Post by Kanika Sef on Jul 30, 2008 23:21:04 GMT
~This is a drawing of Blue from Wolf's Rain and an excellent reference picture for Kanika. My description of Kanika reminded me of her, so here's the pic!
Name: Kanika Sef
~I pronounce the first name as con-ee-ka and the last is
just what it looks like.
Age: 23
Species: Shape-shifter
Profile: Kanika stands at a meager five foot one and is very slender, which means she tends to come across as delicate and harmless despite the inhuman true-gold shade of her eyes. Her hair is a glossy raven black that is great at reflecting any surrounding color. She keeps it short, not quite long enough to reach her chin when she leaves it alone, and she usually wears it in artful, seemingly windswept spikes. Her bright gold eyes are large and expressive, often feeding into her innocent appearance, her face is heart-shaped and her features are pixie-like in nature. Her skin looks tanned, even though she has never spent an hour in the sun, and adds to her exotic appearance.
She wears a richly hued sapphire blue blouse beneath a black linen jacket with a plunging v-neck. The jacket is buttoned up the front and, in addition, tied with a silk sash that is the exact shade of her shirt. Her matching skirt is knee-length and as black as the jacket but with lace fringing it's hem. She wears matte black thigh-high boots with reasonable (though slightly less fashionable) two-inch heels. A girl on the run has to be able to run, after all. Completing the ensemble is a silver ankh pendant on a long silver chain.
Other Forms (Optional): Kanika can shift into a black jackal that more closely resembles the stylized Egyptian Anubis (the animal version, not the humanoid one) than an actual wild jackal. Her structure in this form is much like her human one in that is very light and more useful in a sprint than a fight. Her legs are very long and very thin, her tail whip-like, her ears unnaturally long and tapered to narrowed points. In this form, her golden eyes glow and her greatest weapons are her pointed teeth and sharp claws which are formidable even if she doesn't have the brute strength to back them up.
Here is a link to a picture that portrays her jackal form rather well, for those of you who like to see a picture to go along with the description. The jackal at the bottom of the page is pretty accurate to my description. mearu.deviantart.com/art/The-Fine-Line-28307775
Weapons (Optional): For now, she carries only a simple dagger with a slender blade. It is perfectly balanced and it's hilt boasts a smooth, enameled design of brightly colored iaculi(winged serpents) but, while it's craftmanship is excellent, there is nothing magical about the blade. A trip to the Weapon's Hall just may be in order.
Magic (Optional): Kanika's magic doesn't seem to mimic any natural element. It takes the appearance of golden flame, but somehow fails to cast any light or give off any heat. The gold is more the color of her aura than anything, and when she is very stressed the flickering golden flames combust into a seething inferno of golden fire that becomes shot through with black. Because her magic is not elemental, she has no strengths or weaknesses when dealing with elemental creatures. The lack of crippling magical weaknesses is a good thing, but against an elemental of any power she has no real edge and she can be damaged by elemental attacks of any sort.
Her greatest strength, and the gift she fears more than death itself, is an ability to summon and manipulate demons. However, she lacks both the confidence and the desire to use this gift effectively and usually has to struggle to control even a lesser demon, let alone a powerful one. ((Just my way of saying that I have absolutely no intention of lording it over any of the demon members. This gift is, for the most part, just a part of her past and the future I have planned for her. Of course, anyone who would like to can play into it. ))
Personality: Kanika is...well, slightly unstable. While she is friendly and altruistic enough to behave foolishly at times, she is also very afraid of anything that looks demonic and very paranoid. Her run in with Xanthe (pronounced with a Z instead of an X), as told in her history, is the reason behind this quirk in her behavior. So, we have all the problems that crop up when a trusting, out-going girl who naively believes there is good in everyone lives through a traumatic childhood experience and learns that there are indeed monsters in this world and no one, except perhaps oneself, can save one from them. She has trouble making decisions when dealing with other people, because there are always two conflicting voices in her head, much like the proverbial angel and devil that sit on one's shoulders. Also, she has spent so much time trying to avoid discovery that her people skills are lacking and she does not always react appropriately. She just doesn't have sense enough to know what she can or can't say to people. Then there is her sense of guilt for accidentally killing her mother. She likes the company of other people, but doesn't want to make friends because she is afraid that she will bring misfortune to any potential companion.
But enough of what goes on behind the girl's ever-changing expression. Her behavior is not always true to what she is feeling. She tends to act confident and fierce when she feels afraid, so that whoever she is afraid of will not suspect that she believes herself incapable of her own self-defense. And when she trusts someone, she lets her fear, pain, and sorrow show in her eyes, believing with the foolish naiveness of a much younger girl that she need not fear betrayal. Fortunately for her, her sense of empathy is strong enough that she has never mistaken someone deceitful for a friend, but this streak of luck does not mean that she can not be fooled.
There is a lot more to my peculiar character, but I am fond of long posts and am always sure to describe the reasons behind nearly every action, so I shouldn't throw anyone for a loop.
History: Kanika's line of shape-shifters had roots in ancient Egypt. It is unknown whether they were followers of the Egyptian god of death, Anubis, or if their peculiar second form had simply been what inspired the Egyptians to assign their god that particular form. It matters little now, for even her parents, who had crossed to Midian from that alternate dimension, could remember little of this ancient heritage. Kanika remembers even less of this alien culture because her only link, her parents, never did tell her everything before they died. But she had been young at the time, and perhaps they had planned on telling her when she was older. Either way, she does not know how her parents had managed to cross into this realm, only that she was an alien in this place and will probably never meet someone who shares her lineage.
Kanika's own story began in the outskirts of Midian, where she was born. Her house was small but well-kept and in as safe a section of the city as could ever be found. Her parents, Fineas and Jamila, were kind and there was absolutely nothing amiss in her young life. She knew happiness and joy, learned to be compassionate and kind to those she met, and basically had a childhood that leaned dangerously close to perfect. Of course, there was always danger in the gothic city and she was taught caution along with everything else, but she was lucky enough to never need employ it. Her parents, unlike most, were devoted guardians.
However, when she was nine, the magic that had only just manifested itself in her began to prove unstable. Unlike the healthy golden auras of her parents, her own became veined with darkness whenever she exerted herself and she began to speak in the demon language to the lesser demons that began to seek her out. Her parents believed that the eternal darkness of Midian had corrupted their young daughters ability to control magic. Or rather, fed into it. Yet their love never faltered. They were not faint-hearted and would hardly reject their beloved daughter over such a trivial development.
Like all good things the relative peace and security that Kanika knew would not last. Fineas and Jamila had drawn the attention of some of the darker denizens of Midian. The couple were outspoken, passionate individuals and had a tendency to interfere with things that didn't concern them. Kanika would never discover just what it was that had prompted the ambush that occurred only a few weeks after she had turned eleven, but it hardly mattered for it was not the reason why that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
While they slept through a night much like any other, a dozen cloaked figures broke through the windows and doors of her house in a single synchronized moment that must have been planned and dragged the small family out of their beds and into the dark streets. Young Kanika was merely restrained, though this was little to be grateful for since there was nothing she could do to prevent what happened next. Her father, out-numbered and outmatched though Kanika had never seen him fight so fiercely, was soon beaten by his weapon-weilding adversaries into an unrecognizable mass of meat and bone. Even as her father fell, the remaining men proceeded to cripple and rape her proud mother, who, like her father, had never been one to go down without a fight. And Kanika could not so much as turn away as she stood paralyzed by fear, her mind having begun to fracture as she watched the only people she loved in this world die before her eyes. After only a few minutes that felt like an eternity in hell, Kanika snapped. Baring her teeth in a feral grimace, her aura flaming around her in a firestorm of black edged by sickly gold, she screamed, allowing the sound to carry all of her pain, rage, and horror into the never-ending night.
It was then that it happened. As her mother lay unconcious and Kanika lost herself in her rage, a rift was opened by her mounting power and a hoarde of demons slipped through the temporary portal. A massacre ensued, and everyone gathered in the street, even her mother, was viciously torn apart by the marauding demons.
When one of the ruling princes of hell came to determine the source of the dark call that had summoned the demons to Miridian, he found a weeping eleven year old girl amongst the wreckage. Kanika looked up at him and sobbed "Make them stop." Xanthe, for this is his name, did so. But he warned her, that should she ever call on him, or the demons of hell to aid her in the future, he would take her back to hell as his bride. For it is not often that a nondemon can speak the dark speech fluently and with such influence. Add to that gift a power great enough to tear holes between worlds and you have a creature who is irresistible as a pawn.
Kanika, however, desperately avoids this fate. She is far too afraid to ever dare summon a demon, even if her own survival is at stake, and rarely talks to the lesser demons that follow her around. Just in case. She is not incredibly fond of the malicious creatures so a lapse in conversation is hardly disappointing for her.
Kanika now spends more time as a jackal than a human, killing and eating what she can in order to survive and remaining as elusive as possible.