Elkpaw

Elkpaw is currently an apprentice of IsleClan. He has a bit of a poor reputation for his antics and attitude, but he's still a smart and strong young tom, and is shaping into a fine warrior. He has a tendency to get into fights and has a superiority complex, though. He's gonna need some help working on that.

## Physical Description

He is a very large and fluffy tom. He's not exactly tall, but he's very bulky and it makes him appear sort of imposing upon first glance. He's half Maine Coon, after all. He has a mane of thick fur around his neck and there are big tufts on the ends of his ears. His fur is usually a mess and is sticking out everywhere - he doesn't really care about his appearance at all. His paws are too big for his legs and there is a kink in the middle of his floofy tail, causing it to droop down past the halfway point. He has a little bit of an overbite as well, and his claws are a bit shorter and blunter than average.

His long pelt is mostly brown tabby. There are a few splatters of paler brown here and there, along with mottles of darker shades, and his stripes are long and looping. Some of them, particularly around the front half of his body, are dark enough to look almost black. There is a mask of darker fur around his nose and underneath his eyes, which are big and a shade of bright yellow. Oddly, his left eye looks a little bit closer to green than the right. He has never looked closely enough at himself to notice it, though.

## Personality

Elkpaw is a fun-loving and passionate cat. He's sort of loud and obnoxious, though. And by "sort of", I mean *very.* He's impulsive and hotheaded and dreadfully stubborn, and he struggles to take anything seriously. If he's uncomfortable in any situation, or if things aren't looking good, he'll automatically jump to humor - and that often tends to make him come off as insensitive or jerky. When called out, he'll get defensive and angry, only serving to escalate the situation. It's a cycle that he's noticed, but he's too obstinate to do anything about it. He wants to do things his own way and he doesn't like being held back.

As that implies, he's extremely headstrong, and if he wants to do something, he's going to do it; StarClan help whoever gets in his way. He's typically pretty easygoing and funny, liking to laze around and perform small pranks, but he's always ready for a fight. He's a bit self-centered and is constantly striving to assert superiority over his peers, even if it's mainly because deep down, he's very nervous about his own standings and... well, he kind of hates himself. He would never admit it, though, and anyone who would attempt to bring it up would be sure to get clawed.

Elkpaw doesn't have many habits or hobbies. He likes chewing on the bones or shells of his prey after he's finished with them, and he enjoys clawing at tree bark to sharpen his claws and show off his strength. He is secretly determined to count all of the stars in the night sky at least once before he dies, but unfortunately, he's terrible not only at keeping track, but at staying awake long enough to come anywhere close. He likes going to sleep early and getting up late. He also has a massive appetite at all times and has been known to eat his catches before feeding the rest of the Clan before. It's because he thinks that aspect of the Warrior Code is stupid, and so he refuses to follow it.

He's very skilled when it comes to fighting and battle practice, but hunting and fishing... not so much. He can't climb trees or swim very well, either, try as he might. It frustrates him and he hates being expected to do it. He doesn't want to practice it, either. Crabs are his favorite type of prey, and he once planned to try collecting claws from every crab he caught, but he ended up forgetting about it after the first couple of times. But he's smarter than he makes himself seem, really.

So... in conclusion, Elkpaw sucks, but he's still a pretty great guy overall. We love Elkpaw in this house.

## Life

### Kithood / Early Life

Moose was born outside of Clan territory to a pair of loners named Flo and Rattle. Flo, his mother, had been a kittypet living in a nearby city when she'd become mates with Rattle, the neighborhood stray. The thing was, however, her owner was sort of abusive. She wasn't fed nearly often enough, and every time she snuck outside to see Rattle, she was punished upon returning. Once she got pregnant, Rattle finally persuaded her to run away with him, promising her that he'd teach her everything she needed to know about survival in "the wild", as she called it. So they did that. And they left the city. Unfortunately, Flo was incredibly weak and pretty sick from all of the exertion after the way she'd been treated, and when she went into labor a few weeks later, the strain ended up killing her... as well as two of the three kits. Rattle was devastated and a total mess and it sucked. He knew he couldn't keep the third kit alive. It needed milk and shelter and things that he couldn't provide. But he couldn't bring himself to just give up on it, either. So he took the kit and started traveling with it, without even giving it a name first.

He eventually came across a middle-aged loner living in an abandoned rabbit tunnel about a day and a half later. This loner was a brazen and irritable she-cat, but a she-cat all the same - and that's all Rattle was looking for. She was reluctant at first, but after hearing his pitiful tale, she decided that she might as well do her best to take care of the kit. Rattle had kind of lost all hope by that point and was convinced that his son was going to die, but he hung back and let her give it a shot anyways. By the next morning, the kit was considerably better off and didn't seem like it was gonna die anymore, so that was good. Rattle learned that the she-cat's name was Jen. Jen asked him what the kit's name was, and he figured that he should at least give the kit a chance, and he said the first thing that came to mind: Moose. And thus Moose was named.

So from then on, Moose just vibed in the rabbit tunnel with Jen and his dad. He learned how to talk and move around and stuff with help from both of them, and he sort of saw Jen as his mother. Rattle did not attempt to keep Flo and Moose's siblings a secret from him - no, he told him about them as soon as he was old enough to understand. Really, though, that did nothing to sway Moose's opinion on Jen. *She* was the one taking care of him, not Flo. Sure, it wasn't Flo's fault, but that didn't change what it was. There was no spark between Jen and Rattle at all, even though they did become good friends over the next several moons. Moose didn't mind that. They were his parents, but that didn't mean they had to be mates. When Moose was four moons old, Jen revealed to him and to Rattle that she was actually in hiding from a small group of cats whom her family had been feuding with, and she'd escaped after they killed her old mate and their two kits, and she was glad to still have a chance at a family. Moose thought that was sweet.

He just existed for three more moons, learning how to fight and hunt from his parents and getting into various shenanigans. Their tunnel was just several hours worth of walking away from a river that Moose quite liked visiting because of all of the interesting prey and plants he could find there. Really, Moose was rather conceited and spoiled. Everything seemed fine. Everything seemed great. He was happy.

Until he made a very big oopsie at seven moons old.

At around sunset one day, Moose had decided to go out hunting to catch himself something for dinner. He was near the river just to see what he could find when suddenly a tom he didn't recognize popped into view on the opposite bank. Moose got all hissy at him for potentially having frightened away all of the prey nearby, but the tom asked him with a question, asking if he knew Jen. Moose was like, "yeah, why???" and to his surprise, the tom claimed that he was her mate and he had their kits (now fully grown) with him as well, back by where they were staying. Moose pointed out that he thought they'd all died, and the tom was like "nope, we got away". Now, Moose was all excited about that and said he'd go back right then and tell her, but the tom said to wait. Mystery Tom (that's what I'll call him) asked where exactly their den was, to which Moose answered straight away that it was just in the rabbit tunnel. Mystery Tom was like "great, thanks, I'm gonna go get our kids now. it's pretty far away, so just keep hunting and then come back and meet us here in like an hour so we can go see her!" and Moose was like "okay!!" So Mystery Man turned back around and disappeared. And Moose kept hunting.

He caught some prey, and then, as requested, returned to the river. Mystery Tom was nowhere to be seen. So he waited. And waited. He waited until it was nighttime, and by then he was pretty sure that either something was up, or Mystery Tom had just left without him. He wasn't really worried about it, though, so he just picked up his prey and headed back to the tunnel. Except when he got there, uh... it wasn't pretty. Jen and Rattle had both been murdered, and Mystery Tom's scent was all over them.

Oops.

Yeah. As it turns out, Mystery Tom had been one of the cats Jen was on the run from. There were no kits. As soon as Moose had left, he'd just doubled right back around, killed Jen and Rattle, and then skedaddled. It wasn't hard for Moose to piece that together, and he was of course mortified and felt incredibly guilty. He'd just gotten his parents killed. He was an idiot. He couldn't believe he'd bought the tom's lies so easily, and he sort of just broke down and started running off. It conveniently started raining as he did that, so there was a nice cinematic nighttime thunderstorm raging in the background as he fled from his sins. Juicy.

He ran back to the river without really knowing why, and then proceeded to accidentally fall in and get washed out into open sea. Good job, Moose. It wasn't actually that far, though, and he just scrambled onto the closest land he could find, which happened to be an area just outside of CoveClan and PalmClan territory. He was really shook and traumatized and... unhappy. He sorta just skulked around after that, careful to stay outside of the borders, and doing his best to figure out where the heck he was and what these funky cats' deals were.

That kinda just happened for the next two moons. He found his way to the islands of IsleClan and ReefClan and did his best to observe the Clan cats from something of a distance while he recovered from what had happened to Rattle and Jen. He eventually decided that if he was going to live near the Clans, he might as well join one- and so he went for IsleClan. When they asked for his name, he didn't answer straight away, and instead diverted the question so he could have a bit of time to think.

Was Moose his real name? It had been given to him late, and on a whim with barely any thought. It had been a panic answer. Did he *like* the name Moose? No. He didn't. Moose was the cat who'd gotten his parents slaughtered. He didn't want that weight to drag behind him forever. What was something similar that Jen had told him about before? A deer? An elk? An elk.

He told them that his name was Elk.

### Apprenticeship

Now nine moons old and hoping for a fresh start, Elkpaw was accepted into IsleClan by Dapplestar. A young tom named Sproutberry was assigned as his mentor. Elkpaw liked Sproutberry well enough (even if he was aggravated beyond belief by his timidity), but by no means would that stop him from causing trouble. Oh, no. From day one, Elkpaw's main goal was to create an image for himself and to get his Clanmates - mainly the other apprentices - to think well of him. Hating ReefClan was a trendy thing to do? In that case, Elkpaw hated them more than everyone else in IsleClan combined. Sympathizing with CoveClan was the majority's preference? Well, there you have it, then- Elkpaw would support CoveClan with tooth and claw. He would show off and boast whenever he had the opportunity - partially in hopes of making himself stop despising who he was, and partially out of a general disregard for his peers' feelings.

Only a few days after Elkpaw joined the Clan, another kit was made into an apprentice: Dewpaw. Now, Dewpaw was three moons younger than Elkpaw, but she had the same amount of experience with training. Plus, her mentor, Boughshade, was friends with Sproutberry. *And* she was sort of cute. So Elkpaw immediately started valuing her opinion over almost everyone else's, wanting to work with her and get her attention whenever possible. This developed into a crush over the course of about a week only.

So far, he hasn't done much. He's just... doing his best. And making everyone hate him, probably. And *everyone* includes himself.

## Other

### Trivia

* Flo was a Maine Coon. That's where Elkboi got it from.
* I was also originally gonna let Flo live. But then I decided not to. Get rekt, Flo.
* He needs a friend. Or a family. Or something. ElkDew, perhaps??
* I (Starling) wrote this backstory instead of my school essay. It's due in fifteen minutes now and I've barely started. I hope it's worth it.
* Update: It probably wasn’t worth it. I completed the essay, but at what cost?

### Quotes

Um... I'm sure I'll add some eventually. Unless...?