Post by Chinchilla on Nov 20, 2012 15:05:06 GMT -5
Zack
[/b][/size]given to him by a two-leg child.[/font]
[/center]AGE Thirty moons
GENDER Tom
RANK Stray
CLAN Loner
LOOKS The stereotypical black stray cat, Zack would be handsome indeed if he had a constant source of food and a safe place to sleep. Naturally lean, he is thin as is typical of a stray cat. He is somewhat better off then many strays thanks to his own experience, but he is still obviously suffering. He is on the taller side for a feral cat, despite his lack of muscle mass. He is long and sleek and handsome, thank you very much.
LIKES Soft two-legs, boxes, gullible clan cats, flirting, pigeons, french fries, wandering, freedom, kits.
DISLIKES Territorial cats, the clans, sea gulls, rats, the risk of being caught, enclosed spaces, nasty two-legs.
FEARS Being caught and trapped, being picked up by animal control, becoming a kittypet, dying.
HOPES To survive.
OVERALL
It takes smarts to survive on the streets, and Zack has those in spades. While his fun loving, rebellious nature at times hides this intelligence, it is most certainly present. Zack has a love of puzzles and other such tricks, and uses his talent at them to earn himself food. He also has memorized where the most soft-hearted locals are in the town, and which are threats to his freedom. Zack's intelligence lends itself more to cunning and street smarts, and he is shockingly ignorant about things that don't involve survival. Don't expect him to know that the world is round, or that it even exists beyond the town and forest. He doesn't know, nor does he want to.
Zack has learned that the world doesn't really care about one little lost cat. There's no one to pull him out of the holes he digs himself in, and if he trusts a twoleg they'll probably drag him off to the place with cages that some of the other loners whisper about. He doesn't want to lose his freedom or his life, so he just doesn't trust the cats around him. They'll back stab him for a scrap, and leave him to the twolegs. Despite this, Zack himself isn't prone to backstabbing. He has a soft spot for newly abandoned kittypets and confused, lost kits and will help them in a heart beat.
Some would call Zack cowardly. He calls himself smart. While he can fight just as well as most other strays, he isn't afraid to run from a fight. A wound is a bad, bad thing when there's no safe place to heal, and no medicine cat to treat his injuries. He's also a liar to the extreme, and sees no reason to tell the truth if it could get him hurt. He doesn't lie for the sake of lying, but he'll lie to make a story more interesting, to cover his butt, or to save someone else. He's protective of his secrets, as they're one of the few thigs he has left.
Zack is a sarcastic, sassy cat. He has a sharp tongue, and he loves to mock others and rile them up if he thinks he can get away with it. Nicknames are a favorite of his, and he rarely uses another cats real name once he's settled on a fun nickname. To go along with his sarcasm, he loves to flirt. He rarely means his words, and if a cat was to truly express feelings for him he'd be absolutely baffled. Why would someone love him? It's a mystery.
Zack likes to goof off. Acting light hearted is a way to forget his situation. He's playful, sarcastic, and perfectly happy to play the rule of the fool if it means having fun. He mostly shows this light hearted side of his personality by playing with younger strays or teasing some of the more up-tight individuals. There's no use in moping every day, Zack thinks.
Zack values his freedom. This is, perhaps, the only reason he hasn't run off to be a kittypet. He is terrified of being trapped or being enclosed, and he never lets his guard around humans because of this. This is one of the many reasons for his hatred of clan cats. They have freedom, safety, and warmth. He's jealous. It's also the reason he won't join one, as the clans (aside from having attacked him once) have a rigid warrior code that he views as both unrealistic and confining. He'd rather follow his own beliefs rather then a buch of laws set by some dead cats.
Zack doesn't believe in Starclan, although he knows of its existence. Dead cats are dead. He doesn't think much of the clan cats for following the commandments of Starclan. Even if the dead cats are real, they're just cats. They don't know the difference to everything. After all, if they were so smart, they'd still be alive, right?
PAST
Not everyone is lucky enough to be born in the warm home of a twoleg, or the nursery of a clan.
Zack is one of those unfortunates, born as a nameless kit to a nameless stray. His mother saw little reason for names, taken only to calling her kits by the color of their fur or nicknames like 'Two-leg bait' and 'Dog food.' She had little hopes for her litter, merely expecting the pair to either die or be picked up by a soft-hearted two-leg.
His sister was grabbed by a twoleg before she was even weaned, taken into their home and raised by hand. She was dubbed Ghost, and he saw her only from the window of their home. He stayed with his mother, nameless except for the nicknames she gave him and the assignment of twolegs.
As the nameless kit grew, he became more crafty. He learned to steal food and where the best twolegs to beg from were. He also learned which humans to avoid and which to approach. He was given all sorts of names by the humans, most of them quite unpleasant. He adopted the name Zack after it was given to him by a particularly friendly twoleg kit.
At six moons, his mother chased him off. She didn't want to share her territory with her son, who she could no longer afford to feed. He saw her around a few more times, eventually with another litter following at her feet. Such was the life of a stray. Zack didn't hold it against her.
He grew confident and crafty, his own gutter king. As he established himself in the hierarchy of the town cats, he met his first winter. The tourism that had kept him fed for the rest of the year hit him hard, and he went to the woods in desperation.
Life on the streets had made him a good fighter at his young age, but he had learned little about hunting. Food had been easy to scavenge when there were tourists everywhere. He nearly starved to death in the woods, struggling to hunt and failing every time.
He ran into a Forestclan patrol. He had been naive and had gone to the other cats for help, only to be chased from the territory and injured. His pride hurt, he crawled off to lick his wounds. He managed to catch food eventually, and slowly taught himself to hunt enough to avoid starvation in the woods.
He returned to the town after that, a little more experienced and far more bitter. His experience had left him cold to clan cats and willing to manipulate them. They had everything, in his eyes. Freedom, food, shelter. They didn't deserve it, either.
As he grew older, he began to establish himself among the town cats. Zack wasn't the best fighter, but he was crafty and smart. He got back at his enemies in more underhanded way then a straight out fight, and he managed to make himself a few friends by helping out newly abandoned housepets with a few hunting tips.
He continued to travel between the forest and town, happily stealing from the clans if he needed to. At thirty moons, he has become an experienced alley cat and knows exactly how to survive on the streets.
OTHER Zack ranges between the town and forest depending on the season. During spring and fall, he is most likely found in the forest. During winter, he strays into the forest during the day but stays in the town at night. During summer, he stays in the town most of the time because of all the free food.