tabby markings on her back and legs. She has a red patch across the left side of her face and a smudge of red above her nose. Both of her ears are red and her round eyes are gold. Her fur is medium-short and very soft. Her paws are all red except for her back left leg, which is black. She has dark red toes on her front left paw and black toes on her back right paw. She is fairly small, about 7.4 inches tall, and has a plump build. She is rather quick and agile. She wears a red spider lily on one ear, a gift from Hollypaw.

### Personality

Widowflame is an honest cat. She believes strongly in telling the truth at all times no matter what. Widowflame is very unlikely to lie for any reason and when she does lie, it is painfully obvious. Because of her strong belief in truth, Widowflame does not take being lied to lightly. If someone breaks her trust, they are very unlikely to ever gain it back. Widowflame is also very action-oriented. She makes goals and she executes plans to achieve them. She is desperate to prove herself and she believes that the best way to do that is through achieving milestones. She can’t sit still when there is something to do and she can’t leave something alone that she doesn’t think is right. She has a lot of personal loyalty. Clan loyalty, that wavers, but Widowflame is incredibly loyal to the cats she considers friends. Those that earn her trust and loyalty keep it forever unless they do something to ruin that. She has a strong moral sense that doesn’t perfectly align with the warrior code and she will always follow what she believes to be right. She has a lot of loyalty, just not the kind that makes one a great warrior.

Widowflame is very ambitious. She has lofty goals and would do almost anything to achieve them {see aforementioned personal code}. She wants to be seen as capable, as a leader, as a strong warrior who is taken seriously and in her mind, the only way to do that is to climb to the top. She wants so badly to hold any semblance of power. Widowflame is also very independent. She does her very best to get along without anyone’s help. She doesn’t want anyone to see her as weak, so she often takes on more than she can handle and does her best to do it on her own. This is, in short, not good for her mentally. It is, in fact, absolutely terrible for her mental health because she can’t do it on her own- no one can. If she can’t do it on her own, maybe she is weak and maybe her parents were right to not love her the way they loved her siblings and maybe she isn’t good enough. So she is independent and if she needs to rely on someone, she will be secretly grateful but outwardly kind of a jerk about it. When it comes to hopeless romantics, you would be hard-pressed to find a more hopeless one than Widowflame. Widowflame very much likes the idea of romance, she just isn’t entirely sure if she fully believes that she can find it. If she falls in love, she falls very hard. She is extreme in her feelings about nearly everything and romantic feelings are no different. If her heart gets broken, she will likely still harbor feelings for the cat who broke it. Her love, like her loyalty and her trust, must be earned and once gained, it is not easy to lose. Despite the extremes in what she feels, Widowflame tends to be very reserved. Her heart is not an open book and she goes to great lengths to conceal what she feels. She could be stuck pining for moons or bottle up anger until it explodes because she hates feeling exposed or vulnerable. She doesn’t make friends very easily because of how little of herself she shows.

Widowflame is incredibly stubborn. She does what she wants to because she wants to. She has strong beliefs and clings to them like a child to a beloved toy. She has a clear idea of what she needs to do and there is little that can stop her once she has that idea in her mind. She is unafraid to go against orders or take things into her own paws. Despite her often selfish actions and more selfish motives, Widowflame has managed to convince herself that she really isn’t a selfish cat. While her actions can sometimes benefit more than just herself, she will rarely agree to do something that doesn’t benefit her, her reputation, or her goals at all. She assures herself that she’s doing things for the Clan, for her siblings, for her parents, but it ultimately comes down to the approval of those who she wants to be noticed by. In addition to being stubborn, Widowflame is often openly defiant. She does what she wants to, it’s just who she is. She follows her morals, her code, her desires. Lucky for her, a lot of these overlap with the warrior code, but not all of it does and if the code requires something that would go against what she thinks is right, she’ll call it out. She refuses to go against her beliefs and would watch the world burn before she did. Finally, Widowflame is recalcitrant. She doesn’t like leadership {ironic for someone who wants to be leader} and she doesn’t like being told what to do. She doesn’t usually outright rebel, but she does tend to chafe against the system. If forced to choose between her Clan and something else that she really really wants, 9 times out of 10 the other thing will win.

## Background

### Kithood

Widowkit was born in MarshClan. She was the middle kit in her litter, with an older sister named Reclusekit and a younger brother named Tarantulakit. Their parents were named Rosemite and Spidersqueak.

Widowkit and her siblings weren't the only kits in the nursery. Frigidbristle and Mistralflutter had recently had a second litter, a single molly named Skylarkkit. Skylarkkit was the same age as Widowkit, though they were never close growing up. Skylarkkit did play around with her brother Tarantulakit a lot though, so that happened.

What started early on in Widowkit's life and only became more of a problem as she got older were some issues with favoritism. Rosemite loved Tarantulakit, finding his fun and playful nature appealing. Spidersqueak, on the other hand, liked Reclusekit, with her natural elegance and wit. Widowkit didn't get it. Was she doing something wrong? She wasn't exactly neglected, but if something came down to Widowkit vs their favored sibling, Widowkit never won.

Widowkit ended up spending a lot of time with Cedarpoppy. Cedarpoppy, at least, gave her the time of day. That was a new experience for Widowkit. She also took a liking to Sootsnow, MarshClan's messenger. Both of them were Very Cool in Widowkit's opinion and she made sure that she pestered Sootsnow whenever she had a moment of downtime. She even considered becoming a messenger, but found that Reclusekit was gunning for the role. It was in that moment that Widowkit made up her mind: she was going to become leader. Anything to make her parents notice her, and what was more noticeable than a leader?

Widowkit studied the warrior code rigorously. She learned her history, memorizing the names of great heroes and their deeds. She liked the stories of the rogue war. Rules got bent, which she didn't love, but the Clans had come together in a somewhat unique way. She thought that it was really cool that one of the elders had a HorizonClan hike medal from Gingerstar's reign, an heirloom from his mother. Widowkit could spend hours spellbound by elders' tales.

Studying the warrior code was one thing. Taking it to heart was another. Widowkit didn't actually care too much about the code. She had a very strong sense of right and wrong even as a kit and she didn't need some boring old set of rules to tell her that. She decided early on that lying was decidedly not okay and that breaking promises was a huge betrayal, no matter what the promise itself was. She became obsessed with the idea of truth and what it actually meant.

### Apprenticeship

Widowpaw was apprenticed to Limelace. Cedarpoppy had asked Minkstar specifically that her old mentor take on Widowpaw and it turned out to be a good choice - Limelace was a good cat, a great teacher, and very open and friendly. Their heart-on-their-sleeve approach to life endeared them to Widowpaw and their experience made them an excellent mentor.

Widowpaw was not alone in training. Along with her siblings and Skylarkpaw, training spaces briefly included Rillpaw, Firpaw, and Cardinalpaw. They were only apprentices with Widowpaw for about a moon, but Widowpaw thought that Firpaw and Cardinalpaw were pretty cool. They were Cedarpoppy's kits, after all, and Widowpaw thought they were good cats. Cardinalpaw, unfortunately, was friends with Reclusepaw. Widowpaw didn't like that. She also couldn't really do anything about it.

Three moons older than her was Chivepaw. Chivepaw was intrigued by Widowpaw and attempted to befriend her. Widowpaw hesitantly allowed this to happen. After all, who was she to refuse a friend when one dropped out of the sky?

That is, until she found out what Chivepaw was really like. Chivepaw liked picking on some of the other apprentices: Bluepaw, Firpaw, Skylarkpaw, to name a few. Widowpaw was not impressed by this and they had a pretty big fight when Widowpaw was seven moons old. Widowpaw told her that she was a two-faced bully and Chivepaw probably didn't appreciate that. Widowpaw didn't hang out with her after that, leaving her back at square one in the friends department.

Widowpaw actually ended up in more than one fight that moon. Not long after breaking off her friendship with Chivepaw, Reclusepaw tracked her down and asked why she never trained with her and Tarantulapaw. That conversation went exceptionally poorly and ended with the pair fighting in the middle of camp. It took the combined efforts of Spidersqueak and Basilpool to pull them apart. Widowpaw sulked about the fight for a while until Cedarpoppy had a chat with her about how she should probably not beat up her sister, no matter what Reclusepaw said or did.

When Widowpaw was nine moons old, a Very Bad Thing happened to the Clans: the plague. It came to be known as deathcough, as it had a very high death rate. Catching it was almost always a death sentence. It was bad enough that Minkstar caught it, dying just as her kits were born, but Spidersqueak caught it. Widowpaw may have known she was secondary in her father's eyes, but she still loved him despite everything and didn't want to face the truth about his illness - he was almost certainly going to die. She avoided him like Whitebird told her to and did her best to stay healthy, promising herself that Spidersqueak would recover and the nightmare would end soon. It didn't.

Reclusepaw, Tarantulapaw, and Rosemite all visited Spidersqueak in the final days before his death. Widowpaw remained stubbornly in denial because her father couldn't just *die*, he was a strong warrior, he'd recover. He didn't. Eight days after catching the disease, Widowpaw's father died.

That was a bit of a shock for Widowpaw. She hadn't expected him to just up and die like that. She started avoiding the rest of her family telling herself that they might have the disease but really, she just didn't want to deal with her own guilt at the fact that she would never see Spidersqueak again. Her resolve to avoid them only increased when Reclusepaw tracked her down and yelled at her for letting Spidersqueak die alone. Widowpaw was pretty infuriated by Reclusepaw's accusation because of course it was *Reclusepaw*, she'd always been Spidersqueak's *favorite*, she had no idea what it was like for Widowpaw to be rejected by her own father the way she had been.

Word of their fight made it back to Rosemite, who tracked down Widowpaw. Widowpaw didn't want to talk to her mother, didn't want to deal with more angry words, but Rosemite simply apologized for her and Spidersqueak's negligence. Widowpaw was caught off guard by this and, while she internally appreciated it, it didn't undo the damage of her formative moons and she rejected the apology. It snowballed into another big fight, which Widowpaw regretted but was too proud to apologize for.

It was that same moon, though, that Rosemite caught the plague as well. Widowpaw visited her briefly, apologizing for her stubbornness and asking Rosemite to forgive her. Rosemite accepted and promised her that she was loved. Widowpaw didn't believe her, but she kept those thoughts to herself. No need to cause her mother more pain as she was dying.

Rosemite died about half a moon after her mate, shortly before Widowpaw turned ten moons old. Without their parents around, Reclusepaw and Tarantulapaw tried to reach out to Widowpaw, but she refused to let them. A part of her knew it was ridiculous to blame them for their parents' actions, but her bitterness had no other direction to take. Her final conversation with Rosemite may have tied up loose ends for her, but Widowpaw still had nine moons of being second-best and always the last choice to deal with. Widowpaw rebuffed any attempt her siblings made to reach out to her, withdrawing into her training as much as she could.

She still talked to Sootsnow and Cedarpoppy - they had never let her down and Widowpaw found comfort in their presence. She often sat in on Cedarpoppy's stories, listening to the wild tales she told Warrenkit, Lapwingkit, Hollykit, and Chaffinchkit. She loved them all and a part of her wished for the adventure Cedarpoppy described.

After another moon and a half of being isolated and doing basically nothing but train, Widowpaw was one of the best hunters of her generation and was getting ready to earn her warrior name.

### Warrior Life

In honor of her passion, Widowpaw was named Widowflame. She loved her new name, feeling that it suited her well and was elegant enough that she could take pride in it. Her siblings earned the names Reclusecrest and Tarantuladusk. Widowflame was just glad that none of them had been named after their parents.

Being a warrior wasn't really that different from being an apprentice. The fire that had driven her as an apprentice had burned out a bit. There was no one left to impress anymore and instead of pride, she was left with a hollow feeling that her efforts had been for nothing. She had no friends her age, she was pretty sure she would never be able to repair the damage done to her relationships with her siblings, and her parents were dead. After that, what was she left with?

She briefly tried to befriend the newly named Skylarkspring, but she had been witnessing Widowflame's family mess since kithood and didn't trust that Widowflame was sincere in her wish to turn things around. That stung a bit to Widowflame. She considered trying to reach out to Rillwing, but the older molly was a touch too intimidating for Widowflame's tastes. Maybe later.

The plague finally ended when she was fourteen moons old. Some mysterious traveling cats showed the Clans an herb that cured the sickness, which had gained the name deathcough, and the fear that had gripped the Clans finally subsided. Widowflame couldn't help but feel like it was too little too late - the Clans had been devastated and, even without the high death tolls, she had lost both her parents.

There was a HorizonClan hike when she was sixteen moons old. Widowflame chose not to go, as she frequently had poor reactions to the pine trees that covered the territory. Her siblings also went, which was more reason in her eyes to not bother. As far as she knew, they didn't like her very much and she wasn't willing to push it. And, again, pine trees.

Widowflame went to her first Gathering since her early apprenticeship when she was 17 moons old. There had been one the previous moon, but she hadn't gone. This Gathering turned out to be quite important, as the FallClan deputy Stormclaw announced that a rogue had warned him of an approaching army. Widowflame doubted the trustworthiness of a random loner, but from everything she'd heard Stormclaw himself was a reasonable cat. When his words were confirmed by Swallowfrost and Whitebird, who shared omens sent by StarClan, Widowflame was sold. If a threat was coming to the Clans, she would prepare. She would be ready for it.

## Other

### Trivia

* Widowflame is allergic to pine sap. She avoids HorizonClan because of it
* Widowflame is a revamp of my ex-TFCRP character Widowpride. I have changed Recluse & Tarantula's names and removed Scorpionsun altogether. Widowpride was a revamp of a slightly older character from a whole other RP, also named Widowflame. I poured my heart and soul into Widowpride and nothing ever came from her so here's hoping that Widowflame ends up in a better place <3
* Widowflame's voice claim is Natasha Romanoff in What If...? Lake Bell, not Scarlett Johansson.
* She really loves flowers. Her favorites are lilacs, daisies, and dandelions
* Widowflame is scared of thunder and lightning
* Widowflame tends to fidget with anything nearby- moss, flowers, grass, etc.- when she's nervous or bored
* Widowflame walks very softly and silently at all times. She often startles cats by accidentally sneaking up on them.
* For some reason I think she and Valorstorm would either like each other a lot or completely hate each other. That's just what strong moral codes do to a cat.
* Widowflame looks very similar to her mother. She hates being told how much she looks like Rosemite though.
* Widowflame used to sit in the medicine den as a young kit whenever she wasn't with Cedarpoppy or Sootsnow and quietly observe Whitebird. She has picked up some basic herbal knowledge because of this.

### Playlist

* I'm Still Here | John Rzeznik | *and i want a moment to be real, wanna touch things i don't feel* | Widowflame feels very isolated and misunderstood. She never fit in with her family and that drove her away from other cats as well. All she wants is something meaningful.
* Mr. Brightside | The Killers | *choking on your alibi* | This is more of a future one, but Widowflame's themes of truth and honor would be really cool to explore in the face of a betrayal. Whether its a sibling, a friend, a romantic interest, doesn't matter.
* Iris | The Goo-Goo Dolls | *and i don't want the world to see me, 'cause i don't think that they'd understand* | Every angsty song is Widowflame's song /j It has the same themes of an underlying desire to be understood as I'm Still Here with an extra helping of angst and (for me) sentimental value.