Rillwing

Here we have an angsty lass who has taken a lot of hits and given plenty back. She has reserved the role of salty MarshClanner, is feared by apprentices, and will probably fight you. No, wait, I take that back. She will definitely fight you.

TW: Mentions of child abuse

## Relationships

### Parents

Coffee (mother), George (father, deceased)

### Siblings

Linn (sister), Scree (brother), Bole (brother), Silver (brother)

## Appearance and Personality

### Appearance

Rillwing is a small but long-legged molly with watchful eyes and tufted ears. Her fur is spiky but soft to the touch, short and close around a lean frame. She has a mostly-white pelt over pale gray-brown mackerel tabby markings. There is a patch of gray under each of her eyes, one of which is amber and the other blue. Long, trailing scars mar her forelegs, and she has a smaller scar on her nose.

### Personality

*Placeholder:*

+ loyalNEW, intelligent, observant, reliable, braveNEW

= optimistic, ambivert, aggressive

- insecure, dishonest, bossy, short-tempered

## Background

### Early Life

In the depths of a Twoleg city, as the first leaves were about to fall, a very bitter she-cat living under a Dumpster gave birth to five kits - Bole, Rill, Scree, Linn and Silver. Their mother, Coffee, was the scorned ex-mate of a kittypet called George, whom she had broken up with since she didn't want her kits to be raised in a house (which was fair, because George's owners were cat breeders who probably would've given the kits away). So here she lay in an alleyway with the proof of her regrets, determined to train them into strong warriors.

Rill was the second-oldest of the litter, a feisty she-kit with a sharp tongue. She wasn't fantastic at hunting, and her fighting skills were next to none, but she wasn't pathetic enough to really tick her mother off. That award went to her little brother Silver, who try as he might was just not really built for a life in the city. He wasn't agile enough to catch the sneaky rats skittering down the alleyways, nor was he fierce enough to defend his food and territory from the vicious alley cats hanging around in the area; Silver would probably have made a fantastic medic or mediator, but he was certainly no warrior. Rill was very protective of him, though, and did her best to catch prey enough for both of them despite her poor hunting skills. Like Silver, Rill was not much of a rat catcher. She had long legs meant for chasing down her prey, which led to clumsy stalking in the close corners of the city.

Rill's main problem, though, was the lack of maternal instinct from Coffee. Her mother was unsure of what to do with so many kits, so she had decided to make her mission revenge; Coffee encouraged the squabbles and skirmishes between the siblings, seeing their small battles as a sign of strength, a way to teach them that they had to guard their food and their life closely. Thus she favored the perfect fighter and hunter that was Linn, with Scree close behind; Bole was doing fine, but Rill and Silver were close to falling off her radar. The only times she paid attention to them were when she told them that they could never survive alone if they didn't get their act together. Rill convinced Bole to give her a few hunting tips, though, and she was able to catch - as well as scavenge - enough food to keep herself and Silver alive since Coffee wouldn't.

When Rill and her siblings were four, Coffee started evaluating their skills every day by how much prey they could catch. The better hunters of the litter received praise, while Silver and Rill mostly got warning glares. Bole was caught eating kittypet food once, and Coffee showed up to yell at him. Against all better judgment, Bole decided to fight for his meal like she'd always taught him, and ended up with a long scar down his back to show for it. For the next moon, Coffee put her kits up against one another for battle training; they'd fight each other in the alleyway, and Coffee didn't care much if they drew blood or not. Rill never understood her mother's actions, and (quite rightfully) grew to hate her. She had always thought that that was just the way things were, though - until she ran across a chipper stray they called the Roamer, from whom she learned over the course of a few conversational run-ins that most mothers do not, in fact, pit their children against each other to turn them into bloodthirsty little tools for revenge. After the Roamer vanished (Rill figured Coffee had gotten tired of his laps around the city and done something about it), Rill began questioning why she was even still with her family.

At the fifth moon of her life, shortly after Linn nearly tore Scree's eye out over a pigeon, Rill was just about fed up with all of Coffee's crap. She convinced Silver to plan with her to run away to a different part of the city, not really having figured out that there was a world beyond the tall buildings and trampling Twoleg feet. The day before they could enact their plan, though, Coffee decided she was fed up with *their* crap and decided to yell at Rill and Silver for being weak (read: bad at catching rats and beating up their siblings). Rill told her (correctly) that she was an awful cat. Coffee challenged her to a fight over that, Silver tried to intervene, and then both siblings were chased off a little worse for wear. They were free from their family, though, so Rill tried to look on the bright side in that respect.

Rill and Silver went without food for almost a week. Every time they tried to hunt, they'd end up in another cat's territory and have to flee before they got attacked. So they hid under porches and in fire escapes, traveling across the city as they looked for their own territory. One day, they decided to scavenge some garbage in an alley; they ran into a trio of alley cats who were not happy about the kids stealing their garbage, and proceeded to lunge at the pair, catching Silver before he could escape. Rill turned to try and help, but another one of the cats leaped toward her, and so instead she turned and ran for the hills without looking back.

She didn't stop until she was well into the suburbs, at which point she ran straight into an ash tree in someone's yard and cut her nose open. Rill sort of just stood there in dismay, blood dripping to the roots of the tree as she tried to figure out where she was, how to think straight, and how much she could hate herself for abandoning Silver. This was the point when a cheerful kittypet showed up, by the name of Panda Bear, and invited her inside. Coffee had taught her kids to hate kittypets, so Rill was cautious, but she eventually acquiesced to the offer when Panda informed her the Twolegs had healing powers.

Rill was not, however, prepared to be adopted after her nose was healed. She hated living in just the house's yard, hated her bright pink collar, and hated the name the Twolegs gave her, which was Silver. Panda was nice and all, and the Twolegs treated her well, but Rill was a feral cat, and oftentimes feral cats just can't fit into the pet life.

One day when she was seven moons old, Rill was climbing the ash tree that'd scarred her nose, trying to get a view of the land beyond the fence and figure out a way to get down there; the only way to jump into the yard was to use a stone as a stepping stool, and as far as Rill could tell, there was no way out. That is, until she fell out of the tree, caught her collar on the fence, and hit the other side with a sprained forepaw, a sore neck and one less kittypet accessory. Turns out climbing is another one of the things that she's never been great at. Anyway, Rill saw an opportunity and took it, bolting before her Twolegs could figure out she was gone and making a beeline for the wilds beyond the suburbs that she'd been told about.

Rill limped through the towns as they became smaller and smaller, traveling for a moon before she almost got hit by a car. She was, much to her astonishment, rescued by a ghost who called herself Wide-Eyed Moon. Wide-Eyed Moon was going on about making it to this wacky afterlife thing she called the Huntworld. This weirded Rill out a little, and she was on her way again after her paw was healed enough to make travel fast again. So at nine moons old she scuttled off, hit the river on FallClan's border, and decided that rivers are stupid before vibing her way down to the moorland.

Upon arriving on the moor, Rill promptly fell into a tunnel (she really needs to learn to look where she's going) and rolled down the slope into MarshClan territory. There she was met by a casually patrolling (character here) and carted back to Minkstar, who offered her a place in the Clan. Rill was like 'aight, sure' and so she became Rillpaw and was apprenticed to Mintfang.

### Apprenticeship

Rillpaw was busy chilling in MarshClan when she met Bluepaw, a fellow apprentice whom Rillpaw immediately lied to about her backstory to make herself seem cool, because Rillpaw was an insecure child then and an insecure adult today. She convinced Bluepaw to crawl into a rabbit warren looking for baby rabbits to hunt, but they found zero baby rabbits and a lot of badger scent. So they did the smart thing and turned around, at which point the warren promptly started collapsing on them. They managed to escape, winded, and wound up becoming friends, because that's what a shared near-death experience does to these cats, apparently.

Bluepaw was consistently bullied by local chaos gremlin Chivepaw, and this made Rillpaw hate the latter a lot. They probably got into a lot of fights because they were both idiots (and still are).

Rillpaw's mentor Mintfang died of the plague, which made her relatively sad. Her training was taken over by local lesbians Sparrowbreeze and Seedslip, but she only had a moon or so to go, so it wasn't for long. Anyway, Rillpaw continued being friends with Bluepaw and hating Chivepaw.

### Warrior Life

Minkstar made Rillwing a warrior before immediately keeling over due to plague, so that's nice. Anyway, Rillwing just sort of hung around until Bluecloud became a warrior too (after her mentor Jaggedwatcher also died of the plague). The two vibed for a while, as much as they could with the plague killing everyone off, and then one day Rillwing decided to prove she was just as angsty as she'd been as a kit. She went out hunting with Cardinalflight, who messed up the hunt, and it turned into an argument, which turned into a battle, which turned into Rillwing getting her forelegs all scratched up. She yelled at Cardinalflight that she couldn't care less if she left the Clan, and Cardinalflight... actually left. Way to go, Rillqing.

Rillwing was very upset at this whole exchange, mostly at herself for being such an edgy hairball, and so she did the logical thing and screamed at the sky for several minutes straight. The sky shockingly provided no closure. So Rillwing decided she was going to stop running all over the place and actually have some commitment to something for once, The next morning, she told Bluecloud her whole life story, telling her that she would stay by her side no matter what. Bluecloud comforted her, the two had a MomentTM with a canonically bisexual background (/j /ref), and Rillwing started to feel like maybe she'd be okay.

Also, she and Bluecloud got apprentices! They were siblings, too, so they got to do lots of double training sessions. Rillwing was assigned Lapwingpaw, a tiny ball of rage who never really wanted to be a warrior. Rillwing figured she could handle it, being a former angsty gremlin herself.

Her troubles weren't over, though, because Cardinalflight has a family. Her sister Firsong confronted Rillwing about the... incident... and eventually they decided to go find Cardinalflight together. So the two set off across the moorland toward the mountains, and kind of became friends along the way, so that was pretty cool. Along the way they ran into Broken, who tried to attack them, and Hazel, who stopped that from happening. Hazel asked them to deliver a message to Stormclaw that he was to meet up with her as soon as possible. That was pretty weird. Anyway, the duo found Cardinalflight living with a group of travelers in the mountains, and Rillwing apologized to Cardinalflutter and convinced her to come back.

Rillwing went to deliver the message to Stormclaw that some random rogue lass wanted him to come over to an island. He seemed unsettled by the exchange, but Rillwing didn’t care to find out why; really, she just wanted to go home.

Upon arriving home, Rillwing was happy to hang out with Bluecloud again. She had a problem, though, and its name was Chivethistle - *apparently* the younger(?) warrior had not only taken up the training of Lapwingpaw, but had befriended Bluecloud in the process. Lapwingpaw keeps going on about how Chivethistle was a better mentor since she let Lapwingpaw look at plants. Rillwing is determined to win this custody battle, even if the child she’s fighting for custody over hates her. We’ll see how that goes.

Rillwing's pretty much hanging out now. She and Cardinalflight are still a little cold to one another, and lots of angry looks are being exchanged with Chivethistle, but she's doing the best she has been in basically forever, and so, you know what, good for her.

## Other

### Trivia

* Rillwing was the first in the roleplay to have heterochromia. This is excluding Oasis, but Oasis is a founder so she doesn't count.
* Rillqing
* I used to think Rillwing was straight. She is not. It just kinda happened that way.
* She's still angsty as heck but I can look at her backstory without cringing now. The nostalgia helps.
* Rillwing has never had a redesign. I could draw her in my sleep.
* Her favorite plant is milkweed. She just thinks its interesting; there's no real reason behind it.
* Rillwing is not sure she believes in StarClan, but she knows she believes in ghosts.
* She has a Boston accent. Rillwing lives in MaashClan.
* Rillwing isn't one to think much about romance, but she knows she doesn't want kits. She cannot see herself raising young or being a good parent; most likely, she figures, she'd end up not knowing what to do with the children and become distant the same way her mother did (though she can at least sleep at night knowing she'd never make her kids fight each other if she had them).
* Any interaction between her and Chivethistle is automatically a meme. I don't make the rules.

### Playlist

A work in progress. Don't worry, though, because I made a YouTube channel for the sole purpose of making playlists for my OCs.

### Quotes

Bluepaw*: "Since you say you've done this before, has... \*that\* ever happened?"*

Rillpaw*: “Once, but I was already out of the tunnel. This was new for both of us."*

*"How- how about we go find a stream to wash off in, and maybe there'll be some prey nearby we can bring back? Nobody really needs to know what happened; just that we smelled badger down a rabbit hole before it collapsed. I, for one, don't really want to be punished for something that I couldn't have possibly seen coming."*

*"It was... hard. But- I made it. And it's shaped who I am today. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's definitely true."*

*“Not, it’s not. But the thing is, my mother and littermates never - they never liked me anyway, so it didn't... it didn't* hurt *when they left. Not like this."*

*"Get away from me. I don't want to talk to you. I couldn't even care less if you left the Clan. It would be one less useless mouth to feed anyway."*

*"I'm going to tell you the truth. The whole truth. Because someone deserves to know.”*

*"I'm starting from the beginning. My beginning. You're my friend ... you deserve more than any other cat I've met to know what I'm really like; I don't want to ever lie to you. So I'm starting from when I was a kit."*

*"Then I wound up in the MarshClan tunnels... well, you know what happened after that."*

*"I told her I couldn't care less if she left the Clan. I didn't think - I didn't think she actually would."*

*"No - no, stop. I do. I absolutely do want that. I'm not running away anymore, Bluecloud. Never again. So if you still want to- to stay with me, then I'll stay by you till the day I die. You are the cat I still have."*

-- renaissance begins --

*“I’ll add it to my list of skills. I’m fast, I have good hearing, and my tail makes an \*excellent\* pillow.”*

--

*"How dare you. I'll have you know, that was pretty impressive. Because I did it to impress you. And now look at us."*

--

*"I don't really want to have to dig myself out of the warriors' tunnels in the morning."*

--

*“FallClan’s fault, though, for eating fish. Not only is it gross, its home sometimes turns into ice.”*

--

*"Imagine you're a hypothetical baby rabbit hanging out in your den and then suddenly a badger comes gallivanting down the exit tunnel. Not only would that stink for the bunny, but now the pair of fluff-brained apprentices looking for an easy meal won't be able to get one."*

--

*"I suppose it's worse for fish because a random alien decided they'd make a good snack."*

--

*"Alas, I have been hit in the face with a salmon. Could this be the end?"*

--

*"We must warn the leaders now. War is on the horizon, and they're heading for FallClan first!"* (the irony)