Post by BIRDY on Dec 6, 2015 23:15:48 GMT -5
NAME,Sole-Little- Sole
NAME ORIGIN, Originally believed to be the 'sole' survivor of his litter, Sole had his name changed within moments when his parents realized that the first-born kit (who would later be named Scratch) was in fact still breathing. Seeing as Sole was the 'little brother' (and finding it amusing given the tom's enormous size), Sole's parents decided to call him 'Little' instead. Sole was told this story often as he grew up, enough times that he eventually came to despise the demeaning misnomer. He was finally able to rid himself of it once and for all after killing Scratch and reclaiming the title of 'sole' survivor.
SEX, Tom
AGE, 57 Moons
CLAN,Loner- Obscurity
RANK, Upper Guard. . .
REFERENCE, IMG1 - IMG2
SUMMARY, Monstrous white tom with dark eyes
DESCRIPTION, [Domestic Shorthair] Sole is a true beast of a cat. His features are reminiscent of more ancient predators such as the wolf or bear. Assigning these weapons of destruction to such a seemingly harmless species is almost laughable. However, Sole puts the tools of evolution to use, wielding his size and ferocity as if murder is what he was born for. And perhaps it is, as killing has always come easier to him than anything else.. . .
PERSONALITY, [Barbaric - Nihilistic - Superstitious - Simple]. . .
FAMILY, Clay - Biological Father - Whereabouts Unknown
Blaisy - Biological Mother - Whereabouts Unknown
Scratch - Full Brother (Littermate) - Deceased
Lilypaw - Full Sister (Younger Litter) - Deceased
HISTORY, Sole can say with pride that he and he alone is responsible for the deaths of all of his siblings. From the moment he began to grow inside his mother's womb, he was a killer, sapping the life from his two sisters until their feeble corpses slithered into the light of the outside world. He almost took his brother along with them, but the runt was lucky and managed to wheeze the liquid from his lungs and breathe the morning air. Sole's littermate was living on borrowed time though, and while Sole might not have claimed the tom's life at that moment, he would certainly finish the job seasons down the road.
But before going into any of that, or even how Sole managed to become the single perpetrator of a string of siblicidal murders, it is necessary to look into the cat that Sole once was, or at least the cat that existed before 'Sole' came to be.
Little was born the biggest and strongest kit. His mother and father had had two litters of offspring before and all had been stillborn. Desperately in want of a family, they nearly had their hearts crushed a third time when one after another, the queen's newborns came out stiff as stones. Every kit but the last one, whose cries erupted almost immediately, his pink little paws kicking powerfully as he searched about for his mother's milk. The delight the parents experienced was inexplicable. A strong son with healthy lungs and warm blood coursing through his veins. He would have been their pride and joy, the sole reason for them to live.
And then the first kit, a black scrap of fur and bones taken for dead, gave a meek cry and stole the life that had been planned for his brother.
Little never understood what his parents saw in Scratch. It was obvious, even to a kit like himself, that his brother was weak, sickly, a poor investment just waiting to come crashing down. Here he was, Little, greater than his name would ever let him be, bigger and stronger than his runt of a brother, an able-bodied youth with all the potential in the world. But his parents were so blinded by Scratch's weaknesses that they had no time to acknowledge their other son's strengths. They were so keen on keeping the black maggot alive that they forgot all about the living son that they already had. Little learned resent at a young age. It darkened his pure heart with bitterness and chased the innocence from his eyes. Without quite understanding how, he began to wish that Scratch would disappear, go away, cease to exist. Then their— no, Little's — parents would stop taking their golden son for granted.
By some miracle (or curse), Scratch lived. Even with Little loathing his brother's existence all the while, Scratch survived. Weak and feeble as he was, Scratch and Little's parents lauded him for it. They were so proud of Scratch, so proud of themselves. Little didn't get it. None of it made sense. Proud of what? That skeleton? Little wanted to learn how to hunt and fight. He wanted to be shown how to climb a tree and pull rabbits from their burrows. He wanted to see the entire forest and beyond and set paw on every surface available. But with his mother and father always busy feeding the family and taking care of Scratch, there was hardly any time to fulfill Little's ambitions.
"Later," they always said. "When it's warmer out." Greenleaf came and went. "When there's more prey to be found." Excuses. "Your brother isn't feeling well." When was he ever? "Why don't you try practicing with those leaves? You can pretend they're mice." He didn't want to pretend. He didn't want to practice. He wanted to put the unused muscles in his body to work, to sharpen his un-honed claws, take full advantage of what nature had given him before it withered to waste. But his parents didn't understand. Scratch this, Scratch that. It was always always about Scratch.
So against his parents' rules, Little started sneaking out at night. If they wouldn't teach him how to be a real tom, then he would find someone who would. That someone ended up being a group of rogues that Little stumbled across. Having never learned how to scent his surroundings, one night he wandered much farther than he'd intended and was soon lost in the great unknown. The young tom didn't realize it, but he had crossed into the territory of a small band of vagabonds and criminals, cats who had been kicked out of their old homes because of terrible acts they had committed. It was easy for them to find the intruder. The kit's white fur stood out like a tree on a hill and his mother's milk scent still clung to his soft pelt like honey and sap. They weren't thinking much when they approached the tom. Maybe scare him a bit, find out where his family was and terrorize them as well, take whatever they had and then some.
But as they leaped out into the open, surrounding the youth with gleeful depravity in their eyes, they faltered. Although initially startled by the cats' sudden appearances, Little stood firm, fluffing out his fur and standing on the very tips of his toes, head as high as it could go and ears erect.
"Do you know where you are, kit?" Their leader sneered, and in a voice that only barely wavered, Little snapped back, "Of course I do. Why, are you lost?"
In the brief period of amusement and contemplation that followed, the rogues deemed the kit too entertaining to kill. Besides, their leader was impressed by the tiny creature's courage (even if it was more out of stupidity than any sense of heroism). After several half-hearted attempts at getting the scrap of fur to submit, the group decided the tom was not worth their time and made ready to move on. They stopped when the squeaky voice piped up again.
"Hey, wherever you're going, take me with you!"
Their leader turned, eyes narrowing with a vague interest, lips pulled back in annoyance but also curiosity. "And why would we do that, insect?"
Meeting the rogue's gaze even when it made his neck protest from looking so far up, Little replied, "So I can become strong, as strong as you, and then even stronger!"
The rogues didn't know how to take the squirrel-sized cat seriously, so they said nothing, looking to their leader, but he was looking down at the ball of fur that was looking up at him. For a while, he was silent. Then, barely audibly, "You'd better keep up."
With that, he left, his followers close behind, and Little, hardly believing his ears, went racing and tripping after.
He lived with the rogues for who know how many moons, so long that he lost track of just how much time he spent with them. But in those first few nights, he remembers almost starving. The leader had not been lying when he told Little to keep up. He had meant it in more ways than one. No one would be hunting for Little now, no one would be bringing him water or ushering him into a warm and already-made nest of moss and feathers. He was on his own now. He might be one of them, but in the end it was every cat for himself and Little being a kit did not change anything. If he was old enough to decide to leave home, then he was old enough to take care of himself.
"If you don't like it, run back to your mommy and daddy." They'd laugh at him when he tried to fight them for their food, shaking the kit off with little more than a bat of their paws.
But Little knew that returning to that place of isolation and inferiority was not an option, and besides, his pride would never let him. At the same time, he realized he would starve to death if he didn't soon find a way to eat, so he started following the other rogues when they went hunting, simultaneously watching and observing their positions and techniques while also stealing whatever they left buried. This tactic seemed to be working well for him until one day he got caught and was about to have his fur clawed off by the cat that he'd stolen from, when their leader stepped in.
"Leave him be." The tom commanded, sending his follower slinking back and away from the kit. "You've grown sharp," he said, now addressing Little as he turned his head to fix the youth with a calculating stare. "You were too loud though. Your tail dragged through the leaves and alerted your quarry to your presence. And you weren't paying attention to the wind. Never let your prey smell you coming." Little was being criticized, but there was also something else in his leader's voice: pride.
It was the first lesson Little would ever receive. From then on, he began to follow his leader, doing his best to keep out of sight, watching the tom hunt and fight and never managing to figure out why the rogue would suddenly slow down or make a great show of crouching and checking scent markers, but Little always took advantage of these breaks anyways to catch his own breath or better examine the cat's form. He learned a lot simply from watching, and then came the time when his leader announced that they were going to chase off a family of loners who had been trespassing and stealing prey from their territory. Little had yet to be in a real battle (he had tussled with the other rogues on occasion but these usually ended in Little being tossed aside like old bedding), but he had watched some of the other rogues fight each other for sleeping spaces or food and he was eager to put himself to the test. As his leader was leaving with a handful of other cats, Little ran over, asking to come, and when the leader looked at him for a long moment before giving a smirk and a shrug, Little took that as all the permission necessary to tag along.
As they headed towards the. . .
PASSWORD, Smile