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Mottle

Mottle was a Viscountess of Cour des Miracles skilled in scavenging and entertainment. She passed away after La Marea trained the Court's water sources in the early stages of their planned revenge.

1.  Appearance

Even in a pack of misfits, Mottle stands out. What you first notice is that she's shaven a large portion of her body, leaving long, wild hair from her head to her shoulders, her feathered hind end, and a poof at the tip of her tail. Her skin is pink, if mottled with darker color in places, and more often than not covered in a thin layer of very fine hair.

Her fur is predominately white with merle markings, blacks and browns with some tan lining in places. The largest splotches are on the right side of her face, her shoulders, and bits of her tail -- though the markings are indistinct where her fur is longest, and streaked heavily on her chest which would appear "ticked" along with her legs if she had short fur. Her nose and paws are additionally mottled, mostly pink.

Mottle has heterochromia -- her right eye a light goldish-brown, the left blue. The blue eye is small because of a defect and looks like little more than a sliver as a result.

Mottle is small with a rather slim build, more girlish than curvaceous in Optime. She's fond of random accessories and will wrap herself up in whatever is the funniest, whether it's bells and ribbons, patchy sweaters or rainbow skirts, or a phone cord belt decorated with car keys. In winter, she is more prone to let her fur grow out a little longer and covers up with warmer cloth, though this she ensures looks just as motley as the rest of her.

2.  Personality

Mottle is a real sweetheart who cares about others. She has embraced her odd nature, coming across as quirky and somewhat airheaded, but she doesn't lose track of her purpose. She uses her entertainer's nature for good -- lightening up a tense situation with a laugh if it needs one, or just being friendly and exuberant to pull someone out of their shell. She'll even deliver quick, precise jokes to knock someone down a peg, if they're being a little arrogant. Rather than being sheltered and naive, she can be extremely bawdy if a joke calls for it, and making suggestive hand gestures or whispered innuendos behind a couple she "ships" is one of her favorite pastimes.

She is a good friend to have when you're feeling down and need to be distracted from your problems -- or just hugged for a while. However, when faced with a real crisis -- someone who's suicidal instead of just upset, or a very aggressive situation rather than a slightly tense one -- she's prone to panic and just shut down. She gets overwhelmed easily and often locks herself away from everybody else, disappearing for days on end and neglecting both friendships and responsibilities.

Mottle has a soft spot for puppies, though no desire to have her own; she doesn't want to pass down her genes. She's rather good with kids, treating them as equals and taking them seriously, and often nannies for tired parents. While not sharply intelligent, she is wily with children and knows how to present herself as a fellow kid/buddy while also tricking them into going to bed on time and staying out of danger.

3.  Skills

Every Court needs its fool -- and Mottle is, first and foremost, an entertainer. She's at her happiest when she's making people laugh, whether just for fun or to distract them from the troubles of a bad day. Slapstick, riddles with no meaning, corny jokes, crude humor, and even gallows humor -- she's able to deliver it all. Just don't ask her to juggle.

She has a pretty good read on people and knows when to tone down her jokes, or when someone's upset and just needs a laugh or a friend. She's also pretty good at tracking down puppies -- and escorting them back home under the guise of fun. She's a decent scavenger and often delivers things like colorful ribbon, bells, and other amusing doohickeys from human ruins, often improvising uses for the weirdest items. (Who knew a plastic lightsaber, a deflated exercise ball, and a NES controller could be used in a comedy act?)

Oh, and she's a wicked barber.

4.  History

Mottle was born into a little community of dogs at the edge of an old camping site to two collie-like, merle-marked parents. The parents' merle genes, doubled, caused health defects in the litter; several pups didn't survive, whether born dead or culled for complete deafness/blindness, and Mottle (lucky enough to be taken pity on) was born with a single eye defect... a source of mockery.

The community teased Mottle constantly as she grew up. If it wasn't her eye, it was her lisp or interests which fell outside of the usual hunting and single-minded physical activity encouraged by the pack. The adults, once they picked up on the jokes the children passed along, insisted that it was harmless fun; most of the jibes were in passing, and not many meant her true ill will, but it became too much for Mottle.

The girl's usual escapes, like scavenging trinkets and books, soon were not enough to distract her. She fought hard to fit in, curing herself of her lisp and forcing interest in the physical, feral activities of the pack. However, nothing stopped the jokes; they found things to tease her about, and one boy she crushed on mocked her for her "splotchy" fur common to her family.

Mottle realized that she couldn't control what they teased her for -- but she could damn well try. She'd give them something to laugh at -- or with. She'd joke first, she decided, and began to shave down her fur. Sporting nicked pink skin and a wild lion's haircut, she walked out into the camp, faced everyone down, and grabbed some books and ribbons and left the pack at last.

Venturing out into the wide world was terrifying for Mottle. Still riddled with insecurities, she was desperate to make fun of herself before anyone else could, but soon she realized that kinder Luperci existed and were happy to smile at her oddities and only laugh at her jokes. She learned a lot of those, too -- from corny remarks to riddles to things that would upset your grandmother -- and with her friendships learned how to read others, too.

She helped a frightened mother named Jemimah Keller when her puppy went missing -- lost after a bandit's attack and too afraid to venture out. However, Mottle's non-threatening and silly appearance managed to coax the pup out of hiding. Grateful, Jemimah let Mottle stay with her and her sister Keziah for a while, and Keziah brought up Cour des Miracles: a place for dogs and misfits. Mottle, deciding it sounded perfect, sought it out.

4.1  Threads

• we do not need magic to transform our world (Jan 2016)
  Having been given an extremely important task by King Silvano, and doing a favor for newcomer Elijah Winters, Mottle convinces Baron Linden Aatte to assist her with her centerpiece for the New Year Ball. The group is later joined by Seneschal Skoll Haskel and Abigail Smokey, who join in on the fun.
• the point is to be free, not to be crazy (July 2016)
  In Progress, with Linden Aatte.