Mercury

Loner

Long furred, handsome, cinnamon ticked tabby tom with green eyes

ll XoY blbl Dd Dmdm Aa Mcmc SpSp Tata bmbm ii wbwb EE ShSh Ccs kk Wswg

Mercury is a tall tom, standing at 10”, with a thin frame that is masked by his thick, long, fluffy, luxurious coat. his fur is silky smooth and soft to the touch, and he spends a lot of time grooming to make sure it stays that way. With big ears, large paws, and a narrow snout, he’s considered absolute stunning by most, and is more than happy to allow that to continue.

His fur is an odd color, one not seen as often in the clans. A cinnamon ticked tabby, were he a kittypet, he’d most likely be used by a breeder due to just how strikingly beautiful his coat truly is. The rich color fades into an almost golden color near his stunningly beautiful white chin and throat. His tail tip is white as well, and his chest sports an almost crescent moon shaped patch.

His tail is long and extremely feathery, with it honestly appearing as if he is wearing feathers in his tail in some lights. A thick ruff of fur is prominent in his coat, giving his an almost lion like, regal look. his face has also been given the fluffy treatment, with tufts drooping downwards from his cheeks, tufts of fur coming out of his ears, and even tufts on his large paws. Most of what one sees when they look at Mercury is his fluffy fur, and not any form of bulk.

Eyes a stunning emerald green color with flecks of a darker green scattered throughout, they’re shaped almost exactly like almonds, and they stand out well against the cinnamon colored fur. A tan-ish pink-ish almost triangular shaped nose sits on the end of his muzzle, a darker stripe running across the very bottom of it.

+ Inventive- Mercury is creative. From coming up with actual herb mixtures that can help to soothe coughs and nerves at the same time to bogus mixes that do nothing but make a cat more confident in certain things, he is able to come up with things off the top of his head. If he put this to good use, he could probably make something amazing.

+ Intelligent- Mercury is very smart, specifically about herbs. He can remember what herbs do what with relative ease, as he kept up his memorization of herbs after his father died, repeating their names, looks, and uses out loud until he could explain them in his sleep. Unfortunately his intelligence of herbs does not help his awful sense of direction.

+ Persuasive- Moons of learning what to say to get what he wants and what not to say has given him quite the ability to persuade others. He uses this quite a bit, as his persuasive charm is what gets him “customers” for his mixes.

+ Charmer/Flirtatious- While he may be persuasive, what really helps him sell is his flighty, charming demeanor. He lures cats in to his snake oil scams by first charming them into listening, usually by flirting, and then using his persuasion to reel them in.

- Manipulative- While charming and persuasive, behind the mask, Mercury is a manipulative liar who wants nothing more than to con cats out of their own prey and herbs by trading them mixtures that promise luck, love, and life, but instead do absolutely nothing. He’s very good at manipulation as well, knowing just what to say and do to make them think that he’s not a liar.

- Selfish- Spending much of his early life being shunned by his siblings and then being kick out by them at seven moons has led to Mercury being very selfish. He rarely does anything for anyone if it doesn’t reward him in any way.

- Weak- Spending the majority of his time looking at plants instead of playfighting with his siblings has really left him with few to no battle skills, causing him to both be physically weak, and mentally weak because he cannot bring himself to stand up to stronger foes.

- Abandonment issues- Due to both his parents dying when he was young and his siblings kicking him out, Mercury has some pretty bad abandonment issues. Due to this, he’s fairly distant towards new cats, but if he warms up, he becomes clingy, scared he’ll be abandoned again.

Mercury was born alongside his sisters Venus and Terra and his brother Mars to a pair of rogues. His mother, Gaia died in childbirth, leaving his father Ouranos to raise them by himself.

While it was clearly hard for him, his father raised the trip to the best of his abilities. Knowing about herbs, he taught his young how to treat common ailments, much like his father before him had taught him. As Mercury grew, he found that so did his interest in herbs. What started as his father teaching the three of them that marigold could be used to treat infection and that feverfew could prevent fevers soon turned into one on one sessions. While Venus, Terra, and Mars were out play fighting, Mercury was in the den with his father, learning that catmint could cure greencough and that burdock root could treat infected rat bites.

Early on, his relationship with his siblings was strained. Spending so much time with his father made the others jealous, which lead to them purposefully excluding him from their games. Friction built as Mercury all but ignored this, opting instead to focus on herbs.

One day, soon after the group had started being taught to hunt, Mercury and his father were out looking for herbs. His father was showing him what herbs could be used for strength like burnet and sorrel. They had just reached a patch of daisies where Ouranos was explaining their use to ease joint pain and provide strength when he spotted an adder heading for Mercury. He shoved Mercury out of the way being bit by the adder in his steed.

Somehow, someway, Ouranos did not die immediately. Instead, after Mercury brought him back to the nest and explained to his siblings that an adder had bit him, Ouranos languished in agony for hours.

Mercury still remembers asking his father what herbs would cure his pain, only for his father to point to the red berries in the back that he had promised to teach Mercury about soon.

After feeding his father the deathberries by his request, he watched his father die- the poison and the venom finally claiming him. When he pulled his father out of the den, he learned from his siblings that the berries he had fed Ouranos were death berries.

Believing he killed their father, his siblings chased him off, leaving him alone and abandoned. At only seven moons old, he had lost his entire life and was kicked out on his own.

Never all that good at hunting or fighting, Mercury found himself struggling alone. It didn’t help that winter was harsh that year. And for moons, it continued that way with him alone and struggling. He attempted to offer up his knowledge of herbs to help others in an exchange for food or training, but very few cats took pity on the pathetic tom, with most explaining that there was already a much more experienced and older cat who did the same thing.

He learned that manipulation and seduction were the two best ways to get what he wanted, and so he leaned into it, becoming adept at lying and flirting.

All this changed when he was twenty moons old. It was a rainy day, and after failing to catch prey for himself closer to his den, he had gone much farther than usual, planning on following his scent back home. After managing to catch nothing but a scrawny mouse, Mercury was trudging back to his den. With visibility dropping steadily and the rain washing away his scent, he quickly found himself looking for shelter. He found his way into an abandoned cabin in the abandon campground and after shaking himself out, he fell asleep.

The next morning, he woke up to destruction. The abandoned cabin he was in was fine, but all over the area, trees and bushes had been destroyed- even one of the cabins had been destroyed, parts of the inside being torn out and strewn all across the clearing. Walking out into the wreckage, he came across many strange objects. A shiny stick with a wide end with a divot, a silver stick with three straight claws coming out of the end, some odd, rounded black stick with a weird, cracked black stone, and more.

As he picked his way through the trash, he came upon something… odd. It was a dull orange.. stone? It didn’t feel like any stone he had ever seen. It was smooth like a stone worn by a river, but it was thin and when he drew his claws over it, it was incredibly easy to scratch. Not knowing what it was, he was about to leave it when he saw the inside of it. Water. It held water.

Pushing it around with his nose, he realized that this weird… half stone was holding water, just like moss. But unlike moss, it wasn’t dripping. Deciding that he should keep the odd thing, he awkwardly picked it up and started towards home. Or at least tried to.

The storm had damaged everything, causing him to become utterly lost extremely quickly. As night grew near once again, the handsome tom eventually spotted a small cave like structure that had been made out of rocks leaning against each other. Next to it, lay a felled oak tree, it’s hollow stump still there. Deciding this would work for a new home, he went to sleep.

Life returned to normal after that, with him using the weird stone- which he dubbed the drinking stone- to collect water so not to have to leave in search of water as often. However, he didn’t discover the true versatility of his new home and tool until one day, a young upset tom walked by. Mercury had been in the process of removing bits of pine needle from the drinking stone when the tom walked by, and being curious, he asked what was wrong. The tom told him that he’d seen the tom he liked laughing with a she-cat.

On an impulse, he gestured to his drinking stone, saying that the mixture of pine needles, leaf debris, and rain water would make the tom irresistible to his crush. To his utter surprise, the tom shrugged and muttered something about not having anything left to lose.

Three days later, the tom returned with a mouse to thank him, explaining that the mixture worked. Soon after, a she-cat came by asking if he had anything for strength that could help her beat a bully. Thinking quickly, he spouted off random items. A mouse eye, three pine needles, a liver of a bird.

Shockingly, she went looking for the items. While she did that, he realized he had no water in the drinking stone. However, he realized that the hollow stump had water. So, taking a ball of moss, he managed to transfer water to the drinking stone. At the same time, he realized that he probably couldn’t just put the items in water. So he came up with a plan.

When the she-cat came back, Mercury took the items and put them in the drinking stone. Using his claws to shred the organs, he found a stick and started mashing them awkwardly. Once they were done, he told the she-cat to drink the red mixture.

She too returned soon with prey to tell him it worked. The process repeated several times, with whispers starting to echo through the woods about an odd cat who, with the right ingredients, could cure someone of any ails they may have and could make them invincible. Leaning into it, Mercury started to make a show out of it. He discovered different ways to make mixtures that were easier. He found different ways to talk to cats to make them believe that he could truly heal them. Some cats scoffed at his “mixtures”, seeing them for the utter lies they were.

But for every smart cat, there was a gullible cat who could be convinced with the right amount of charm that lizard and frog guts could make them lucky. And while he knows the stuff he makes is worthless and does nothing, he’s learned that words have enough power to convince a cat of anything.

Currently, he is making mixtures regularly, using his charms and looks to dupe cats into believing him. He stores leaves from actual herbs that his father taught him how to use in the cracks of the stump, and underneath he keeps things like bird bones, snail shells, and pine needles for use when someone requests a mixture.

And sitting there, in the very back of his den, untouched, lies a single, broken, adder fang.