First up: The men of the hour, Shallowstride and Fallingshadow! Though they're Shallowpaw and Fallingpaw when the story starts out.

Fallingpaw (Fallingshadow) - 10 moons - HillClan warrior apprentice - cis male, he/him - gay

A chocolate and white tom with shining yellow eyes. Always wearing some type of bruise or scratch.

Fallingpaw is a seemingly overconfident, overachieving apprentice with a flamboyant, cocky, later in his warriorhood even flirty, attitude. Many, even more experienced warriors, think his success is effortless, that he was just born for his role. The truth is, Fallingpaw overworks himself. Every night he trains and trains until he physically collapses from the exhaustion so he can be the best and be the cat everyone sees in him. He is truly extremely insecure in himself, his confident appearance a mask he carefully trained himself to keep up so nobody would ever see him fail.

Losing his parents in a battle early on was hard on Fallingpaw, and he withdrew himself from many clan members. Only Shallowpaw stuck by his side throughout all of it.

Fallingpaw's late parents, Oatheart and Acornclaw, were highly respected warriors, and so the young cat began to train late into the night even as a kit to live up to their legacy. Shallowpaw was by his side as always and would drag him to his nest often if it got too late or Fallingpaw refused to stop.

The two have a very close bond, though they're often seen bickering wherever they go.

He has an older sister named Sheepsong and his mentor is Crowcall.

Shallowpaw (Shallowstride) - 10 moons - HillClan warrior apprentice - cis male, he/him - bi

A murky black tom with spikey fur and one green and one copper eye.

Shallowpaw is one of the top apprentices of his generation. Born to Rockflame and Darkpounce, he has always been naturally bulky and tall, having no trouble beating older apprentices at battle training and hunting down bigger prey from the beginning. He is gruff and quiet on the outside and a constant shadow to Fallingpaw, who seems to be one of the only cats Shallowpaw voluntarily talks to for more than a few sentences at a time. In fact, he tends to (lovingly) insult his friend, so more often than not he can be heard shouting at the cocky tom throughout camp. Shallowpaw is the only one who can keep Fallingpaw in check and stop him from accidentally hurting himself. The two compliment each other very well both in physical skills and character and even their mentors rarely split them up during training to get them to work to the best of their abilities.

Shallowpaw almost always has a scowl on his face that few cats can make fade. In fact, he is rather friendly when you get to know him, he just shows it...differently. He is (clearly) not above insulting Fallingpaw if he's saying or doing something stupid and always makes sure to tell his friend to stop overworking himself so much. Shallowpaw can actually be really soft and concerned around his best friend, but never tell that to anyone, ever.