Pebblestep

## Appearance

Pebblestep is a thick furred dark grey tom, who is covered with darker grey markings. His markings are small, and blotch like. His grey fur has almost brownish undertones in certain lightings, like a pebble. He has a lighter grey muzzle, and paws. His paws are more of a creamy grey than his muzzle. His tail-tip is a much lighter, creamier grey, and his ear-tips are white. He is stockily built, and is quite a large tom. His fur is very fluffy, and he has a rather poofy tail. He has bright amber eyes. He is rather scarred. His scars from his youth include a smallish scar alongside his left eye, and one right across the bridge of his nose. He has other scars on his back, paws, and limbs. He has a thick, deep scar on his shoulder, that was reopened in the aftermath of the fire. He has another scar under his right eye, inflicted by Falcon. He walks with a slight limp - it isn't heavily pronounced, and mainly shows up during leaf-bare.

## Personality

Pebblestep is, above all else, a caring tom. He cares deeply for his friends, family and loved ones, to the extent that he'd give his life for them. His lifetime of losing cats has made him rather overprotective of the ones he has left, and he cannot bear to see his loved ones upset. He's extremely sweet to cats outside of his family, as well, happily starting up conversations with cats who seem to need to be talked to. However, his overprotective nature does have drawbacks - he takes the blow of losing family harder than most, and becomes rather unpredictable in the aftermath of mourning. This has caused him to lash out at family before. He's also rather temperamental when he feels like he needs to defend his family. This has gotten him into trouble in the past.

Building on this, he's remarkably optimistic for what happened in his youth. He does tend to see the good in cats when he really shouldn't, and forgives easily - most certainly way too easily. He tends to put other cats first, in positions where he shouldn't do that. He'd do anything to make his mate happy, even if it wouldn't make him happy, but thankfully he's talked out of doing that more often than not. He's optimistic in most situations - but does tend to break down when he really needs to keep his head up, for example, believing that he was destined for death when he was with the Claws. However, he's pretty resilient, and tends to bounce back from most things, again and again.

Pebblestep doesn't do that great socially, at least not in his head. He's seen as the clan's 'gay therapist', and while that may be true, it gives him the expectation of having to help others. He is pretty decent at advice, however, he very much speaks his mind, and is clumsy with his words. If he's talking to someone and they're not really speaking back to him, he does just ramble, and say the first thing that comes to mind. Especially in his apprentice days, he did not respond well to being complimented, getting flustered easily, and not being able to match that level of flirting. His childhood and backstory up to that point led him to think that he didn't deserve love, or comfort. Thankfully, he's somewhat moved past that mindset, but still retains that view that everyone he loves will leave him eventually thanks to what he was raised to believe. Indeed, with the amount of deaths that have hit him, he's inclined to occasionally think that he is cursed to lose all of his loved ones. This isn't true, but he has lost rather a lot.

Most of his losses have shaped his personality, really. When Stonepaw left Fallenclan when he was still an apprentice, it only made his belief that he didn't deserve Kestrelpool stronger, because Stonepaw had been deeply in love with him. Pebblestep half-thought that he should break up with Kestrelpool out of respect to Stonepaw in the aftermath of her disappearance. When his friend Cloudsight died, Pebblestep began to realise that he couldn't save everyone. He blamed himself for her death, just as much as he had done for Stonepaw - he'd told her that he was sure she was ready to leave camp, and she did so, falling off a waterfall. The death that made his belief that he needed to protect his family, and that he'd willingly give his life for them was Tallfrost's, when his half-brother died, giving his life for Pebblestep when they were both captured by the Claws. Most recently, Hawkstreak died, but Pebblestep has barely accepted that death.

Within his family relationships, he gets on best with his two surviving half siblings. Cedarheart, to Pebblestep, is his younger brother, and Bristlerose is one of the very few cats that does seem to truly get him - mainly because she can see straight through him. His relationship with Moonstorm is rocky at best, because of their shared history, but it's on the mend. He had pretty much fixed his relationship with Hawkstreak before Hawkstreak died, going from being a victim to his older brother's claws, to being actual friends, or brothers with him. He loves his sister's kits, and especially gets on with Specklekit and Falconkit - he sees somewhat of his younger self in Specklekit, and him and Falconkit both went through the traumatizing experience of being kidnapped by the Claws. He's happily paired to his mate, Kestrelpool, and pretty much owes most of his journey from being a clumsy, awkward apprentice to the cat he is today to him. They have a healthy, happy relationship, one that has seen a few ups and downs, but mainly ups.

Pebblestep recently actually had a kit, Sparrowkit, which is a big step forward for him. He absolutely adores them - which is a far-cry from his initial reaction to the idea of having kits. Part of this is due to his hesitance surrounding doing anything physical - which is for two reasons. The first reason is that he associated someone touching him with violence, due to his childhood, and early apprenticeship. The second reason is due to watching his sister's relationship with her now-mate Stoneleaf growing up - all he saw from that was the intimate side of it, rather than the emotional side. He didn't want any relationship he got into to just become that. The second reason as to why he didn't initially want kits was because he was terrified of becoming his father.

His father, Tigerfang, was abusive. He was mainly physically abusive, but he was also a bit of a power hungry control freak, installing a set of 'rules' for his kits to follow. It's debatable if he murdered his mate, Fernshard, but he did kill Cloudsight's parents, as well as cruelly training his apprentice, Ivyfrost, who later killed him. His abuse affected the three of his kits differently - Hawkstreak tried his hardest to become his father, forgetting how to be himself in the process, Moonstorm tried to distract herself with a different tom every night, and Pebblestep… Pebblestep just hid. He tried to push down the parts of himself that Tigerfang didn't like - the fact that he was gay - until he couldn't anymore. After Tigerfang died when he was a young apprentice, he thought he'd finally be free, until Hawkstreak (then Hawkpaw) began to replicate his father's exact mannerisms, and beliefs. In order to escape this, Pebblestep purposefully broke his leg. He could have been attempting to do more than just break his leg, really, that part of his life was just awful for him. Things started to slacken for him after that, he stayed in the medicine cat's den, picked up a few skills from that, and both his littermates became warriors without him.

His childhood made him extremely jumpy and anxious, especially around sudden contact, as well as just giving him extreme trauma, and internalized homophobia. He was getting better with being openly/publically gay, up until he was taken by the Claws, where he sunk in on himself a bit. However, when Tallfrost died, he decided that he didn't want to hide away anymore, and that he was proud of who he was.

## Backstory

*warning for mentions of abuse and suicide*

Pebblekit was born to Fernshard and Tigerfang, along with his littermates, Hawkkit and Moonkit. Growing up, he was abused by his father, Tigerfang. His mother found out about this abuse and planned on taking the kits and running. However, she went out with Tigerfang and was killed. Her mate said it was a fox he could not fight off. This left the three kits completely in Tigerfang's control. He tried to beat his beliefs into them.

As an apprentice, Pebblepaw grew close to Kestrelpaw and Crystalpaw. However, when Kestrelpaw transitioned, Tigerfang forbid Pebblepaw from speaking to him. Later, a small she-cat named Stonepaw joined their friend group. His father was killed be Ivyfrost, however, Hawkstreak began to bully Pebblepaw, leading him to break his leg and have his warrior ceremony delayed. His friends pushed theirs back as well. After a horrendous truth or dare session left Stonepaw mute, the she-cat began to distance herself from their group.

Kestrelpaw was attacked by a rogue named Galen, and while he was in the medicine den, he and Pebblepaw confessed their love for one another. This drove Stonepaw, who was in love with Kestrelpaw, to end her life. Pebbelpaw was devestated by this. He later asked Kestrelpaw to be his mate. He earned his warrior name of Pebblestep not long later. He also learned Bristlepaw, Cedarpaw, and Tallpaw were his half-siblings.

He was captured and held in the Claws of Purity for a while, before escaping. There, Tallpaw sacrificed his life for Pebblestep, scarring the tom further. He had a kit with Kestrelpool named Sparrowsnap. He had a rocky relationship with both his brother and sister, but grew close to their kits, becoming almost a father figure to both litters.

He served as deputy of Fallenclan for a few moons before stepping down, not thinking he was right for the postion. He contined to serve his clan and grew to become a beloved senior warrior. He was captured by Fireclan and imprisoned for four moons, finally returning and reuniting with his kit.