Ryelight

> Tarrantpaw needed you. I needed you. Where the fuck were you? Too busy galavanting around with Snowstar, I assume. You abandoned Tarrantpaw. You abandoned me. The parallels are shocking, right? - Ryelight to Shadowwind about him being Tarrantspirit's father
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## Appearance

Ryelight is a golden-brown tabby. She has long legs, and has a lean build, her body consisted of a lot of sharp angles. She is rather fluffy, however, for a thin-furred cat, and has long face fur that lifts upwards (towards her ears), and a fluffy chest. She, being a tabby, has slightly darker golden brown (think a dark honey color) stripes that are grouped in small bunches of two or three. Her stripes are big, and slightly curvy. Her front paws are a darker shade of golden-brown (bracken), as well as a small diamond on the right side (her right) of her chest. She does have many small accent marks of lighter gold, however, which include her tail-tip, her two back paws, her underbelly, and her ears. A very notable feature, of course, is that Ryelight has a scarred leg from falling from a tree during kithood. This is her left back leg, and the upper half of it is covered in scarring, making the whole leg look slightly odd. Even if the scars are fainter, they are still present. (She has an additional small scar above her left eye). She has hazel-green eyes, which are big, and take up a good portion of her face. She has a narrow muzzle, and has a small nose. Her ears and nose, as well as paws, are all a pale shade of pink.

## Personality

Ryelight is, for starters, very friendly. She's generally quite social, and will actively approach and talk to cats. She likes to make friends, and will often dump her thoughts onto newcomers. She's very much an extrovert, and can gauge certain things about cats quickly; of course, this does mean that she's very prone to immediate judgement as well. She usually just says whatever comes out of her mouth, and doesn't have much of a filter. She's very gossipy as well, something that has only gotten worse with time, and will often share random news that she manages to hear with whatever unfortunate soul she's talking to. She doesn't always realize that what she says can be very hurtful to a cat, and is quick to brush off other cat's surface-level opinions of her. She's very self-confident in that regard, so she usually thinks nothing of it. She makes a lot of jokes, and often teases her friends and cats that she is close with.

However, going off of that, Ryelight is a very emotional cat. She cares deeply for the cats that she forges close bonds with, such as her mate Sloefall, her littermate and brother Beemask, and his mate/her best friend Troutstream. She will defend them no matter what, and hopes for the same in return. She has drastic mood swings sometimes, and finds it hard to shake herself out of a bad funk. She feels emotions very strongly, so when she's angry at someone, she remains that way for a long time, and is often blinded by her rage. She doesn't always make rational decisions when feeling strong emotions, especially when a decision asks her to consider the cats she loves. When she is hurt/feels like she's been hurt, or if a cat close to her has also been hurt, she will hold that grudge for a very, very long time. She finds it extremely hard to forgive, and is often unwilling to change her opinion and forgive whoever she has a grudge against. She doesn't cope with these things well, usually just shutting the cat out forever or spreading nasty rumors about them.

Despite her general self-confidence, Ryelight is extremely self-conscious when it comes to her injured leg. She often feels inferior to her loved ones and peers because of it, and tries to work twice as hard to "make up" for her injury. This injury was a very scarring incident for her as a kit, both physically and emotionally, and she still hasn't gotten over her deep-rooted fear of being left behind because of it. She tends to let her fears get to her really easily, and she finds it hard to dispel negative thoughts. Despite her best efforts, she almost constantly believes that she will never measure up to what she could've been. She's very regretful over her injury, but if it came down to it, she wouldn't "fix" it, because it is an important part of who she is and what she's overcome in her life.

## Backstory

Ryekit was born to Talonflame and Rosebush alongside her brother, Beekit. Her father had high standards for her and her brother when they were growing up, and Ryekit strived to go above and beyond to reach them. Someone who she deeply looked up to as a kit was her older brother, Shadowwind, who had already achieved numerous things. When Ryekit was a child, she promised herself that she wanted to be just like him. However, her older brother never paid visits to the nursery like she had hoped, so Ryekit decided that she would go out of camp and catch a bird to get Shadowwind to notice her, maybe even be proud. This, of course, was a terrible idea. When hunting a bird, she fell from a high tree branch, shattering her left back leg at only five moons old. Clearstone tried his best to heal the bone, of course, but it was clear that not everything was fixed correctly, and that she would have an injured leg/a limp for the rest of her life.

Ryepaw was apprenticed with Beepaw, miraculously, but she quickly fell behind her brother in terms of training because of her injury. During hunting or training, she would often reinjure her leg, and have to spend time in the medicine den. A couple moons into her apprenticeship, Troutpaw arrived in the Clan, and her brother seemed to immediately go after him. Ryepaw didn't think much of it at first, of course, until she realized Beepaw had a crush. Not long after that, however, when Ryepaw was about 9 moons old, she ran into a kittypet named Sloe, and led her to Fallenclan. Sloe left after a few days, wanting to find her housefolk, but eventually came back after turning up empty. Ryepaw had a fast-growing crush on Sloe, one that Beepaw picked up on rather quickly as well. He talked to Sloepaw, who admitted that she had feelings as well, and a few days later, she and Ryepaw confessed to each other. Around that time, however, the revolt happened, and Risingclan was formed. Ryepaw and Sloepaw, along with Beepaw and Troutpaw (Who were a thing by now oops) decided to stay in Fallenclan, even though Ryepaw's own mentor Mistpool left the Clan to become deputy of Risingclan, meaning that Ryepaw had no mentor present at her ceremony. (Her ceremony was a moon after Beemask's because of her injury.)

Ryelight, in more present day, has honestly just been living her life. She and Sloefall eventually became mates, and have been together happily. She got to mentor Sparrowsnap alongside Beemask and Troutstream, who were/are mentors to Flareheart and Tarrantpaw. A few moons into her warriorhood, she spent a bit of time rekindling a tentative relationship with her older brother Shadowwind, believing that he wanted to do better. However, with the recent news about Whistleleaf and his children, she made the decision to shut out Shadowwind entirely, too hurt by his actions and too angry by what he did to his children, and to her. She also has become an aunt to Dreamkit, Beemask's and Troutstream's daughter, and hopes to be a constant figure in her life. She's made a new friend in Maplethorn, her niece of sorts, and has gained a bit more of an important role in the Clan after Beemask became deputy. Even though she's trying to pick up some of the more emotional pieces of her life at the moment, she's doing pretty well, and is having a great time living her life!