Khalua

Kondore and Karoe (Brothers, NPCs)

## Application Sheet

Khalua was a reddish-brown she-wolf with creamy-gray markings on her mane and forelegs. She was a Vanguard in Fellfang, who left briefly only to return, knowing her heart was in Fellfang - and with Ian, who'd become her mate. Khalua briefly had a familiar named Ka'hir, but he did not return with her to the Domain. Her story is ongoing. Khalua was created and RP'd by Aekaitz.

## Personality

* ***Dedicated, Stubborn, and Loyal.*** There are few souls who possess such unwavering dedication as does Khalua. Once her mind is wrapped around a task, a belief, or a goal, there is practically nothing that can separate her from it. Like a tree with endless, winding roots reaching deep into the crust of the earth, she is stubborn, unmoving, and steadfast, weathering wind and storm with reckless abandon. Alongside this, she is loyal to a fault, going to unfathomable extremes to protect and serve anyone who earns her trust, respect, and love, even to the detriment of self-preservation.
* ***Intensely Emotional.*** She is certainly an emotional being, often falling victim to fits of depression and anxiety caused by an array of personal traumas she has experienced through her life. It is all too familiar territory for the stout female, and she often can come off as quite detached from reality. This is a coping mechanism she likely developed in her years as a hired killer, in order for her psyche to continue to function somewhat normally. Lua experiences very intense emotions in general, and mixed with her poor emotional intelligence, she can be considerably unpredictable. Her anger is volatile and vicious, her sadness is as gaping as the ocean is deep, her joy as brilliant as a clear summer’s day. She is also susceptible to mania, and harbors a very addictive personality that manifests in her workaholic nature.
* ***Sarcastic and Dry-Humored.*** The gray-maned she-wolf is very fond of sarcasm, employing it in almost any situation she deems fit, and her own particular brand of dark humor that can be somewhat off putting to the unaware. Perhaps it is another coping mechanism, or perhaps she likes the reactions such humor gleans, no one is really sure. Lua is often self-deprecating, though it's hard to tell whether it is meant as a joke or a statement (perhaps both?). These traits are also a side-effect of her often pessimistic outlook on life.
* ***Self-Assured and Proud.*** In what seems like a strange clash of personality traits, the she-wolf is actually very sure of herself when it comes to physical ability and skill. She is an incredibly apt fighter and she knows it, delighting in winning various spars with her brutish strength and tactics. She can be known to draw out a spar or battle longer just to delight in the rush she gets from it. When in a particularly good mood, she can be very vocal with her pride, while in the next breath finding a way to put herself down while laughing, lending to her unpredictable nature.
* ***Spiritual.*** Strangely, though she is often described as quite blatantly realistic and blunt, Khalua is an intensely spiritual wolf. She finds it very stupid to not believe, when the signs of the spiritual and supernatural are all around them. Fellfang’s customs planted the seed of this, and her eventual visions, dreams, and run-ins with fate fostered it. Khalua does not talk about any of her spiritual experiences and enlightenments, though, except with very close friends. Despite her unwavering belief in the spiritual, she worries that others will find her to be weaker for it.

## Pre-Group History

Everything was so...deceivingly ordinary at first.

Born beneath a gnarled, ancient tree in the middle of a beautiful oasis were three wolf pups, a chocolate and ash female and her two brothers, all three nestled into the silken fur of their sleeping mother. Watching over them was their proud, strong father. The girl was named Khalua; a family name, according to the mother, and the boys named Karoe and Kondore, respectively. For the first weeks, everything was perfect, before the hair-thin threads that held them together began to unravel.

They were head over heels for each other, or so her father thought. Roque was a burly bear of a lone wolf, a handsome fellow with a heart of gold, but a twinge too much trust. From the moment he laid his striking icy eyes on Kascha, he knew he was in love. The lithe, fox-like form and silky fur beset with eyes like deep green seaglass, and the singsong-y voice with the barely discernable rasp. The silent, graceful weave of her movements. She was a lone wolf, a dispersal from the mysterious northern pack she called Fellfang, who had traveled south in search of her own life. And Kascha fell for him, too. Their romance was quick and fiery, and Roque was completely enraptured by what he thought was his once in a lifetime connection, his soul’s mate.

But Kascha was not a lone wolf at all, and most of the words that fell from her dangerous lips were nothing but sugar sweet lies.

All too soon her attention span for her little family waned. When Roque was not there, the enthusiastic and doting mother became a quiet, distant entity, with a patricular distaste for the Khalua that only grew with time. Between feedings, while Roque hunted, she would slip from the den without a word, not returning until the next evening to feed the three pups again. He would return to a den with three shivering pups and a mate nowhere to be found, often confused, but forever trusting that perhaps motherhood was difficult and she needed frequent escapes to refresh her self.

Eventually, the disappearances weighed on his soul, and one night he decided to follow her. Silently, he traced her footsteps, just out of listening range, and eventually discovered he was stepping foot across the boundaries of a local pack’s territories. He called out to her, and the argument shook the forest. Kascha was the alpha female, and Roque was just a fling. The yelling alerted the pack, and Khalua, the one pup out of the three who was still awake, wobbled from the den to hear the commotion in the distance. When her father returned, he did not speak a word, but as she grew with her mother nowhere in sight, she began to understand.

One cold night days later, her brothers disappeared, too. And then they were alone.

Her connection and love with her father was strong, and as she grew and learned, it grew. Under his guiding paw, she grew and flourished, and though her looks matched her mothers, her strength and might matched her father’s. She was always a stocky wolf, and other than a short gangly stage as a juvenile, she remained that way. And then her father fell ill.

Lua had always been hit or miss at catching prey, and once her father’s expert hunting skills were no longer in play, she knew she had to provide for him herself. She tried, she really did, catching enough small prey to keep the two of them alive, but quickly realised that they were both deteriorating without proper nutrition, and her father only got sicker.

Perhaps it was the broken heart.

Desperate to keep her father alive, she turned to a different tactic. Despite her inability to hunt prey, she found she was very good at hunting wolves. And so, slowly, she began taking tasks to kill targets in exchange for high quality carcasses for her and her father. And she was good at it.

Khalua had always been very realistic, tactical, and methodical. She could tail a wolf for days on end, learning their habits and daily tasks, learning their vulnerable spots, and removing them without so much as a whine. At first, this was all out of necessity. But as her skill grew, and her mountain of accolades were piled, she began to like it.

Wolves across the terrirtories began seeking her out, and then packs began to approach her. She knew she had changed, and was no longer the somber father’s girl she had been, and a small part of her wondered if Roque would resent her if he knew what she had done. If he ever regained a normal amount of coherence.

That day would never come, however.

She became the talk of the whole forest and beyond, her story even reaching out to some of the Domain’s packs through word of mouth. She was known as Hell’s Fog – very few even knew what she looked like, only where she resided. She had ties with a flock of blackbirds who would deliver messages for her when the deed was done and where to leave her payment. She kept her father well fed with her profession and managed to keep him hidden in a separate den so that he would remain untouched by her dark deeds. This continued for many years, causing her to become very detached and distant, and very unemotional.

She was then tasked to kill the alpha female of a rival pack for a large amount of game that would keep her father well fed for a few weeks, if not more. Motivated by her strong connection to her father, and admittedly her taste for blood, she set out in the dead of night a week later. She watched the pack closely for patterns, calculated her approach carefully, and mapped out all the routes the tawny she-wolf took for two weeks straight. Something smelled awfully familiar though…

Nevertheless, the night came very soon for her to carry out the deed. She cornered the wolf on her weekly walk around the perimeter of the pack’s territory, silently taking the wolf to the ground and pressing her large paws at the base of her throat to prevent sound from escaping. The she-wolf looked mortified, and struggled until Khalua let her pressure up just enough for her to speak.

**“Khalua…”** the wolf had whispered hoarsely. Khalua’s amber eyes flew open in pure shock. How did this wolf know her?

Suddenly the last two weeks came flooding through her mind. The familiar scents, the familiar voices…

This wolf was her mother. She had left them all those years ago, alone, and vulnerable.

The few seconds of bewildered hesitation was enough for her mother to escape from her vice like grip and let out a terrified howl to her pack and mate. Shaken from her mental prison, Khalua bolted after her mother, determined to finish the deed she had set out to do, especially to the wolf who had torn her family apart. She tackled her to the ground again, wincing at the familiar cry that emitted from her mouth. The she-wolf clamped her jaws frantically on the first thing she could find - Khalua's right ear. She shook her head to try and cause enough pain to pull Khalua off of her - but Khalua was seeing red. She broke free, her ear torn and the cartilage broken beyond repair. She placed her jaws around her mother's throat and viciously pulled, just in time for the top supervisors to see her murder their alpha female.

They chased her, and in an attempt to throw them off, she led them in a large circle and then swam across a vast lake to throw them off of her scent. It wasn’t until she discovered her father dead that she knew they had traced her scent back to her den, and then his.

Horrified, she vowed to never enact another kill for hire again. Her actions had lead to the death of her beloved father, and she would never put anyone she cared about in danger again. She dismissed her flock of birds and escaped that night, making the journey as far north as she could go. One word had lingered in her head from her early puphood, and though it had been laced with a lie then, she subconsciously followed it. Fellfang.

## Trivia

* Khalua was the **Winter 2020 Character of the Season!**
* She has other scars from the incident with her mother around the right side of her neck - but most have been covered by her thick pelt over time.
* She walks with a slight limp on her back left leg that is only noticeable at slow speeds. Another lingering injury from her kill for hire years.
* One of her canines is slightly too long and sticks out of her lip, effectively giving her a snaggletooth.
* The fur on the back of her neck and head is very wispy and feathery - along with on her front legs, tail, and cheeks. The rest of her fur is very heavy, thick, and curly, especially on her chest.

## External Links

* Official Application Sheet
* Aekaitz's deviantART Gallery