Taj

Promisemaker's OC. Infobox art drawn by GRW. All thanks and credit goes to her. Template:Character

## Appearance

(MAJOR WIP)

Rippling muscle and massive size may spark fear, but one glance into a gaze laden with peaceful wisdom, strange for one so young, is enough to soothe. Taj is a tiger of bulk and grace intertwined, a cat of physical power.

Soft, cloudy golden-orange fur sheaths powerful frame and broad shoulders, smooth strokes of dark, burnished tawny striping his pelt like streaks of rust. The warm colors slowly fade as they approach his belly, giving way to pure, niveous white. More milky white hair fringes his face, covers his muzzle, and circles his eyes. Yet more overlaps the fur on each of his ears, appearing as two stark white smudges among the darker russet fur.

His eyes are two round green pools of wisdom, pale and silvery. They are deep-set and liquid-looking, the white fur rimming them giving a masked impression.

His coat is smooth and thicker than that of an average tiger, neatly sliding over his sturdy, cumbersome build. His hefty paws and compact head appear too large for even his enormous size. His forelimbs are especially strong, heavy-boned and sinewy, and yet he still manages to move stealthily, undetected by prey or enemy.

His wings are long and flowing, the feathers dappled orange and white. The primary and secondary coverts are the same cloudy orange as his fur, the flight feathers as white as his paws.

## Personality

(MAJOR WIP)

Those who first look at Taj claim that his should be a soldier, fighting for the SwiftClaws and using his strength to its full pontential. But Taj has other ideas. As physically able as he is, his mind is nothing to scoff at, and however he may seem, he is not quite the most stoic of the Pack. The sight of blood or gore nauseates him, and there is occasionally vomiting involved. Or at least retching. Or violent quivering. Or just fainting. Or . . . well, you get the idea.

He is often called "cub-ish" by other SwiftClaws due to his sensitive streak, but unless there is violence involved, he can be quite a calm, placid cat, dependable and levelheaded. Taunts and insults don't bother him; he is, in that way, thick-skinned.

He is flexible, able to bend his plans and ideas as flaws are worked out. He knows that not everything with always go according to plan, so, even after perfecting Plan A in every way possible, he will be sure to construct one, two, or even three backup plans.

## History

Taj and brother Ta were born to Vitez and Kalcedon, two loners who thrived without any sort of Pack or Tribe. Vitez, a handsome orange bengal, fell in love with Kalcedon, a young, pretty, nearly-stripeless white tiger with blue eyes like two dewdrops of celestine and snowy white wings as downy-soft as velvet. She bore him two cubs, but died giving birth. Vitez was not shattered or broken by the death of his mate- there would be others, he told himself. And there were.

As for his cubs, Vitez quickly found them a shallow cave in which to shelter, hastily bestowed upon them names, and left to continue his life. This was a rare kindness, and few father tigers would have done the same- males take no part in rearing the offspring. Vitez called his sons Taj and Ta, meaning 'that' and 'this' in an ancient tiger-spoken language, nearly lost as the Packs had been established.

The cubs had nothing to eat, no mother to nurse, and the only nearby water was stagnant and too foul to drink. They wandered for an hour, yowling for their father, until finally their weak cries faded as their voices grew hoarse, and, exhausted, they stumbled back to their cave. The next day, most of their strength had drained, and they would have died had it not been for a complete stranger.

A slender Siberian arrived at the cave as the sun was creeping steadily above the horizon. But it was no coincidence that the newcomer, who called herself Majka, discovered them. The tigress herself had lost her two cubs, daughter Mraz and son Iskra. They had been taken by another tiger, starving and desperate, who had killed and consumed them as soon as he had escaped the mother. But she did not know this, and had yet to give up her search. She had followed the cub-scent, and even though she could detect the unfamiliarity of the smell, she determinedly forced herself to believe that it belonged to her own children.

When Majka realized the cubs did not belong to her, she turned to leave. But the fading whimpers of the cubs sparked her motherly nature, and she had milk to spare. She fed them and cared for them, taking them in as her own. As in every litter of tiger cubs, there was a dominant male. That male was Ta, bigger and bolder than his brother. However, the two got along quite well, as Taj was more than happy to let Ta lead their games.

When the cubs reached two years of age, Majka was nearly lost to the fearsome jaws of crocodiles while fighting for a piece of prey. Her legs were crushed, the bones broken and twisted at painful angles. She died of her wounds later that night, leaving Ta and Taj to fend for themselves.

But it was too soon, too soon. They still had six months before they were supposed to leave their adopted mother, and that half a year was an important time to grow and learn. Without Majka, they did not know what to do. Finally, after a sleepless night of gazing at Majka's awfully contorted body, Ta fixedly growled that he needed to leave. Taj stared after him as he left, muzzle set determinedly. He did not look back even once as he vanished from sight.

The next morning, Taj set in the same direction that Ta had disappeared, over a steppe. He did not care how his brother would react. They needed each other, whether Ta liked it or not. Taj told himself this, insisting it was true. He followed Ta's prints, faint imprints in the hard earth. Twice, he glimpsed the beady eyes of dholes following his movements. Dholes were no threat on their own, but a Pack could mean trouble. So when Taj heard the barking, he broke into a run.

The ugly yips and snarls of the red dogs filled the air. Taj burst through the tall grass just in time to see Ta go down, two dholes having buried their teeth in his neck. The rest of the Pack had savaged every inch of fur they could reach. Anguished, Taj chased them away, but not before snapping the neck of the Pack Leader. It was the first time he had killed something any larger than a grasshopper before.

And he hated it.

Grief and horror warred with fury as he pictured the dhole's amber eyes, stretched wide with fear, boring into his the moment he brought his massive paw down on its throat. Shock and fear choked him as the crack of the bone rang in his ears. But in a single moment the fury would return as he recalled the red-furred canine clinging to Ta, sharp teeth ripping through the soft flesh of his brother's neck. Every time he thought of Ta, broken and bent, eyes glassy with death, a gigantic fissure seemed to open up inside of him. He agonized over the skirmish for days, even after burying his brother to ensure the scavengers would never reach him.

Lonely and hollow, Taj trekked aimlessly, no particular location in mind, not caring as his ribs grew prominent beneath his fur and his power withered. He was half dead by the time he arrived in SwiftClaw territory. Here, he saw a chance to place his old life behind him and start a new one within the Pack. He offered them his loyalty, but even then he refused to take a Pack Name. He was Taj, and no other name would ever be his. With some reluctance, the Pack agreed to his decision and admitted him as an apprentice. He continues to serve them, teaching them everything he was taught: by Majka, by Ta, even by Vitez . . . but also by himself.

## Trivia

* As well as hemophobia(fear of blood), he also has dinophobia(fear of dizziness) and acrophobia(fear of heights), among other fears.

* He is based off of a golden tabby tiger his creator once sighted within a zoo, also named Taj.
* His name means "that".