Post by + Avyris + on Feb 4, 2008 18:47:58 GMT -5
Name
Tybalt
Tybalt
Gender
Male
Male
Age
3 years, 4 months (adolescent)
3 years, 4 months (adolescent)
Appearance
shoulder height- 3 ft 8 inches (not quite at his adult height)
weight- roughly 355 lbs
general size- tall for his age but rather thin
fur color/eye color/fur texture- slate blue-ish gray/yellow/shirt and scruffy, fairly dirty
general description-
Tybalt is a sorry excuse for a young male lion, if you'd like me to be very blunt about it. Being an outlander, he is in deplorable shape, his body thin and his fur ragged and unkempt. With food scarce and his hunting ability impaired, many of his points are visible from a distance, including the top portion of all of his ribs, his shoulder blades and the crests of his hips. But, all that aside, he's not too bad physically. He still has body mass, muscle even, on his legs particularly. He just doesn't have as much as he's supposed to.
Covering what little body he does have, his skin is another indication of bad health. In a few places it is beginning to wrinkle, particularly around his paws and in the crooks of his joints, giving off an illusion of age on a lion clearly too young for it. Below his shaggy, matted, ruffled, generally dirty fur, his skin tone is a little on the pale side, but not too much. It still stands up to the sun and African climactic conditions. But it doesn't do so well with damage from bites and claws, meaning Tybalt is notorious for how easily he scars. Despite all of these clearly abnormal traits, they are Tybalt's only physical faults, except for a deformation of the bones in his forelegs which will be addressed later. His immune system appearance to be as fit as a fiddle and wounds rarely do more than scar him, despite the horrid conditions he lives in.
There is something, however, that no amount of immunity or resilience can overcome. The long bones in both of Tybalt's front legs, as briefly mentioned before, are deformed thanks to a lacking of proper nutrition in his diet as a cub. With no calcium to guide them or make them strong, Tybalt's front legs sort of twisted outward, skewing his gait and making usage of them awkward at best. Though, with time, they have begun to straighten as he draws nearer to the Pridelands where food is more plentiful and his diet is more balanced and enriched, they still make hunting very difficult, as the odd angle the twisted bones put his paws at makes it almost impossible to properly grip and hold onto struggling prey. Aesthetically, though, the deformity is almost unnoticeable from the side, and is only clear from the front while Tybalt is walking because his elbows tend to splay away from his body and his paws turn outward significantly with each step. But, sitting or standing, he appears to be relatively normal.
His visible oddities don't end there. The color of water-soaked ash, his fur is a distinctly dirty, almost grungy/grimy sort of slate blue/gray. An odd hue for a lion but not unheard of in other animal species. His underside is a contrasting beige-gray sort of color from his head down his neck to the base of his tail, as is his muzzle, eye patches, and toes. His tail, legs, ears and the end of the bridge of his slightly heavy muzzle are all just the opposite of his underside and are a few shades darker than his main pelt color, fading gradually as you move away from the source, up towards his body. His back and shoulders feature another odd trait, the last on his long list of them: an X-shaped marking that Tybalt claims is a tattoo but is more likely just some remnants of a tiger-like species in his family's gene pool. The only normal aspects of this big cat's fur and peltage is his mane, which is a dark, almost red-like brown color. There isn't much to it as of yet, he is still growing it out, but it's getting there and promises to be a very shaggy, very scruffy example of a male lion's most recognizable asset.
Personality
[/right]Being alone, quiet, peace, water -likes
Failing, embarrassing himself, being the center of attention -dislikes
Falling from high places/ Swimming -fears/loves
None. He's sort of given up on himself at this point and thinks there's -goal in life nothing left for him to aspire to, that anything he does try to go after, he'll just reach for and miss...-general personality
Tybalt, if put bluntly again, is just as sorry a lion as he looks. He's not at all like all those males everyone talks about, everyone remembers. He's not a go getter, not a brave warrior or a confident leader who will nobly guide his pride to safety or valiantly fight off an invading force of death or destruction. He's not the incredible hunter who took down two bull elephants by himself. He's not cruel mastermind whose strategy single-handedly saved his pride... or even doomed it. He's basically... nothing.
Outcasted for his coloration, Tybalt has known nothing but what it feels like to just barely miss being good enough. He's always the one standing next to the greatest lion in the universe... or he's sitting way way way down the line, toward the end where all the losers and failures are, their heads hung low and their tails between their legs. That's all he's ever known. "Tybalt do this!", "Tybalt do that!", "You call that done?!", "You worthless piece of ----". Never praise, never "Good job, you tried your best", never "Better luck next time."...
As you can imagine, this has made for a very bitter, very empathetic lion at a very young, usually youthful and springy age. So used to having his ideas simply shot down or ignored, he rarely speaks anymore unless addressed first, and even then he tries not to say much, keeping his words quick, short and to the point. He's grown to almost fear socialization and seems to shy away from it, always pretending to be distracted whenever someone approaches him.
Not in a fearful manner, mind you. Tybalt is reclusive, not timid. He is almost defiant about it, as if refusing to accept company or even that he's angry to receive it, and has been known to react with rage should someone be too persistent. I don't want to go as far as to say that he has a short temper, even though he can be a little impatient when it comes to situations he personally finds unpleasant. he's just... sensitive about certain things, but in that manly "I'm not going to cry so I'm going to fight instead". Somehow, scaring somebody away violently seems to please him more thoroughly than to let them get close to him and he rarely seems to regret pain or problems he inflicts on others.
He's a little self-centered, basically, too busy trying to figure out why he's so messed up to bother to help others pr even pretend like he gives a hoot about their problems. I don't want to go as far as to say he's mean, though I admit he tends to have jerk-like qualities in certain situations, particularly those involving nosy or pushy critters. He's just a bit cold hearted when it comes to dealing with others. Usually, he'll lend a helping paw if the situation can be easily resolved, if for no other reason than to avoid listening to the victim's whining, but he can be a little hesitant about helping out when he's in a bad mood.
In a good mood, though, he's just the opposite. Still quiet, still a loner, still reclusive, just more willing to get up and be of use. Not friendly or anything, just... a little less self centered, more willing to give the next lion the time of day and less likely to snap at someone angrily. At the right place at the right time, he's actually pretty patient, very stoic and calm, prefering a life of luxury and solitude to an active, hectic one. He's a very mellow kind of cat, basically...
Allegiance
Currently just himself.
why?- Well, as mentioned above, he's not much of a social body and, even in a pride setting, he's more likely to keep to himself in a corner than actively take part in anything. But, once he belongs somewhere or to someone, he can be surprisingly loyal so who knows. Maybe he does have an allegiance but just isn't telling...
status- Single and not interested
pride- None. Loner
side notes- None that I can think of.
Biography:
Tybalt's life was started in probably the darkest way possible. He was born at night, the product of the lead lioness in a small harem of females and a strange loner who was never seen or heard from again after the mating, meaning Tybalt knows nothing of his father. All he knows is that his mother, and the harem she commanded, were strict, cruel and heartless animals. Somewhere in his mind, he recognizes that. But that makeshift family from his past has been and remains to be the only place he's ever... belonged, even if it was only a little bit.
You see, as mentioned before, Tybalt was outcasted for his coloration, which is obviously odd for a lion. He was, deceptively, born at night and given the name Tybalt, 'The Prince of Cats' because he was the largest cub and his mother, blind to his coloration, had high hopes for him. But all that went right out the window when the sun came up and that slate blue pelt was exposed. He was almost killed right then and there. But, a last minute decision on that part of a lioness named Nikita, who, being the voice of reason, opted to let the cub live since he was the largest and, regardless of color, could prove to be of use once older, ended up saving Tybalt's almost non-existent life.
So, he was indeed spared, but not mercifully. From that day forth, he was constantly expected to be amazing, his mother simply waiting for her adviser, Nikita to be right about the cub and for her son to just miraculously perform feats impossible for lions three times his age. And, when he wouldn't, when he would try his d**nedest and fail, she would yell and scream and pitch a fit until her anger would subside, at which point Tybalt would be momentarily bannished from the harem, left out in the cold desert night alone until morning, when the ritual would be repeated again.
He might've grown strong this way. He was determined as a cub to prove his mother wrong, to show her that he could do it that she really had something to be proud of. But, unfortunately, his mother would just have none of it, rationing his food shares out to the other cubs and depriving Tybalt of the energy and strength he needed to be what she wanted. And that spelled his doom, as he grew, his bones deformed and bowed outward until he could barely walk, at which point his mother and her harem finally gave up and left him alone in the desert night, never to return for him.
But, for what the cub lacked in physical fitness, he made up for in observant, strategic intellect. He was bright for his age, basically. He would dig holes in the sand during the day so he could sleep in them where the sun could not reach him. he would follow trails in the sand to find the hiding places of snakes and small desert lizards and such. It wasn't much with his slow, lumbering gait, but it was enough to last him until he could get beyond the desert, at which point he began his slow wandering toward the pridelands. Initially, he was looking for his pride, for the harem that had left him in the night while he'd been sleeping. But it didn't take him long to realize that they'd purposefully abandoned him there...
Somewhere along his travels, he met a white lioness, Jari, who was about his age. Her odd coloration meant that she was neither repulsed by Tybalt's presence nor offended by his desire not to talk to her. She... understood him, could related to him and his thoughts, only she wasn't bothered at all by her oddities. Her pride accepted her just the way she was and Tybalt was honestly a little envious of that, of that comfort and self-confidence she had with herself.
That was the only lioness he ever let himself get close to. For, as they grew old together and made plans and stuff to leave her father's pride and start their own, a lightning strike put an end to all of it in one single, burning swoop of disastrous mother nature. A fire raged, the lions ran, but Jari fell in a sink hole in the midst of their escape. Tybalt tried to help her out of it but it was only inches too deep and, with both of them reaching as far as they possibly could, their toes could only grace each other. They tried though, calling each other for what had to have been twenty minutes before smoke inhalation finally claimed Jari's conciousness and Tybalt knew that there was really nothing he could do to help her at that point. He considered trying any way, desperate to get her out of there, but a falling burning tree collapsed over the sink hole and his lioness was ultimately lost in the flames.
He keeps his distance from others now. That was a pain he'd never wish upon anyone, not even himself a second time. So, he refuses to make nice with others, for fear of finding another Jari and failing once again to save her the way a male should... He does still have a sort of attraction to oddly colored lionesses, particularly the white variety, and he has taken quite happily to swimming and spends a lot of time around any sort of water source. Just in case. ;3