Spiderfang

**Spiderfang** is a solid black tom with amber eyes. Formerly a loner, Spiderfang was abandoned by his mother as a kit and now serves as a warrior of IrisClan. He is the son of Lyra and Dax (a former MarigoldClan warrior, now a loner) and has no known siblings. He has no mate and no offspring, nor has he served as a mentor to any apprentices.

Spiderfang is an arrogant, bitter character who is not widely respected nor accepted in his own clan. Yet, he has been recognized for his outstanding achievements in combat. He dislikes most others, and is in turn disliked by them as well. He prefers to be alone, and is often seen away from camp, straying from other characters and social interactions.

## Description

### Appearance

Spiderfang has short, glossy, black fur. His fur is uniform in length throughout his body, except for his tail, which has more volume than the rest of his coat. He has no markings on his body, except for a few, small battle scars that are sparsely scattered about his coat, and he is completely undetectable under the cover of darkness. His coat is mostly water-proof, and liquid slides off his pelt with ease and it absorbs little water; due to this, he is excellent at swimming (in theory), but still prefers to stay away from water since he tends to be more clumsy while he's in it (which is typically accompanied with "oh shit help me I'm downing").

Spiderfang's build is tall and muscular. He is above the average height for a clan-cat, and his size makes hunting burdensome. No matter how low he crouches, prey can almost always see him approaching. His long, fluffy tail fails to aid him as well, since it often disturbs the fallen leaves around him, making quite an uproar for a small mouse to hear and flee from. Although he cannot hunt, he is an incredible fighter. His large size and powerful musculature allows him to quickly overpower enemies, and he is not easily knocked off balance. His claws are long, curved, and are incredibly sharp, which helps him to inflict deep wounds into his opponents. His long legs allow him to have a large range to attack from, so he uses this to his advantage on the battlefield as well. His ears are triangular-shaped and bat-like in appearance, granting him excellent hearing, which compensates for his below-average eyesight.

His eyes are an incandescent, vivid amber in color. They are excellent for noticing minute details up close, but they blur and blend the colors and shapes in the far background. Although his eyes are not up to par with his clanmates's vision, he never found his vision problems to be a significant issue, and never acknowledged them until a peer pointed out that he could not see as far as they could.

He is a young warrior and in excellent physical shape. Spiderfang is only thirteen moons of age, and has been a warrior for a little over one-and-a-half moons. Thanks to his tall, lean appearance, he is considered attractive by quite a few, and he might actually manage to get that boyfriend he's daydreamed about since he was five-moons if he stopped acting like such an ass.

Spiderfang is of Oriental cat descent, and is at least a fourth Siamese on his mother's side (with the other parts of the fraction being a mixture of Domestic Shorthair and Oriental Shorthair). Due to this, his hears are loner and more bat-like. His face is also slightly elongated, and his eyes are quite large compared to the rest of his face.

### Personality

Spiderfang is a bitter tomcat who tends to stay away from others. He tries to convince himself that the reason why he pushes everyone away from him is because he is much better than them, but in actuality he is just afraid of being hurt or betrayed by them. He adores compliments from others, however, but cannot stand criticism of any kind. He has a sharp tongue, and is often seen fighting with someone.

Spiderfang is incredibly vain. He is constantly obsessing over his appearance, and may even stop in the middle of a patrol to check if his fur is still nice and neat. He wakes up early every morning to go groom his fur in a nearby stream, and this takes him at least a full hour. Over the course of a day, he spends the majority of his time grooming himself, or training obsessively. Recently, however, he has spent an increased amount of his time resting. He is ashamed of his lethargicness, but, despite his many attempts, has not found a way to regain the energy he once had. Due to the shame he feels, he often rests outside of camp so others will have a lower chance of seeing him.

At around nine moons of age, Spiderfang developed an incredibly aggressive and competitive personality. He feels that he must be the absolute best in everything, and often ends up frustrated and angry because he is unable to outshine his peers in certain subjects. He trains obsessively, a habit in which he picked up as an apprentice and has continued now that he is a warrior. He snaps at others, typically for no real reason, but he will definitely start screaming if someone comments negatively about him. Spiderfang also picks a lot of fights, though he used to pick even more when he was an apprentice.

He is incredibly impatient, and is incapable of understanding why things do not happen immediately. This was especially true when he was an apprentice, since he wanted to see results from his training efforts immediately ("No, sir, I want to be able to kick his ass now!"). As a warrior, this flaw contributes to his inability to hunt. Due to his impatience, he is incapable of spending a large amount of time tracking prey, and tends to give up before he can even find a roving mouse.

Spiderfang is overly sensitive and tends to overreact to small things. Like always, small problems are met with aggression and anger. If asked why these things irritate him, Spiderfang will not respond. This is because he has an intense fear of expressing sadness, or really any emotion, of any degree in public. For example, if a clan-mate dies, regardless if he knew them or not, Spiderfang will leave camp for the night instead of sitting vigil. This fear also extends to when he is isolated, and the though of him weeping in any fashion is appalling to the warrior.

He does not make friends easily, or rather, at all. His arrogance combined with his vanity and oversensitiveness makes him quite a prickly character to be around. He typically pushes people away from him as well, which makes the idea of friendship and impossible task. Despite claiming to not want any friends, incredibly painful spells of loneliness often grip him, yet they have failed to change his mind.

### Abilities

Although Spiderfang is a powerful fighter. He is an expert at close-range fighting and uses his large size as an advantage. He can strike opponents from father distances than the average cat, and his long, hooked claws dig deep into flesh. He keeps his face blocked at all times from oncoming attacks, and surprisingly has never torn or chipped an ear in battle.

His aggressive nature causes him to apply to much force while hunting, and he has destroyed pieces of prey many times during the hunting process. When he hunts, Spiderfang charges full speed at prey, not giving them any time to escape, often crushing smaller animals such as mice. This tactic works well with larger game animals, however, he can never get close enough to strike because his large size makes him more visible in the undergrowth. He is much better at hunting during the night, yet he still uses his daytime-tactic, leaving all his catches practically inedible.

Spiderfang is a poor tracker, which also inhibits his hunting skills. He is too impatient to spend hours searching for someone or something, and often gives up around ten minutes into the search. His sense of smell works perfectly, but his eyesight is poorer than the average cat, making it slightly more difficult for him as well.

Spiderfang is an excellent tree-climber. His long, powerful legs and sharp claws make the task easy for him, and he can scale an immense trunk in a heartbeat. He tends to hide up on sturdy tree branches, and as an apprentice this was his favorite escape from the rampant bullying he had to deal with. He often feels that trees are the only living company that he has in his clan.

### Health

Spiderfang is in excellent physical health. He is rarely sick and does not become injured easily. His eyesight is below average, but he is able to cope with his disadvantage.

However, his mental health is a different story. Spiderfang has low self-esteem and considers himself to be a failure. This stems from the bullying he dealt with as a kit and apprentice. As a kit, Spiderfang was small and socially awkward. He was incredibly shy, and would rarely speak. His movements were awkward and choppy, and he would often trip and fall flat on his face. Due to this, he was mocked by kits and apprentices alike. For the first eight months of his life, he would walk with his head down, and speak with a quiet, meek voice.

His abandonment as a kit and apprentice also plays a prominent role, since it has left him with the feeling that he is loved by no one and a burden to everyone. He was often emotionally abused by his mother, Brightpelt. She would often tell him that she was his only family and the only one who loved him, and that if she abandoned him, like the rest had done, then the kit would have no one left. Due to this, Spiderfang developed an immense fear of abandonment, and would do anything to please his adoptive mother. He would take everything she said about him seriously, and was always determined to change himself to suit her. When she told him that he "could not handle pain, you'll be a poor fighter when you grow up," he would tear his pelt apart, when she told him he was "lazy and irresponsible, and unfit to ever be a warrior," he would cater to her every whim, and so on. When Brightpelt discovered her son's homosexuality and actually did abandon him, Spiderfang completely fell apart. He developed severe depression, along with various disorders involving body image and self-esteem.

He is considering suicide, and believes that it may be his only way out. He has contemplated this for moons now, specifically starting after he was raped as an apprentice by an adult tomcat. Spiderfang, despite his need for help, refuses to speak to anyone regarding his assault, suicidal thoughts, or otherwise.

## Biography

Spiderfang was abandoned a few days after he was born. He was left in IrisClan territory, but he was taken in by a she-cat named Brightpelt. The warrior adopted the loner-kit as her own son, and named him Spiderkit, due to his dark pelt resembling that of a black spider. When Spiderfang was adopted, it was late in summer and nearing the fall. Since there were no nursing queens in the camp, Brightpelt fed Spiderkit using solid food in which she had ground up herself. This allowed him to survive long enough until he could eat solid food.

As a kit, he was picked on often in the nursery. He had few friends, and was laughed at whenever he spoke. He was small and socially awkward, and often felt like he did not fit in. He was ostracized by the other kits as well, which made his condition worse. At the end of his kithood, he waited in silence for his apprenticeship, which he looked forward to.

Although he had no biological mother or father around, he felt that he was supported by Brightpelt and that she was all the family he needed. He dedicated his entire life to please her and make her proud of him, and felt crushed whenever he had upset her in any way. Spiderkit also had no father growing up since Brightpelt refused to take a mate (that and no tom would ever want to be with her).

Spiderfang was often in the medicine cat's den as a kit. His mother would often tell him that he "was too weak," "did not care," or "couldn't stand pain," so he would injure himself in order to make her proud of him. He would run through thorn thickets and jump from far heights, tearing up his pelt and spraining his paws. The medicine cat treated his wounds well, and they never left any lasting damages, however they did spawn an addition for self-harm within Spiderfang.

Spiderfang was assigned a mentor along with several other apprentices during the same ceremony. His mentor was Snakefang, a senior warrior, who had a reputation of being a strict mentor with an outstanding record of success.

At first, Spiderfang hated the immense workload that none of the other apprentices had to deal with. His mentor swears the apprentice complained for two months straight, until a sudden change hit him. Spiderfang began to complete all the training tasks his mentor assigned him, and then more on top of it. His obsession grew to the point to where Snakefang suggested that he toned it down a little, but Spiderfang refused. The two often argued, and some cats claimed to hear faint yelling resonating from the training area all the way to the clan's camp (Snakefang would stay fairly calm, but Spiderfang would yell at the top of his lungs.) Snakefang claimed that the cause of this was how Spiderfang's mother abandoned him in combination with intense bullying, though he does not know exactly why since his apprentice would not admit it, even with great intimidation.

Around this time, Brightpelt started to grow ill. She stayed in the medicine den for a whole moon before she passed away, refusing to see Spiderfang the entire time. She insisted that he was no longer her son and a "disgrace to our clan." Once she died, she told the medicine cat to deliver her son a message, telling him how worthless and disgusting she thought he was. This message was never delivered, but Spiderfang already seemed to know what Brightpelt had said regardless.

When he was around nine moons old, around the time of Brightpelt's illness an nearing her death, he decided to go out of camp and train alone as he always had for the past moon. While he was training, a rogue had entered IrisClan territory without being detected, and then ambushed the young apprentice. Spiderfang tried to fight back, but was unsuccessful. The much older tomcat had overpowered the apprentice, and proceeded to rape him, then left the area and the apprentice unconscious. When Spiderfang awoke, he made it back to camp and collapsed in the apprentices's den. When asked by his mentor what had happened to him, for he was covered in blood and bruises, the tom replied that he fell out of a tree, too embarrassed to explain the actual story. His mentor immediately took him to the medicine den, where his wounds were then treated, but Spiderfang kept his immense suffering as a secret regardless. He often suffers from night terrors and memories of this incidence.

When he was halfway into his eleventh moon, Spiderfang, his mentor, and several other warriors were ambushed by a pair of foxes while on a border patrol. Both mentor and apprentice fought bravely to defend their comrades, but Snakefang was gravely injured in the battle and died shortly after the foxes were chased out. The patrol carried the warrior's body back to camp, where Spiderfang requested that when he receives his warrior name, that may he please be named after his old mentor. His warrior ceremony was held the following morning, as a reward for his bravery. There, he was given the warrior name of Spiderfang, after his fallen mentor.

When Spiderfang enters the roleplay, he is thirteen moons old and has only been a warrior for around a moon and a half. After the death of his mentor when he was around eleven-and-a-half moons old, Spiderfang rarely spoke, and often retreated to the surrounding forest to unsuccessfully hunt or guard the border. Now, however, he has mostly recovered from his mentor's death.

## Family

Mother:

* Lyra (Biological)
* Brightpelt (Adoptive)

Father:

* Dax

## Trivia

* He cannot stand the sound of chewing.
* He does not believe in StarClan nor the Dark Forest.
	+ Regardless, when he dies he will end up in the Dark Forest.
* As a kit, he was petrified of the dark, but now he enjoys and finds safety in it.
* His loner name, Vega, comes from a star in the constellation of Lyra.
	+ It is typically feminine in usage.
* A sketch of Spiderfang.
* Skyler is Spiderfang's human counterpart on the wiki. Although the characters are practically identical, the pages were used for testing, and as a result now have to stay on the wiki.