#conefling

Aliases / Nicknames: Petty Petal

Gender: tom

Sexuality: homosexual

Family: unnamed mother, unnamed father, Conefling (sister), unnamed nephews

Other Relations: unnamed mentor

Clan: Windclan

Rank: warrior, medicine cat (formerly)

Characteristics: treats patients with improper herbs, causing unintentional permanent injury, bad-talks cats to cause problems, targets his bullies

Number of Victims: 5

Number of Murders: 0

Method of Harm: misuse of herbs, breaking mates up

Known Victims: Sunmoss, Bugsnow, three unnamed Clanmates

Victim Profile: his old bullies, mate of one of his bullies

Cause of Death: killed in battle

Cautionary Tale: ??

Story:

He was close with his sister, at least for the first few moons. Then she left him to hang out with the ‘big, cool’ apprentices, leaving him to play games by himself.

They did invite him sometimes, but that was only to make fun of him, laughing when he rolled over a mossball they chucked too hard.

He became a medicine cat apprentice just so that he didn’t have to train with them, something Conepaw complained about, unable to understand why he didn’t want to train alongside her.

It began small. Giving his bullies bitter herbs when they didn’t really need it just to see them gag and make faces, pulling thorns out of their paws only after twisting it a little bit.

Then he overheard Conefling and Sunmoss joking that he probably became a medicine cat because he knew no she-cat or tom would want him.

He could only sulk for a while, avoiding them. But thankfully it was only half a moon before Sunmoss badly scraped her leg. 

Petalpaw’s mentor was out gathering herbs, as he was before when Petalpaw was a little too harsh. This time, for Sunmoss, he took care of the wound, he did. Did he also rub some stinging nettle on the exposed inner skin? Perhaps.

Sunmoss returned the next day, complaining that the leg felt worse. Petalpaw wasn’t able to avoid his mentor’s anger then. But in his moons of punishment, cleaning out bedding and washing Sunmoss’s leg, he could see the she-cat become worse and worse. Soon enough it was clear that it would never properly recover.

Petalpaw began to feel bad, but any time he did, Sunmoss’s words would replay in his head, and he would become angry over again.

Why not make it worse?

When Bugsnow, who Sunmoss had being showing interest in, visited the medicine den for a nonstop hiccup, Petalsand subtly badmouthed the she-cat, talking about how mean she could be, pretending not to now that the two were interested in each other while he said how all his time healing Sunmoss made him think that the she-cat probably only wanted a mate just for the look of having one.

Bugsnow and Sunmoss’s relationship seemed as strong as before. At first. But Petalsand could see doubt creeping in more and more. It caused more and more fights between the two, until finally they broke up.

It was unfortunate his mentor had a keen eye. He caught on to what Petalsand had been doing--hurting his Clanmates, giving them unnecessary herbs, and finally ruining their relationships. 

He forced Petalsand to become a warrior, something that devastated them both. Thankfully, he was kind enough to keep why a secret, telling the leader that Petalsand had lost his sense of smell and could no longer work as a medicine cat.

He tried to hunt, even if he had to pretend not to be able to smell when around his Clanmates. At least his training included some of that, but it most certainly didn’t focus on fighting.

So when Riverclan invaded Windclan’s camp, Petalsand was up against an experienced warrior with only his half-filled knowledge.

Maybe he could have survived if Sunmoss’s limp hadn’t slowed her down from helping him.

Additional Information:

--Conefling did care about her brother. She was young when she joined in the bullying and couldn’t see it for what it was, which was why she was upset when he didn’t want to train with her. She did really look forward to becoming warriors with him. Later, she felt too awkward to apologize, but did act kind around him, although their relationship was now distant.

--Sunmoss was the only one who hurt Petalsand after apprenticehood (hence why he only targeted her after the first few misuse of herbs and thorns). 

Even then, she didn’t mean to hurt him. Conefling was still upset about her and her brother’s distance, and Sunmoss tried a bad method of cheering her up (Conefling wasn’t joking with her nor found it funny, but did laugh so that the interaction wasn’t weird).

--He hurt Sunmoss’s leg when he was warrior-age (which was why they had their full names), but because his training was longer, he was still going by ‘paw.

--Conefling had kits after he died.