Ruby

## Appearance and Personality

### Appearance

Ruby is a small, lithe, spiky-furred white cat. She has a few red markings, notably two stripes on her tail, the bottom third of her tail, the tip of her right ear, the left side of her face, wing/stripes on her legs, and a big splotch on her back. She has thin, angular amber eyes. A gleam in those eyes usually means death for all involved.

### Personality

Cold and calculating, Ruby is a fierce fighter who cares only for herself and her group. If you aren’t with her, you must go down. Ruby has spent a lot of time cultivating a fearsome persona, using her influence to terrify cats into submission. Somehow, cats are usually put off when they see this small cat, but that quickly vanishes once she does just about anything. Ruby is really freakin' scary.

## Backstory

### Kithood

Ruby was born to Blink, a quiet tortoiseshell she-cat. Blink was taking care of an older kit, a tom named Comet. Comet was four moons older than Ruby and, according to Blink, had been brought to Blink by Ruby's father, a tom Ruby had never met who called himself Stormbringer. Blink thought his name was a little weird, but he was cute and she was lonely and they got along really well. Once Blink was pregnant, Stormbringer brought her baby Comet and left. That was disappointing, but Blink loved Ruby. She even warmed up to Comet. She told the kits stories that Stormbringer had told her, stories about his parents and grandparents. Ruby loved those stories. Cats fighting other cats for a noble cause? The idea fascinated Ruby.

When she was about three moons old, Ruby was already itching to leave. Comet was seven and could protect her. Why did they still need Blink? But Blink was Ruby's mom. She loved her little murder child more than life itself and was unwilling to let her precious daughter go out into the world alone. This protective nature just made Ruby more mad and more reckless.

Blink taught the kits how to hunt and fight. They learned where the best places for rats were, what cat gangs to avoid, and which gardens attracted the most critters. Ruby didn't care. She only cared about sparring with Comet. The tom was bigger, bulkier, and older than Ruby. He had more experience and more raw power. However, Ruby had more cunning and a drive to win that could never quite be satisfied by beating Comet.

By the time she was five, she was searching for other cats to fight. Most of the ones she came across were soft kittypet who couldn't hurt a fly, making her rather cocky. Blink found out about it before too long and kept a close eye on her at all times. She couldn't have her precious baby torn apart by alley cats.

That didn't protect Blink against said alley cats, though, as she was killed by a Colony exile when Ruby was eight moons old. This infuriated Ruby and she decided to gather a group of strong cats who could help her avenge her mother. Despite the constraints Blink had put on her, Ruby had loved her mother. The cats responsible for her death would have to pay.

She started with Comet. Obviously she would need a strong right-hand-man and he was the only cat she knew or trusted. After quickly convincing him to join her, she decided to go looking for Stormbringer next. She would need his charisma and he seemed to have enough of a reputation for her to piggyback off of. Besides, she wanted to hear more about her ancestors.

She was unsuccessful in finding Stormbringer, but from what she learned during the trip, he had purposefully picked a fight with Colony and absolutely deserved to die at their paws. Well, great. That's one less cat to keep track of and one more reason to beat up Colony.

Ruby loved those.

By the time she was ten, she came to the realization that maybe, just maybe, the family line needed to be passed on. She also came to the realization that kittens sucked and she did not want to put her ambitions on pause for several months to raise squealing, squirming children. She decided to plant the idea in Comet's head and let him deal with that. Fathers didn't have to raise kits, so she'd just let him handle that part. That, of course, meant he needed a suitable mate, so that's what their next quest was.

### Adulthood

At twelve moons old, Ruby stumbled across a young she-cat being beat up by some alley cats. The cat was fighting as best she could against three bigger cats. Ruby, impressed by her bravery, sent in Comet to chase off the bad guys. The young she-cat introduced herself as Eclipse. Ruby offered her a place in the group, which Eclipse accepted. Eclipse was brave, strong, and pretty, so Ruby decided she would be a good mate for Comet once she was old enough.

~Fill this in when we get more group members~

When she was twenty, Ruby met two young she-cats, Iris and Violet. Violet has spent her first six moons of life training to heal with plants while Iris was an expert hunter. Ruby was never one to turn down cats with useful talents, so join the group they did.

When she was twenty-one, she finally sat down with Eclipse and Comet and explained that they were going to be mates whether they liked it or not. Comet was not surprised, but Eclipse was and was rather panicked. She did agree to be Comet's mate, though. Finally certain that the family line would survive, Ruby turned her attention to other matters.

Thus far, Ruby and her slowly growing group had been moving around whenever they needed or wanted to. However, if they were going to deal with kits (which Ruby did not like, but acknowledged the benefits of) they would need a permanent home, at least while the kits were young. And, hopefully, there would be more kits than just her brother's. There meant their new home would have to be big enough for a growing population, but secure enough for a small group to defend. Ruby could only think of one place they could go.

Ruby took her group to a park near the edge of town. The buildings were awful and one in particular was too far gone to be restored. It was the old Community Center, so it was important enough to not be torn down but too ruined to be restored. It was safe, defensible, and still had a good portion of the roof. It was perfect. With the park outside, there was plenty of prey and the plant nursery was only a few blocks away. It was the perfect place and Ruby had her group settle there. It was a perfect home.

~Fill in some more stuff here~

She did get rather frustrated when, ten moons after she'd gotten Eclomet together, Eclipse was still not expecting kits. If Eclipse and Comet didn't work out then, heaven forbid, *she* might have to do it. Ruby was not a fan of this idea and let Eclipse know how easy she would be to replace. She reminded her of how Comet had saved her life all that time ago and how uncomfortable the streets would be if she made an enemy of Ruby.

When she was 31, Eclipse's kits were finally born and Ruby could rest easy.

## Other

### Other Info

* Ruby is kind of the soul successor to Hazel. Kind of. Her life is nowhere near as tragic and most of her pain is self-inflicted, but their personalities are fairly similar on the surface. I'd probably give her a 5.1 on the Hazel backstory scale (HBS), which is the scale by which we measure tragic backstories.

### Trivia

* Ruby and Comet are descended from Fieldstar and Crest (who were in fact together). F&C had two kits together, though they were kept secret from the Clans. The firstborn was killed in the final battle, but the secondborn, a tom named Flash, managed to get away and made it back to twolegplace. Flash had several kits, the most important of which was Dazzle. Dazzle had just one kit, Stormbringer, who then had Comet and Ruby and a couple other, less important kits.