Chase

The Skullbound, Chase, began as Twinkletoes, a Domestic Sphinx of impeccable pedigree. He was born to a litter of five—the last of his dam’s line. Three of his siblings tragically died in the womb, strangled by the cord that fed life to the only two that survived—identical twins with light gray fur and black stripes. They were Twinkletoes and Moonshine until they were gifted to a new master, a wealthy, widowed nobleman—a Vileblood viscount with a dead wife and two dead children.

Following the death of his family, Lord Ashcroft had fallen into despair, wasting away in an empty manor, until a dear friend had left the twin cubs in his care. Despite his grief, the viscount was not a cruel man. He did not ignore his responsibility to care for the cubs. And so the twins were pampered and spoiled rotten. Lord Ashcroft doted on them and even moved them to the capital so that they would be tutored by the best that Waxing had to offer. He grew to care for the twins as if they were his own sons, going as far as to change their names—Twinkletoes to Alexander, whom he fondly called Sasha, and Moonshine to Wolfgang, named after his eldest child. However, as his love for them grew, so did his paranoia that they may be lost to him again. He became overly protective of the boys to the point of obsession.

Alexander had always been loud and charming. Of the two, he was more uninhibited, nimble and quick, an advantage for he was fond of thieving pastries from the kitchens, but entirely too naive. Wolfgang was also charming, in a quiet way, thoughtful and serious, with an air of mystery seeming to ooze out of his pores. He was a great lover of books and held high aspirations for the future, whereas his brother preferred the life of an idler. But their differences did not matter when they were still boys. They were brothers and their bond was unbreakable.

The fracture begins when they are older, when Wolfgang talks of escape and liberation. Alexander assumes his words are spoken in jest. But when Wolfgang begins to rave of gods and curses and insinuates filthy things about their master, their lord father who loved them unconditionally, Alexander comes to the viscount’s defense, hurling insults upon his brother, calling him ungrateful and delusional. “You would be nothing without him,” he says with conviction. Wolfgang only looks at him with pity and regret. And then Wolfgang disappears.

Alexander is distraught. There are talks of abduction and ransom but Alexander knows in his heart that Wolfgang had left entirely of his own volition. Feeling betrayed and abandoned, Alexander angrily prepares to chase after his brother. He dies at sea with the burning desire to find his brother echoing in his heart.

The day Alexander dies is the day Chase appears. A tall creature crowned by a sleek python skull, driven by the will to chase after Wolfgang and discover his fate, driven by the desire to know why he was abandoned. The Skullbound maintains a charming disposition, polite and courteous, if a little sarcastic. His decisions are entirely influenced by whether or not it serves his goal to find Wolfgang—the only clear face in the disjointed pieces of his memories. When people ask, he lets them assume that he is out for vengeance, even though the thought of harming Wolfgang leaves him ill. He does not know who exactly Wolfgang is, only that Wolfgang betrayed him and that Chase would follow him to the ends of the world to learn why.