Sepia (WIP)

Sepia is a black and ginger tortoiseshell cat with marbled, colored markings on her face, legs, backside, and tail. They have peach-yellow eyes, and wears a collar made out of green malachite around their neck. She has a nick in her left ear, and a scar across her left eye.

Sepia is an aloof and withdrawn cat who tries to keep to herself; a lone wolf, if you will. She gives the impression that she's a judgmental cat who doesn't want to be there, and clearly tries to avoid mingling with the crowd. Cats walk on eggshells around them, as they're afraid of their cold and unpredictable nature, but those close to them know that the truth is that they're a cat who deeply struggles with handling their emotions and interacting with others. Sepia is someone who gets easily stressed and overstimulated, and often lashes out because they're unable to cope with what they're feeling — breaking down frequently as a response. Along with this, she's also very insecure, lonely, and self-aware of how she acts, but reacts poorly to support due to believing that it proves that she's weak, and instead looks to others with envy and disdain for being the embodiment of what she desires to be and treating her like a ticking time-bomb. She tends to overextert herself trying to be better out of frustration, or projecting and arguing with others to vent, but occasionally has a "good day," where she shows the sliver of herself that is giddy to talk about her interests or play like she's a kit again. All-in-all, though, Sepia carries herself with hopeless misery, and loaths herself as the cat who just can't function.

Sepia was born to Rustic and Leviathan alongside her brother, Umber. Neither parent was in the picture at first, as Leviathan was never made aware that he accidentally got his ex pregnant, and Rustic was too mentally and physically unwell to care for kits. Instead, he put the responsibility of their care in his best friend Artemis' paws, who took over the role of queen for him and cared for his kits like they were their own. Due to Rustic's struggles to nurse and therefore lack of milk, Sepia and Umber were fed on mashed prey, mashed berries, and stolen livestock milk, being passed around several babysitters for hourly feeding time and kit-caring duty — that more often than not being Flora, the only other nursing queen in the colony who begrudgingly fed and watched over them when Artemis needed to tend to their leader duties. Sepia was often a greedy, playful, and mischievous kit; bothering and freaking out her temporary guardians every chance that she got, all the while looking foward to her real dad's visits and the affection he showered her in whenever he stopped by the nursery to say hello. Soon enough, when the kits were able to be weaned at two moons old, Rustic would recover and take his kits back under his care, becoming their primary parent who taught them the ways of being bastard scallywags just like himself. He gave them their collars as gifts, having crafted them with his own two paws, and told them stories about his life and their other father Leviathan, who they had yet to meet. Despite this, Sepia was still happy to have Rustic as their parent, and enjoyed causing trouble with Umber and Flora's kit Travesty around the colony's territory, relishing in the attention they got from its members. However, this blissful and carefree life would eventually change, and unbeknownst to the little Sepia, not for the better.

When Sepia and Umber were three moons old, Rustic decided to finally come clean to Leviathan about what became of their breakup, tracking him down on his territory to tell him the truth. Unfortunately, this would all go wrong at first, as Rustic immediately ran away and dragged his offspring with him when he discovered that Leviathan already had another kit, automatically assuming he wouldn't want his surprise first litter. Sepia didn't exactly appreciate Leviathan for making her dad cry, and defended Rustic the best that she could when Leviathan confronted him about leaving him in the dark, but the pair managed to talk things out and smoothed over any old problems, enabling them to become proper friends once more. Leviathan wished to be in their lives and happily picked up the plate of extra fatherhood, and while Sepia was more hesitant than their brother in getting to know him, they would get used to him and grow to love him like anyone else. Along with this, having his co-parent by his side was the turning point that drove Rustic to combine the Bad Kitty Gang with the Good Kitty Gang, relocating his colony to theirs as he figured that they always had the lusher territory, it was an opportunity to start over, and that his kits would have a better enriched life. Sepia wasn't too keen on having their routine changed so drastically, but went along with it nontheless, exciting themselves with the idea of new discoveries.

Sepia and Umber were taken and reared by Leviathan in the nursery for the rest of their kithood, as it was both a chance for him to bond with his new kits, and a system that worked well with Rustic's comforts. Their father eagerly introduced them to his other kit, Sepia’s younger half-brother, Spackle, as well as the two denmates they were going to share the nursery with, Crow and Raven. Sepia got along swimmingly with her new brother, taking enjoyment out of his playful personality despite him not being a troublemaker like she was, alongside Crow, his solemn and quiet demeanor a soothing relief whenever she needed a break. Raven was a slightly different story, as their similar fiery and competitive natures often clashed, but they too were able to be quite banterous when they weren't seriously arguing about each other's parents (Rustic and Solstice, who were having a very intense sibling reunion at the time). Sepia's last two peers, Rowan and Spooky, were born a moon later, but since she was a little older at that point, she didn't grow as close to them as she did with everybody else, but still tolerated their existence from afar. Overall, Sepia dealt with their new life decently well, despite feeling uneasy with the amount of cats and strangers living in the colony, along with the disapproving glares they received for being an illegitimate kit of the formerly troublesome Rustic and the "loyal" Leviathan's "forbidden" relationship. However, with the support from all the kin Sepia got to know, including auncles Solstice and Bubblegum, cousins Crow and Raven, and grandfather Umbra, Sepia managed to survive their kithood normally.

Apprenticeship was where things started to properly go downhill for Sepia's life. While at first they were excited about learning how to be like the talented adults, like their fathers, they would quickly realize that the process of getting to such a point was not a process meant for them. Hunting and battle training — responsibility — was not like the kithood games Sepia loved to partake in when she was younger, responsibility meant that she had to be at the top of her game or else she'd fall behind and disappoint her colony. They struggled much more than anyone could've ever expected during their apprenticeship, and Sepia's confident, boisterous, and almost cocky attitude took a major hit when they struggled to learn, retain, and put forth basic skills they needed in order to be successful, much to their major chagrin. Seeing her fellow peers definitely didn't help either, because no matter whether they were actually good at their tasks or not, witnessing them in action hurt Sepia's feelings, because she felt like they were always one step ahead of her. Every small piece of prey hunted, every battle move she couldn't deflect, every concept she had trouble remembering, every skill she kept screwing up...it took a huge toll on Sepia’s motivation and chipper mood. Rustic and Leviathan tried to support their kit, assuring her that she didn't need to be perfect, but the exceptional admiration Sepia had for them and the ache to follow in their pawsteps turned more into bitter resentment the older she got, noticing that as talented as they were, they had their own flaws that they were completely ignoring when trying to help her. Especially Rustic, who after putting her on a pedestal her entire kithood, bragging about her every little achievement, and showering her in praise and his own self-pride, Sepia could notice his creeping disappointment and confusion at her failures no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Sepia grew envious of their peers as well, particularly Spackle, jealous of how even if he failed or wasn't good at something, he always kept a positive outlook and a joyful attitude. They yearned to be like him, yearned to have his composure, yearned to have the mindset that it was okay not to excell in everything, but couldn't help themselves even when they tried. With the heavy weight of all their failures and jealousy, combined with the fact they were growing more and more sensitive to stimulation with the poorer and poorer ability to cope, the once happy and sociable Sepia was reduced to a quiet and cold cat who seemed a little too irritable and jumpy at times; to the observation of everyone, too.