Hati's Den

EYES: Yellow gold; slightly grey overtone becomes apparent in low light.
PELT: Dark brown upper body and beige underside. Predominantly marked with black stripes, but also has some white facial markings and a few spots littering her sides and lower legs. Fur length varies, but is mostly medium thickness.
SCARS: Innumerable scars scattered across her body, but most are kept hidden by the way she grooms her fur. Her only permanently visible wounds are her ragged-edged ears, a set of claw-marks across her face (barely missing her right eye), and a network of bites around her forepaws.
BUILD: Outsizes many other cats in both weight and height. Is tall, stocky, and packed with muscle.

- Doesn’t sleep in the warrior’s den; has instead scratched out a small/shallow hollow for herself in sight of the camp’s entrance, and sleeps there. Does not bother to line it with anything.

- Doesn’t share tongues, and liable to reject anyone who tries.

- Grooms her fur against its natural lines to conceal the majority of her scars.

- Typically amongst the last to take anything from the fresh kill pile.

- Doesn’t pronounce H’s at the start of words, or the G in the ‘ing’ sound.

—PERSONALITY—
Protective | Reserved | Often Aggressive/Standoffish

At first, Tiger seems a very simple cat to understand. Most who encounter her find her to be openly hostile or distant and cold: a cat who dislikes everyone, and who isn’t afraid to show it. She’s a tendency to keep apart from others, watching from the outskirts instead of engaging, and she actively rejects many of those who attempt to draw near. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she often seems to teeter on the edge of aggression, and she’s been known to lash out with little warning and over things that others would consider small.

That, however, is only Tiger’s surface.

Cats who pay more attention may begin to see that her outside is misinterpreted; that there’s more to her than she willingly reveals. Tiger’s coldness is reservation: the result of a harsh life that has taught her to keep others at arm’s length; that it isn’t okay to be ‘soft’; that she has little right to voice her opinion. Her hostility is mistrust: an understanding that she can’t rely on others to help her; that allies may be as dangerous as enemies; that others may turn on you without warning. Her aggression is trained: a linchpin of a life that has proven difficult to leave behind.

Tiger, in short, is the product of her original environment, and that environment has wounded her in a myriad of small ways. She finds it difficult to relax and even more difficult to let others close, and its common for others to be put off by that first impression, or to turn aside when their lack of understanding—the simple act of startling her—leads to the flash of claws. If someone were to stick around, however, they might come to find that she that could grow into something much more…

- Tiger was born to a group of cats whose ancestors had modelled themselves on their own warped understanding of clans. She was the result of a leader-chosen pairing between Silver and an ‘unknown’ tom (unknown because he wanted nothing to do with his kits, and Silver chose not to tell them his identity).

- Silver wanted her kits to be more than what they were born for, and lavished Tiger and her brother (Leopard) with affection, encouraging everything except the aggression and blind obedience she was meant to foster. To the rest of the group’s eyes, this was a mistake, and they responded by forbidding Silver from interacting with her kits, and pairing them to the harshest mentors they could find. For Tiger, this was Ice: a tom who was impossible to please; who demanded obedience; who was downright brutal in every aspect of his teachings.

- Tiger swiftly learnt to follow the expected rules (protect her better; obey all orders; eliminate all outsiders), and ultimately ended up leading Leopard into a fight neither of them was really equipped for. This resulted in Leopard being flung into and lost down a river and its waterfall, which in turn removed the last thread of ‘softness’ from her life. Tiger became more protective after this, and even easier for Ice to mould.

- The ‘paw’ passed her final assessments (a series of fights) with flying colours and was subsequently made a full ‘Claw’. She continued to excel, earning the respect of those who normally looked down on ‘her sort’, and gaining high standing amongst her fellow Claws. Eventually, some began to murmur that she shouldn’t be a Claw at all, but should instead be elevated and given a chance for more. The leader and seniors did not approve.

- To maintain the status-quo, Tiger was declared a threat to her clan and her fellow Claws were ordered to kill her. Silver intervened, giving Tiger the change to run, and some other younger Claws ‘conveniently’ lagged behind in the resulting chase, ‘accidentally’ hindering the others. As a result Tiger escaped with only minimal wounds (by Claw standards), and has been living as a loner ever since.

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