Post by shardae intuneric on Aug 2, 2011 9:08:33 GMT -8
i can hear the slumber of the thousand dead
[atrb=width,550px,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=style,background-image:url(http://i.imgur.com/anlDy.png);background-attachment:fixed;] & & Shardae Intuneric;; ♫ if i had a wish for every mistake there would be nothing left to take ♪ OoC Name Ko. Breed Black Leopard. Rank/Occupation Performer (fire dancer). Tribe Civilization. Gender Male. Age Four years old. ♫ your smile, my love could shake the tree leaves bare ♪ Fur Color Black with an overlay of inky black spots. Eye Color Olive green. Scars/Deformities Some minor burns on his paws and underbelly. Appearance Shardae is a very handsome creature. He only stands two feet high at the shoulder, but is very well muscled and agile. When he moves, you can see the ripple of muscles and tendons straining under his coat. He is slender, but at a healthy weight for his size. Shardae has the typical spots of a leopard, but not the traditional golden coat beneath them. Besides the spots, he has none of the typical trappings of a leopard. He looks more like a panther. His spots are a dark ink black that fades towards the center. These are laid out on a very dark gray backdrop of short shiny fur. You can only really see the spots in the direct glare of sunlight, otherwise his whole body looks dark as pitch. In some light, especially at sunrise and sunset and firelight too, his fur takes on a russet brown color making the spots pop out more than usual. Shardae’s eyes aren’t an unusual coloration for a black leopard. They’re a deep shade of olive green with some mossy undertones towards the pupils. In high light, they take on more of a dull silver gray coloration but when night falls they become like two brightly lit leaves floating in the darkness. Never one to hide his emotions, looking into Shardae’s eyes is the same as looking into his soul. His intentions are always clear through two twin pools of green. Getting burned isn’t something that bothers Shardae too much as it’s a risk he’s willing to take to do what he loves. His pink paw pads are scarred over from countless burns, and it’s not unusual to see him with one or more paw wrapped in medicated gauze to heal up a painful blister. Larger scars mar his underbelly, and the fur there is patchy and thin. His whole coat is often singed and more often than not, covered with ash. He’s burned his whiskers off more times than he can count on all four paws, and they’ve grown back in slightly twisted. Like many performers, Shardae loves color and decoration. He loves nothing more than to dress up for a show and to set himself apart from the norm. The look of golden chains and swirling scarves is appealing to him, but he’s discovered them to be too much of a fire hazard for his particular act. So instead he experimented with paints. It took him awhile to discover which flowers, berries and minerals give the richest colors but eventually he got it down to a science. His black pelt is often covered in beautiful swirling rainbows, the secrets to which he refuses to share with anyone. His favorite colors are orange, green and blues as these are the easiest to create. Shardae doesn’t own many worldly possessions but the few things he does carry, he brings nearly everywhere in five tiny leather hide bags that he wears hanging at his neck by a piece of rawhide thong. In the first he carries a necklace that belonged to his mother, a thin but strong silver rod twisted into an ornate pattern to hold a smooth, large, deep purple stone at the wearer’s throat. After his mother’s death, several jewelers and merchants came to him and his brother seeking to buy the exquisite piece off of them but Shardae refused. His mother had left the piece to him, to give to his betrothed someday. He doesn’t really ever wish to settle down, but he keeps it as a reminder of his mother. In the second pouch he carries a small lightweight bowl made of beaten brass that is perfect for holding small fires in the middle of a crowded street without lighting the whole town afire. This pouch also holds the tiny, mystical lens that his brother found long ago which they have always used to start their fires. In the third pouch he keeps tinder to start his fires. He has found which materials work best and he stuffs this pouch full when he runs across a plentiful supply. The fourth pouch contains dry materials for paint as well as a small shard of mirror that he uses when decorating his face. The final pouch contains all the ivory he has to his name, and it’s never much. Shardae doesn’t mind though. All the things he needs are around his neck and he can hunt for his own food. If the pouch ever becomes a burden, he stashes it in a place that’s well hidden but can still be reached quickly in case he has the need to get out of the area rather hurriedly. Which for Shardae, happens on a regular basis. ♫ and only in the center can we begin to repair ♪ Preferences Likes;; Fire, life, dancing, performing arts, being challenged, water. Dislikes;; Royalty, slavery, being cheated, being judged, cats who irritate him. Strengths Determined to succeed. Enjoys life. Intelligent. Can get himself out of trouble. Talented dancer. Weaknesses Too confident. Can be dared to do just about anything. Suffers from abandonment issues. Obsessed with fire. Personality Shardae is before anything, a performer. He fire dances not only to make a living, but for the pure joy he gains from doing it. Nothing pleases him more than the adrenaline rushing through his veins as he lights himself on fire, dodges fire, carries fire, plays with fire. All to the cheers and gasps of astonishment of an excited audience who can’t tear their eyes away from the whirl of black and orange. It’s in his very blood to perform, and to live without it in his life would consume Shardae’s very soul. It comes before anything, and is his joy, love and passion all rolled into one. Nothing could ever take it’s place in his life. Shardae is what some may consider a pyromaniac. To him, fire has it’s own language and dance that he tries in vain to understand. He studies it compulsively. The way it moves, the way it burns, what fuels it best. He’s always trying to come up with something new that he can do with fire to add into his show. Most of his meals he eats cooked, first killed and then burned in the flames, so he can be one with the fire. He thinks that if he becomes more like the fire and understands it, then the fire will understand him. Shardae is sensitive about these ideas, knowing that they make him sound delusional. He has never voiced them to anyone but his brother. Although he secretly considers his own art the most beautiful, Shardae loves each and every one of the performers and artisans in Dolce whether he knows them or not. He sees magic in each creation and dance. A firm believer that even the ugliest cat can dance with grace, he loves nothing more than to discuss techniques, experiences and critiques with other dancers and artists. It’s his ambition to create a performers guild in the village to create a sense of family and creativity. He believes that they are the real royalty of Dolce. With a career and hobby choice such as Shardae’s, it just comes with the territory to be a daredevil. Very little scares him, and he’s always the first one to try something no one else wants to do and the last one to finally stop doing it. He’s always looking for something to do that gets his heart racing, especially if it’s something new and unexplored. Throwing himself off a cliff into a river? Sounds fun. Seeing who can jump from one building to the next with their eyes closed? Let’s do it. Who can climb the biggest tree? Definitely him…or at least in his mind. The really terrifying part is that Shardae will do pretty much anything he’s challenged to do unless it means certain death. And sometimes even then! He doesn’t always realize his own limits and constantly tries to please others. Shardae has a tendency to be over confident about everything in life. Ever the optimist, he runs into situations with his eyes closed, heart open, and good intentions. Needless to say, he crashes and burns quite often. Lucky for him, he’s very good at getting himself out of hard places relatively unscathed. Every time something bad happens, he tells himself to use more caution in the future. This resolution typically lasts him an hour or so before he’s back to the same old routine. With nothing to tie him down, Shardae is very carefree. He never really worries about his next meal, or the weather, or what’s going to happen three days in advance. Living in the moment is all he knows and he does his best to relish everything in life, even the little things. He’s seen first hand how tragically short life can be and he’ll do everything in his power to enjoy as much as possible. Shardae is very free spirited and is known to randomly decide to pack up and go somewhere to try and live there for awhile. He’s fortunate enough to be able to ply his trade wherever there’s a crowd that’s interested, though a dry grassland never has mixed well with fire. If he hears a rumor about something happening in one place, he’s likely to just wander there to scope it out purely out of boredom and interest. He really has no interest in leaving Dulce, for even with it’s poor political system and cruel slave trade, it’s rarely a dull place to be. Like many of Dulce’s resident cats, Shardae doesn’t care for the tyrant king and his royal family let alone pledge loyalty to them. The concept of some cats being considered higher worth due to rank is ridiculous to him, and the idea of selling a life into slavery and owning it like a worldly possession is even more repulsive. Shardae is paranoid that everyone in Dolce will end up enslaved to the royals and nobles, and in a way already are. The whispers of the mysterious tribes outside the village intrigue him, but he figures he can do more good from inside. He’s a rebel with a cause, which is always a hazard to someone. Shardae has a temper when angry or irritated, and it can be a nasty thing to tamper with. Like any average male, he’s too proud for his own good and is likely to change a verbal argument to one involving teeth and claws within a heartbeat. He fights fair, but can always hold a grudge. Some call him a jerk by reputation, but like much else, it doesn’t really bother him. Shardae has always been on the attractive side and began to attract females at a young age. Over time he started to return their attentions and found that he is a natural flirt. He enjoys playing pranks and telling jokes to just about everyone rather they find him amusing or not. With his unique personality and odd talents, he has a natural charismatic charm that he’s compelled to share with everyone he comes in contact with. Shardae’s participating in life just for the hell of seeing what fun comes out of it. ♫ can we dream of the pyre of the bodies consumed there ♪ Family Vityao (father/unknown) Rayonda Intuneric (mother/deceased) Shadden Intuneric (half brother/unknown) Regrets Not being able to save his brother from banishment. Secret Ambitions Burn down the royal palace, start a dancers guild, find his brother discover the secrets of fire. Not necessarily in that order. History Shardae’s mother, Rayonda, began he life as a hardworking servant girl for a noble family. The pay was poor, and the work brutal. Her whole life’s ambition was to leave the village entirely and go somewhere secluded where she didn’t have to answer to anyone. The little money she made, she saved in an effort to make enough for a guide out of the village who could teach her how to live without modern convinces. She thought that was all she would ever want out of life. If even the palace and all it’s riches meant nothing to her, how could anything in the village ever have any significance? But that all changed the day her mistress sent her to the bazaar in Elke Circle to run an errand. She was blown away by the smells of roasting food, the cries of delight of children watching the acts and listening to the tales told by storytellers, the delightful wares of the merchants. But when she saw the dancers, she knew she had come home. The first performer she ever watched was an elderly snow leopard wrapped in pink silks and gold jewelry, with a white rose clamped between her teeth. Men jeered at the slightly explicit act, tossing the ivory they were supposed to bring home to their wives and children, into the basket the pretty leopard had set out just for that purpose. When the sun was setting, the exhausted dancer bowed to her audience and thanked them. Rayonda realized with dismay that she had been gone all day, and that her mistress was going to be very angry indeed. She turned to leave with her tail low and her ears pressed flat against her head, ready to face the storm. “Wait,” she heard behind her. She turned, surprised to see that it was the lovely snow leopard who was talking to her. “You’ve been here all afternoon. You like what you see, no?” Rayonda nodded, her whole world changing as the snow leopard propositioned to make her an apprentice. She hurried back home, and laughed when her mistress and her angry mate fired her. In words she had learned from the less savory parts of town, she told them that she was quitting anyways. “Oh yes,” her mistress laughed “Because after I tell everyone how poorly your manners and service is, you’ll be hired again in an instant.” With pride, Rayonda told her that she was leaving the life of a servant forever to become a dancer in the bazaar. “A common prostitute!” the head of the household roared, tossing her out the door. Rayonda didn’t care what they called her…she was going to become a dancer. Within weeks, the biggest act in the bazaar was one that was half old, half new. Two leopards, one white one black, one old one young, danced side by side with a beauty that none could quite explain. More ivory than ever was being tossed into the basket, and the snow leopard, who’s name turned out to be Lissa, was very protective of her new dancer as other acts expressed interest and tried to lure her away. Men were still their most popular audience, especially with the new addition of Rayonda who was younger and appealed to them much more, but now even mothers with children would stop and watch. Some still called them bedroom dancers, and Lissa could be accused of this behavior, but Rayonda only took one leopard to share her company. A few months later, she gave birth to a male cub she named Shadden. Shadden grew to be an adventurous little monster, and when he became old enough to set off on his own, he did. Rayonda was heartbroken. Lissa had passed away shortly after Shadden had been born, and she was once again alone in the world. She still had one love in her life…that of art and dance. Her performance lured in a black leopard male, and she asked him to give her two gifts. Enchanted, he agreed. The first was a beautiful necklace, the second was another male cub. After a few days spent together in bliss, Rayonda sent him on his way. He would have stayed with her, but she wasn’t interested in any long term relationships. She just wanted to dance and share her loves and passions with her cubs. When Shadden returned a few months later, he found his mother proudly nursing another cub she had named Shardae. Shadden vowed to always look after his new half brother, and loved him even more than he loved his mother. As Shardae grew, he took on his mother’s love of dance and life. The small family configured an act together, and were a very talented bunch. While Rayonda preferred a more seductive dance, her sons were all about fast paced numbers with lots of acrobatics thrown in. She worried about on of them breaking their necks, and fretted constantly. Soon, Shadden made a discovery that would leave her with much more to worry about. Shadden had run off again, which was something his mother and sibling were used to. He usually left around sunset one day, and would eventually return in the middle of the night a day or so later. They never knew where he went, and as was customary in their unusual family, they didn’t ask. One morning, Shardae was nudged awake, only to open his eyes to find his brother grinning teeth about an inch away from his face. Shardae jumped and let out a cry of alarm, earning him a thump from Shadden’s paw. Shadden told him not to wake their mother and to follow him outside, he had something exciting to show him. Grumpy and not amused, Shardae followed him outside the tent into the sunrise. Shadden spat out a small, curved piece of glass, excitement clear on his face. “You dragged me out here at dawn,” Shardae let loose a massive yawn “To show me a little piece of glass covered in your spit?” Shadden looked abashed. “It’s not just ANY piece of glass,” he argued “It’s magic…it can start fires all by itself.” Shardae was very skeptical, so Shadden gathered up some cloth scraps along with a little dried grass and held the lens to the light. Sure enough, a small blaze had suddenly start with no previous fire to give birth to it. Over the next few years, the two brothers experimented with fire. They kept it a secret from their mother, until they had reached their ambition: to dance with the fire. Rayonda was both amazed and terrified by what her sons had accomplished. They were making more money than even she ever had, and this pleased her. Although she didn’t share it with her sons, her health was beginning to fail and she had very few dances left in her paws. She was performing alone one day when she finally collapsed. One of the merchants ran to find Shardae and Shadden, and they quickly rushed to their mother’s side. They were astonished to find that she was dying, she had always been so strong and full of life and joy. She insisted that Shardae keep her necklace, as it had been bought by his father and was rightly his now. He was ordered to fall in love some day, and give it to his beloved as a wedding gift. Her last words to them weren’t the traditional “I love you”, but she instead looked them both firmly in the eye and said “Don’t get burned by fire or life.” and then merely closed her eyes and went to sleep. They buried her in her dancing scarves in a grove of trees near the bazaar and grieved for days after. But it wasn’t long before they were back on the streets, pounding their feet to the music and playing with fire. One day Shardae awoke to find his brother gone. He shrugged it off, it still wasn’t uncommon for Shadden to take off somewhere for a few days. But after a week of his brother’s absence, he began to be concerned. His brother still considered himself Shardae’s protector, even if Shardae was now just as capable as he. Shardae began to search the village for his lost brother, only to learn in horror that he was standing trial before the king, facing possible death. Shardae rushed to the palace, and waited outside to learn of his brother’s fate. According to the common public, Shadden was caught having a long lasting affair with a pretty young leopard of rank. For her to be caught with a lowly performer, even one as talented as Shadden, was scandalous. Her father was furious, and went to the king demanding judgment. Shadden’s life was in the tyrant’s paws. Narrowly escaping death, Shadden was granted banishment. He was allowed to say a few last words to his brother which he did with tears rolling down his face. “I’m sorry,” he cried “I’m sorry that I got us in this mess. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep myself from getting burned by life. But more than anything, I’m sorry I broke my promise to always protect you from burns.” Shadden gave him the lens as a parting gift, and insisted that he keep dancing. It was the last time Shardae ever saw his brother. ♫ it's a wind-torn world we live with the leaves of shattered glass and the sky with burnished blood and all the promises here are made to be broken ♪ |
i only wish they could dance the way you live
