Turtlespring

## General Info

### Appearance

Turtlespring is a short, rounded cat. She looks kind of chubby, but this is an illusion caused by her medium-length, very thick fur. The good news about this fur is it keeps most of the water out when she swims. That bad news is, if she isn't careful and lets the water soak through, she doesn't dry for hours. She has small rounded eyes, one dark green and one a pretty amber. Her fur is mostly creamy white. She has a reddish-brown and black tortoiseshell pattern on her tail, though this is mostly wide, diagonal bands with only the slightest hint of overlap on either color. She also has a thin but rounded stripe of calico patterning on her back and her head is mostly tortoiseshell, with a cream muzzle and pure black ears.

### Personality

Turtlespring is very snarky. She likes making jokes and tends to be on the disrespectful side, but she is well-liked and very popular among the other apprentices. Turtlespring earned her nickname by being a salty little cat. She is about as far from an attractive SeaClan cat as you can get, so she doesn't really care anymore. If she can't be pretty, she'll at least be memorable. Turtlespring owns the room when she walks in and she has tons of attitude to spare. Overall, Turtlespring is a very fun character who took her lack of luck in the looks department and ran with it. No matter what mischief she gets up to, you can't stay mad at her for too long.

## Backstory

### Kithood

Turtlespring and her brother Sharkskip were born in SeaClan to a young queen named Appleskip. Their father, Stormleap, was very distant from all of them and only showed up to say hi to Appleskip on occasion. Life was pretty good for young Turtlekit. She learned pretty early on (mostly from her father) that she was absolutely hideous by SeaClan standards, but she didn't really mind. She was snarky by nature and decided to let her tongue run wild early on, leading to the snarky, back-talking Turtlespring we all know and love today.

But somehow, Turtlekit's parental situation got worse when she was three moons old and Appleskip died. She had been struggling all through Turtlekit's life. weakened from a hard labor and straight up being too young to have kits. Even before the kits, Appleskip had been getting sick in the winters and struggling to bounce back. But everything finally got her and she died in her sleep one night. Turtlekit and Sharkkit were a bit too young to understand what death was and even younger to understand why their father left SeaClan the next night having a few spiteful words to Turtlekit as his only goodbye. The attachment issues we see later on with Sparkcharge and Cherrycheek? This is where that all stems from.

Anyway, being old enough to eat solid food meant that Turtlekit and Sharkkit were pretty much on their own for the rest of their kithood. They handled the loss of their parents in very different ways. Turtlekit drew off to herself and became very moody and snappish. She refused to let anyone get close to her, even her own brother. She wasn't mad at anyone else, really. She was mad at herself. Stormleap had hated her. She was sure that he had left because Appleskip had died and Turtlekit had left. She wanted her mother back so badly. Everything else had hurt her.

## Other

### Other Info

* I initially had no idea what Turtlespring's backstory was going to be, but over the course of the roleplay, it basically wrote itself in my head.
* Appleskip was inspired by Cedarpoppy from A Better Way. Cedarpoppy had a sister named Applepaw who left the Clans to go live by the sea. Some basic traits were changed and Appleskip is not Applepaw, but the connection exists because I thought it was fun.
* One of the only things Stormleap ever taught his kits was that other cats' opinion of you was the only thing that mattered. The only cat who actually liked him was Appleskip, which is why he left when she died.

### Quotes

*"OH, stars, I'm sorry! You scared me, I'm sorry!"*

- Turtlepaw to Sparkcharge after breaking his nose

*"Well, your brother doesn't realize that I beat a full-grown warrior today and I could easily beat him up if I wanted to."*

- Turtlepaw to Boysenberrykit

*"I didn't eat any kits, if that's what you're wondering."*

- Turtlepaw to Sparkcharge

*"Sparkcharge said the rest of the day was mine, so I was planning to have a fish and sit in the sun. If you have other plans, by all means, share them. Surely you have better things to do than lie on a rock."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

*"Cherrypaw? Hey, mousebrain, are you okay?"*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw after he swallowed some flowers like an idiot

*"Sparkcharge said to take someone and train with them and I always do love fighting with you."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

*"Great! I'll go a little easy on you, since you just nearly died, but don't expect to win!"*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

*"You* like *me? Even though I'm horrible and snarky and not pretty and all the other things?"*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw after his confession

*"Great! Some weird stuff happened during training today and I'm very confused."*

- Turtlepaw to Sparkcharge. Though she's technically talking about Cherrypaw's confession, she turns it into confusion about some moves Quietrunner used.

*"He's just still sick. That's what happens when you accidentally poison yourself."*

- Turtlepaw to Sparkcharge about Cherrypaw

*"You really thought you were unlikable? This is exactly why I like you." "You make it hard to be unpleasant."*

- Exchange between Cherrypaw and Turtlepaw

*"I said words, Cherrypaw, don't think about them too long."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

*"Course not. He's dumb." "Uh-huh. Because you weren't just blushing and being all 'Ohhh noo, Cherrypaw are you okaaayyy???" "Yep. He's the worst."*

- Exchange between Sparkcharge and Turtlepaw about Cherrypaw

*"Stars, I hate you so much right now. Fine. Tell him. I'll deny everything. You can't prove it."*

- Turtlepaw to Sparkcharge

*"Getting wet! What's it look like?"*

- Turtlepaw to Sparkcharge

*"I've made a terrible mistake, please leave me alone."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw, being overly dramatic about the loss of her flowers.

*"I just... it's been a rough day and I made a mistake and I'm trying to fix it so if you could, like, go back to camp and pretend you never saw this, that would be great."*

- Turtlepaw to Sandstar

*"Look, I... I'm sorry for trying to get rid of the flowers. It was stupid and I felt bad as soon as they were gone. I... I was prideful and I was wrong."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

*"I just... there's too much you don't know... too much I can't tell you..."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw and coincidentally, the exact moment I knew what her backstory was

*"When you started trying to die, I dunno."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

*"Please don't talk to me right now. I'm out here because I want to be left alone."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

*"No, no, shh, shh, be quiet. I... I thought you were dead..."*

- Turtlepaw to Sparkcharge

*"No, Cherrypaw. You're as perfect as ever. I think Sparkcharge is really mad at me."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

"Nope, not in here. She's in the medicine den, like you should be!"

- Turtlepaw to Sparkcharge, about herself

*"I really don't feel too good... um... congrats on your marriage..."*

- Turtlepaw to Lavenderflight

*"Wow, thanks, I had no idea that that was a dog bite. It's not like that's the only thing I've fought in my entire life."*

- Turtlepaw to Ripplestream

*"How about... Cherrypaw? Is... is he doing okay? Hasn't accidentally poisoned himself again or anything?"*

- Turtlepaw to Lavenderflight

*"A little, I guess. But being a warrior means we can't have quite as much fun, y'know? No more messing around, no goofing off just because we feel like it. Actual responsibility, StarClan help us."*

- Turtlepaw to Cherrypaw

*"You can't fight me during training, but suddenly it's an assessment and you can?"*

- Turtlepaw teasing Cherrypaw

*"Turtlepaw, you will be known as Turtlespring. SeaClan honors and admires your energy and grace, and we welcome you as a full warrior of SeaClan."*

- Sandstar during Turtlepaw's warrior ceremony

*"Cherrycheek... I know how you feel about me. And I still don't understand it. But honestly? We've been through a lot this last moon. These last few moons, really. And... And I'm still scared. I still don't think I'm the one for you. But I trust you. You're my closest friend. I would be honored to stand at your side."*

- Turtlespring to Cherrycheek, accepting his proposal

*"What are you talking about? We're not together!"*

- Turtlespring to Sparkcharge

*"They've been teasing me... for a couple moons now. Ever since you told me you liked me, cats have been pestering me about how I feel about you. I just... I don't want to be made a fool of. I don't want them to have been right."*

- Turtlespring to Cherrycheek

*"No! No, absolutely not, I was so scared when you vanished, I've been so lonely! You won't t-talk to me and I miss you. You were my best friend for so long and you just shut me out, I don't want to lose you permanently. I love you so, so much, Cherrycheek, you have no idea... There are so many days where everything's going wrong and you're my only bright spot."*

- Turtlespring to Cherrycheek