Young Writers Society

So, one of my Warriors characters is named Yellowfoot for good reason. I was wondering, might there be a plant or mineral that would permanently stain her fur?

Permanent is a bit of a stretch. If you have repeated and prolonged exposure you can have long-term staining. But the way the biology goes it'd be very difficult/near impossible to have a one-time exposure provide a permanent stain. Constant exposure would do the job just as well, but you'd need a setting that allows for constant exposure.

I'd suggest you google "natural yellow dye plants" or something similar, to get a list of plants that could produce dye under the right circumstance. You can cut the "plants" for minerals.

However, dyes are usually extracting by boiling. In your research, you need to narrow your list down to plants or minerals that produce a yellow colour right off the bat, when you come into contact with them.

Try looking into ocher or other clay-based pigments. They're probably the most likely in your setting.

Hi!

Like Rosey said, permanent discoloration from a dye would be pretty unlikely. You said fur, so I'm assuming some kind of animal. She could have a hereditary disease that would cause loss of pigmentation around the feet and eyes. Siamese cats have a certain phenomena: http://www.vetinfo.com/catfur.html

Some parasites and skin conditions cause fur color changes as well; I'd just try googling it.

Another possibility is that the fur was bleached in some way, and pigment was lost to some degree. Maybe the fur was burnt off, and grew back a different color over the scar. I don't know what your story is about, but you could come up with some mystical explanation.

Good luck! Hope I helped.

Lupis

Thanks for your help, guys.

*has a second question* How can I explain that my character was adopted without telling it outright?

You could try using a line like "when he came to live with them.." or "whoever took him into their home...". If you just want readers to know that these people aren't the character's real parents, you could have him call them by their first names. If he has any adoptive siblings, you could say stuff like "they treated him like a brother, although they shared no blood". Stuff like that.

Hope this helps!

I debate!!!
There is this one plant that does permenatly stain fur/hair. But it's like hair dye, au natural. However, what if that plant was to come in contact with the skin, thus staining the skin? (That's a stretch, I know...) Anyway, can't remember the plants name, something boring. And it was red.
My advice: There's so many obscure types of plants out there, why not create one?
I wouldn't care, and I usually hate non-facts in books.

Stori wrote:Thanks for your help, guys.

*has a second question* How can I explain that my character was adopted without telling it outright?

You could use sibling tensions to bring this up, possibly.

*has a second question* How can I explain that my character was adopted without telling it outright?

It depends on why it's important to the story, really. I have a few friends who were adopted, and it doesn't often come up in conversation.

Anyway, you could have other characters talk about how they look nothing alike, and then have one of them be all "oh, she's adopted." Not literally, but something like that. Like I said, it depends on why it's important. If you're trying to avoid drawing attention to it, you'd have to be more devious about it, and maybe bring it up as part of the charry in questions' inner psyche.

Good luck!

Lupis

It's important because she's a squirrel and doesn't quite know how to act like one.

Hey!

I just came across this. Well being a pharmacist, I can tell you that Iodide or Sodium give yellow stains. As for permanent, I would suggest Lead Iodide which would, in my opinion, fit perfectly. Its yellow colour is vibrant, and the compound itself is toxic; a perfect fit for a warrior animal! I don't actually know where it comes from, I think its synthetic.
Bilirubin on the other hand, is a natural yellow biological compound. It comes from the breakdown of Red Blood Cells. The yellowish colour you get around bruises are caused by Bilirubin.

Sorry about all the scientific talk, but you asked for it
All the best