snowtiger, warrior.

a life of sorrow has hardened this cat. when you put a cat through despair time and time again it not only affects their personality but their outlook on life -- and that's extremely evident when it comes to snowtiger. losing his parents and almost the entirety of the rest of his family meant that his outlook is extremely jaded -- he has had to work his entire life and he is tired. he grew up under the stress of a single mother, to the extent that he had to step up very early to be the man in the house, so to speak. it takes extreme motions to get snowtiger to care about things that don't apply to himself or his kits, something that likely frustrates those that he considers friends, a hard enough state to get to in the first place. not only is he jaded, he is also extremely cynical, and typically assumes the worst of any situation he enters due to losing so many cats. snowtiger may not admit it, but he's a traumatized cat -- in all ways, shapes, and forms. his pelt is criss-crossed with scars and so is his mind and it will take a lot to get him to open up again. 

the cat is huge and he's proven himself to be a brutal fighter -- he uses brute force to take down his enemies and hunt for his prey, using his superior size to his advantage. he's violent and fights with him are bloody and more often than not uncaring about getting himself injured if it means he gets the job done. he keeps his claws unsheathed and he likes it that way. he's a ruthless cat, willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done -- even if it's not the most pleasant of orders. snowtiger is also protective of his kits and himself, though it's to an almost extreme extent. he doesn't tend to want them to go off on their own without him watching, and he sleeps in the nursery with them almost every night despite his large size. he's extremely dedicated to his family and his clan, and will follow any orders his leader and deputy give him no matter what they may be -- he usually doesn't consider his own opinion. 

while snowtiger has proven himself to be an overly physical cat, he's also intelligent, perhaps more so than the general population of his clan. he can easily see the bigger picture and make decsions based on it -- for everything except his kits. he's overly strategic because of this and can make his steps based on the bigger picture. he's also genuinely caring about his clan and his family -- what little he has left of it. his kits are the only ones that he has left and he plans on keeping them alive for as long as physically possible. 

when two cats get together and fall in love, history dictates that they usually live long healthy lives with each other where they are disgustingly in love and have many kits and die happy. featherbelly and tigerback were the outliers to this historical view of the clans. 

featherbelly and tigerback met when they were apprentices -- tigerback just about to become a warrior, yet smitten with the young 'paw who'd just moved into the apprentice den. after featherbelly earned her warrior name, they became mates. it would be over a year before they would decide it was time to have kits. 

this first litter of kits was snowkit's litter. his dark fur had yet to come in when he was born, and his parents assumed he was a purely white kitten -- his brothers were foxkit and ratkit, and his lone sister was skunk-kit. neither ratkit nor skunk-kit survived past kithood. ratkit was born stillborn, and skunk-kit died a few moons after. this would be the first time -- but not the last time -- snowtiger would deal with death in a way he never had before. 

in the moon snowkit and foxkit became apprentices, their father died. it was a freak injury that got infected and killed the tom -- leaving his mate to raise their two kits alone in the clan. she was a strong she-cat and was fully capable, but this grief made snowpaw turn even further inwards on himself and away from others. in this period of time he was mostly only talking to his mentor and his family, with little interest in spending time with the other apprentices. just two moons into their apprenticeship, foxpaw died. a freak accident led to him being crushed under some debris, something no one could have predicted. it turned snowpaw into even more of a mama's boy, though it was at this point he even began to worry about her. 

he dealt with his grief. he pushed himself harder in his training to make himself a better warrior to protect his mother, and he earned his warrior name snowtiger for the way he put everything into his fighting and bettering himself. he needed to be able to protect the things that matter, and clearly he was capable of doing so. he showed the same level of dedication and ferocity when it came to training his apprentice, berrypaw. he taught the young she-cat virtually everything he had to know, and made sure she knew it well enough to master it instead of just parroting back everything he taught her. 

shortly after he finished training berrypaw, the second most important event in his life happened. as a loner type of cat, he would spend much of his time alone hunting and checking the borders -- and when he was thirty-one moons old, he met storm and hemlock, two loners living on the edges of shadowclan territory. wary at first, he kept watch of the two. they had grown up together and were as close as two cats could be, and when snowtiger finally worked up the nerve to talk to them, he found himself enamored and fully in love with the both of them. 

so busy with getting to know storm and hemlock, he didn't pay much attention to the going-ons of his mother. she'd taken on a new mate and had a new litter -- buzzardkit and bluekit. they would be apprenticed just shortly before snowtiger became mates proper with storm and hemlock, and then bluepaw and featherbelly would be taken from snowtiger in a fight a few moons later. he grieved for his mother and his younger sister -- grieving in the paws of his newfound mates. 

just after storm became pregnant with snowtiger's kits, a harsh leaf-bare fully took its toll on shadowclan. snowtiger's brother, the near-newly named buzzardshock, was killed in the outbreak of greencough. too focused on his pregnant mate, it barely seemed to faze snowtiger, something he regrets to this day when thinking about the event. just after the sickness, snowtiger's kits were born. he was out in the woods and the birth was too violent, too soon -- storm was lost in the delivery. three of his kits were born stillborn, and hemlock -- in his grief -- blamed snowtiger. snowtiger lashed out and ended up killing hemlock in self defense -- and then shortly after realized he'd essentially killed both of his mates. his most beloved cats. 

he'd been about to bury their bodies when he heard a shrill cry from one of the kits he thought was dead -- a cat he would name littlekit for her tiny size, and a kit he originally assumed was dead. the other kit was named stormkit for her pelt that was nearly identical to her mothers -- something he recognized immediately. he grieved for his mates while grooming his daughters, and vowed to never let anyone take them away from him. 

FEATHERBELLY † :: mother. 

TIGERBACK † :: father. 

FOXPAW † :: littermate ; brother.  

RATKIT † :: littermate ; brother. 

SKUNK-KIT † :: littermate ; sister.  

BLUEPAW † :: younger sister.  

BUZZARDSHOCK † :: younger brother.  

STORM † :: ex-mate. mother of his kits. also mates with hemlock.  

HEMLOCK † :: ex-mate. also mates with storm.  

STORMKIT :: daughter.  

LITTLEKIT :: daughter.  

LIONKIT † :: son.