ALISTAIR, priest

[alistair]

` Alistair !

the generals

[style=text-align:justify;]NAME Alistair
AGE three years and two months, 38 moons.
GENDER male
RANK priest
PATRON GOD aromian
SHIFT RARITY common
SHIFT FORM burmese python
PICTURE(S) Normal && Shifter

the personals

[style=text-transform:uppercase;]APPEARANCE

There's something not quite right about Alistair, and just by looking at him you can tell. Whether it's his bat-like ears or his almost too large eyes that unsettle you, or perhaps it's the stringy and small shape of his body. He looks half his age, sometimes even being mistaken for a young cat in training. His body looks starved and bony, with just the least amount of everything to keep him alive. Appearances do tell you about the cat, and he looks as weak as he actually is.Although surprisingly he's quite limber and quick on his feet, making almost no noise with every movement he makes. More unsettling is his way of hiding and appearing out of thin air.

His head is rather angled and sharp featured, often reminding one of a snake's head. His eyes too, even in the most light deprived places, shine yellow and bright. His tail is thin and whip-like, with very little fur covering it. On his worst days one could mistake Alistair for a large rat, and he admits to being attacked a few times out of the confusion. He moves like a cat who is constantly being watched, slinking in shadows and stalking through even the safest of places. His golden-brown fur is coarse and dull looking, and although rather unusually he bears no scars.

PERSONALITY

A snake, a vile creature that hides within this cat is all he is. On the outside cats see him as a respectable priest, one whom has deep faith in the gods and an almost creepy air of mystery around him. He's cool and collected on the surface like a calm lake, but within things swim beneath in his mind and cause the faintest of ripples. He's rather clever; with a wit that even the gods could admire. He speaks rather queerly too, making even simple sentences have dark intentions. He finds that most don't catch on to his hidden meanings though, and if they do it's almost too late. He is not respectful, and definitely doesn't respect those of higher or equal rank. It's very likely for him to toss a careless and offensive remark to any cat.

He lies on the regular, from little white lies to dangerous ones that cause harm. Since his position as a priest started he's lied of every godly encounter he's had, and he's quite surprised that he hasn't been struck down by the higher beings. He doesn't idol these gods, and when he prays he is only faking it. He does not deny their existence though, but challenges their actual power. His thoughts are that if they wished to rid the world of him they would have already done it, and so he waits for their turn against him.

Alistair is an excellent spy as well. With his shadow-like ways of stalking he finds out information for only those willing to pay his high price. Which of course to hide his corrupt secrets... is well, death. In turn he gains what knowledge they would have learned, making him a living record keeper of everything happening within and outside of the tribe. He has a very slight control as to whom his shifter kills, but he must be careful about it. He only has to think about killing a cat once for his subconscious to guide the snake to his prey.

He's a dark cat, with many layers of both false and true appearances. Through it all though he wants true chaos to consume the tribe, and while he's up to enraging it he knows he cannot raise it alone. The tom has never been involved in a true battle before, which explains his lack of scars, but he does enjoy witnessing others battle for him. While he dare not enrage a tom with the strength to break him in two, he often takes stabs at she-cats. While he finds them a pretty sight he thinks of them as only creatures to raise new generations of fighters and breeders. As well he finds them to have simple minds and avoids them. He partly does so because he feels no educated conversation will arise from speaking to them, and partly because he's painfully shy of any sensuality.

HISTORY

Behret went to his leader with a plea; provide him with a fertile she-cat to give him a son. That was all this simple tom needed after having served his entire life to the tribe. He was growing old and weary of life, and having dedicated all he had to the tribe he had forgotten to create a family. He did not care if the cat matched the beauty of a leader's mate, or challenged the wizened brains and experience of elders. He just wanted a healthy kit, and so he was given Vaele. One would not call the old nanny beautiful, for her appearance portrayed hard years on the she-cat. She had given a fair amount of toms their own litters of strong kits, and she looked upon Behret with indifference as she bore his kits.

She gave him three sons, all healthy and of a golden-brown color. The first, Jaelen, was the strongest and favorite of his father forming a rather cocky personality as he grew. The second, Quell, was a mighty brat of a tom and preferred to be by himself. The youngest and smallest was Alistair, so small when he was born that Vaele offered to kill the kit in order to rid him of suffering later in life. However, Behret shooed the queen away and showed love even to the smallest of the litter. The three tom's kithood was more of a competition to please their father, and it only grew in seriousness as they aged. The competition was always lost by Alistair, always slinking in the shadow of his brothers.

When they learned to shift, his brothers took the form of strong animals. Quell a mighty stag, with horns as sharp as daggers and a proud head. Jaelen a wolverine, with a fierce snarl and a stronger bite. When it came time for Alistair to display his shift to his father, the tom grew nervous and ran. Having been overshadowed by his brothers throughout life he couldn't bear having one more thing over him. He went to bed early that night, only waking when he thought he heard his brothers shuffle by to sleep as well. He remembered only blotches of a dream from that night. He had no legs in the dream and his stomach, hairless and long, moved across the floor with great speed. There was a hissing too, loud and ever constant in the dream. Only briefly did he see images of his sleeping father and brothers, but of anything else he couldn't remember.

He awoke slowly in the morning, feeling as if he had barely slept at all. He felt odd and full, and only felt even stranger when he tasted the blood on his lips. He skipped breakfast that morning in order to sleep longer, and when he awoke this time it was because of strong paws shaking him. His father stared down at him with a panic-ridden face, and he spoke so quickly that Alistair could barely understand him. Behret repeated himself several times, asking where his eldest sons were and what had happened to them. He had only noticed the absence of them now, and he too began to worry. He helped his father search for them, but tracking them was no use since it had seemed they had never left their nests at all.

They searched night and day, everyday, Behret never giving up hope that his sons would return. He neglected his only son left after that day, praying and hoping that his eldests would return. All the while Alistair continued to have these strange dreams, even one time catching a glimpse of a head, his head, in the reflection of a puddle. He had a pointed flat head and tiny black eyes, with a dark pattern trailing along his body. He was a snake, and the more the blotches of the dream came to him, the more he connected the dots that this was his shifter form. And while he didn't want to admit it, he feared that he was the cause of his brothers's disappearance.

He dared not ever shift in front of his father, fearing that he too would connect the dots and demand his death. He lived in fear and avoided his father, until one day they were visited by a rather curious cat. His name was Praxees, and he was well known as a priest in the tribe. He was older, but not ancient, and had always been known as a confident tom. He came with a story of how Aromian himself had come to him in a dream and presented Alistair as his successor, which unknown to these cats was a powerful lie. Eager for his weak son to leave, Behret gave his son up freely to be taught by the priest, and so leaving his father to mourn he left for a new life.

Praxees was a strict mentor for Alistair, enforcing old practices and rules on the tom in order for him to excel. It wasn't something the young cat had asked for, but he dealt with this vocation; of course thinking it was a decree from the gods. And so he learned and trusted in the priest and the gods they served. He even entrusted Praxees with his shifter secret, in which the older tom listened to with great interest. After the secret was shared things started to turn stranger. Praxees would simply speak of a cat that he disliked and express a bad deed that that cat may or may not have done, and the next day that cat would mysteriously disappear. It wasn't just average cats that would disappear either, high-ranking cats were also disappearing.

He knew he was the cause this time, but Praxees would not help him overcome it. He remembered frequent blotches of dreams where he would find his mentor awake and ever watching, not asleep like he had seen his brothers. The tribe was on a search for the cause of these missing cats, and all the while the two toms kept quiet. Alistair was nervous though, not being able to control the snake that he became when he shifted was a problem. Especially when that problem killed fellow cats. He was never found, never named a suspect though, being a future priest and as small and weak as he appeared was something of an advantage there. And with Praxees's help he embraced it.

Now, not only were his mentor's enemies disappearing, so were Alistair's enemies. He found that the more he grew to embrace this disorder, the more enemies he found himself to have. Eventually, Praxees became old as all cats did eventually, and grew too weak to function normally. It hurt to watch a cat that had seemed to care for him die, and he prayed daily for him to have a painless death. However, he wished he could take back those prayers now. On his last breath Praxees revealed his most treacherous deeds. He had known since the cat had first shifted unintentionally that he had ssad and used that to his advantage. He had never once in his lifetime spoken to any gods, and made a lie of Alistair being chosen. Not only had Praxees lived a lie, but he had turned Alistair's own life into one as well. This was not his life path chosen by the gods, and Praxees was not sorry for using him.

The old tom died only shorty after the secret was revealed, and Alistair grew hateful and bitter of him. The tom's body disappeared the next day, and now Alistair had nothing clouding his mind as to how his snake killed. He grew to hate even his other priestly companions, even the gods that he was to serve, and wants revenge. A revenge he hopes to plan out with a carefully practiced means.
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functions preformed by CRISP
other characters are SPARTAK -- OCEANA

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