ππππππππππ.
A mortal countenance struggles to contain a wailing beast within flesh and bone, the soul warped profoundly within tendrils of history and painted within leagues of misfortune, dread, and wrath. A glamour shrouds thick upon lithesome shoulders and delicate ministrations; slumberous, almost cumbersome and fog-minded actions that inspire fragile misconceptions. Beneath the wavering forgery rests snarling words and fangs stained with perpetual taint and rouge undertones, and claws that curl in anger and bleed heavy around mortal fingers that ache in their quivering intent. Whether one comes to view phosphorescent eyes that glow madly within the gloom or hooded pools that are reminiscent of soil, it's little concern, for in either stance it is impossible to veil the truth of the soul within such visions. With a name stricken from records and forbade to be spoken of aloud -- for such a tongue heralds lightning and shadow -- and forms that beget caution in either skin, Fei is the sole representative of misconstrued hounds that often patrol the Crossroads and predetermine misfortune in either realm.
Alternative in dress and mannerisms, Fei is heavily adorned in ink; spawning over the length of her body in faded lines and thick patterns; scrawling penmanship displayed upon her torso and looped around her thighs; illustrations of demonic portraits over her spine and breast and skull winged insects and snarling canines betwixt them. Liken to the fur of the beast in the night, ebony tresses fall thickly down her nape, curled against her backside with minimal upkeep required, as such is usually fastened lopsided into a chaotic twist on her crown. In par with her truer form, her mortal facade remains at a constant, adaptive only slight to the wiles of time endured, her general ambiance conditioned to interchanging fashions despite the eternal glow that rests within her eyes. Slivers of moonlight will reflect off of her stare, glistening an ethereal white usually within the depressing gloom of night where a growl glides against her usual whispers.
Fei's truer form -- as either fur or flesh is a direct profile -- is several lengths tall and long, dwarfing common canines with a mouth riddled obscenely with bone should she pry open her jowls. Ink like fur wisps lazily within an unseen wind unless effectively glamoured, wherein mortal and untrained eyes witness an uncommonly large dog lurking through the alley ways and vanishing into shadow.
πππππ / ππππππ
A chilling quiver down the breadth of one's spine foretells immediate misfortune, these victims stricken with the illness of not knowing of what may come to pass. This is a universal infliction Fei is infamous for under the guise of her bestial counterpart, coupled with a cursed bark that coils thick in the air and writhing, and a baying howl that sounds eternally within the minds of those close to Death. Her capabilities are subdued when bound in flesh, though her effect is no less ominous by touch and glances alone. Black dogs, as Guardians of the Crossroad or prowlers of cursed grounds, are substantially strong and agile, fleeting among the dark and known to leap to and fro, taunting, never quite attacking but never fleeing from those that would do them harm. As if baiting them to their ends until the sun rises. Malevolent inclinations have been described in the years past, and those are told to bear a bite of burning pain or frigid agony, the sensation marking their prey for all the years to come so long as they live.
Let it be noted that one cannot be turned into a grim, but that they are simply born. Unlike their lunar compelled cousins, black dogs are not the product of curses and rage, though it is still unclear of how they come to be.
Fei herself possess all the agility of her birth rite in either form, and her senses keen and sharp, wicked and graceful with only the slightest of mortal hindrances found when she forgoes shifting into a shuck. Stories utter the pattern of lightning storms among the oldest of dogs and strongest of the blood. Fabricated dressings and embellishments tell of Fei being clairvoyant and burdened by slight premonitions in her long life, a cursed blessing from her past. Such truths though have not been tested, and remain hidden, for the better.
ππππππππππ
Past will dictate the summoning of a hellish creature festooned with death as a trinket of yellow-marrow and heavy jowls on cries of woe and sheer misery. Thus with this guise and rouse of inhumane birth, canines of demented misfortune and fate prowl under shadow and ruin with an incarnation of Evil cantering eagerly within their shells and banked heavy on their claws. Fei's birth was twisted and malformed, better part of an eerie beginning that saw the babe born from a black dog in the corner of an abandoned church, a curse -- an abomination -- and such a slur rested on the breaths of those that witnessed. In the following years since the appearance of the black shuck during the 1500's in Suffolk, many had feared the appearance of black canines in their towns and homes. Thus churches had taken to burying them -- alive -- within their grounds to ward off the wrathful hound from appearing in the grave yards, feasting on those recently lain. Such was done years after, under the pretenses of protection, and remains to this day in some countries, thus the term church grim was coined when places of worship adopted this practice as well.
Fei's memory effectively wanes after her birth, muddled and dark, spiteful and bridled with doom whenever she reflects and broods, such could be curse of her own birth and existence, but she claims to be unknowing either way. It such is the truth, however, it is difficult to discern.
However many stories follow her wake and those of her kith and kin, most damning, though such are often warped under folklore and myth. Such pertain to the following of a squire known as Richard Cabell whom sold his soul to a black shuck on a moonless night, said to be in exchange for their power in the hunt of his enemies and lords. In his passing, black hounds surrounded his chambers and feasted upon his remains.
To this day, many are said to lurk around his burial chambers.
Across England many ill wanted dogs suddenly appeared around this time, haunting after mortals and striking fear within their hearts and minds, christening their appearances as omens of death and decay.
Some speculated that, even though one of the first hounds publicly seen -- with glowing eyes of hellfire -- was two hundred years after the Black Death crisis, that such a creature stood high above burial grounds, dragging the souls of the dead on bloodied chains and to their final deaths.
Many black dogs appear through the world and time, some of these Fei, and some not. She haunted the gibbets of many slain souls, and howled their curses, she stalked the gallows of time, took souls with her on her travels, feasted on such remains in daily wanderings until gorged on life. She saw witches rise, and saw innocence fall, saw wars come and go and kings crowned upon hills of bone and blood. Cities and empires came to be under the rule of mighty lords and rulers, each rising upon the death of another and standing upon the corpses of the fallen. Fei was an eternal specter, an apparition that flitted through time and tale; a ghost, a spirit, a manifestation of eternity that howled songs to the moon on every eve since her birth.
Fei never quite rose to her mortal givings until the early 1800's -- such a form was lost to her in time, despite her initial birth, almost over two hundred years later -- and here she forsake her name and adopted the moniker of Blackclaw. Uttering the calling of her birth, Esper'yhn Barghest was met with illness and thundering clouds, established by what she believes to be her Father and Mother's might and inheritance. She avoided many like her and those not, a loner in the midst of a crowd and never committed to one place for long, finding bonds and chains to a place ill favoring. Though she had adopted a mortal display, she never found that niche that would make her seemingly human in the eyes of the Veiled World, or any other world for that matter.
But, when a man of blood and another almost similar to her but not quite the same approached the near feral dog in the blanket of night fall, where there was lightning and hell collaborating into one as she howled; raged, hungered, a beast crying into the night under the pretense of lacking control over something inside her -- Fei fell, for the first time. Since her, as one would claim, submission, Fei has been in service and employment of the Bain & Hoyle Company for such a time, often excusing herself on various leagues of absence over the years. Some speculate she returns often to the church in which she was born, lingering among her origins as it were, growling in answer to any inquires that she's simply looking for something -- someone. However, liken to the black dog she is, Fei is loyal at least, one of her defining canine traits ingrained heavily despite the Death she reeks of.
Member
puddingpunter
Qia
Dion
Izurich
Alix
AlteredTundra
Lord Wraith
Retired
webboysurf
AmongHeroes
