Boughshade

Boughshade is currently a warrior of IsleClan. He's not only Dapplestar's nephew, but he used to be her apprentice. He thinks that makes him cool. Well, he hopes that makes him cool. It does, doesn't it? ...doesn't it?

Physical Description
Boughshade is a lean and lanky young tom. His fur is short but thick, and while it seems scruffy in appearance, it is actually quite soft. It's rather messy, though, and the hair is longer along the back of his neck than anywhere else, making it look as though he has a little bit of a fluff-ruff looping over his chest. He doesn't put much thought into his appearance. He's tall and skinny and he doesn't mind that. His pelt is mainly white, broken patches of brown tabby. The brown spots are bigger near his back and on his face, and the shades vary from dark to almost tannish. He has large ears and eyes. Speaking of his eyes, they're a shade of bright green and tend to convey far more emotion than his facial expressions usually manage to. He's a very expressive young man, but that leads us into the territory of personality.

Personality
Boughshade is... mostly pretty chill. He's easygoing and collected most of the time. He doesn't talk much and is a bit on the shy side, preferring to keep to himself and be alone with his thoughts whenever he is able. He's typically easy to boss around and will avoid partaking in any form of drama. He's also somewhat jumpy and tends to take things very literally. He's bright, but, well... he's not the best at thinking outside of the box. That being said, he's good-natured and genuine in everything he does. He's very reactive and open about how he feels when it comes to most things. He also values honesty above almost all else, and despite his timidity, he is not a pushover. He has a very strong moral compass, and he's firm with everything he believes in. If he thinks someone is inherently wrong, he won't hesitate to argue with them about it. He's loyal and stubborn almost to a fault, and it has landed him into trouble before. He's just very opinionated and passionate about whatever he thinks is right. If he sets his mind to something, he will do it, no matter how hard it is for him or how many moons it will take. He's an optimist and wants to see the best in everything and everyone. Some might call that naivety, but he likes to think of it as a good philosophy.

Now as for some other random bits of information - he's scared of heights. And insects. And, to some extent, CoveClan. He's scared of a lot of things, actually. He tries very hard not to be, though. He doesn't like swimming or generally getting wet, either. Rain drives him nuts. He kind of sucks at battle training, too. He's better when it comes to hunting. He also has a habit of drawing pictures or scenes he comes up with in his mind. When he's bored, he'll just trot down to the shore and start doodling shapes in the sand with his claws. He's been practicing since he was an apprentice, and he thinks he's actually getting pretty good. He enjoys it. He wants to show off, but he's too insecure to tell anybody about the hobby because he feels like it's weird. He always messes up the drawings and flings sand over them once he's finished, too, because he's too embarrassed about it to risk letting anyone find them.

Kithood
Boughkit was born alongside Nemesiakit and Woodkit in IsleClan. His mother, Iceflower, died from complications while giving birth to them, so he, his sister, and his brother were instead brought up by a younger queen named Pansybloom. Pansybloom had recently discovered that she was infertile and had jumped at the chance to raise kits anyways. She was a sweet cat and Boughkit loved her as though she were his biological mother.

His father, Kelpwhisker, visited several times a day as well and did his best to keep Boughkit and his siblings happy. Boughkit loved his dad, too. Everything was great. I mean, before he turned one moon old, his uncle Crowtalon died. That was less great. But whatever! Boughkit still had his littermates and Pansybloom and Kelpwhisker and also his aunt Dapplestorm. He liked her. She didn't visit much, but when she did, she always seemed to have the most creative game ideas for them. Boughkit thought that was amazing.

When he was one moon old, some weirdness happened and an older kit in the nursery, Dahliakit, accidentally poisoned herself and an elder to death. Boughkit was too little to remember it, but the story scared him when he learned about it later on. Aside from Nemesiakit and Woodkit, his company in the nursery consisted of Sproutkit, Hyacinthkit, Azaleakit, and Mantiskit. They were all the surviving siblings of Dahliakit. Boughkit would play around with them at times, but he mostly kept to himself, Pansybloom, and his littermates.

He didn't really do anything worth noting until he was four and a half moons old. Then, during one of his trips outside of camp with Pansybloom and his littermates, he thought it would be fun to climb up a palm tree. He did that. Then he got stuck. And he panicked. And Pansybloom had to come up and get him. He found the whole ordeal very embarrassing and made her (as well as Woodkit and Nemesiakit) promise not to tell anyone once they got back to camp. He was fine, but he was left with a crippling fear of heights. Poor Boughkit.

Yeah... for the next moon and a half, he vibed. He and his siblings started thinking about who they wanted their mentors to be, and Boughkit decided he wanted to be Dapplestorm's apprentice. Then he argued with them over it for far too long until Boughkit finally asked Pansybloom if she could talk to the leader and see if he could get his aunt to be his mentor. She did that. The leader agreed to it. Yay.

Apprenticeship
Boughpaw, Woodpaw, and Nemesiapaw became apprentices, and Boughpaw moved into the apprentices' den with Dapplestorm as his mentor. He was thrilled about it... until they actually started training. Dapplestorm's training was harsh. She was ruthless with battle practice and impatient when it came to hunting. Boughpaw was unhappy with her strictness, but he had to admit that her methods were effective. He was learning, and he was learning well. She was a good mentor, as much as he hated to acknowledge it. Besides, she was being stern out of love. He knew that. The knowledge didn't make it suck any less, though.

Speaking of that! He'd only been training for a moon when the deputy, his grandfather Ravenblaze, died. And who replaced him? Dapplestorm! Boughpaw was suddenly the deputy's apprentice! Not only was he now a center of attention in the apprentices' den, but he also gained some leverage over his siblings! That was good, right?

Y'know what else was good? Friendship! Through training, Boughpaw befriended Sproutpaw. Sproutpaw was only one moon older than Boughpaw, and he started to take more notice of him after all three of Sproutpaw’s other siblings died. The two of them clicked relatively well and Boughpaw was glad to have someone to spend time with aside from his littermates. He also took some interest in the other apprentice they shared the den with: a she-cat named Coralpaw who was a moon younger than him. Coralpaw was wild, and Boughpaw was rather taken aback by her attitude. She was constantly switching Clans and trying to pull pranks on various cats. Boughpaw disapproved of that behavior, but... there was something admirable about it. Or was he just distracted by how pretty she was? He tried to shake off the feelings, humiliated by his crush, but he couldn't quite manage it. He couldn't quite manage the courage to try spending time with her, either. So it didn't really amount to much. He asked his siblings and Sproutpaw for advice on what to do, but none of their ideas sounded necessarily doable for him. He sort of gave up on getting Coralpaw's attention by the time he was nine moons old.

He didn't do much of anything until he was eleven moons old. That was when a light illness swept through the Clan. Unfortunately for Boughpaw, it claimed the life of his grandma Frostwillow... and of Kelpwhisker. Boughpaw was devastated. Now he'd lost both of his biological parents. He still had Pansybloom, of course- and she was a good enough mother for him- but it could never truly be the same. IsleClan's leader died for the ninth time as well, meaning Dapplestorm had to take charge. Boughpaw was pleased for her in spite of his grief. Since the final moon of his training was rough for him, he sought comfort mainly from Pansybloom, Sproutberry (who'd earned his name shortly prior), and his siblings. From Dapplestar as well - Frostwillow had been her mother, and she'd been good friends with Kelpwhisker, too. Boughpaw was thankful for his aunt's support, even if the only way she showed it was by yelling at him slightly less often than usual.

Warrior Life
Boughshade earned his full name after passing his assessment smoothly at twelve moons old, becoming a warrior alongside Woodwhistle and Nemesialeaf. He was rather excited to have finally made it to warriorhood, and also glad to be back in the same den as Sproutberry. One moon later, he was joined by Coraltuft - and while that heightened his nerves, it also gave him a bit of courage. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted her to like him. So he tried chitchatting with her when he could. He was really bad at getting his intentions across to her, though, and none of their small talk ever amounted to anything. It was somewhat frustrating for him, really.

When he was sixteen moons old, though, CoveClan happened. That was... weird. A great big gaggle of loners moved into Clan land and started calling themselves a Clan. Boughshade wasn't sure how he felt about that. He was a little uncertain and a tad suspicious, but he didn't agree with the way some of his peers wanted them gone. He wanted to at least give them a chance, and stay on friendly terms if at all possible. It was similar to his stance on the ReefClan situation - sure, they could be annoying, but why get riled up about it? Why not just get along? Unfortunately for him, Dapplestar didn't share his views. Dapplestar didn't like CoveClan one bit. That was worrisome. Boughshade was always one to stand up for what he thought was right - but not in this scenario. He was going to respect his leader's decisions even if he didn't agree with them. Besides, he was tight with Dapplestar; he didn't want to put their relationship at risk. Apart from his siblings, she was the only kin he had.

Oh, and Pansybloom had adopted two more kits over the course of the previous few moons - Dewkit and Amberkit, both she-cats. Boughshade was quite fond of them. He would drop by the nursery a few times every day to see how they were doing and play with them a little when he could. If Pansybloom was like his mother, he figured that the two kits might as well be his younger sisters. He did his best to treat them as such, and eventually grew accustomed to the role.

When he was nineteen moons old, Dewpaw was made into an apprentice — and to Boughshade’s delight, Dapplestar appointed him as her mentor. He was pretty thrilled about that- not only because Dewpaw was sort of a member of his family, but because Sproutberry also had an apprentice at the time, Elkpaw, meaning they would be able to train them together and generally just have fun with that. Coraltuft had an apprentice, too— Cavernpaw— but Cavernpaw was much older than Dewpaw, so they didn’t train them together nearly as often. Woodwhistle also became a mentor to a younger cat named Sleekpaw, though, and Boughshade was pleased about that. He’d sometimes try to train Dewpaw with Sleekpaw, although he mostly stuck with Sproutberry and Elkpaw.

And that's... about it. That's all he's done so far. Not much, really. He isn't too interesting. Hopefully I'll have more to add to this soon.

Trivia

 * When I (Starling) was, like,, twelve, I had a cringy Warriors OC named Boughbranch. Boughshade is bringing back cursed memories. Oh dear.
 * This is a good boy. Be good to him.

Quotes
Eh.