Sootsnow

Sootsnow is currently MarshClan's oldest messenger, and hence knows almost everybody. She loves kits and manages to befriend almost everybody she meets. As such, you've probably gathered already that she's cheerful and easy to get along with, although at the moment, she is waiting for a chance to move to HorizonClan.

Name- Sootsnow

Gender- She-cat

Clan- MarshClan

Rank- Messenger

Family- Stormclaw (brother), Whitebird (sister), Darksplash (father, deceased), Fernfrost (mother, deceased), Emberglow (niece), Duckfeather (foster mother, deceased), Scorchstripe (foster brother, deceased), Ivybranch and Petalleaf (aunts, deceased), Fawnflower (cousin)

Friends- Scorchstripe (formerly), Eelstride (kind of, formerly), Fawnflower, Cedarpoppy, Mistrunner, Basilpool, Rippledusk, Flickerflight, and probably more. Dear god, she has way more friends than I do.

Enemies- how would anyone become Sootsnow's enemy? and why??

## Appearance and Personality

#### **Appearance**

Sootsnow is a small she-cat with short, pale gray tabby fur. Her flanks and spine are flecked with spots and smudges of white, and there is a small spattering of white, freckle-like spots across her muzzle and cheeks. Her chest, tail-tip, and paws are white as well. Her eyes are a shade of light yellow. She has a lithe, nimble frame, and her small paws are surprisingly strong and hardened from constant running.

#### **Personality**

Sootsnow is relatively friendly and sweet, although she doesn't pick up on social cues very well, and is sometimes insensitive or clueless in certain aspects. She is very impressionable and talkative, and loves to feel helpful. She also enjoys being around other cats most of the time, but when she is tired or in a more gloomy mood, she can become irritable and self-conscious. She is prone to the occasional nervous breakdown, and is actually quite sensitive, although she tries not to let it be too obvious. She likes to make others laugh and smile, and is therefore fond of her position as a messenger. She is a tad naive and a little bit of a pushover, though. Anyways, we all love Sootsnow. Even if you don’t, you know deep down that you do.

## Backstory

#### Kithood

Sootkit was born in MarshClan alongside her brother, Stormkit, and her sister, Whitekit. Her parents, Fernfrost and Darksplash, were pretty chill. She was an excitable and happy kit, although she wasn't as ambitious as her littermates. She pretty much just liked to explore and have fun. She always enjoyed talking to the elders and hearing their stories. She accidentally got into trouble on occasion, but it was never intentional, and it usually wasn’t her own fault.

For example, she dumbly followed Stormkit and Whitekit into the tunnels one time. They got lost. Sootkit panicked and cried a lot. Darksplash found them and took them back to camp, and Fernfrost yelled at them. It was fun.

Anyways, she took an interest in Moldmoss, though. Moldmoss was MarshClan’s only messenger at the time, and he was getting pretty old. Sootkit wanted to become a messenger when she was older. Her parents encouraged this. Her siblings made fun of her, but that was to be expected. She didn’t let that bring her down, and she would talk to Moldmoss a lot.

During the later moons of her kithood, though, Fernfrost got sick with greencough. She was confined to the medicine den where Cherrycloud watched over her and Whitekit sometimes helped. Sootkit was worried about it, although Stormkit pretty much brushed it off. Once they were five moons old, Fernfrost seemed to be recovering, and she was allowed back in the nursery. Only a few days later, however, she randomly died while Sootkit was playing with her siblings. That wasn't cool. Sootkit ran to get Darksplash, and Whitekit fetched Cherrycloud, but it was already too late. Sootkit was pretty upset about that. She got kind of depressed, as to be expected.

Sootkit and her siblings were looked after by Duckfeather for the next moon. Whitekit and Stormkit didn't get along well with Scorchkit, Duckfeather's son, but Sootkit actually made efforts to befriend him. Although she wasn't exactly successful, he was definitely on friendlier terms with her than with Stormkit or Whitekit. She spent more time with Darksplash and Moldmoss. Moldmoss told her a few fun things about messengerhood and about how to cope with grief. She eventually got over Fernfrost’s death and stopped being a depresso girl, just in time to become an apprentice.

#### Apprenticeship

Sootpaw started out as a warrior apprentice, her mentor being a tom named Cedarstrike, but since Whitepaw was training to be a medicine cat and Stormpaw aspired to one day be leader, she felt a bit left out. She was still interested in being a messenger, and often offered to help out Moldmoss with his duties. He took kindly to this, and pretty soon it was clear that Sootpaw would be a messenger once she was old enough.

Several stupid things happened to her, though. She walked into a beehive once and it sucked. She also fell out of a tree one time while running an errand to OasisClan for Moldmoss, and she accidentally did a flip. She liked that and decided to practice. I mean, she dislocated her shoulder in the fall, so that wasn’t fun. But she ended up being fine.

When she was eight moons old, Stormpaw left to join FallClan. Sootpaw was pretty sad about that, and kind of lonely since Whitepaw trained separately from her. She tried to hang out more with Darksplash and Moldmoss, but they were busy more often than not. Before too long, though, Scorchpaw became an apprentice, and she was able to connect more with him. They became friends for real, and she was glad for it. She also found joy in spending time in the nursery with her little cousin, Fawnkit. She taught her how to jump around and do flips, and it was fun.

At one point, she and Scorchpaw tried to take Fawnkit outside of camp to explore. Fawnkit ended up getting lost, though, so Sootpaw and Scorchpaw just kind of panicked and looked for her for a while until finding out that Whitepaw had already found her and taken her back to camp without telling them. That was fun.

It wasn't long before Moldmoss suffered a leg injury that temporarily disabled him from running messages. Sootpaw was quick to volunteer in his stead, and since MarshClan had no other messengers at the time, she unofficially became his apprentice, helping him run errands and such. She kept this up even after he’d healed, somehow making her a messenger before she’d even become a warrior. Good job, Sootpaw.

Later on, Darksplash was killed by a falling tree branch during a storm one night. Sootpaw was, of course, saddened by this, and Whitepaw accompanied her to FallClan to deliver the news to Stormpaw.

She just chilled for the next two moons or so. The rest of her apprenticeship was relatively uneventful.

#### Messenger Life

Sootsnow received her warrior name and was thrilled about it. She officially became a messenger, and worked alongside Moldmoss for several more moons. He died at some point, though, leaving Sootsnow as MarshClan’s only messenger. She was pretty sad about that, and was also upset when her aunts Ivybranch and Petalleaf died, as well as Duckfeather. Fawnpaw also moved to HorizonClan and Scorchstripe left the Clans. Things weren’t looking too great for Sootsnow. But on the bright side, her brother got a new girlfriend, a loner named Hazel. Sootsnow was pretty happy for him. She remained tight with Whitebird and Stormclaw.

On one occasion, she was running a message to OasisClan when she found the soon-to-be Mistkit alone in the territory. She felt bad for her and took her back to OasisClan's camp. Once Mistkitpawrunner moved to HorizonClan and decided to be a messenger, Sootsnow was glad to sort of take her under her wing and teach her the right ways to go about it.

Several moons passed and Sootsnow didn’t do much. She was starting to feel somewhat out of place in MarshClan, wondering instead if she could move to OrchidClan. She became friends with her Clanmate Cedarpoppy (let’s be real- Cedar and Soot are two of the sweetest cats in the Clan, how could they not be friends) and watched Firkit and Cardinalkit for her a couple of times. She liked the kits and would play around with them when she could.

She also served a part in setting up Canyonpaw and Basilpaw, running messages back and forth to arrange a meeting at Silver Falls for them one night. She started shipping CanyonBasil long before anyone else, and I feel like she needs more credit for that.

A bunch more moons passed. Stormclaw came to visit her and Whitebird again, this time bringing his daughter, Emberpaw, with him. They caught up and learned all about what had transpired with Hazel, and Sootsnow was thrilled to have another family member. It was very wholesome and sweet.

Sometime later, Scorchstripe returned to the Clans with Foxkit, Applekit, and Redkit, although he joined OrchidClan and died soon afterwards. Cedarstrike died at some point, too. Sootsnow was kind of bummed about that.

She cheered up relatively quickly, however, and managed to befriend Basilpool after she moved from OasisClan. Once Basilpool found that she was expecting Canyonmist’s kits, Sootsnow took the message to her siblings, Sagestep and Elmleap. She sort of awkwardly tried to make Elmleap and Canyonmist stop hating each other, but it didn’t work, so she gave up. She also got to talk a bit with Frozenpaw and Glacierpaw at the FallClan border, and she encouraged Glacierpaw to become a messenger.

She chatted with Mistrunner several times at different gatherings, as well as with Permafrost, Hickorypaw, Honeypaw, and Applepaw. She never mentioned her relation with Scorchstripe to Applepaw, although she was amused by how different the two of them were. She and Mistrunner also made fun of Lavenderstar and Aspenstar, as anyone should.

Whitebird and Motheye sent her to FallClan once to get salmonberries from Eelstride. After learning that Eelstride had never really left her camp before due to her missing leg, though, Sootsnow felt terrible and tried to think of a way to help her. She proposed an idea to build something of a raftlike object using driftwood and strangler vines, and Eelstride was surprised and grateful for her help. Sootsnow then presented the plan to Whitebird and Motheye, who agreed to help, then sent her off to ask the other medicine cats to participate. Snakespeckle agreed to collect some driftwood, and Thawsun gave her a strangler fig to extract seeds from. Riverhawk also agreed to do whatever she could. It was cool.

After Mottlestrike joined her as a messenger for MarshClan, she hoped to move to OrchidClan once the opportunity arose, mostly looking forward to getting to know Foxpounce and Redfire better - Appleshine had moved to HorizonClan. But unfortunately, the plague happened soon afterwards, and Mottlestrike was one of the first cats to be killed.

Sootsnow was pretty sad about that, and also pretty stressed. The plague was a big problem. A ton of cats died, including Minkstar and Motheye. Basilpool’s son, Wolfkit, was also killed, and Sootsnow felt awful for her. She was pretty scared for Whitebird, too, particularly since she was kind of overworking herself and not letting anyone near her for fear of passing the plague to other cats. She was also concerned about Mistrunner, Fawnflower, Stormclaw, and Emberglow, and was saddened upon the deaths of her fellow messengers in other Clans, Larchflight, Cootwhisper, and Goldentail. Eelstride, Snakespeckle, Riverhawk, and Thawsun were also killed. At Aspenstar’s suggestion, all of the borders were shut down and messengers only had to meet once or twice a day at Silver Falls to exchange news rather than running messages all day.

Shortly before the borders all closed, though, she ran a lot of messages from Whitebird to Rippledusk, OasisClan’s medicine cat, in hopes of helping him stay calm with his situation since his Snakespeckle and Owlglow had died before he completed his training. She became friends with him through this, because of course she did. She’s Sootsnow and she’s everyone’s friend. Also, on the bright side, Flickerpaw started talking to her, seeming interested in becoming a messenger. She was glad to teach him a bit about the role.

Once Redcloud filled the second messenger slot in OrchidClan, Sootsnow started considering switching to HorizonClan instead in order to work with Mistrunner. She also struggled a bit to try and get along with FallClan’s new messenger, Haywhisker. She failed in befriending him, but not for lack of effort.

More recently, she went on a walk once with Cedarpoppy and ran into the travelers. She got to meet Fire, and she guided the travelers to an open spot beyond HorizonClan’s outer border while Cedarpoppy went to introduce her mate to Cardinalflutter and Firsong. It was cool. What *wasn't* cool was the fact that Whitebird was a complete mess. Motheye and Hazewish both died (as well as a hecc-ton of other cats) and Whitebird was feeling responsible for it. Sootsnow did her best to try and help out in the medicine den when she didn't have other things to be doing, but things weren't looking great.

Then Flickerpaw became Flickerflight and joined her as a messenger. She was happy about that and they vibed a little bit more. Sootsnow was happy to sort of teach him how to be a messenger - she'd already done the same with Mistrunner and Mottlestrike, after all. And speaking of Mistrunner, Sootsnow now plans to move to HorizonClan once the plague lets up.

Currently, Sootsnow is just vibing. She’s nervous. Help her. Also, I feel like pointing out that she's an old woman now. 60 moons. Oof.

## Other

#### Trivia

* Not to be confused with Sootpaw, Suncurrent's brother.
* It has been decided that she is Kelsier, solely because of her relationship with Mistrunner. Do not ask. If you do not know who Kelsier is, go read the original Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Go do it, right now. Go. gO.
* She was given the suffix "snow" because of the white markings on her back and sides, as they look somewhat like spots of snow. The suffix “soot” was just given to her because her fur was gray. Very creative, right?
* Sootsnow became a messenger midway through her apprenticeship rather than being chosen for the role after her warrior ceremony, which is pretty uncommon.
* She loves rabbits more than anything, and refuses to believe that anyone could ever have a distaste for them. (\*side-eyes Flamethorn\*)
* She helped train Mistrunner as a messenger because she didn't trust Pineclaw to do it right. Because... Pineclaw. She knew Mistpaw didn’t like him, so she decided to help.
* Personality-wise, I think she would be a Libra or a Sagittarius. Yes, I'm into Zodiac signs. Hush.

#### Quotes

I'll put stuff here later, I'm too lazy rn hhhhh