Kasumi Brightfang AKA Wolf

== "The dark must Cleanse itself or the light will burn us all" ==
== Appearance ==
==== Kasumi Brightfang - 'True skin' ====
Looks are more of a fluid state for a shapechanger of Kasumi's ability, taking on many forms as the need arises. The form she now uses most is that of her true skin, the one her parents and time have given her. In Her true skin she is a White Furred Kitsune, the colour fading to a mid-grey at the hands and feet as well as at the tips of her ears and her two bushy tails. Unlike many of her kind her facial features are much closer to that of a fox than a human, with a long snout ending in a black nose and a mouth full of carnivores teeth. Her amber eyes are bright and alert, always on the lookout for danger.
Her choice in clothing varies with the need of the alias she is currently using, but her preference is for baggy or comfortably loose loose clothes in pastel tones as to not clash too harshly with her white fur. The fact that baggy clothing lets her conceal a surprising amount of daggers on her person and the well fitted mithril links of her armour is merely a bonus.
==== Wolf - 'Vigilante persona' ====
Wolf is a very feral looking black furred kitsune with eyes of bright yellow and a single tail. Pairing the appearance with outer layers of black fur clothing lead many to mistake them for a Werewolf when they explode out from the shadows to attack. Few who get to see Wolf get to do so twice.
== Personality ==
The life she leads is a two-fold path, for a Vigilante must distance themselves from their home life in more than just appearance and as such she has two.
=== Kasumi Brightfang - Social identity ===
Kasumi is outgoing and friendly, taking any chance she can get to make to new friends and contacts. Her natural charisma lend itself well to the task and can easily adjust to fit in with the crowd. She is quick to help others, often taking risks and fronting costs to help her allies should the need arise. Being a social butterfly comes naturally to her and always makes a point of forming good relations with people in the area she is working. As generous as she is with friends, the opposite is true for whom she sees as a foe. One of her defining sayings is "Enemies come in two types; those who have been sufficiently dealt with and those who are still alive". Under all is a darker drive, one she hides and restrains, burying it away from the world.
=== Wolf - Vigilante Identity ===
Wolf is her darker side let loose and as such her personality changes to one quite different from the excitable woman she shows the world. Her interactions with others are much colder, preferring to use Wolf's reputation to scare information out of people instead of working to gain their trust and friendship. Wolf is quick to anger and ruthless when it comes to foes, usually ensuring there are no survivors left when she is done. Wolf is a killer and prefers to ensure a foe is truly dead before attacking the next, using the heartless murder to instill fear in the others.
== History ==
=== The early years ===
Kasumi was born in the spring of 4701 she never knew the exact day, her mother just referring to her as a Child of spring. She is also unsure of the exact location of her birth as she was born on the road as part of a travelers caravan. Her earliest memories put them traveling through Ustalav, the insular nature of the people meaning she was shut away much of the time. Only a few on the caravan knew what the two were, as her mother kept to human form and taught kasumi how to do the same when she was very young.
=== The Skin hunters ===
The troubles started soon after the caravan entered the bounds of Isger, A Catfolk man went missing one night as they camped in the woods, his body never being found never found. One of the hunters they met mentioning a bounty being offered for folk with unusual features, the night after a Tiefling was snatched from her tent without anyone hearing a thing. Knowing that friendship if fickle when lots of gold is involved, her mother took what they could and fled the caravan with kasumi after it set up in the small town of Umok. leaving on foot into the Chitterwood the next day, to try and throw off any trackers they both took on new faces.
=== Loss, vengeance and the birth of Wolf ===
Though both were accustomed to life on the road, neither were expert woodsman and the speed of their flight left them little in the way of provisions. Hiroaki, her mother grew sick a few days in, the cold and wet forcing them to take shelter in a thick grove and risk a fire. Kasumi had to hunt food for them both, using her fox form to bring down hare and rabbits and bring fresh water as her mother tried to fight the fever.
It was while out on one such hunt that it happened, the hunters they had been fleeing for longer than Kasumi knew had found them. She returned to their improvised camp to find the body of her mother, skinned and missing her tails. Something changed in her at the sight, the sudden loss and brutality of it fueling the fires of vengeance that still burn in her today. She had been a good tracker as a fox and the stink of these humans filled the place her mother had died.
It took her two days to catch up with them, a camp of their own nearly all the way back to the town. The three men were celebrating a hunt which would bring them much coin and were well into there cups when she found them. Waiting and watching until long after dark, kasumi crept into the camp once all three had drunk them selves into sleep; killing each with a small dagger that was her mothers. The deaths did not end with them, notes and a map in one of their packs led to another camp and from there to a tanner who would preserve the illegal pelts for them.
She traced the it all the way back to the collector who had paid for her mothers murder, feeding her hunger for vengeance with their lives. But the empty space in her heart was not filled, leaving blackness that would only be driven back for a time by taking a life. A side of her she had to let out, least it turn its fangs inward.
=== School of hard knocks ===
Growing as an orphan who could not show her own face in fear of the hunters from her past was not kind. More than once having to let the Wolf in her free to save her from unwanted attention. Getting in with a street gang for a time and learning blade skills and the art of pickpocketing from them before moving on when rumors of Wolf started gaining attention. Each time moving further south and east or wherever a caravan would take her in exchange for work.
=== Crew for hire ===
In her late teens her finesse in defending a caravan from bandits got the attention of a mercenary group she shared the trip with. The Captain of which offered her the chance at training and real employment for the first time. It was at their ship in the port of Cassomir that she met someone who would become their first real friend and the first Kitsune she had seen since the death of her mother.
Edem Vedur was a swords-woman of great skill and carried herself with the grace she had only seen in those of Noble blood. Opening up to her about who she really was, Kasumi found not only a friend, but someone who she saw as the big sister she never had. Edem kept her word and did not let the others know Kas was not the human she appeared to be, teaching her the ropes of Company life and how to fight as part of a unit.
=== A company broken ===
It was nearly Six months after joining that lady luck decided it was time to call in her dues and end Kasumi's good run. The company was hired to help one side of a border skirmish between Taldor and Qudira, the plan being to use their ship to land on the banks of a thick woodland before taking the crossings defenders in the flank. But something leaked and they were ambushed as soon as the first people set foot on land by archers hidden in the woods, two of the company being taken prisoner by the enemy in the withdraw. Falling back to heal their injured, the captain dropped them off to make landfall at a neutral port further down the coast and march over land to aid in the battle to come.
Either by a spy in their ranks or by unseen magic the enemy found them again, this time camped too far away from the coast to retreat and their commander ordered them to scatter and make best their escape. Edem and herself managing to slip away in the confusion under the guise of injured attackers retreating. It did not last long and they were both cornered in a thicker area of forest. At the time Kasumi thought Edem had died in the fighting, her friend using a fire bomb to cut the enemy off from her and turn to make a last stand. An injury her friend had taken from an arrow was slowing her to the point those following them would run them to ground soon. Already grieving at her friends death, Kas took on her fox form and fled deeper into the forest.
=== Hell on the high seas ===
Kasumi was not the biggest fan of boats at the best of times, but fleeing the area as quickly as possible gave her little option. With the little coin she had left she managed to buy passage on a merchant ship going from Katheer to Absalom, only affording a hammock birth and basic rations for the three week trip. Already feeling sick from stress and the swaying of the ship, they were caught in a freak storm and nearly sunk. She hardly kept a thing down all trip, doing little more than sleep, vomit and feel sorry for herself for the whole trip. She had only planned to use the great capitol as a stepping stone in her travels, but this trip would firmly fix her feet on dry land.
== City Life ==
=== A home and a hunt ===
It did not take kasumi long to find her way to the slum district known as The Puddles, with no money to her name and most of her skills and experience pointing to the seedier side of life it was no long before she got in with one of the gangs as a look out and thief. As her experience grew she made a name for herself as a Finder and Fixer, leaving the gang when they started to ask too much of her, discarding the face she had shown them like a regular person would throw away worn out clothes. Eventually settling into an abandoned warehouse down by the waterfront and from there would seek out the real scumbag gang members making life hell for those unfortunate enough to be stuck here and let Wolf out to play.
=== Love and War ===
On the day before the great invasion, kasumi had walked among the people of the city in her true skin for the first time. Nervously drinking outside a tavern in Westgate she was approached by a man she took for a beggar at first, scruffy and looking lost. After talking he was much more competent than he seemed and something about him made her trust him. fighting the gangs had been getting too much to cope with alone, so decided to risk letting him into her confidence.
After passing a few test she set and talking long into the evening, that trust had grown into something more she invited him to stay. Craig was far more than the down on his luck beggar she had taken him for, she had hoped for a partner in the field but found a lover she didn't know she needed.
The next morning he shook her awake, the loud clanking of the cities alarm bells sounding and the far echo of war horns rolling to her now alert ears. The morning after their first night together was the invasion of Absalom and the enemy was all ready landing its troops by the time they made a break out of the puddles.
=== Blood and Scars ===
The pair grabbed her small stash of weapons and anything useful she could cram into the bags she had. Dumping the spare weapons with another group of survivors, Craig and herself made it to Westgate and watched as the wards on the great gate began to fail. A block from the gate was an aid station where troops and townspeople alike were being treated, many of which could not be moved. It was here the pair took a stand with several others trying to keep the hoard of invaders away from those too weak to defend themselves.