Post by Fallow on Aug 6, 2010 18:12:18 GMT -8
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
[/sub]BluekitFallow
WHAT GENDER ARE YOU?
Boar (Tom)[/sub]
HOW OLD ARE YOU?
39 moons[/sub]
WHAT CLAN ARE YOU LOYAL TO?
N/A[/sub]
WHAT IS YOUR RANK?
Loner[/sub]
WHAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE?
Blue-gray colored fur, like cloud shadow, though usually with a tinge of dirt and dust muddling up the hue. His eyes are jade green, and always dilated.[/sub]
CAN YOU GO INTO MORE DETAIL PLEASE
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Graced with a stocky build, Fallow is the exact opposite of the usual long and lanky feline. In fact, he looks downright stocky. With short, strong legs, a shorter than average tail, and a broad chest and shoulders he seems almost like a badger himself. His head is rounded, his nose a sloping and proud: On a human it might almost be called hawk-like, or a roman nose. The rather shaggy thick quality of Fallow's fur gives him a slightly chubby, rounded look, but closer inspection will prove that he's surprisingly muscular. His forepaws are slightly inward turned, giving him a rather heavy gait that's more like a stomp. Where most cats are graceful, he seems far more solid and down to earth. Elegance really isn't his forte.
One look at Fallow's eyes are enough to let someone know there is something wrong with him: He is plagued by blindness, and has been since he was born. He has never known the color of changing leaves, or the green of grass, or the beauty of a sky when the day ends. His eyes, the faded color of old jade, are home to pupils that are constantly dilated giving him a slightly eerie, staring look. Despite the fact that they aren't, his eyes always seem protuberant, as if he stares wide eyed at the world.
Despite this apparent disability he's a very large tom: Stocky, yes, but large. It's obvious that he's eaten well his entire life, and been well taken care of, though not in the pristine way of a pet. His fur, shaggy at scruffy as it is, is often dotted with dirt that muddies the gray-blue color of it into something closer to dun. His claws too, seem often blunted through he tries to keep them sharp.
WHAT ARE YOU LIKE?
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If he has nothing else, Fallow has luck and a will to survive that surpasses many others. Born blind, he's been stumbling through the world with a disadvantage since he first opened his eyes. His luck has carried him well, however, though many would claim that it hasn't. After all, how many cats would think they were lucky to wander from their mother's safety and wind up lost until they tumbled into a badger's sett? Certainly not many, but it served Fallow well, because, at least, that badger, a mother who had recently lost her entire litter. A badger who had, against all natural things, decided to take care of this weak and mewling thing that shivered terrified in her home.
It is from her that Fallow gets most of his views on the world: While they did not understand each other early in the manner of most families... They understood each other on a more primal level: Milk-giver, Warmth, Beating heart. In time, Fallow would come to learn the language of badgers and be able to communicate with them. She was a close facet of his personality through raising him as though he were one of her own cubs that she'd birthed. She refused to allow him to let his disability get the better of him and drove him forward. When he huddled, shivering and refusing to do as she wanted, she would cuff him tail over ears, and would in their limited communication, tell him that he had “Other senses, and he ought to use them.”
And learn to use them he did. Even his name came about more from his badger-mother's grumbling than anything: She'd often call him “Fallow as a field!” when annoyed with his poor progress. But he learned, oh did he learn: He learned not to let anything drag him down, that anything could be overcome with hard work, and it's a lesson he cherishes to this day. He learned to be polite to your elders, unless you want to be soundly cuffed, and he learned to do his share of the work or face that large paw thumping him about his head. He learned how to dig to get at the creatures that shuffled through the earth, but never as well as his badger-mother. And, he learned to be like a badger. In fact, it's a good question whether or not Fallow even realizes he's a cat.
Certainly appearances mean nothing to him. He, after all, is absolutely blind. Fallow goes on scent and sound for the most part, though he is also hyper sensitive to the feel of movement along his fur and whiskers, or even the vibrations in the ground.
While most creatures do not care for their young so long, the badger has yet to run him off and has looked after him all these moons. In fact, Fallow is hard put to imagine a life without her there. However, recent events have conspired, and she's gone missing. He takes with him all he learned in his search for his vanished mother, after waiting near the sett for nearly a season, this blind cat pushes forward steadfastly.
YOUR FAMILY TREE
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By Blood:
Dam: Ashcloud
Sire: Unknown
Siblings: Thrushkit, Shadepaw, Smallpaw
By Heart:
Badger-mother – Name unknown.
SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT
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Taken from a gryphon RP:Despite the season the air here was cold and biting as if winter were already striving to return, or maybe it had never gone away at all. The bristling dry scrub grass that grew between the sharp gray stones seemed inedible, and, no doubt, the prey here was made up of the toughest of creatures; if they existed at all. Ragged, twiggy bushes clustered in dull colored clumps, their tiny buds pushing to create hardy little leaves in difference to the seasons. Not far off the great pines of the evergreen forest clustered like silent, ever watching sentinels. Snow, she noticed, still lay at their roots.
Nelena was unsure why she had come here, except that, perhaps, she wasn't quite ready to face the clans yet. Her nerves had been jangling badly enough with her flight over the ocean. It wasn't something she'd had to do while still under the care of her Father. She had never left their solitary little home until now. The world was so big.
Still, something about this bitter, barren island set something primal and distant within her at ease. She had bee wary, scared almost, when she had first glimpsed the sharp, dangerous crags of the islands beaches, but...
But, once Nelena had settled among the pock marked landscape, among the rocks and shale, and stone, and sparse crisp grass, something in her had seemed to click. She felt almost as if she belonged here, but that wasn't right at all. At least, Nelena didn't think it was.
Her paws tread quietly over the rocks, never dislodging a one. She was edging along a sharp incline that stretched below her to the thick coniferous growth, her side brushing against the vertical rise of a rock face, but she didn't care. Her balance was perfect through the aid of small wing adjustments, and that long fluffy tail.
The roughness of a the rock pulled at her thick fur and feathers, pulling away some in loose clumps. The feathers drifted to the ground like snow on a windless night. The unnerving quality of the windless silence affected her: It made everything in her stand on end, but at the same time the silence soothed her. There was just something about this cold, desolate place, that spoke to something old and forgotten deep within.
Her talons found a ledge, a bit wider than the one she'd been traversing, and she crouched upon it. Nelena tucked her peach-gray talons close to her body to protect from the cool air, and ruffled herself up slightly. The stillness of the trees was almost haunting, almost spine tingling. She tried to distract herself but twisting her head down to preen the thick feathers of her forequarter. That small, almost dainty beak made quick work of lose feathers and getting the itchy casing off the freshly growing.
Against the rocks, she seemed almost invisible: Her coloring a boon here in this barren land.
As Nelena twisted for a particularly frustrating patch of feathers, a sound caught her attention: It was faint, distant, but not terribly so. She would say it was between her and the shore, but from beyond the rise of the trees. Nelena tilted her head to listen more, and caught, undiluted thanks to the lack of stirring air, what sounded like words:
thing ..ack fr... ere.
Obviously disjointed, but clear enough. Like the creatures she took after, Nelena had excellent hearing. She clicked her beak indecisively. Should she move on before she ran the chance of being spotted, or maybe go and observe? If it was one of those griffla from the clans then, perhaps, she could gain more insight. Maybe, it would prepare her for the inevitability of approaching one of those groups.
Nelena hadn't even realized she had made her choice until she felt the coolness at the undersides of her wings and against her talons. She couched on the ledge, then, after a pause where she made sure her pinions were in proper order, propelled herself off of it.
The little female glided downward on silent wings toward the dark, ragged trees, and with a little adjustment of wings and tail once she was among them, navigated her way toward the shoreward fringe. Ahead of her she could see the trees growing sparse and thinner: Their crowns like balding, sick birds who tore their feathers out in frustration. Nelena turned her sights on one of the healthier trees near this invisible line, and reached out with her talons to grasp a likely looking tangle of branches.
With a rattle like old, dry bones, and a shower of scratchy bark and pine needles, she landed on the tree. At first Nelena wasn't sure the thing would hold her weight, but the thin, springy branches proved stronger than she thought. It seemed she'd timed her glide well enough, then.
Bobbing her head down she very nearly turned it upside down as she peered through the trees toward the soft, barely there, sound of paws. It was instinct to focus her eyes as she waited, wings mantled, like a strange pale phantom clinging to her tangle of branches and needles: They didn't penetrate the thickness of her feathers or fur to prick her skin, and the rough skin of her talons was far too tough. The only real problem was the close confines of the other branches around her and the way they scraped at her wings, tugging out feathers and letting them float down.
Then, through the low branches she saw a flicker of color, a bright burnished hue that made her startle. The branches rattled again, dry and bristling, as another shower of needles rained down. For a heart stopping moment she'd thought that, maybe, she'd been mistaken and Achenth hadn't really died. But, no, that wasn't bronze and tawny but a far more fiery color. A color like the last shreds of day before twilight.
She told herself not to feel disappointed, but Nelena couldn't help the way her talons tightened against the branches entangling her long, curving claws deeper, or the way she settled against her precarious perch. Some things just didn't leave so easily. It was like having bones and fur stuck in her craw.
So, she watched, and waited, and huddled like a fledgling in the nest, and maybe, just maybe, she wished a little.
Being alone wasn't soothing anymore.