Spectre

A mid-furred albino she-cat with pink eyes, sharp canines and a red collar

To some, Spectre is rather befitting to her name, light on her paws and lithe and light boned, helping her walk silently, like a ghost that moves eerily and quietly through the world. Her slim frame is about average size, if not a little smaller given the lack of sunlight she had experienced over her life faintly stunting her growth.

Spectre’s pelt is that of a pure, almost iridescent white, broken by a small scar on her chin from her own sharpened, protruding fangs due to a somewhat prominent overbite. The length of the fur is longer than the typical shorthaired cat, but nowhere near what would be considered longhaired. The hair is smooth and surprisingly, lacks the fraying that cats her age living in the wild might have. 

Her eyes narrow and piercing, have a deep reddish hue, overtop of a pigmentless, pale blue. The fur around her eyes, nose and ear tips are thinning, leaving small tiny tips of pink skin that are sensitive to the sunlight.

Additionally, Spectre wears a crimson red collar with a charm resembling a small coffin with a cross carved into it. The front of the collar bears bat-like wings made of the same velvet the collar is made from.

Spectre might generally be viewed as a smooth-talking, articulate and deeply perceptive she-cat. She likes to think she knows exactly what another cat wants to hear. In a crisis, she is relatively calm, smiling despite her surroundings falling into disarray. She possesses an intense, unwavering focus that could make whoever she is talking to feel like the only cat in her company.

But there is a fundamental ‘wrongness’ to her behavior that is atypical to the usual feline social convention. She might stare without blinking for a beat too long, speak in a perfectly level cadence even when furious, or show up beside another cat without making a sound. As is a part of how she had lived before stepping foot into Whitehart.

Spectre doesn’t really mind drastic weather changes like the cold, damp or especially dark. While other cats might huddle together or retreat to their own comfy homes, Spectre would prefer taking their own space, or sitting perfectly still in the pouring rain, unfazed. While most cats might twitch their whiskers or lash their tails when impatient, Spectre can remain so perfectly motionless that they almost look like a carving, right up until she strikes or speak. And even then, there may very well be no way to tell which comes first. She rarely lies outright. Instead, she likes to use riddles, metaphors, or literal truths framed in a way that is meant to mislead others, making her what some might consider a master of psychological manipulation.

Beneath the eerie-ness and charismatic mask, they generally have a calm attitude and will never outright ignore a cat in need. If there is a cat in need of her help, she will gladly be at their side for as long as needed, even if she is not able to shake the mask she wears so strongly.

• Born in the Moon of Long Nights (2019) 129

Kithood (0-5 Moons):

Like all kittens, the pale kitten was born blind and deaf, sucking up to her mother, Chalice, who was nursing her two brothers, who grew nameless alongside her. But as she grew more able to hear, she knew her brothers were being labeled as the tabby one and the smokey one. As they grew, the kittens changed from the label of ‘Chalice’s Blind-Born’ to ‘Chalice’s Sprouts’ and as the reddish hue brought itself to her eyes, the cats around her, of which she came to know as the Red Moon Colony, began to revere her, claiming that her eyes ‘carried the moon in them’.

From the beliefs that her mother had instilled in herself and her brothers, she knew that the Red Moon was a core part of their cultural standing, and even though she hadn’t seen one, or even been allowed out of the barn for several shadow-turns. But that simply meant she got to experience the rituals and rites of passage of the Colony by her mother’s side.

Adolescence (6-11 Moons):

When the pale one and her brothers came of an adequate age and stage of development without dying, they were all chosen to learn the ways of hunting and providing for their colony. The pale kit, for one, was elated to put her efforts into the survival and prosperity of the Colony that seemed to revere her very existance.

Instead of being given a mentor like the clan society, she was chosen to watch the Night Wardens, elite stalkers that were given the chance to fight and the ones with the sharpst of fangs, the cats that were even more respected than she had been as a kitten. She was told to watch them and mimic their movements as if they were her own. By the process of observation, she got to see the outside of the barn and the moon was just as beautiful as if had been told to her.

But one day, the Sun-Beast she had been told about in stories began to push the Moon away behind the clouds. And when she glanced curiously into its direction, her eyes began to burn. A brutal and terrible feeling that made her scream in agony. She rushed back to the barn, crying to her Colony-mates that the Sun-Beast tried to take her eyes. While any other cat would have been reprimanded harshly, the Eclipse, the colony’s head cat, told her that she was born with a very special gift, the gift of the Moon, that her eye would protect her and bring her great fortune as long as she stayed in the dark.

The pale one didn’t see anything misguided in his words, so she took his words to heart, allowing for the Moon-Eyes, the colony’s healers and seers to treat her stinging eyes.

Adulthood (12 Moons – Current):

The Filing Ceremony came quicker than the pale one had anticipated. With a large metal horse hoof filer, other Night Wardens painfully filed her canines into something sharp and vampiric. Despite the pain, the pale one never moved or yowled, she simply sat, these cats had been doing this for years before she was born, she had watches them, how carefully they did such a thing and with such organized, optimized, efficiency. She was honored to take the pain.

After her teeth were filed and her brothers, who had become stalkers, were given names, Her tabby brother was given the name Harrow, the black smokey brother was giver the name Tithe and she, the last of the litter, was called Moon. Her eyes sparkled at the opportunity and the name. The colony cheered, celebrating by gathering around the communal pool of red-water and drinking one after the other. She remembers this day fondly, the day she gained permanence.

While the shadow-turns that followed didn’t have any eventful days outside of the usual. A fateful day came to follow. Giant fleshy, hairless beast pulled open their barn doors with a savage roughness and began to take the Stalkers that had first offered peace, as if they could not understand their pleas, they continued to pull away and snatch the cats from their home. Night Wardens, Stalkers, and even Blood-Bearers (Queens).

Moon was one of the taken, and as they got dragged away from their home in a silver flattener (Car), all that Moon could hear were the distressed wails of her comrades, grieving in devastation at her loss.

It wasn’t long before another tall-walker (human) had taken her to a new barn, it was cleaner and smelt much less of the home she adored so dearly. But the tall-walker consistently began to call her by a new name, Spectre as well as clasp something strange around her neck, it was velvety with colors of black red and silver across it. At first, it was strange, distressing even, there were no offerings, no ceremonies, no rituals, just her and the tall-walker.

But that doesn’t mean she is unable to practice the ceremonies, it will just be done… elsewhere.

• The Raven and the Ghost (27SC'21)

• Spectre was born in the Red Moon Colony and will often refer to its practices in Roleplay
• A spare character slot has been brought for this Character