Name: Toph
Age: One & A Half Summers.
Gender: Female
Appearance: Hue. Her hue is shattered and splintered with uncountable amounts of different shades of grays. Her primary color is dusky black, like on a dark night with fog and only a pale moon to support it and give it light to creep across. In light you can see all the slashes and jaggedness of the ash that crawls along her form. In the shade she simply looks a drab gray-black. The only constant notice with her is the small ash colored circles around her orbs. When she was a pup they were completely white and covered most of her face, but darker prominent grays took over, leaving a small ashy ring surrounding her orbs. She has a white spot on her right pillar, and a silver streak down her prominently marked pillar. She is often remarked as oddly marked, and oddly colored, not that she has ever seen herself. The pup was born blind. Her orbs are pale sea foam green, a translucent film covering them. The oddity of her pelt should be enough but she had been blasphemed with the distraught of blindness as well. It certainly has brought her no good.
Stature. She is strong and muscular, though not very so. Average would most likely fit her. She wouldn’t be cast out of a fight instantly by any means. She has a rather up-front bulky looking appearance, but when second looks are taken, it can be seen mostly as simply the ruff of her coat on her haunches and shoulders. When laying and serene she looks thin and trim. Her paws are very sensitive, seeing as they are her way of seeing around the terra, not her orbs. Her nose flares often when she is distressed, and is the main way to sense her stress, but it is also sensitive. It is very true in her case that her other senses developed highly for the lack of sight. Along with the first impression of her dusky coat, to see her orbs are a startling sight. They are always open, except when she blinks and sleeps of course, but they simply stare straight ahead, sometimes moving side to side when her auds do, but normally simply staring ahead to see nothing. Some find it chilling to stare into her orbs, but it could bother her less. It’s not like she can be freaked out by such.
Personality: She’s still young, but is very independent. She had been confined to the inside of her pack, but with her rebellious and freedom searching mind she ran away. She is a bit arrogant and sarcastic, never really thinking about how her speech will affect others. She normally speaks out angrily and rashly, rarely feeling sympathy when her words are too harsh to others. When she’s known someone long enough she will lower her guard a bit and show a brighter side at times. Being blind and being able to see nothing has shielded her from most of life’s greatest opportunities. She doesn’t like those who judge her quickly as insignificant or as a weakling due to her age and disability.
Her blindness often is nothing more than an inconvenience, and she doesn’t judge it as a completely life altering role. Since she never has been able to see, she can’t imagine what it would be like, but knows from others how it might be, but colors mean nothing to her, only shapes and textures. She sometimes jokes sarcastically about her blindness, like once when her younger brother and her had been stuck in a burrow he commented, “Oh it’s so dark I can’t see a thing!” “Oh, what a nightmare.” Toph had commented back. She often wears a straight face, appearing a statue except when moving, but as often wears a coy smile simply showing her pleasure in her own thoughts and dark world. It seems a bleak outlook to her life, but she lives it and isn’t miserable.
History: Toph was the first born in a weak litter of three. The year of their birth had been the year of the famine. Her mother, Tolla, had been sickly thin, except her stomach sagging down from her pups. Occasional scraps were brought to her, and she had to walk to get her own water, almost a mile away. One day when Tolla was trying to walk down the embankment, which grew steeper every day due to the lack of water, she slipped and fell upon a log on her stomach. She bled a little for the following two days, and almost passed away herself. Her mate, Zolo, traveled miles a week searching for food to bring his dying mates and pups. He rarely succeeded, and was dying himself of the famine. When Toph was finally brought into the world, it wasn’t a good time. Her mother barely made it through the birthing, and her brother, Teffer, was weak and sickly, barely able to walk. The last pup was still born. None were named at the time. The parents had decided form the beginning to wait until the end of the famine in case one of the pups happened to pass away.
The first few weeks of Toph’s life was a roller coaster. Of course pups are blind for six months anyway, so they can’t be aware of anything, and are basically helpless until they are able to begin to walk around and learn things. Toph was not aware of the many things that were changing around her in her life. A pack a few miles away was on a raid for the famine, scavenging anything and everything they could form other packs. They came across Tolla and Zolo’s burrow, where they went down only twice. Once to grab both of the pups roughly by the scruffs and bring them to the top of the burrow. They weren’t making too much racket, they were sickly pups. The other trip to bring the barely living mother to the top. The raid consisted of three males and a female. They instantly killed the mother, and proceeding in their first meal of the week. The two pups lay limply in the dead grass, not hearing or seeing anything. They were only three weeks old.
After their mother was nothing more than bones laying the grass, their father came. He had a single half of a rabbit in his jaws. His sight was pitiful, he looked almost worse than Tolla. He had just enough energy to try to search around for food for his mate and pups. The rabbit dropped form his jaws as he saw the remains of his mate, and his stilled pups. He stared with dread at the four raiders. He barely put up a fight as they came at him, seeming to embrace the speeded death that had evaded his family for so long and had finally come swiftly. The smallest radier, but the strongest looking of them all snarled and pushed away all the others. “This to the pack!” He cried, and suddenly Toph whimpered lazily, hunger starving at her innocent skinny belly. The raiders looked at the pups with regained interest and hunger and started toward them. The fae snarled with all the venomous hate of a mother and stood over them. “They are pups! They will live if allowed. They will be given to Peagan. She miscarried only a week ago and is still running with milk. They will become honored members of our dying pack.” The fae croaked out. The males looked at her only breifly then turned and ran off the way they came, leaving her with the task of handling the pups she claimed. The fae picked the skinny bundles up and trotted off with her prize, following the small blood trail led by their father.
By the time Toph had opened her eyes three weeks later, the serious heat seemed to die away, and rain began coming in great spurts of promising storms. Now she could hear, though she understood nothing, but she still could not see, and ran into everything as often as when she had her orbs closed. The elder of the pack frowned down upon her as a bad omen and begged her death. It was denied four times by the Alphess alone. The Alpha did not care. He didn’t like either of the pups. Both from sickly parents whom we had been reduced to eat ourselves in the worst of the famines, and one now is blind it seems and the other cannot walk properly. At three months, Toph began slowly understanding the adults, and learned much. Most bad for herself. She was often shoved by the other brutes in the pack, claimed as outcast. Her only support was her brother Toffer and, occasionally, from the raider who had saved them form death that day. The maiden of the pack who had fed the pups despised them as weaklings, and for their ability to survive when her own litter died inside her.
At the fourth month of her life, Toph had learned to walk, and had learned all the members of the pack by scent and voice and the vibrations on the ground they sent from their size. The raider that protected her form the harsh violence of the pack was Kemp. The small angry raider, and strongest member of the pack, even above the Alpha, was Thon. Then came Skelt and Tenner, the other raiders. Then the hunters Hunn and Ferr. The elder and maiden, Keiser and Demis. Then the Alpha and Alphess, Zerrish and Suki. Toph and Teffer were given names at their third month of living, both named after the rumored name of their mother, which differed. Such a weak morsel should have her weakling pups named after her. Toph had growled during the entire sermon of her calling as the Alpha paraded around her and Teffer, telling the story of their life and how they came to be. It was humiliating, and every wolf but Kemp and Suki laughed at least once. Both faes were kinder spirited than the pack. The pack was not bad, but they were strong and did not tolerate weaklings. The only reason Toph and Teffer were here was because so many had been wiped out in the famine. They had fared better than most packs, but they were reduced greatly.
Now Toph and Teffer were well fed, even though they were last fed. It was more than they ever had. A pups life should be easy suckling from a mother, they never had that. They were given nothing in the beginning little in the middle then weaned at the beginning of the end. Meat came next, and after only a week it was their new food. And it was good. Toph could not see what she ate, but knew it was tender and warm and plentiful. Teffer described things to her often, like told her such and such was this color or this. Toph got tired of hearing about colors and not being able to imagine it, so she bit him and told him to tell her what it looked like shape and texture wise. And he did so happily. He talked very slowly, and dragged behind when he and Toph went walking around the packlands. It wasn’t bad for Toph because she didn’t want to get far away from the dens anyway. Toph, still a young pup, could not really grasp how weak Teffer really was, and didn’t understand that in the end, when he no longer wanted to play outside or tell her stories of what things looked like, that he was dying again. The maiden and dler tried hard to cure him, she knew this. They didn’t like him, but he was crucial to the pack that was still idling after it lost Ferr the hunter in an accident where a five point buck kicked and broke open his skull. But after only three weeks Teffer was dead as well.
Now Toph had no one. This she grasped fully, and was devastated by it. Sometimes the Alphess took her for long walks and explained things of life to her, especially on days when she noticed the brutes of the pack knocking her around a lot and kicking dust into her face. Toph’s best advice from Suki was, “Life is cruel. It always has been and always will be. Everything dies. Most die horribly. If you can’t be happy with one day, how will you be happy another?” She had asked. Toph didn’t have an answer. “You won’t,” Suki responded quietly. “If you don’t find a reason today to live for, then you need to go and die. I have one. So Toph, you must find a reason now that you are here. Otherwise, you must leave.” Suki had licked her on the head and then lead her back to the dens, where Toph sulked inside for a day thinking of the answer to the question. She had been denied food that night because of penance of doing nothing that day but trouble, when she had done nothing. But she wasn’t hungry. The next time she and Suki went for a walk, Toph said, “I am here because I must carry what’s left of my family. They are all gone except me. I am strongest in ways better than sight. I can see my family in my mind and carry their needs through my life. That is why I am here.” Suki hummed in thought and then licked her crania. “Toph, you are a smart fae. You will live life to the fullest. Remember to remember your purpose in life. If you forget one day, you won’t make it the next.” Then Suki left, and had Toph find her own way back. Toph had no trouble. Suki and Toph were proud.
“Hey bat! Watch your left!” Toph had turned left quickly to try to hear what was wrong, and a body slammed into her right side, knocking her down roughly on the ground. Skelt and Tenner. Here for their daily beating. Toph got up slowly and crouched, trying to feel and listen and smell where they were. “Oooohhh. See Tenner! See Tenner! Bat is trying something new! She can since us with her bat powers!” The two snickered and came at her from either side. She flung herself down and snapped at the air repetitively, growling triumphantly when she felt a paw snatched between her teeth. She closed sharp and bit hard, shaking twice and letting go. She sat down with the largest grin of triumph as she heard the yelps and retreating footsteps.
That next day she was informed from Suki of her expulsion from the pack. Toph was panic stricken. There was no way she could survive. She was only eight months old, had never hunted in her life, could not see, and had no where to go and no one to go to. Suki gave her random reasoning from Zerrish why she was expulsed. For attacking a fellow member, inability to provide for the pack...and other things. Toph was sniffling quietly, thinking of what she would do. As she heard Suki turn and leave she heard she say, “Remember what you have to live for. Good luck Toph.” Then Suki was gone, and Toph was alone on the border of the packlands. She sat there most of the day, suddenly very scared and lonely and hungry. She was begging even for Skelt or Tenner to come back. She’d let them bully her forever if she could have a pack to help her live. She didn’t see how she could live without a pack. She shivered on the border, and then shakily got to the pads and turned slowly away and began walking. She listened to the wind whistle in front of her, and learned not to hit the moving branches in front of her. She also learned to take deep breaths when moving through under bush so she could hear if anything was in front of her where she wouldn’t hit it, and she half dragged her front pads so she wouldn’t make noise on the forest floor. Stealth was her secret to life.
If she couldn’t see, then it was imperative that no one see her or hear her. That was why she trained herself until even she herself had to struggle to hear herself. The next four months of her life she lost a lot of weight that had been easy to carry in the pack life. Now she only ate what she found on the ground. Toph also followed hunting parties, waiting until the hunters had left the remains of the food, and then Toph would eat every thing left, carrying bones with her long the way to chew.
Soon her new solitary way of life was near perfection for her. She ate enough, and her body had become accustomed to the intake of food she got, so she was no longer starved, and she grew in her skills of life. She has been traveling alone for a year, and is now on the lands of Soul of the Wild. Her first task, to observe all the lands. All are new and there are many packs in one great area. After she’s studied all, she’ll see if any are for her, or if she must start her travels again.