Bearheart

Bearheart is a solid, chocolate brown she-cat with bright green eyes.

## Personality

To say that Bearheart would jump at her own shadow would not be completely accurate. A short list of other things that she would jump at would be the wind, leaves moving, waves, and the rustle of prey. Despite her constant fear and shyness, Bearheart is a kind she-cat and is more than happy to help others, no matter what it would take - even if she had to be out all night, or put herself at risk. She doesn't want to hurt anyone, even if it would be on accident, and she does her best to make sure that everyone around her is happy. As a kit, she was determined to become a good warrior that was able to provide for her Clan no matter what, but now that she is one she isn't entirely sure that she has been able to achieve her goal; then again, it's not like she doesn't still have time. She isn't the most social cat - in fact, she's one of the most shy cats around. She has trouble maintaining eye contact, preferring to keep her eyes on her paws and only managing to keep it for short glances, and occasionally for longer if she really tries. She prefers a small circle of friends, and would only ever leave it when she's in said small circle - but that doesn't mean that she'd enjoy the "adventurous" outing in the least. Crowds aren't something she enjoys, either, and she'd hide among the edges of the crowd rather than immersing herself into it unless she was dragged into it (unwillingly - very, very unwillingly, though she won't put up that much of a fight). She is patient beyond belief, able to wait however long she'd need to for something she's looking forwards to and able to deal with the most excitable of cats easily. She has a nervous tick of shuffling her paws, and she's quite self-conscious about it - she has tried to stop it a few times, but has had little success, and she'll often cover up the action with her tail. She does the movement quite often - when she's anxious or nervous, overwhelmed, thinking, not quite sure how to proceed... or she could just be zoning out, not realizing that she's doing it. Who knows, really. Bearheart could be described as a cuddle-bug, as she is a cat that would most certainly enjoy snuggling up with her friends and just spend the day like that, without getting anything else done.

## Long Posts

### bear realizes she caught them feels

Bearheart did, occasionally, wonder what her mother would think of her if she was still alive.

From all the stories her father had told her about Poppyfern, she was well aware that her mother was kind and patient and warm, and supportive on top of all of that. She would like to think that she would love and care about her just as much as Rowanstripe did, just as she had seen so many other mothers do, but she couldn't be sure, because she never actually *knew* Poppyfern. All she could do was wonder what it would be like if she was still alive, and if she was watching over her and Finstrike and her father from StarClan.

She was startled out of her thoughts when a kit — Coalkit, if she remembered her name right — tumbled and landed in a heap in front of her paws. The pair of she-cats blinked at each other before Coalkit got to her paws, shook out her pelt, and hurried back to her siblings without so much as a word. All Bearheart could feel was fond, though; it was hard to be angry at a kit, even if they just got dirt all over the fur on her chest and paws.

Maybe that just had to do with her wanting kits of her own.

Of course, she didn't know if she was *ready* for kits, yet. They were a lot of work and required plenty of dedication, and when she had them, she wanted to be *sure* she was ready. Having a litter of her own wasn't something she thought about very often, though; she was too busy dedicating herself to her Clan, trying to be the best warrior she could be — as good a warrior as her father. And even if she *was* ready to have kits, who would she even have them *with*?

*Fishblaze,* some part of her answered, quickly and confidently.

Bearheart blinked her surprise, gaze locked on her paws. She couldn't have kits with Fishblaze. He was from another Clan, and he was just her friend, wasn't he?

Or… maybe not.

No cat in her own Clan had ever called her so much as pretty before, but when they'd first met at Heartstones, he'd called her beautiful; possibly the most beautiful cat he'd ever seen, even. Every compliment that came after that only made her face feel warm and her ears burn hotter when they were given — she still couldn't think about how he'd compared her eyes to the ocean and cliff grass and declared green his favorite color without her heart fluttering in her chest.

When their Clans were fighting, he'd pulled her away from her tussle with one of his Clanmates, just because he could tell that she didn't want to be there in the first place. He'd sheltered with her and treated one of her wounds (and even though she'd had to come up with an excuse for that for Silverstream and Palesky, she was still astounded that he cared that much about her).

They'd gone to the border that marked the separation between their Clans' territories and simply *talked*, until he taught her how to swim in the ocean (something that only WaveClan did) and offered to teach her how to fish there, too. When he'd caught a fish (a type she had never had before then), he'd insisted on sharing it with her, just because it was caught in neutral territory and he'd decided it was also her Clans' prey.

She had never thought of the ocean as a part of MarshClan territory before, but with Fishblaze, it was just so *easy* to.

And…

*Oh, StarClan,* she thought, *I love him.*

Of course she did. He was kind and caring, though he didn't seem to care about what other cats thought of him, or the typical structure of Clan life. His constant calm left her feeling far more at ease than she did around most other cats, and even then he had a talent for soothing her anxieties. On top of that, he was handsome — with his dark pelt that looked soft enough for her to burrow into, his narrowed blue eyes, and the muscles she was sure he'd built up from all the time he spent traversing the cliffs of his territory. Even his scent was nice, because under all the WaveClan musk, he smelled of acrid smoke and spicy sagebrush and the tang of freshly-crushed berries.

Just thinking about him made warm fondness spring to life in her chest.

But he was WaveClan, not MarshClan, she reminded herself, ears drooping. No matter how much she wanted it (and oh, how she *wanted* it), they couldn't be together.

She wondered what Rowanstripe would think of her, if he ever found out, or what Finstrike would. She supposed she could ask Shadesong what she thought, but that meant that she would know, too, and she wasn't sure if she wanted that.

She wondered what *Poppyfern* would think.

The warrior got to her paws and began to make her way out of camp, just so that no cat would see her and try to question her about what was wrong.

Obviously, she couldn't tell him, she decided. And even more so, she had to start avoiding him and make the feelings she had developed leave her that way. There wasn't another choice — she had to follow the Code. Wanted to be like Rowanstripe, still, even though it'd been so long since she'd left the nursery and become a warrior. Couldn't leave her Clan or her family to be with him in WaveClan and couldn't ask Fishblaze to leave his to join her in MarshClan.

Bearheart nodded to herself in an attempt to steel her resolve as she slipped through the entrance of camp, even as it felt like her heart was breaking in her chest.

(When tears came to her eyes later, in the territory, she struggled not to let them fall.)