Maia -- rogue
Jun 17, 2013 0:37:02 GMT -6
Post by maia on Jun 17, 2013 0:37:02 GMT -6
MAIA
"Beautiful, large Bengal she-cat with piercing green eyes."
NAME EXPLANATION:
"Maia" - Self-chosen name.
{pronounced my-uh}
AGE:
3 years, 2 months (38 moons)
RANK:
EXTENDED APPEARANCE:
PERSONALITY:Maia was bred by a two-leg couple who knew much more about her genes and pedigree than she did. As a result, Maia is a beautiful specimen of her breed - her coat is a medium brown, and of medium length. Spots and rosettes of a darker brown extend from the crown of her head all the way down to her tail, interrupted only by the solid light brown of her stomach. Her coat is a thick enough that it keeps the chill off during Leafbare, and leaves her feeling mildly stuffy in the warmest months of Greenleaf.
Much like the large cat her distinctive coat pattern is modeled after, there is a certain distinctness to the way Maia carries herself. She has the confident, slouching gait of the big cats of legend; she carries her head high, each paw step deliberate and surefooted. Even in her kittypet days, she was treated like royalty; this air of entitled majesty has not left her since. Her regal attitude is combined with the second element of the great leopards of legend - that of a predator. One only needs to look into her piercing green eyes to see the intensity and drive of a hunter, a relentless desire to dominate and and destroy her prey.
With humble origins as a kittypet, one wouldn't expect a pure-bred Bengal house cat to become so... vicious. But of course, if there's one word to describe Maia, that would be it. I mention the difficulty of living life as a rogue not to evoke sympathy but to emphasize the necessity; living life on the fringe between kittypet and clan cat life, Maia has never just wanted to "get by." In the position of a virtual outcast from both extremes of the feline lifestyle, Maia has found herself instilled with a healthy does of ambition that doesn't let her settle for chasing farm mice.
"Crazy"? No, that's just the label for those who simply can't understand the convoluted workings of her mind. In fact, Maia is rather intelligent. She has a sharp eye for reading body language and emotion, and has used this skill to her advantage. Using her intelligence for evil? Perhaps. More accurately, she is just quite manipulative, whether you be weak and pliable or ambitious and self-serving. She knows what she wants in life, and has over time learned how to use others to get there.
Maia is more than a pretty face, but that doesn't mean she can't use it. When needed, Maia can flit from coy and seductive to cold and threatening in the time it takes to bat an eye. She knows that not all cats can be won over with brute force, and will change her face, so to speak, to win allies. Her personality is very fickle, morphing to suit the situation. She has no true moral code, and changes her mind with the variability of the weather and the consistency of the four seasons.
And what is it that she really wants? Ultimately, Maia could have shaped up to be a very different feline had the one thing she craved most from life not been denied from her - a family, specifically kits. Her early life, so full of love and compassion, foretold a very different future for the she-cat. However, the inability to reproduce, to pass on her genes, to fulfill her ultimate instinctual purpose has left her jaded and cruel. Her heart became as barren as she herself was.
FAMILY:
Duke/sire/
; Mrs. Mew/queen/Countless brother and sisters, all inconsequential.
Beaux/mate/presumed dead
HISTORY:
CBOXKITTYPET:
Maia was teed up to live a life of mediocrity before birth. Her "father" (the term is used beyond loosely, the stud never set eyes on Maia) and "mother" (who could not even keep count now of how many kittens she had popped out) were of little influence in her life. Maia came into the world to be sold for a profit by an elite breeder. By the time she was old enough to live without her mother's milk, she was on exhibition for prospective pet owners with fat pockets to fawn over in glass cases.
All of this is a little blurry to Maia. By the time she was no more than two moons old, however, one particular couple did not let her go; they picked her up from the "playpen," settled her into a crate and took her away from the only place she had known as home in a big metal monster. Maia was mostly confused, too detached and bored by her life with the breeder to feel any sort of nostalgia once severed from it.
If she thought her early life with her two-leg breeder was boring, however, she was in for a nasty surprise. No sooner had her new two-leg owners slipped a collar around her with a silver tag announcing her new, terribly original name ("Kitty") then they seemed to forget about her. Maia's new home was huge, with high ceilings and smooth tiles of intricate patterns that her claws could never get a sure footing of. "Kitty" was another exotic display of wealth for this two-leg couple; shortly after arriving at her new home, Kitty was largely left to her own devices.
The two-leg habitation kept her entertained for long enough, exploring the different rooms and the unique set of scents that greeted her within each one. However, it did not take many moons for her to grow greatly unsatisfied. She wasted her days in the two-leg's estate, basking in her boredom. It was during one of these ritualistic layabouts that she met Beaux.
Beaux looked like a big, battle-scarred Russian blue, but unlike the spoiled little kittypet he stumbled across one day, his history wasn't traced by two-legs for the past umpteen generations. While he normally ignored kittypets, finding them boring and tame, he was drawn to this one - unlike most, she seemed so damn unsatisfied with her luxurious life. It helped, too, that he found her striking.
Beaux and Maia formed a tentative friendship. Beaux told Maia all about his life. His father's parents had fled from the forest when the clan cats had become one, but their stories and tradition had lived on through the past two generations. Beaux filled Maia's head with tales of battles, cats in the stars, and the great cats that had created the original four clans. Two generations detached, he wasn't even sure that he believed all of it - but the kittypet was engrossed and fascinated. Once he ran out of the fanciful stories of his kithood to spin, he found himself merely telling stories of his own life. A loner by nature, he had etched himself a place in this world by fighting battles, proving his worth among the other rogues and loners. Even a loner could get lonely, however...
Maia found Beaux's life stories just as fascinating as the fanciful tales of cats that ran in the stars. She was smitten by this older, experienced cat who was able to teach her so much more about the world that the infinite emptiness of her two-leg mansion and grounds. She told him she wanted to leave. He, reciprocating his feelings for her, could not deny her.
ROGUE:
And so "Kitty" renounced her two-leg name and chose a new one that rolled nicely off her tongue - Maia. In her two-leg's massive estate, it was easy to eventually find a portion of the fence next to the wall that had just enough room for the then-slim she-cat to slip through; Beaux, with years of experience maneuvering through two-leg yards, easily scaled an old oak and using his powerful legs to leap clean over the fence entirely.
Thus began Maia's life as a rogue.
Beaux knew the dangers of this new world; Maia did not. The next several moons were dedicated to him training her, teaching her how to hunt for herself, how to fight against opponents both larger and smaller, how to avoid two-legs and recognize the scent of clan cat. A cat who had learned to survive by reaping what he sowed, Beaux passed on the knowledge of survival that he himself had learned largely through trial and error. Each day was a constant reminder that, as rogues, they needed to prove they still had the right to live.
Beaux also taught her other things. He taught her how to demand respect from the way he intimidated the dumpster cats. He taught her how to bluff and lie in bad situations when the odds were against them. He taught her that to survive off of more than just scraps that a Rogue had to be something of a bully; he taught her to never forget to assert dominance over any and all who were weaker. He also taught her what it meant to love, however, and they became mates when Maia was no more than nine moons old.
Despite Maia's new-found adoration for life, it was not meant to last. She and Beaux traveled among the loner territories together, sharing prey, memories, and makeshift nests. It became slowly and painfully apparent, however, that they would never start the family they so often spoke of; even though she had escaped before being fixed by her two-legs, she was still painfully barren.
Though Beaux did his best to comfort her, Maia was torn up from the inside. She wanted nothing more than to create a family with him, to procreate and protect her offspring and let them grow fat off of barn mice while she and Beaux grew old together. Maia grew cold and distant, even to Beaux; despite his attempts to comfort her, she would see no reason.
Things went from bad to worse soon after. While relaxing one night in a two-leg park that was popular amongst the loners and rogues, a monster with big glaring eyes pulled over to the side of the road. A two-leg jumped out wielding a long pole and what appeared to be a cage - something much to reminiscent of Maia's kithood. Any cat with a shred of common sense bolted, and in the pandemonium that followed Maia was separated from Beaux...
She waited in that park for nearly a moon, living off of the fat, slow birds that the two-legs fed and the rats that appeared from the sewer grates. Beaux never appeared, however. Stricken with grief, Maia lashed out against companionship. She needed no friends; she simply needed to be feared. By intimidating or viciously attacking any loner or rogue who dare defy her, she rose in prominence among the longer and rogue ranks. She may have no kits, and no mate, but she would have one thing even if it killed her: power.
NAME:
Owl!
HOW YOU FOUND US:
Ads!
OTHER CHARACTERS:
Jayheart!
