Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2020 18:11:10 GMT -6
Peregrine
rogue
longhaired white tom with light blue eyes
rouge
Tom
31 moons
Appearance
Despite his long coat giving him the appearance of a large stature, Peregrine is a slender tom. Though he is not much wider than the average domestic cat, he is taller. He has long, robust legs - which come in handy for traveling long distances - and a tall neck which he uses to hold his head high in spite of the things others have said to bring him down. His paws are compact, with furry toes. His ears are skinny and tall, with pointed tufts at the ends. His face is more compact than it is slender, which balances his appearance.
Although his coat is often dirty or dressed in herbs and flowers and such, it is a pure white. He adorns the color of fresh snow, or he lacks completely of color; whichever description is preferred. His skin is light and pink beneath his fur, and rather sensitive to sunlight. Hence, putting something on to cover his pelt - at least, that's usually the main reason, if not for ritualistic purposes. The only other color he has is the piercing blue of his eyes. Even then, it's not much for a pop of color considering they appear pale and whiteish in most lighting.
Although his coat is often dirty or dressed in herbs and flowers and such, it is a pure white. He adorns the color of fresh snow, or he lacks completely of color; whichever description is preferred. His skin is light and pink beneath his fur, and rather sensitive to sunlight. Hence, putting something on to cover his pelt - at least, that's usually the main reason, if not for ritualistic purposes. The only other color he has is the piercing blue of his eyes. Even then, it's not much for a pop of color considering they appear pale and whiteish in most lighting.
Personality
Peregrine is straightforward, but less of a talker and more of a listener. He prefers to get to the heart of things, and others. His curiosity about others is not easily sated and he will pry. He's found that, a lot of the time, he doesn't have to pry very much. Most cats want to trust someone enough to pour their hearts out to them. Who better than a weary traveler? He, on the other hand, wants to be the cat that drinks the contents of their hearts.
That kind of trust and closeness is something he craves - and misses. He may use the things others tell him to his advantage, but he will try to help in whatever way he can. He may help with advice, lend a helping paw, or cast helpful spells. Per' wants desperately to fix broken minds, to heal their torn hearts, and mend their unseen wounds. It's not enough for him, to only fix the wounds that are skin-deep.
His beliefs are the 'right' beliefs, of course, otherwise he would not believe them. Therefore, others who don't believe in what he does, he sees as merely 'lost' or 'confused' - or just 'indifferent'. While he doesn't necessarily think it's a bad thing if someone else has a different belief, that does really depend on how extreme they get. He would still rather others believe in what he does. He will try to convince and educate many a cat to steer them on the same path as him, although it's with the best of intentions.
Per' is a solemn, grave cat by nature. He doesn't feel the need to "loosen up". He wouldn't even know where to start, if he tried. He is focused on keeping things in line, keeping things from falling apart. It may be egotistical, but Peregrine believes that his role - in any place, in any time - is to be the backbone; the one holding everything together. At times, he gets very prideful about it - and may even become controlling or anal even though his intention is good.
If he were to 'slack', he genuinely believes something would go wrong, not might. He often casts protection spells over others that he can't always reach, or if he knows he will not see them soon. He would blame himself if something bad happened to the ones he cares about, or feel like he should've done more. So... he can become anxious, self-loathing, or short when something goes wrong or if others don't let him protect them, for example.
His pent up emotions can surface when things get heated, especially concerning something he cares about or a touchy subject. He's always been continuously moving, never truly resting... He gives himself little opportunity to think about the things that trouble him deep down. Therefore, he doesn't know how to deal with those feelings when they get brought up to the surface. He can be unpredictable at the worst of times. If provoked well enough, in just the right ways - or sometimes it's just the straw on the camel's back - Peregrine will lose it. He'll start opening up to that darker, sadder, angrier side and he has a very hard time stopping once he does.
That kind of trust and closeness is something he craves - and misses. He may use the things others tell him to his advantage, but he will try to help in whatever way he can. He may help with advice, lend a helping paw, or cast helpful spells. Per' wants desperately to fix broken minds, to heal their torn hearts, and mend their unseen wounds. It's not enough for him, to only fix the wounds that are skin-deep.
His beliefs are the 'right' beliefs, of course, otherwise he would not believe them. Therefore, others who don't believe in what he does, he sees as merely 'lost' or 'confused' - or just 'indifferent'. While he doesn't necessarily think it's a bad thing if someone else has a different belief, that does really depend on how extreme they get. He would still rather others believe in what he does. He will try to convince and educate many a cat to steer them on the same path as him, although it's with the best of intentions.
Per' is a solemn, grave cat by nature. He doesn't feel the need to "loosen up". He wouldn't even know where to start, if he tried. He is focused on keeping things in line, keeping things from falling apart. It may be egotistical, but Peregrine believes that his role - in any place, in any time - is to be the backbone; the one holding everything together. At times, he gets very prideful about it - and may even become controlling or anal even though his intention is good.
If he were to 'slack', he genuinely believes something would go wrong, not might. He often casts protection spells over others that he can't always reach, or if he knows he will not see them soon. He would blame himself if something bad happened to the ones he cares about, or feel like he should've done more. So... he can become anxious, self-loathing, or short when something goes wrong or if others don't let him protect them, for example.
His pent up emotions can surface when things get heated, especially concerning something he cares about or a touchy subject. He's always been continuously moving, never truly resting... He gives himself little opportunity to think about the things that trouble him deep down. Therefore, he doesn't know how to deal with those feelings when they get brought up to the surface. He can be unpredictable at the worst of times. If provoked well enough, in just the right ways - or sometimes it's just the straw on the camel's back - Peregrine will lose it. He'll start opening up to that darker, sadder, angrier side and he has a very hard time stopping once he does.
History
"Mama, what does my name mean?"
"It's a very powerful bird... and a wandering spirit,"
"Which one am I?"
She laughed, "That's for you to figure out,"
"It's a very powerful bird... and a wandering spirit,"
"Which one am I?"
She laughed, "That's for you to figure out,"
Peregrine was born into a heavily populated colony of cats that lived on the northern peninsula. His mother was a blue-eyed molly with long white hair. Unlike the other rogues in the colony, her pelt wasn't riddled with scars, she had no missing limbs or ears; she was perfect. Lotus was her name, like the water lily. His mother was kind, soft, and beautiful - just how he imagined lilies to be. She nursed other kits once her milk came in, orphans who had lost their own mothers. So, in truth, even though Peregrine was an only kit, he still had many 'brothers' and 'sisters'.
Growing up in the colony, surviving the colony was not easy. It had grown so populated that there was hardly enough to feed everyone every day, and rather than sharing fairly, the cats reduced to fighting over every last kill. The more passive cats would pick through scraps or snag a stray piece of fresh-kill if they were lucky. Nice, warm shelter was hogged and claimed like territory by the stronger, more intimidating toms and their harems of she-cats. Nursing and pregnant mothers had a shared den. Although it was often cramped and stinky, it was sheltered.
However, once a queen's kits were no longer nursing, they had to be kicked out of the nursing den to make room for someone else. Peregrine remembered the cat who made them leave; he was the one who catalyzed the most unfortunate events in Peregrine's life.
A dark brown tabby hovered at the mouth of the cave. Behind him, the sun was setting below the treetops. Slowly, darkness closed in around him as he picked his way suspiciously through the other kit-mothers. He'd hiss at them and they would recoil. Peregrine shrunk behind his mother, who tensed upon his arrival and sat up.
Upon getting closer, Peregrine could see the tom was torn up, horribly scarred. Part of his face was disfigured. The tom glared back at him, and Peregrine huddled against his litter-mates.
"Those kits look old enough, Lotus,"
"Give us more time, Scar. Please. It's too close to winter to leave now,"
"That's not my problem," the tom growled, "you know the rules. Leave,"
"Please, they could die!" Lotus pleaded, standing up.
In a flash of tabby stripes, blood stained the fur along Lotus' face and she cried out in pain.
"Mama!" the kits wailed.
"You'll die if you stand up to me again," Diesel snarled, and picked Lotus up off the ground by her scruff. He released her, but shoved her with his shoulder. He then pushed the shocked kits along with her.
Lotus took her litter away from there, tending to her wound with cobwebs. "Cobwebs stop the blood," she told her kits bitterly, "remember this,"
They had to sleep under bushes or rocks until they found a hollowed log. It was cozy, roomy, and no one else had found it yet. The wound on Lotus' face was puffed up and inflamed. It was clear that it hurt her long after it had been inflicted, and it got worse with time. In spite of that, Lotus pushed through the pain to take care of her kits. She tried her best at hunting. Even though she wasn't very good at it, and sometimes she had to stay out all night just to catch one thing, she always brought them something back.
Lotus nudged the small pile of picked plants toward the skinny kits, meowing, "these help keep up our strength. I know they don't taste good, but it's all we have,"
Peregrine asked, "what are they?"
"Sorrel... chamomile, burnet.. and.. daisies," Lotus listed off the herbs as she remembered them.
"What happens when we run out of them?"
"Hush, Per'... Just eat,"
Unfortunately, Lotus had been right about what she said to Diesel. When winter really settled in, a several of her kits died. They were too weak to survive the nights that grew colder and colder, or the terrible hunger. They faded, less and less animated as the days pressed on. Lotus grieved them sorely and, for each one that died, she held the others even closer to her when they slept. Peregrine and his remaining siblings were sad, too. It was a cruel and unforgivable circumstance; they'd been forced out of safety for no good reason. All because of that, he'd had to watch his brothers and sisters die slow, miserable deaths.
Peregrine remembers that time vividly, how it felt to be heartbroken and powerless. Lotus did her best to save the other kits, but as the nights waned on, she felt hotter and hotter to the touch. She went out far less and became less successful in her hunting. Her voice grew smaller and smaller. She blamed the winter's snow for driving the prey into the warm ground below. Their hollow log stopped being much good for shelter, the wide holes allowing too much wind inside.
On one particularly stormy day, - or night; it was too dark to tell - Lotus called her kits to her side. Peregrine, Cypress, Leaf, and Wolf huddled around her. Their eyes were wide, scared of what they thought was coming.
"My dears," she mewed weakly, "I'm afraid..." her voice cracked, "my wound is infected," she lifted her head, ears drooped, eyes watery.
"There must be a plant that will fix it," Leaf insisted, the frustrated desperation clear in his voice. The other kits nodded.
"We'll go out and look for it, just tell us what it is," Peregrine said, his own eyes beginning to tear up.
"It may be that there is a cure," Lotus admitted and lowered her blue gaze, "but I'm afraid I don't know of it, and in this weather... any herbs would be impossible to find,"
The kits all looked at each other, defeated. There were no words. Perhaps not knowing the cure was the hardest part to accept. Lotus had given her all to ensure they survived. What little comfort they could offer her was weightless in comparison.
Lotus spoke up through the sorrowful silence, "My body will stink, it will only pain you. I know that in this weather I can't possibly ask you four to leave, so," she stood up, legs shaky.
Peregrine cried, "what are you doing!?"
Lotus rested her muzzle heavily on his shoulders, nuzzling into his fur, "Goodbye,"
She left, disappeared into the snowstorm. The kits called after her, they cried, they argued, and then they slept until the weather passed. By then, the snow had piled so high that it engulfed their entire log.
"What are we gonna do without Mama?" Cypress whimpered.
"We're gonna die, too," Leaf sniffled, crying into Cypress' fur, "Just like our brothers and sisters - and Mama,"
"No we're not!" Peregrine shouted, "I'm not gonna let you give up, Mama wouldn't want that,"
Wolf nudged Peregrine and spoke up, "Let's go back to the colony,"
The three kits looked at each other, uncertain. Did they have any other option?
Decided, they would make their way back to the colony. There, they were begrudgingly welcomed back. The others expected them to fend for themselves. It was bewildering to be treated like they were dirt and, in the grand scheme of things, very few of the cats in the colony mattered at all to the higher-ups. It was hard to secure enough food or proper shelter, though they managed to make it by because they had each other.
Peregrine remembered a scarred silver cat with a bad attitude saying to them, "At least you have each other. Most of us had family, but now we're on our own. And guess what?" she pushed her face into Leaf's, "soon you will be too,"
Peregrine hated life in the colony. Everyone was violent, thuggish, and callous. Everything bad to happen was "a part of life" to "just get over it". Leaf and Cypress didn't like it either. In fact, they had a harder time adjusting than Peregrine. Wolf, however... he seemed to actually like the life. He preferred it to their solitude in the forest, preferred the fighting, preferred the death. Peregrine tried to talk sense into him several times, but as the months went on, Wolf became more and more distant. He hovered around that tomcat.. Scar.. a lot.
It pissed Peregrine off to no end, so he stopped trying to reach out to his traitorous brother. He stuck by Cypress and Leaf, and they stuck by him. They tried their best to make their life in the colony work. After all, they didn't know or have the time to figure out that there could be a life beyond that.
Not until one day, when a stranger was dragged into the camp, all bloody and beat up. He was pegged as a danger to the colony, although the colony often saw outsiders that way - even if they posed no threat. Peregrine was tasked with keeping guard over him one night, to which he agreed to... if only to talk to the outsider.
"What's your name?" Peregrine asked quietly in the darkness of the small rock den.
The injured tom looked up, panting, "Moss,"
"Moss? It's nice to meet you, Moss-"
"No, bring me moss... with water...please,"
Ducking through the camp, Peregrine snuck the outsider some wet moss and cobwebs for his wounds. He applied the cobwebs, a little too roughly, and stepped back. When the tomcat was done drinking, he said, "My name is Eli. I greatly appreciate you doing this,"
"Eli. My name is Peregrine. Where are you from?"
"I was born on the road... I'm a traveler," Eli explained.
"The road? Where is that?" Peregrine tilted his head.
Eli smirked a little, "there's not just one road. Your road is whichever direction you choose to take, wherever the wind, water, and prey takes you."
Peregrine's eyes widened with intrigue, pondering the endless possibility of that for several minutes.
"I will show you, if you help me get out of here," Eli met his eyes, a look of desperation in them. That look was all too familiar; it pierced Peregrine's heart.
"I-I can't, Eli... they might kill me, or worse.. my siblings," Peregrine's fur bristled in fear.
Eli gave him a sympathetic look, sighed, and turned away. He curled into himself, and didn't speak to Peregrine again for the rest of the night.
The following days, Peregrine found it hard to look in the direction of the cave they held Eli prisoner in. An enormous guilt weighed him down, regardless, and he couldn't stop thinking of what Eli told him. He wrestled with his thoughts and emotions for several days and nights, losing much sleep over it.
On the last day that Peregrine was in the colony, a commotion had spread out amongst the camp. Cats were howling and hollering about something in the middle of the clearing. Peregrine shoved his way to the front to see what was happening and, when his eyes took in the scene; when his brain registered what was before him, he screeched in pain and anger.
Wolf stood in the center of the clearing, backed by Scar. In front of his brother's paws, Leaf's body was sprawled out, blood oozing from the open wound on his throat. The cats all around them cheered and hooted at this display of power. Peregrine seethed and, before he could think, without asking questions, he was leaving.
Cypress was standing on the outside of the crowd, her face one of shock.
"Cypress, come on," Peregrine nudged her shoulder harshly, "we need to go now,"
Wordlessly, Cypress followed him.
He marched over to the den where they kept Eli the traveler. The cat standing guard there rose to meet him. Peregrine unsheathed his claws and shoved the cat away with a promising threat.
They couldn't stop moving. They had to keep going, or else the colony would find them. At least, that was what Peregrine feared. Cypress didn't speak anymore after the day Leaf died. Eli showed them how to read the night sky to find their way in what he called 'directions'. Eli also showed them how to manipulate their surroundings to make better nests and dens. He even showed them the basics of hunting, and they improved a lot in their time spent together.
The time spent with Eli would've been more treasured and full of relief, had it not been spurred on by such an untimely death. However, Peregrine owes much of what he knows - not only about the world, but about everything he believes in - to Eli. The traveling tom taught Peregrine all about his practices. He taught him about the sun and moon goddesses which brought balance to the world; the three fold law which promised that Wolf would suffer three times as much as Leaf did; the energy of the natural world; the ability to tap into that energy; more knowledge of herbs for common ailments or injuries, including infection; and last, but not least, Eli taught him how spells and rituals worked. They spent months traveling together and performing such practices. Cypress would often participate or listen in, too. She was more hesitant than Per', but warmed up to it over time.
They banded together, and made no plans of separating until a horrific hailstorm hit. It was pelting down so hard that, when a chunk of hail hit Peregrine on his head, it knocked him down. Peregrine was swept off his paws and fell down the mountainside. By the time the ground finally broke his fall, he was knocked out. When he came to, he was lost and his leg was broken. He didn't know how to get back to Cypress and Eli, or where they would be, or if they were even okay. He wandered the mountainside for days, searching, doing his spells in a desperate last resort until he had to give up and move on.
With his limp, he traveled back down the mountain and struggled to feed himself or get himself to shelter. He didn't stop, though, he kept moving. Eventually, he was worn thin. He was too weak.
That was when she found him; a big she-cat by the name of Aster. She took him in before it was too late, and mended his leg. He's been with her ever since, looks up to her, tries to keep her safe.
Nightmares or vivid dreams of his past tend to keep him up at night.
"Most of us had family,
but now we're on our own.
Soon you will be too,"
but now we're on our own.
Soon you will be too,"
