GhostFACE

LichenClan

a lanky black smoke-and-white tom w/ amber eyes.

Born the runt of his litter, Ghostkit’s proportions will always be wanting. He may never possess anything in the way of broadness or overt strength but instead clings to a leanness that allows him to move with a certain grace. He is long-limbed but not to the point of gawkiness, with a head that is broad of muzzle and large of ear, each ending in proud and tall tufts. There is no guessing how large he might have been had he not faltered in the womb, but even smaller than his blood-kin, he possesses the air of someone larger, older, and wiser. In color, he bears the black furs and phantom stripes of a smoke, with white just there beneath his nose and marring his throat, underbelly, and paw tips. Even his tail holds a striking white tip that appears flagrantly against the inky blackness of his coat.

A laid-back and peaceable individual, despite the tales of his birth and the war that welcomed it, he bears no love for conflict. Much preferring comfort and calm to the confusion and butchery of battle, in him nestles a general distaste for all adversity. He does not care for those who throw their weight or who command respect on the backs of cruelty, and views all those involved as guilty parties, no matter the cause, for in his eyes, it does not matter it was who dealt the first blow or even who ended it—as soon as it began, both sides were at fault. As such, Ghostkit finds no fulfillment in combat. Though he heeds his parents' instruction and feigns through the motion of their teachings, he does not do so with the ferocity or determinedness of his brother or peers but instead with a lazy sort of indifference. Yet even so, even in his attempts at mediocrity, his parents' upbringing had honed him beyond his peers, and he bellies an inherent skill that he, in all his humility, is reluctant to show. So long as such talents mean harming others, he wants no part in them, and so he does not boast of what he knows.

Though for his apathy toward his battle, and the future awaiting him, he shows a pointed interest in all other things. Matters of stars and the old way, of the simpler pleasures and excitements which many, stooped in their tellings of honor and discipline, have since forgotten. He finds solace in things as simple as sunsets and draws reverence from well-uttered sermons, and with age, he has only grown more perceptive of the world and those who inhabit it. Like his parents, both of whom have reared him all his moons. It is not with deaf ears his ears turn to the scorn in their words, the coarseness or inequity they thrust upon him, but dismissiveness and detachment, for what good would there be in acknowledging them and feeling the cut of their words? And what good would come of scorning them or looking with jealousy upon his brother? What harm had his brother brought him? What did he want of his life, with their parents both to push him beyond what any kit could be expected? He found he wanted no part of a life such as that and so looks upon their deeds with impassiveness, always with an expression that exceeds his few moons.

Yet his decision to repress his emotions does not only serve only to protect him from the hurt. He has harnessed it for other things and is known by all he is close to not only for his easy humors but his integrity and tendency toward diplomacy, always more likely to smooth furs than ruffle them and find friends even in his enemies.

00-03 Moons.
0-2 Moons Ago, the Culling… They quickened in the midst of a battle, or so it was whispered. Four of them amid the screams and howls of war. Few could be born into such ill tidings, yet they had been. But by the time they had been brought to safety and taken into their warm and down-lined nests, only two breathed. Two sons, strange in their dissimilarity, one to bear tresses as dark as night, the other as brazen and bold as the sun. Two opposites and each bearing their solemn names. Ghostkit they dubbed the darker, and for the lighter, he who boasted the colors of the sun, the name of Bonekit was granted.

04-05 Moons.
1-0 Moons Ago, the Resurgence… A life spent training, drilled with tradition and tellings of the old way when looking back on his life, that is all that Ghostkit might ever be able to recall of his kithood. And the corn of his mother’s tongue, the cruel firmness of his father. Such opposites to him Ghostkit found humor in it, though there was no denying whose womb he had fled from, and he can think of no other which he looked upon as he did they. Yet he wanted no part of the destiny they set out before him. To be driven into the earth, uttering rhetoric from a lost time. What good was that when the war had since been fought? What point lay in beating his body to soreness when all any uttered of was peace? He would stomach their training and beat his body to tenderness, but he would never be the warrior they designed him to be. That was a fate for his brother, he as resplendent as the sun, who wore flames in his hide and shone like polished gold. He desired a different future for himself, one without such expectations to weigh upon his shoulders.