Voletuft

Voletuft is currently a warrior of OasisClan. An anxious and guarded tom, he is struggling to find a place where he can fit in, feel at home, and escape from the smell of blood. His shortened tail and the fear behind his eyes all came from somewhere, and the hardest step is getting him to talk about it. Nevertheless, his ever-cheerful demeanor and the various herbal scents he tends to cover himself in make him a pleasant cat to be around.

## Voletuft

### Clan

FallClan & OrchidClan (formerly), OasisClan

## Relationships

### Partner(s)

None yet, but he has a crush on Rippledusk

### Parents

Goldthicket (father) & Russetwisp (mother, dead)

### Siblings

Dormouselark (sister), Vultureblaze & Thrushthorn (brothers)

### Other Relatives

Poppystem (grandmother), Lichenspring (grandfather), Whirlwing (aunt, dead)

### Friends

Sagestep, Verdinsight, & probably kind of Rippledusk by now. Also formerly Foxpounce

### Enemies

He's terrified of Goldthicket and things are awkward with Thrushthorn. Elmleap also doesn’t like him

## Appearance & Personality

### Appearance

Voletuft is a small and round little tom, barely making it into the lower end of average at the height of 9.1 inches. He is soft and thick-furred with a ruff of fur connecting his chest to his neck and several fuzzy tufts sticking up off the bridge of his nose and the top of his head. He has short legs, tufted, oval ears, large eyes, and a thick, twitchy tail that has been cut off in the middle, leaving only a half-healed, 4.5-inch-long stump. He keeps a pair of spearmint leaves tucked into the fur in front of his left ear and another pair between his right cheek and chin. His mouth is usually quirked up into a nervous but genuine smile, and for all of his timid body language and efforts to avoid speaking, he frequently shows his willingness to talk the ear off of anyone who will sit and listen. He is constantly darting his eyes around or fidgeting with his paws or otherwise moving in some shape or form. He also has an extra toe on the inner side of his right forepaw.

Voletuft’s fur is largely a shade of warm gingery-red. There are a few darker markings, particularly along his back, ears, and tail, that seem to swirl into the beginnings of a classic tabby pattern before fading out. His muzzle, chest, paws, underbelly, and (formerly) the end of his tail are all creamy-gold, and there is a small flash of white in the very center of his chest as well as on the bottoms of his paws and (again, formerly) on his tail-tip. His eyes are a bright shade of orange. He has various small scars littering his body from a multitude of mishaps, but most of them are covered by his fur. The few that are deep enough to be seen through it are a short, thin line down the left side of his muzzle, a couple of scratches on his lower right foreleg, a small scar where the left side of his belly meets his flank, a mark nestled into the fur on his right clavicle, and a few little cuts on the back of his right hip. There is also a small hole close to the tip of his left ear, a tiny nick underneath it, and a crooked groove across the entirety of his right front paw pad. He also walks with the slightest of hobbles, barely noticeable but still there, due to multiple bone breaks he has suffered in the leg region.

### Personality

(+): Intelligent, quick-witted, patient, compassionate, optimistic, magnanimous, modest

(=): Quiet, sensitive, reserved, scatterbrained, flighty, blithe, candid

(-): Defensive, jumpy, selfish, reckless, irresponsible, inattentive, self-deprecating

Idk where exactly to add this but he is so incredibly clumsy and also unlucky. self-proclaimed “starclan’s plaything” 💀

## Biography

### Kithood

Volekit was born in FallClan to a passive she-cat named Russetwisp and a fierce tom named Goldthicket, the youngest in a litter of four. He, his sister Dormousekit, and his brothers Thrushkit and Vulturekit were born in late leafbare into a nursery that already contained three older kits named Noblekit, Valorkit, and Emberkit as well as two other queens named Truthcrest and Fawnstripe. Things were busy straight from the get-go.

0 moons (February): vole is actually kinda sick when he’s born, in spite of all the nursery’s warmth. it gets better within the moon, but he had a little cold at birth. poor fella.

1-2 moons (March-April)- Volekit loves his mom. Volekit loves Vulturekit & Dormousekit. Volekit is scared of his dad, though. And also of Thrushkit, because Thrushkit accidentally pokes a hole in his ear during one of the training sessions. Volekit tries to hide before every session after that. He’s really bad at them anyway. there is also an OrC daylight gathering that probably does not affect him at all.

3 moons (May)- The Incident™ happens. Volekit does not like this. He is in fact very traumatized. The next morning Thrushkit turns up missing until a patrol brings him back all bloody bc he’d gone out looking for Goldthicket and was attacked by an osprey. Volekit finds that rather alarming. but in any case he is very sad and sort of tries to isolate himself. Lichen & Poppy move to FC tho, which is somewhat helpful. Vole loves them and spends a lot of time with them. Also, Fernkit is born and her mom and brothers die horribly. So that’s nice. Not. Volekit finds that rather traumatizing as well and he is scared of her dad Mottledgorse. Boy has nightmares.

4 moons (June)- Mallowstar kicks the bucket. Volekit slips and falls into the water while goofing around with his siblings at one point and freaks out before remembering that he can in fact swim. also, he falls out of the camp’s juniper tree while playing with dormouse & vulture one time and he breaks one of his back legs. while healing in the meddie den like 2 days later, he tries to eat a grayling and has an allergic reaction and almost dies. good job volekit.

5 moons (July)- the Mottledgorse incident, probably. Volekit does smth dumb and gets his ear nicked by Fernkit. He is scared of her. There’s also an annual fishing festival thing. Volekit is scared of how many cats there are and hides from them. unfortunately he chooses a bad spot and gets swarmed by mosquitoes and has a very unfun next few days.

### Apprenticeship

6 moons (August)- apprenticed to somebody (probably one of Dragon’s characters). The leader’s wife gets pregnant, too. Volepaw thinks that’s cool. unfortunately his leg is still healing so he has to stay in camp for like another half-moon, meaning he is restricted to elder duty, best building, and prey distribution. during his first time on elder duty, he discovers his allergy to fleas. it really, really sucks for him. and then on his first trip out of camp he slips on wet rocks and dislocates a different paw. now he has to stay in camp for like another moon. good job volepaw. there are some marshclan races that he can’t go to. his siblings bring some things back for him, though, including olives. he tries the olives. he turns out to be allergic to those, too. he has a very bad reaction to them. sadge.

8 moons (September)- Valor & Noble become warriors. volepaw thinks that’s cool but he also kind of wishes that he could actually train. so he convinces vulturepaw & dormousepaw to let him limp off the island with them at night so they can show him the moves and such that they’ve been learning. it’s cool, it’s alright for a bit at first, and the only inconvenience is one occasion where they’re fishing and a gull literally steals volepaw’s catch right out from under him. it proceeds to happen several more times. dormouse & vulture laugh at him for it, but it’s all fine. until one night when he misses and falls in the water and *then* proceeds to accidentally scramble into an underwater tunnel that he can’t really get out of. so he winds up popping out of it in a weird cave thing with a waterfall blocking the other end. what. he’s curious, so he jumps through the waterfall (with considerable difficulty) and realizes that he has somehow made it to Silver Falls. Interesting. It’s his first time there. he limps back to camp where his siblings are probably freaking out bc he vanished and he mentions it to them. it is neat. the adventure did mess up his bad paw tho, and the medicine cats are mad at him. they have him under surveillance now. rip.

9 moons (October)- Fernpaw joins him in the appies’ den. Volepaw is a little afraid of her. Also, Ember becomes a warrior. And the leader’s wife has kids. And two of them die. Volepaw thinks this is sad. but on the bright side, after about another week, he’s allowed to actually go out and do things! he can formally train! yay! he’s kind of atrocious at everything but that’s alright. he tries. his balance and spacial awareness is terrible. he gets attacked and almost drowned by a pike once and it leaves a scar on the tip of his tail before tidewave and some other warriors run in and kill it. he also cuts himself on a scorpionfish one time and the venom makes him a little bit sick for a bit and leaves an ugly scar on his paw pad. also, one time while he’s by the oac border, he spots a squirrel close by and decides it would be fun to try chasing land prey. so he runs at it and it moves really fast and he crashes into a tree and gets a bloody nose. unfortunately there was a beehive in said tree. the beehive falls on top of him and splits open. so volepaw hightails it back to the water and has to hide under the surface for like half an hour, but he still gets a ton of stings. excellent job my guy. oh but he’s also able to go to the gathering this moon and it’s his first one!!! he’s sort of covered in welts and herbs, but still!!! he particularly likes an oasisclan apprentice named verdinpaw and a horizonclan apprentice named strikepaw who are both his age, although strikepaw is fairly introverted and already sitting with friends. volepaw mostly just chats with verdinpaw, and they continue to find each other at every gathering from then on.

10 moons (November)- life carries on. one time volepaw is on a mission for tidewave when he accidentally falls in a dug-out hole that has been occupied by a colony of fire ants. it goes about how you’d expect. it also turns out that he’s allergic to them, so that makes it even more fun. oasisclan has their annual battle competition thing. volepaw goes with his siblings, but he doesn’t participate- he just watches. he sits with verdinpaw for the most part and is just kinda there for the show. it’s fun, though. he likes it there. there is also a heavy rainstorm at one point and volepaw’s spot in the apprentices’ den that night is leaky. rain and water keep getting on him and he can’t sleep. So he shuffles awkwardly over to the warriors’ den instead and just curls up with his mom. he’s Like That. the following day, his mom slips into the river on patrol and disappears. nobody can find her. Volepaw does not like this at all. Volepaw is pretty sad. He helps the Clan look at first, but after she is declared dead, he just defeatedly accepts it. He is a little weirded out by Thrushpaw’s refusal of that fact, and even more alarmed when he shows up one morning with a nasty scar on his face. Volepaw has no idea what’s up with him and he wants no part of it.

11 moons (December)- it snows!!! Volepaw thinks that’s very cool and he finds it pretty, even if he’s a little too sad at the moment to really fully appreciate it. moves to OrC w/ siblings at grandparents’ + Vulturepaw’s suggestion. Apprenticed to Doemizzle. Volepaw likes her, too, even if he finds her a little bit intimidating at first. He also finds that he quite likes his denmate Foxpaw, whom he has a lot in common with. Oddly enough, though, he always seems anxious and unsure about accepting volepaw’s offers to go out training or hunting with him. Vole suspects it has something to do with Foxpaw’s other friend Myrtlepelt, who seems to be a little bit jealous. She makes Volepaw think of Fernpaw, and he’s a tad scared of her. In other news, he finds out about his allergy to wisteria and chamomile, he gets stung by several more bees, he gets bitten by a gopher snake after unwittingly stepping on it, a rabbit burrow caves in on him while he’s trying to dig for babies, and one time near the HC border w/ his mentor, he trips over some rocks and falls down a gigantic slope and gets a ton of cuts and bruises (leaving the hip scars) and then falls into a thorn bush. he didn’t break anything this time, though. good job volepaw. only a few days before he is due to take his assessment, however, another incident takes place. foxpaw actually comes to volepaw first and asks him to hunt with him near horizonclan’s border. volepaw cheerfully agrees, bc why wouldnt he? they have a good time, goofing around- and then foxpaw starts acting weird. he suggests that they split up. vole is like “sure, let’s do that” and so he spends a few minutes sniffing around on his own. then, suddenly, a dead squirrel falls out of an old, leaning pine tree several meters away. amused and assuming that foxpaw had lost his grip on a catch, volepaw trots over right beneath it— only for the whole entire tree to start tipping over. volepaw scrambles to get out of its path, but he’s only barely quick enough to avoid being crushed completely. the trunk slams down on his tail, and he doesn’t remember much after that. but he loses a little over half of it, and foxpaw starts to avoid him. it isn’t fun. he doesn’t go to the gathering that moon.

### Warrior Life

12 moons (January)- Voletuft barely manages to pass his assessment, but he took it a week after his siblings due to needing recovery time for his tail. He does become a warrior, though, and he finds that nowhere he really goes feels free. he’s stressed and he’s on edge and he doesn’t feel like he can make friends here. he kind of has a breakdown the night after his vigil and tells his littermates that he can’t do this, and he wants to move instead to oasisclan. They’re not happy, but they’re understanding. Well, Vultureblaze & Dormouselark are, at least. Thrushthorn is actually mad at him and stops talking to him. So that’s *really* helpful. Not. Vole has anxiety over this. He decides to wait until after the HC hike, tho. He goes on it with Dormouse, Vulture, & maybe his grandparents if they were able/willing. He does have a good time (ignoring all of the times he got scrapes and almost fell) and it’s a nice way to say goodbye to his family before changing Clans again, even if it is slightly dampened by Thrush refusing to participate. But it goes over well, and after everyone separates at the end, Vole leaves with the OaC cats. Aaaand proceeds to trip over a root and twist his paw along the way. So the first OaC cat that he formally meets is the medicine cat, Rippledusk. Voletuft thinks he’s kind of cute. He’s anxious to be in a new place, but he does think that he kind of likes OasisClan.

13 moons (February)- aaaand suddenly the OrC borders close down. they just. stop being open. Voletuft really does not like this. He kind of panics over it a little bit, actually. Suddenly he can’t see his siblings at all anymore. he sort of regrets his decision now. he thinks he’s an idiot. but then, one day, while nervously pacing along the border, he runs into and strikes up a conversation with his new Clanmate Sagestep. He decides that he likes her; she’s a good cat and very polite. He learns that her sister Basilpool and her friend Snowyraven have both recently left OaC, and so she is also in need of more company since her brother Elmleap is starting to get difficult. Voletuft makes a friend!!! Good job buddy, it’s ur first one since Foxpounce!!!! Sagestep is able to tell him things about OaC and it helps him feel more at home there. he learns where to find mint and lavender, which he starts keeping in his fur and using to distract himself from other scents. She shows him how to hunt land prey, which is is *also* terrible at, but he still has fun trying. Unfortunately though he somehow pounces really terribly one time and the bare, thin, sharp branches of a bush pierce into him— one kind of impaling him through the chest/shoulder area and being stopped at the bone (of course leaving a scar), and the other spearing right through his left ear and widening the tear that was previously inflicted by Thrushthorn. He doesn’t even get the mouse he was jumping for. It’s a tragedy. It hurts, but he ends up being okay after spending a few days being patched up. he’s a bit uneasy at the gathering since it’s his first one without his siblings, but he does get to sit with his grandparents (assuming they went) and meet basilpool, who is freshly pregnant. that’s nice. what’s weird though is that marshclan’s new leader is not their previous deputy. apparently their last leader lost all nine lives at once to some terrible disease and their deputy was murdered before he could get his nine lives. so that’s somewhat distressing. vole’s not sure what to think about that.

14-16 moons (March-May)- voletuft has some more time to settle in and get a feel for oasisclan. he memorized the territory and settles into a routine. he discovers that he is allergic to hazelnuts and so he tries to avoid the trees that he knows they grow on. he remains tight with sagestep, and he starts to understand what her problems are with elmleap; he is very protective of her and takes an automatic disliking to voletuft, which he does his best to be respectful of, but it does stress him out. this is somewhat helped by the clan’s mediator, verdinsight- the same verdinpaw he’d been friends with as an apprentice. they hadn’t spoken in a while, but verdinsight is also friendly with sagestep, and voletuft is relieved to find that he is still just as warm towards him, even if all three of them don’t often hang out all at the same time. voletuft is with sagestep when he can be and verdinsight when he can’t be and rippledusk when he injures himself, which is… still very frequently. in fact, during one of his hunts with sagestep a little after sunset, he spots a shrew being watched by an owl. he figures it’s probably fine since the owl is too small to hurt him, and doubts it’ll swoop if he’s already pouncing, but unfortunately they both lunge at once. Voletuft throws his paws down over the shrew, but the owl’s talons sink into his sides. It startles them enough that they both let go; the owl flies away and the shrew flees. One of the claws had pulled out nothing but fur, although vole’s left side is bleeding a little and it leaves a scar. he feels slightly bad bc he knows rippledusk will yell at him for being dumb, so he brings him a few feathers that were left behind as gifts in hopes of making it up to him. the next morning, one of the clans’ kits happens to be killed by an owl. voletuft is pretty sure that’s no coincidence and now he feels somewhat guilty for not having tried to go after the owl instead. oh, right- and close to the end of the moon, the plague starts. Voletuft does not like this, either. it’s kind of bad. cats start getting very sick all of the sudden. and, like, dying. he’s concerned. he hopes his siblings and grandparents are okay. all of the borders shut down and it’s really stressful bc now he’s cut off from his *entire* family, not just his littermates. it’s worrisome. he’s still got his buddies, tho.

17 moons (June)- he keeps on keeping on, to the best of his ability. he decides to help out rippledusk in what ways he can, especially after the senior medicine cat snakespeckle dies. unfortunately the best way he can help is just by staying healthy, which means not coming anywhere near the medicine den. so vole just sorta sits around and looks at him sadly a lot. he tries to keep himself calm. Verdinsight has a lot of ways to do that and voletuft is grateful for it. he’s out on a walk with him one time and pokes his head into a log without thinking, hoping to find some grubs or something, and instead gets sprayed in the face by a skunk. So that’s fun. After retching and heaving and struggling to wash the smell out of his fur w/ verdin for several hours, he just gives up and has to go to rippledusk for help lmbo. he hadn’t wanted to add more to his plate in the midst of the plague, but he wasn’t really sure what else he could do. later down the line, he is up at night worrying and so, just on a whim, he heads down towards the orc border and paces, just wondering what’s going on with them and if his siblings are alright. as luck would have it, he happens to encounter thrushthorn. Thrushthorn doesn’t seem particularly happy to see him, but he tells him that their siblings are okay and the borders closed early bc lavenderstar has basically decided to just stop leadering. he shares that there’s some political upheaval going on that vulture & dormouse have involved themselves in, and begrudgingly agrees to tell them that voletuft wishes them luck and safety. he also declines to explain what exactly he had been doing on the border at night, but vole doesn’t ask. he’s not sure if he wants to know. also, thrush has freaky new scars on his throat that vole’s just not gonna question.

18 moons (July)- Sagestep gets an apprentice: silverpaw!!! Voletuft thinks that is awesome for her!!!! he follows them on training sessions sometimes just for the heck of it. he continues doing his best to avoid getting ill and is determinedly optimistic and supportive of whoever seems to need it most. one day he’s on patrol and gets distracted by a weird-sounding bird and splits off from the others. he loses track of the bird, but he *does* find himself face-to-face with a red fox! so that’s thoroughly alarming! he panics. he knows he probably shouldn’t lead it to camp, but he’s not sure what to do about it since he’s a little too afraid to take one on by himself. he runs and it chases him. he kind of automatically heads to the FC border and swims to the closest island even though the borders are supposed to be shut down for the time being. the fox kind of just stands at the bank and glares at him, and he stares back at it in fear bc he doesn’t know what else to do. he’s about to start splashing it or something when a FC patrol consisting of Tidewave, Sorrelseed, Graydusk, and Loonlark shows up behind him. The presence of more cats scares the fox back into the trees, but now the FallClanners are mad at Vole for being there. It’s complicated but he apologizes and promises to warn his Clanmates about the fox and goes scuttling back to his camp. He’s in a bit of a rush and he stomps down really hard on a gigantic thorn along the way. When he gets back, he gets in trouble for ditching his patrol, and the he gets in trouble for crossing a border, and *then* he gets in trouble for letting the fox get out of sight. He’s kind of gotten into trouble a lot, so he decides to not make it worse by distracting Rippledusk from the plague patients with his stupid thorn. So he just pulls it out himself and licks it a bit and figures that it’s probably fine. It’s not fine. It gets infected and the pre-existing scar on his paw gets bigger and Rippledusk still gets mad at him. Oh yeah, and the fox ends up killing one of the apprentices about two days later. So that’s nice. Voletuft is having a fantastic time. That’s sarcasm.

19 moons (August)- while vole is following Sage & Silverpaw around one time, he tries to demonstrate a hunting pounce and accidentally jumps into a porcupine. In spite of his best efforts, silverpaw is not particularly impressed. He gets a faceful of quills and the long, ugly scar along the side of his muzzle. he is not excessively happy about this. the porcupine trundles off and voletuft attempts to retain what little dignity he has left by Not Crying. he also has a fun time explaining to rippledusk why his face is full of holes and why that warrants his time now instead of all the dying cats with the plague. but hey, yknow. fun times. later that same week, he’s out on another stroll with verdinsight and notices a chipmunk on a tree branch. he decides to go for it. verdin advises him not to bc the branch looks flimsy and will probably break. vole insists that it’ll surely be fine bc he’s small and the branch doesn’t look *that* bad. Beat. So the branch breaks beneath him and he falls out of the tree and breaks his leg again. Verdin has to help him hop back to camp and he spends the rest of the moon confined there with his leg all stinted up. He’s in the warriors’ den rather than the medicine den since it’s full of sick cats, but hey, on the bright side it gives him more time to talk to rippledusk! he really does think rippledusk is cute. it suddenly hits him that he might actually have a crush on him. he asks sagestep about it and she thinks it’s funny. good for him.

20 moons (September)- Voletuft sits in camp and is kind of bored. he does get to entertain himself by playing with the nursery’s kits and sometimes watching them while their parents go out for walks and their older siblings are occupied and such, though. he likes all four of them, but he is particularly amused and endeared by flaxkit and tawnykit. he has a fun time putting together moss balls and that sort of thing for them to play with, and he likes telling them all about the goofy stories behind his scars and letting them swat at his short tail. he is a good occasional babysitter. he also notices that one of the newest apprentices, murkypaw, has started bringing various types of mushrooms into camp and excitedly telling other cats which ones they thought were edible. voletuft takes a slight interest in this. he’d never paid much attention to the mushrooms in the woods before, but he did need something to think about while he was cooped up in camp and sagestep was busy with her apprentice and verdinsight was preoccupied with his mediator duties and the kits didn’t need watching and rippledusk was caught up in his duties. so one night, while voletuft was hobbling outside just to get some fresh air and a drink from the river (which he *knew* he shouldn’t do, but, well… he wanted to), he spotted a cluster of mushrooms by the base of a tree and he looked at them for a while. he was pretty sure he remembered murkypaw saying that kind was harmless. so, out of simple curiosity, he takes a bite out of one of them. it feels like he’s eating fire ants. he at once recognizes the sensation from the grayling incident and realizes that it’s an allergic reaction, so he spits it out and rinses his tongue off in the river and manages to actually avoid a near death experience for once!!! good job voletuft!!! then he makes his way back to camp and along the way he gets scared half to death by an opossum running down a tree and he jumps and lands badly on his broken leg, but still. it was *almost* an injury-free outing. in any case, he keeps on existing and having A Time. a bird poops on his head once. that sucks. and then one morning he wakes up feeling kinda sick. he ignores it, bc that’s relatively normal for this time of year. he chats for a while with verdinsight, he has some prey, he’s chilling. it gets worse over the course of the day and he starts coughing a lot. he can’t really hide it by that point and rippledusk busts him and it turns out he has the plague. oops. good job. so voletuft gets confined to the medicine den with the rest of the infected cats.

21 moons (October)- Voletuft has the plague. he’s kind of stressed about it, to be honest. quite a few cats have died from it already and he doesn’t think he wants to be among them. he probably makes a bunch of jokes about that and stresses out rippledusk lol. verdinsight also comes down with it shortly after, which vole feels somewhat responsible for, but he’d be lying if he wasn’t at least grateful to have his company in the den, especially since they were being so strictly quarantined that their Clanmates weren’t even allowed to come close. it sucks- everything hurts and it’s hard to breathe- but neither voletuft nor verdinsight have a particularly severe case of it. rippledusk’s herbs do a decent job lessening the symptoms, and since voletuft is a bit better off and more active than most of the sick cats (plus his broken leg is mostly healed by now), he once again decides after a week or two that he wants to Be Helpful. Except he actually acts on it this time. he asks about some of the herbs and tries to pay attention and assists in minor tasks while he’s able to. good for him, making use of himself!!! while he’s at it, he starts kinda flirting!!! bc, well. why not!!! he is by no means expecting anything to come of it, but he’s doing it anyways just for funsies!!! it keeps him busy and entertained and it gives him a lil goal to focus on while he has nothing better to do!!

22 moons (November)- things mostly continue as they had the previous moon, except now a group of cats calling themselves the Travelers pass by!!! and they show everyone a herb that actually cures the plague!!! epic!!! so rippledusk administers that to everybody and they stop being sick!!! woo!!! Voletuft thinks that’s pretty neat! he and verdinsight are fine now and they’re allowed to hang out with sagestep again! Voletuft is happy to see how far silverpaw has come in his training and how many new mushrooms murkypaw has learned about and how much the kits have all grown!! he keeps hanging around the medicine den and helping rippledusk out when he can, tho. he’s kind of decided that he’s buddies with him now and he still thinks it’s fun to be flirty sometimes. he has a fun time tho. he does his best to look for actual useful herbs whenever he’s out with sagestep and/or verdinsight, but for the most part he kinda just pulls up completely random plants and brings them back to the medicine den after every outing lmbo. he also starts bringing back cool rocks on occasion. he kinda just stores them in there. it’s basically like his unofficial second den pfft. also, he’s on a patrol along the HC border one time with hickorypad, ferretmask, & kestrelnight when a random rock literally just comes tumbling down a mountainside and bonks him on the head and gives him a concussion. that’s just his luck. so he gets to deal with that for the next few days. he also gets attacked by a raccoon while hunting with sagestep and silverpaw and it claws up one of his legs, leaving some more scars. he’s doing great. he’s living his best life. he is.

23 moons (December)- the last of the plague cases finally resolve themselves. the clans are starting to tentatively communicate, but they’re mostly just making sure that things even out before going back to normal. voletuft decides to linger around the orchidclan border again one day until he catches a patrol made up of periwinklewhip, doemizzle, houndblossom, and redfire. he remembers them all from his moon in OrC, ofc, and he is happy to see his brief mentor again. doemizzle tells him that his siblings are all fine and that lavendersight has been peacefully overthrown by leafstar. voletuft thinks that’s kind of wild, but he thanks her for the information and asks her to let them know that he’s doing well too and he’s made some friends and all that. he then cruises around the fallclan border for more or less the same reasons, runs into lilycedar and quakeholly out ice fishing, and briefly talks with them about his grandparents and asks them to pass the same word along. it’s all fine and great. also, it snows. voletuft thinks that’s pretty epic. some of the apprentices start up a big snow fight in the middle of camp and he joins in just for the funsies. unfortunately he gets accidentally thwacked in the eye with an actual chunk of ice, which kind of hurts, and then he gets a rlly bad annoying cold for the next week or so, but hey, i mean, yknow. it is what it is.

24 moons (January)- the kits become apprentices, and to voletuft’s absolute shock, he gets to mentor one of them!!! his new apprentice is Flaxpaw!!!!! he is thrilled! he really likes her (he doesn’t know he’s trans rip 💔) lots and is super hyped about it, especially bc Sagestep has also been given Flax’s sister Cloudpaw since Silverclaw became a warrior that same moon. he’s pretty anxious about his ability to do a good job, but his excitement more or less cancels it out- plus, he’s got sagestep to kind of help him through it. he gets along well with flaxpaw. oh, and the borders finally open back up! All of them! Voletuft gets to see his family again!!!! He visits FallClan first and sees his grandparents and is all happy about that, and then he passes through MC territory to OrC (possibly with his grandparents, if they also would’ve come along) to see his siblings. Voletuft is delighted to see them all and goes trotting around the territory with them (all 3 of them, even if thrushthorn tries to act unenthused about it), just telling them abt everything that’s been going on. while mentioning his newfound herbal knowledge, they happen to pass by some yellow foxgloves. voletuft mistakes them for mullein and just very confidently goes “oh i know these!!! rippledusk says that theyre good for stomachaches!!!” and then proceeds to stuff one in his face before anyone can say anything. so he has to go to the medicine den in order to Not Die. it’s a very voletuft way of reuniting with his family. the first gathering after the plague is a very loud and crowded one. voletuft sits with his family and is excited to hear that a HC hike is going to be held soon. he agrees to go with vulture & dormouse, and they encourage him to invite rippledusk along, which he abashedly agrees to do. so he does that. rip says yes!!! omg it’s almost a date look at them go!!! so voletuft goes on the hike with dormouselark, vultureblaze, and rippledusk. he spends most of the time awkwardly embarrassing himself and falling and finding weird ways to get injured, but he still has a very fun time. well, he *does* manage to somehow dislocate what’s left of his tail after he accidentally kicks loose the rocks he was standing on, but they set it back on the spot and keep moving. it kind of really hurts and is super distracting but voletuft won’t let that bother him. he’s fine. he’s having a great time. yup. at the end of the hike when they get back down to the bottom, it’s decently late so they have some food. voletuft takes a ptarmigan off the pile and instantly has a weird allergic reaction to the feathers. good job voletuft. he shamefully puts it back and tries a pika instead. he thinks it’s good but pretty weird, and so he offers to share it with rippledusk. isn’t he a charmer.

25 moons (February)- things continue. voletuft trains flaxpaw. he spends time with sage & verdin. he stays in touch with via messenger and once or twice a week visits his siblings and grandparents. he keeps bringing plants back to rippledusk and trying to be smooth. he also continues getting hurt in strange ways, such as when he steps on one end of a stick and causes it to flick up underneath him, poking him in the stomach and startling him so badly that he springs up in the air, slams into a tree, and sprains a paw for the second time. that’s a pretty good example. just a few days after that, there’s a gathering. rippledusk strongly discouraged vole from going bc of his paw, but he’d be darned if he wasn’t gonna go see his family, so he convinced rip to let him come along anyway so long as he kept a close eye on him. Compromise, baybee. so vole shows up and sits with dormouse & vulture bc thrush isnt there. its a fine gathering at first- up until the medicine cats start making ominous announcement, followed by the fc deputy making an even worse one. apparently there is an army of rogues in twolegplace and they’re coming to kill the clans. so that’s… somewhat upsetting. vole is rather frightened. it makes him worry about a lot of things, obviously, but namely the fact that his dad might be involved in this. he hasnt thought about his dad in such a long time- he has actively shoved the thoughts down. but now, well… he’s scared. he had really thought that running from all of that baggage would let him get away from it, but alas. change is coming, and he’s gonna have to deal with it.

26 moons (March)- voletuft mostly just focuses on making it through day by day, one paw in front of the other. training is hard- not just training flaxpaw, but actual battle training that is mandated now in preparation. patrols have increased and efforts to stock up on herbs have picked up considerably. Voletuft participates in as much of the herbwork as he can. he wants to feel useful, despite knowing that he’s not a great fighter. he’s very careful to make sure that flaxpaw is as well prepared as she (😔) can be and keeps in constant, daily touch with lichen, poppy, dormouse, & vulture just to make sure that they’re all doing okay. he would move back to orc or fc for them, but he’s too immersed in oasisclan now. he has cats here that he really cares about and he doesn’t want to leave them- sagestep, verdinsight, rippledusk, flaxpaw… even cats like wlmleap, whom voletuft has never been able to get along with. they’re all big parts of his life now. so he’s gonna stick by his new Clan and he’s gonna do what he can. whatever that turns out to mean.

## Other

### Trivia

- In the original ABW, Poppystem and Lichenspring (then Lichenbolt) were the parents of Voletuft and his siblings, and Goldthicket and Russetwisp were their grandparents through Poppystem.

- Voletuft has no idea it was Myrtlepelt who caused his tail accident and not Foxpounce. Foxpounce will tell him after the war, but until then, Voletuft is just convinced that he has the worst luck ever known to the Clans.

- His headcanon voice is Hunter from TOH.

- He has some PTSD problems. Poor guy.

- He is also just inexplicably hungry all the time. Why? He has no idea. He just is.

- Voletuft clicks his tongue a lot. He’s not sure why *that* is, either. It’s just something he picked up on his own over time. He also has a signature head tilt that he’ll do automatically whenever he’s confused, where his head cocks so far sideways that it’s almost on his shoulder. He doesn’t notice that he does it until someone points it out, and then he’ll most likely forget within a day and keep doing it.

- He often has to run little laps to burn off extra energy before he settles down, or else he’ll never get to sleep. He usually picks a den or a tree to trot around until he’s worn himself out. He somehow manages to injure himself while doing this a lot.

-He gets hallucinatory pins and needles and tingles in the remaining half of his tail a lot. They’re very uncomfortable and they stress him out, so he whenever it happens, he starts twisting around and licking what’s left of his tail in an effort to make it stop. It never really works, and in fact all it does is make the fur rub off. So he often has little hairless spots on his half-tail. He knows he should quit doing it, and he tries to cover it up, but it’s more habit now than anything else.

- Oh, and he’s allergic to fleas, wild mushrooms, ptarmigan feathers, grayling meat, olives, chamomile petals, fire ant bites, ragweed, poplar pollen, wisteria pollen, and hazelnuts. Those are the allergies that he’s currently aware of, at least. And yes, there is a story behind the discovery of each one. The fire ant incident is one of his favorite tales to tell.

- Voletuft’s favorite color is red. For a long time, he associated it with blood and pain, but he came to be more comfortable with the color over time, instead letting it remind him of his mother’s fur and the poppies in OrchidClan. He also just thinks it’s bright and loud and it looks cool.

- On that note, poppies are his favorite flower. He thinks they’re cute and cheerful-looking. They also make him think of his grandma.

- His favorite prey is salmon, but he likes squirrels, too. He’ll eat mostly any fish. He’s not the biggest fan of rabbits or birds, though, and he feels a little awkward eating mice and voles because of his and his sister’s names.

- His love language is physical touch. He’s a touchy little fella and if he trusts you, he’ll cling to you. He’s a big fan of snuggles.

- Voletuft leaves the camp each morning to roll in mint and lavender. He likes to smell nice. What he doesn’t share is that it’s in order to mask the phantom scent of blood that seems to fill his nose wherever he goes. He’s been smelling it since he was three moons old, and while it’s gotten easier to ignore over time, it still bothers him.

- He has insane ADD. Help him

- He’s also just an earnest enough guy that he’s a horrible liar. If he’s ever trying to be dishonest about anything, it’s painfully obvious. He can’t maintain eye contact and starts shuffling his paws around and flicking his tail stump from side to side and being very noticeably uncomfy lol 💀

- He literally has a nest reserved for him in the medicine den of three of the five Clans. That’s quite the accomplishment. Give this man a medal

### Playlist

- “Emotionless” by Good Charlotte. I think it sums up his thoughts and feelings towards Goldthicket pretty well as he has time and space to mature a little bit and heal from everything.

- “Be Still” by The Killers. I just think it has his vibes. I dunno.