Post by bones on Oct 27, 2023 19:00:02 GMT -6
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yennifer
basic information
NAME: Yennifer
→ Yenn or Fer to friends
AGE: 52 moons
CLAN: Clanless
RANK: Loner
→ former kittypet
GENDER: Genderfluid [afab; he/she/they]
INTERESTED IN: Select few, slight masc/male preference [omnisexual, demiromantic]
MATE: Open
→Cloudtongue✝ [fling]
MENTOR: Closed
APPRENTICE: Closed
PREFIX: "Yennifer" = their kittypet name, Welsh for 'white ghost'
→ Yenn or Fer to friends
AGE: 52 moons
CLAN: Clanless
RANK: Loner
→ former kittypet
GENDER: Genderfluid [afab; he/she/they]
INTERESTED IN: Select few, slight masc/male preference [omnisexual, demiromantic]
MATE: Open
→
MENTOR: Closed
APPRENTICE: Closed
PREFIX: "Yennifer" = their kittypet name, Welsh for 'white ghost'
appearance
"a fluffy, tall pure white cat with green and blue heterochromia"
Yenn is a cat that appears a great deal bigger than they actually are - in all honesty, they're mostly fur and very little else. They're long-legged and naturally thin, but that is well hidden under a luxurious, thick white pelt that they work hard to keep very soft and clean. While having more than a healthy appetite, they don't seem to put on weight like other cats. Their eyes are startling vivid and wide, and, in the past, they've been complimented for their "jewel-like" quality.
description
[CW: allusions to elderly hoarding situations from a cats POV, child abandonment, discussing a SPCA intervention/raid via cats' understanding, trauma-related OCD episodes, near drowning, infidelity, death and manipulation]
"And its so surreal
that a ghost should be so practical
if only for a night"
if only for a night"
[...]
It took your father three weeks to find you.
When he did, you were nestled amongst the blacks and blues of some sphinx's litter, the only furball amongst the lot. Pat had never been so happy to be deaf as that day, he told you during his recounting, because it allowed him to simply pluck you up and skedaddle into another room, vanishing amongst the piles of trash.
"You're my kit," he'd signed to you, when you ask why he even bothered, "even if your mother didn't want you, I did."
He never lost that sentimental streak.
"It's all wasted on you," Mellan lamented woefully, flopping down next to you and your father, who bristles as she continues, "Generations upon generations of pureblooded Turkish Van, a painstaking pedigree..."
She does that sometimes, when her attempts to claw through the screens on the windows are met with glass (again) compile on top of her attempts to dart out the door whenever the old hag goes out to get the mail, weighing her down.
"...stuck in all this nastiness and rank smell!"
One day, when you're older, you'll comment on how none of it matters - especially when no one has ever come looking for her. She'll go to hit you for your insolence, but you'll be big enough to smack her aside instead.
Many, many days after the old hag goes into her room and doesn't come out, when the scent of death drives most to the furthest area of the trailer and things get crowded, that's when everything changes.
Then, more humans come; you see them coming, sleeping on a windowsill when the cars drive up. Through the fraying gaps in the curtain, you can spot cages and many, many humans dressing themselves in a comical manner. They approach the house and you realize they're circling for the door.
It takes longer than it should to find your father and rouse him and by then cats are screaming and crying, kits are being snatched, and anyone the strangers can get their hands on are going in those cages before vanishing out the door. Mellan bursts past the two you, going for freedom, but the guards at the doors grab her before she even gets close - she doesn't fight them as she's stuffed in a crate and locked away, but you don't plan on joining her.
You lead Pat through the rooms, bobbing and weaving through the trash and furniture, realizing being seen is to be caught. He tells you not to look back, to focus: both of you know there only place to go is the old human's room, where she guarded her open windows like anyone else does with food.
The door is open and the smell of rotting death lingers heavily in the air, but you can't stop; you won't let them stick you in a cage, give you to some other horrible furless human to lock away in their house in turn. A fresh breeze washes over you as you dart inside and you look back-
Your father is gone.
And there's a human barging through the doorway, waving a stick with some kind of looped rope around; behind them, another stands with a crate.
Don't look back, your father had mouthed earlier, pushing you onward, keep going!
A little part of you dies as you flew through the window, tearing through the ancient screening in a heartbeat before falling into the fresh, wide open world.
In your freedom, you understand, distantly, that your father did love you. Loved you enough to let you go, to let you live, even if he couldn't join you. So you run, you run and run and you hope those humans take care of that old bag of bones...
When you finally, finally feel safe enough to stop moving, you've found a large, wide river. You stop to drink, tired after so long of barely sleeping, worried the humans might be after you.
The first order of business, when you find a place to shelter, is to clean yourself; you lick and groom and pick at your lush coat until the stars are bright in the sky and the moon is halfway through its trek. Your dirty, disgusting pelt becomes a bit cleaner, but the smell of the horrible place still lingers.
It wafts up and keeps you from sleeping. You lather your longhaired white pelt until your tongue feels raw, but it's still there why can't you get rid of it-
The water calls to you, beckoning with a gentle surface - you know humans clean themselves with water... maybe there was something to it?
So you venture down, wading into your ankles; but that won't get rid of all the smell, so you push past your fear to tread further, out until the water laps at your belly. It's still not enough, you know its not, so you shuffle deeper yet-
Only for the current to sweep you off your feet and carry you away. There's water in your mouth, in your nose, and, thankfully, you hit something.
The bloodied waters vanish to black.
No one finds you; no one rescues you from a watery grave or rouses you from your near death experience on the shore. You wake up frozen, stiff, and soaked to the bone, alone.
Your head pounds, your legs quake, and your chest burns, but the feeling of water running its fingers through your pelt gives you enough frenzied strength to drag yourself away from the river shore, into the surrounding woods.
There's the stale taste of blood in your mouth as you find a tiny, cramped tree hollow to collapse in. You lick at your fur and shake yourself so much it makes your vision spin and your tender skull ache, but you are afraid to fall asleep - what if the chill takes you? Like those kits left on the kitchen tile that winter when you were six moons old?
To sleep and never wake is enough to keep you shivering all night long. Thankfully, the next day is warm, hot almost as the Spring promises Summer is around the corner. You sun yourself all day long, gathering strength and warmth to go hunting the next.
You loose track of the days you spend there, in the wilds; you avoid the river like the plague, no longer trusting of its calm surface. Feeding yourself is a painful affair of trial and error - hunting out here is different than catching vermin inside a cramped little hovel; you go hungry many nights before summer arrives and the blessed abundance of prey allows you to snatch your life from the jaws of death.
Sometimes, you spot others, but you eye them leerily - you don't want to loose your food to anyone, not like back there. So you learn to move silently, to watch but not be seen, to listen and not be heard... Like a phantom.
(And even, ironically, manage to swipe some of their food for yourself)
The outside world is dangerous, but freedom is worth the price.
After lingering in the area for so long, you decide to move on; honestly, your driven off - like some others - by an encroaching coyote pack. You don't plan on being anything's meal, so you use the cover of twilight to set off for safer, greener pastures.
Begrudgingly, you follow the river downstream. After a moon or so, it meets a road and so you, hesitantly, follow that. Cars go by and, thankfully, no humans hop out to grab you - though, nightmares of that happening do keep you up at night. To soothe yourself, you clean your pelt each night of the days travels, plucking twigs and leaves from it and getting rid of any dirt on your paws. You're in love with pine smell your fur has kept from the forest, but the scent of fresh grass starting to cling to it is also comforting.
You travel so long that your paws grow tough and calloused and your body leanly muscled; your fur gets thicker and fluffier which each winter you survive on your own.
In the distance, the road leads to a town and, further past that, the expanses of a farm. Both promises easy prey and good shelter...
But the prospect of humans and their grabby hands steers you instead to the towering mountains nearby. As summer turns to fall, you loiter about the campground there, listening to other cats talk about the clans and their territorial behaviors. The idea of a large group, while having such a large area to roam, makes you both curious and worried - you have a few flashbacks for a several nights of that place you escaped.
And, yet, you find yourself wondering into the misty forest nearby.
He finds you after a close call with a "patrol", nestled in the whispering reeds around a nearby pond. You hear him coming, but are stuck between the waters and his approach, so you choose to stand your ground.
You didn't think clan cats could be so small - all those strangers you eavesdropped on made them sound so much bigger.
But he's pretty, at least, and he can't really chase you off here - your not on clan territory.
He introduces himself - Cloudtongue, do all clan cats have such odd names? - and compliments your catch, a small fish. Instantly, your alert: no one comments on someone else's food unless they want to share... or steal it.
Unsheathing your claws, you tell him to back off - you caught this and you will fight for your food. And, frankly, you feel self-assured in your ability to trounce the small tom.
He backs off, vanishing into the night.
The next time you cross paths, he's caught something and you are trespassing.
Instead of chasing you off, he compliments your eyes - "bewitching" is the term he uses - and offers to share his food with you. He tries to eat at your side, but you make a point to eat facing him instead.
He stumbles upon you, tucked inside a cozy little burrow, and talks to the whole night - from outside the den. It's easier than you will ever admit to fall asleep knowing someone's nearby.
And so the dance continues, the two of you crossing paths and chatting. Cloudtongue is charming and brings a bit of fun to your life, but more than that, he brings your food. You haven't eaten so wonderfully in... well, too long to tell, and it is easier to sleep with someone else tucked into your side.
He talks, sometimes, to you about Mistclan and the other two clans: Prairieclan and Ridgeclan. Its interesting to listen to, but the way he fails to understand how each day you work hard to just survive, shrugging off your efforts with a kind of almost privilege - well, it's annoying.
You let him spend the night, and, though it should have, it never crossed your mind if the clan would notice his absence.
"Look, I'm just saying-"
"That you want to take my kits to fix your mateship, that you ruined in the first place."
"You make it sound a lot worse than it is! And it's not like you want kits, I mean look at you, you barely can survive on you ow-"
"No."
"-nnnn... Pardon?"
"I'd rather hand them off to some human on the campgrounds than let you use them."
"Wow... Just, wow. You'd really do that to them? I can provide for them, at least, you need to think about this clearly-"
"Get lost, before I give you something you can't hide from your mate."
"...fine, whatever... But, just think about it..."
Your unsheathing claws send him running.
Its the start of winter, snow is starting to fall, and you've moved as far from the bitterly cold mountains as possible. You have your kits on your own, as you have faced everything else in life...
And Cloudtongue was wrong.
Your kits are strong, squalling, squirming bundles of fur and you love them more than you've ever loved anything in your life before; as they press closer for warmth and milk, the world seems to have something... different to it.
Dusk falls and the colors you see from your shelter seem... brighter, more beautiful. You sleep soundly, better than you have in moons, tail tucking your precious little ones in close with a full heart.
Even as prey grows scarce, you cannot find it in you to worry - how can you, when your little kits start to open their eyes and their tiny ears unfurl. You name them with inexplicable joy in your heart: Flash, Hail, Downy and Cedar (the last who is the only one born with little dusting of color). Flash is always sniffling, burrowing deeper into your thick pelt for warmth than his siblings; Cedar is a restless little creature already, trying to climb your flank in the dead of night as everyone else sleeps; Downy is the tiniest, but they always eat the most.
And then there's Hail, with his worryingly pink eyes and fur even whiter than yours. He is the happiest little thing, though, you can just tell, and he gives you hope that you can do this.
They've all stolen your heart, as they start to take their first, toddling steps.
"Hail?"
You go out hunting, tell your four little ones to stay inside, curled up together for warmth. Your steps are light and you seem to float through the day, returning with a good sized mouse to feed yourself and, in turn, the kits.
Only three blue eyes turn to greet you as you enter.
"...Hail?"
He isn't moving, curled up in a loose little ball; your other kits aren't old enough to talk, but they mewl and knead at your ankles. You leave the prey at the burrow entrance, nudging your precious little pink-eyed boy.
He's too stiff.
"Your lucky I'm still interes-"
"Please," your heart aches in your chest and the world is cold and dull, even as a chilly wind cuts through your fur, "Don't."
"I was right, admit it." He sniffs, standing straighter, as if that will make him the bigger cat, "Thinking you could manage to raise kits out here, just silly."
You hold your tongue, but your claws unsheathe as tears sting your eyes. Part of you, distantly, know he's swinging low with the insults, but another part of you understands that there is safety in a group, because you grew up in some semblance of one; he's promising your little darlings a better life...
You just hope he isn't lying again.
And yet another part of you seethes. As he tells you where on the border to leave the kits, you hope his mate finds out the truth; as he tells you what time of day to drop them off, you hope his clan finds out what a prat he is; as he sighs in exasperation and agrees that you should linger nearby for safety's sake, you hope his whole life falls apart around him and he dies.
That next day, you try to no avail to sleep the day away next to Hail's little grave, but find it impossible without your bundles of joy. Not when you know they're all gone for good...
You should not linger. You're not welcome here...
But you can't leave. You need to stay and see this through, that he held up his promise.
While on the Mistclan border, you never spend a night in the same place twice - that's how you've avoided being caught before and how you'll do so now.
Moons pass, seasons change and you only get glimpses of your kits after their older, well past six moons; you feel briefly disappointed that they all resemble their father, but you know, deep down, that would make life easier for them. They're always in the company of others, which makes it hard to get close enough for your tastes - have their eye colors changed? do they have any scars? are they happy? - but at least you rarely see their father.
You don't know how to feel about that... A part of you knows, if you were in Cloudtongue's spot, you'd always be around for your kits; but, another part is happy he's not around to ruin them, to influence them anymore than he may have.
Time marches on and you simply exist through its passing. How can you be happy, when you return home every night to Hail's grave and the understanding your kits probably don't even remember you exist?
You had the world... And now you're alone, again. And that isn't what you want anymore.
Word gets around quickly about Ridgeclan and its mounting brutally with clanless trespassers, but by the time you think to be concerned for anyone but yourself, they've attacked Mistclan.
You spend days floating around the border, so scared to know the truth: are your kits okay? Were they hurt? Dead?
After several nights of nightmares and guilt-ridden dreams, you can't stand it: you cross the border and wander through Mistclan territory. Covered in the dense smell of lilac, you needed to know, you had to...
Many moons ago, Cloudtongue had made a passing remark on avoiding a particular grove, as that was where Mistclan buried their dead. You hunt for it now and its well past midnight when you find it; in spite of the scents of the forest and herbs, there is a collective hint of death lingering over the area. The night is moonless and cloudy, helping even your bright pelt blend in with the woods.
There are plenty of fresh grave spots all over and you circle, cursing yourself: how did you think this would go? That the dirt would smell like your kits and then you'd know?
But then... you see shadows moving toward you; spooked, you dart off.
...only far enough to be hidden in the dense cover of underbrush; your mismatched eyes widen as the sight that greets you: your kits!
All grown up and little worse for wear, but alive - you would recognize them anywhere. Your crying quietly, but your tears are mostly happy.
And then you vanish like a ghost in the night.
personality
Positives
| Negatives
|
relations
PRE-PLOTTING
The Lawless Ghost: Yennifer is a lawless loner, roaming and lingering on the fringes of both the clans and the life of other clanless. Quiet as the grave, he strives for a kind of independence that was not afforded him in his old home, so very, very far away from here. Sure, he struggles to make ends-meet every day of his life, but its his life - for once - and, since he makes his own choices, he can live with the consequences. Yenn doesn't care much for the barn cats south of Prairieclan and their divisions and usurper dreams, because he will be unaffected by said rebel's failure or success. She's relatively neutral to the clans, despite how they've wronged her in the past, and only wishes the best for her kits. In all actuality, she is one of the clanless cats lingering about Mistclan's border - she has been for well over twenty moons (almost thirty, soon), but some other loitering morons have drawn attention to her presence by stealing kits from the clan. Now, she knows, she needs to tread with care - yet, at the same time, she cannot help peering in from the outside...FAMILY
[family tree link here]Before she carried and labored for her kits, Yennifer was not a very family-oriented cat; she lived in a despicable situation, one among hundreds of cats some old human kept locked inside their trailer, and survival was far more paramount than sentimentality. However, his world was tilted on his head when his kits were born - parting with them was like loosing part of himself and having to watch them grow up from a distance as been a slow, torturous kind of death for his soul. But, he did what was best for them - he gave them a safe, secure life (even if their father was a prat).
(Yennifer does not know her kits clan names and refers to them by the ones she gave them!)
Mellan & Pat (kittypets, statuses unknown) - of their two parents, Yenn was much closer to their father Pat; namely, because their father was deaf and needed them to survive the hellscape they were trapped in. Mellan was always too busy lamenting her wasted purebred pedigree after being "kidnapped" by the old hag that lived in the house. Now, who knows how many thousands of miles away, Yenn just hopes his father was given a new home by the humans that took him.
Hawthornfall (kit, Mistclan) - from the glimpses she's caught of Flash, they look quite a bit like Mellan. Of the litter, they were always the sickliest but she is glad to see he's seemed to outgrow that phase into a healthy cat.
✝ Hail (son) - Hail is Yennifer's deepest regret: they thought they could raise their kits alone, on the outskirts of everything, and because of that their little albino baby died. If they had just listened to Cloudtongue and given up the litter sooner, perhaps their darling son would still be alive...
Cicadaspot (kit, Mistclan) - Downy had always been the runt of the litter and it brings Yenn some joy to see that this fact, at least, has not changed since she sent them away with their father. At least they carry some white on them, the only one of the kits that somewhat resembles Yenn.
Mudbranch (son, Mistclan) - probably the kit that looked most like Cloudtongue, Cedar was such an energetic kit, always trying to crawl away or over the top of them in the nest - especially at night, when they should have all been asleep. Sometimes, late at night still, Yenn has spotted Cedar checking the border and they worry - does he struggle to sleep still?
ROMANCE
Yennifer does not have the best experience with romance, but that doesn't mean she's hardened her heart to it; she'll just have to be more careful, next time.✝ Cloudtongue (fling, Mistclan) - it meant nothing, truly; he had a pretty face and was a sweet talker too boot. He brought her food occasionally and shared her meals whenever they ran into each other and the nights they shared together were warmer than those she spent alone. The kits were not in the plan, but she hates him fervently for making her give them up. Last she heard, he's dead, as well his horrid little rat of a mate - and she's glad.
Family
| Friends
| Rivals
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optional images
