Post by { i z z i e } on Jan 1, 2011 22:39:44 GMT -6
m y :: l a d y :: m a l a d y
n a m e :: Malady
a g e :: 33 moons
g e n d e r :: She-cat
m a t e / c r u s h :: None.
l o n e r b e c a u s e :: Born one. Also, who wants to be tied down somewhere?
r e s i d e n c e :: She moves around and ends up sleeping in the middle of nowhere more often than not (freedom is a big thing for her), but she does drop by the Loners' Barn a lot. She's been to the Rogue Loft a few times too.
k i n ::
Mother | Marjoram
Father | unknown
Brothers | Phoebus, Quentin, Emperor, Lexington, Concord, Ghostly, Orpheus, Noodle, Thirteen, Ivory, Mulleygrubs, Pepperoni, Parmesan, Ulrich, Renard, Schrodinger, Frabjous, Waldo, Bailey, and HERO
Sisters | Dietrich, Xanadu, Auriga, Chartreuse, Malady, Lasagna, July, Swansea, Kit, Victoria
Status of all unknown.
d e s c r i p t i o n ::
[/justify]Malady is a striking sort of cat, though maybe not "pretty" at first glance. Her coat, certainly, is attractive; as a tortoiseshell she-cat, she's a mixture of black, brown, and tan; though there isn't much white on her pelt, the fur around her eyes, on her front right paw, and a tuft on her chest are a kind of cream color. Yes, her fur is lovely -- though her mother didn't seem to think so -- but it clings to the bones of her skinny, malnourished frame.
Parts of her body are heavily scarred, souvenirs of the more violent times in her past. There are three long gray welts on her right flank, and the left side of her face was clearly attacked some time ago. The ear on that side is ragged and torn, and her left eye is milky white and sightless, contrasting with the green of the other. She snaps at anyone she catches staring at the injuries to her face ("nice, ain't it?"), but she doesn't really mind all that much.
With long legs and an agile, if slightly skeletal, form, she's a spidery sort of creature, but there is a weird grace about her. The longer you look at Malady, the more you start to see past all her scars and malnourishment. The she-cat has a dusty, down-to-earth, worn kind of beauty to her, and despite her tendency to be sharp with others, she smiles often and can actually look sweet if she tries.
She sure isn't the classical definition of "pretty," but she's some definition.
p e r s o n a l i t y ::
[/justify]Much like her appearance, Malady's personality is a lot nicer than you would expect from a first impression. Since she's taken care of herself and, for a while, one of her younger brothers since she was ten moons old, all the while passing through dangerous territories, she's developed a tough-talking exterior for her own safety. She is snarky, brutally honest, and has a razor-sharp tongue; conversing with Malady is not a pastime for the faint of heart... not to mention that her light Cockney accent can now and then become difficult to understand.
But once she determines that you aren't a threat, she can be surprisingly friendly. To anybody she loves, cares for, or even pities, Malady is extremely loyal, willing to leap to their defense at a moment's notice. No one is safe from her sarcasm, of course, but to those she likes, the jabs are meant affectionately. Beneath all of the threats and snarking, she has a good heart, and doesn't really want anyone to get hurt.
In spite of being pretty good with kits, Malady is strongly averse to the idea of ever having any of her own. She's convinced that she would be as bad a mother as Marjoram was, but instead of admitting that, she claims she just doesn't like children.
Of course, anyone who's ever seen the way she interacts with kits can tell that this is a lie, but it's equally obvious that she doesn't want to talk about the real reason. When Malady doesn't want to talk about something, it's not a good idea to ask her about it. The tortoiseshell she-cat has no patience for unwanted social snooping; she's fiercely independent, often forgoing the warmth and company of the loners' barn to sleep out in the open.
Malady may be loud, reactionary, and even a bit obnoxious, but she's smart, and she can read emotions and intentions very well, a necessary skill when you're living on the streets. She has inklings of who to trust and who not to, though in general she's suspicious of those around her until they prove themselves fully trustworthy. She is stubborn and quite reluctant to change her initial opinions about other cats.
Which is sort of hypocritical, but then again, Malady never claimed she wasn't.
h i s t o r y ::
[/justify]Malady's earliest memory is from the beginning of her kithood -- her mother standing over her, a dazed and distasteful look on her face, and a golden tabby tom who looked practically the same age. (This was, in fact, not her father, but her oldest brother, Phoebus.) "She looks kinder like wha' Ivory 'acked up the uvver day," her mother slurred, "per'aps Oy oughter call 'er tha'."
"Mum, no," the tom replied. "Please don't name the poor bird 'Puke.'"
"I tol' you not t' call me Mum," her mother grumbled, but she took his advice.
Malady would eventually come to learn that she was the fifteenth kit of a London stray known as Marjoram, who made up for her immense fertility with a total lack of maternal instinct. Life in the family was... well, chaotic. Emperor was an insufferable brat, Ghostly creeped everyone out, several of the she-cats were already popping out kits like their mother, and no one ever knew where Waldo was.
When Malady was seven moons old, and there were twenty-seven kits in the family, Marjoram, pregnant yet again, waddled out to scavenge some food from a dumpster and was found and picked up by the local animal rescue society. While this was definitely in the best interest of the unborn kits, the rest of Marjoram's offspring were lost without their neglectful, verbally abusive matriarch. They broke into smaller groups or went off on their own.
Finally, the only ones left were Malady and four of her brothers. Phoebus, the eldest, who was always trying to keep the family together; Schrodinger, one of the younger kits; Mulleygrubs, a littermate of Malady's; and Thirteen, who was named not for his black fur, but because he was Marjoram's thirteenth child, and she was too lazy to give him a proper name. The five of them, now finding London a large, cold, uninviting place, began a journey to find a better place.
They traveled for a few moons, always tense and usually hungry. When Malady was ten moons old, more tragedy struck the group.
It was when they were passing through a waterfront town somewhere, scrounging around for discarded food, that the five were accosted by another group of feral cats who had claimed the territory for their own. Despite Phoebus' attempts to explain, the cats chased Malady and her brothers over the railway just as a train was coming through. While none of them were actually hit by the train, it separated Malady, Phoebus, and Schrodinger from Mulleygrubs, Thirteen, and the cats chasing them.
By the time the train had gone, their brothers were nowhere to be found.
Several days afterward, Phoebus caught their scent, and left Malady and Schrodinger huddled behind a dumpster, promising he'd be back soon. They never saw him again.
Malady spent the next moon trying to take care of Schrodinger on her own, even though she wasn't really old enough to take care of herself. When she was eleven moons old, the young cats stumbled into yet another claimed territory, but of course, neither of them knew this until they were attacked by Devereux, leader of the gang that made its home there. Malady thought he was going to kill them, and he probably would have, had Prospero not interfered. He was Devereux's right hand man, a scarred tabby who was missing a leg, and convinced Devereux to bring the two wanderers into the gang.
Back then, she was horrified and fascinated by his wounds. It wasn't long before she had some of her own.
Devereux let them stay, but he wasn't happy. He went out of his way to avoid Schrodinger, and insulted Malady constantly. She put up with it, realizing that it was worse if the temperamental leader liked you.
In Malady's fifteenth moon, she saw a she-cat named Lethe, who was even younger than her, deliver a litter of Devereux's kits. All four of the kits were stillborn. Devereux was irate, blaming her for the kits' deaths and shouting that they'd be outnumbered by their rival gang because of her. Infuriated, Malady leaped to Lethe's defense, retorting that it was probably his fault for knocking her around while she was carrying the kits. In reply, Devereux attacked her.
Prospero finally managed to pull Devereux off of her, but by then the damage had been done. The entire left side of her face was a mess; the ear was shredded, her fur was matted with blood, and he had blinded her in her left eye. Schrodinger, who had become a medicine cat of sorts to the gang, managed to staunch the blood flow and keep her alive, but the injuries were too severe to reverse.
When Malady was eighteen moons, Devereux's fears of being overrun by the rival gang proved valid. In the ensuing chaos, the tyrannical leader was killed, and the rest of the gang went into a bit of a panic. Eventually Prospero took over, and it looked like Devereux's gang was on track to a more peaceful era.
Still, Malady, always searching for freedom, wanted to move on, away from this place that held so many terrible memories. Schrodinger, for his part, wanted to stay and help them rebuild, so the tortoiseshell she-cat reluctantly left her brother behind.
And then she was alone.
And she's been alone ever since.
r o l e p l a y e x a m p l e :: Feh.
o t h e r ::
Luckily for your reading brains, Malady's Cockney accent is not nearly as heavy as Marjoram's. She usually drops her h's, replaces t's with glottal stops, uses "ain't" instead of "isn't" and "me" instead of "my," and sometimes has a flare of Intrusive R Syndrome, but more or less she's understandable. Mostly.
