APPEARANCE Attrius is a granite half-breed whose fur catches and swallows the light. His coat is of an impossibly dark hue, rich and deep enough to seem lusterless.
Due to inbreeding and genetic tampering, his fur does not change seasonally; instead, it is always the same impenetrable gray. And for the same reason, his eyes are ice-blue, chill and devoid of emotion most of the time. The pupils are often shrunken to pinpoints, and though they seem to never focus on anything, he sees perfectly well. Some find this unnervingly demonic, and only those who know him well can read the expressions in them.
Atti's form is decidedly male from tip to toe, his body lean and angry as a teenager's. He is a fine-sinewed, toned creature, with the type of muscle found on a dancer--from the ragged points of his ears, to the elegant, four-jointed lengths of his tapered fingers, to the broadness of his tattooed shoulders and the powerful washboard of his stomach. He stands at a good 6'3", but he's far too underweight, at a mere 140 pounds--it shows mostly around his scalloped ribs, where the barest press of bone against skin can be seen. It's not a terrible sight, just the result of a high metabolism and the missing desire to stuff his face.
The result of a fated tryst between a Yki and a pendragon, his features are undeniably lupine, accompanied by four-inch-long, retractable claws and the lackadaisical fluidity of a cat in every movement. His tail is serpentine and prehensile, tipped in a cold, cold blue, matching his eyes.
He has been tattooed several times in blue, several shades darker than his eyes--arching across his left eye, the healer's symbol of the Sennai tribe (a crescent moon with a two-pronged bottom); on the inside of his lower lip, "CUNT" (the result of one foolishly drunken night); spanning his knuckles, "CETT SHET"; on the right shoulder, the shape of an inverted cross, on his left shoulder, an abstract, minimalistic rendition of a cross, and on his back, a pair of intertwined snakes, jaws gaping and tongues extended--his personal sigils. A pendragon skull over a nest of tmuka(? snakes? NOTE: check for correctness) paints his throat. A few barbells and studs dot his ears; the top of the right has been torn off and tattered. Other than that, he is pierced in a few other places (that are visible with his clothes still on): a silver barbell in his tongue, a septum, a stud in each cheek, microdermals at the back of his neck, and a barbell across the bridge of his nose.
His hair is a flat black, tangled into neatly-kept dreadlocks that fall over his shoulders, beaded with bone and a single feather. He tends to keep them drawn back at his nape for convenience.
A combination of knife slashes and whip lashes net his body, and his forearms and shins are completely covered in a thick, ridged web of scar tissue. On the inside of his left forearm are a few poorly-branded characters--a capital "S" next to a barcode with the numbers "00746". In the same vein, the insides of his thighs are badly scarred, as if someone has poured boiling-hot water over the sensitive skin and neglected to care for the wounds.
PERSONALITY Not everyone is born talented, or crooked or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. Most are a fountain of shimmering contradictions—beautiful in the concept, if they are lucky, but frequently regrettable as they flesh out. You can catalog the thousands of ways men shrink from life, as if chance and change are by nature toxic and disfiguring. Attrius, with his sympathies far more substantial than his luck, has at least wrestled with life. He’s shoved, and barked, and made himself a right nuisance. He isn’t a saint, no matter how often his mother once dreamed of him that way. Atti was taught to see life as something other than barren and arbitrary, cruel to the point of absurdity or irredeemably meaningless. But it is foolishness, just as it is a vain and decadent notion to think that the childhood one had left behind loomed in memory as even more sacrosanct and safe than it had seemed in the living of it. No—that, he has found, is bullshit enough to go along with the nursery doggerel of fireside fables, Ykili lessons and lopsided hunks of legend: his youth was proof enough of that. Like everyone else, he was born in perfection, bright and reflective; bruised into dirty individuality, met with grief and regret, and he was dulled and tarnished. It is the same with everyone, if they live long enough; if they are lucky enough to pass before life catches up with them, they suffer the rest in the afterlife.
For he knows, he knows: the price of living is corruption.
His heart is guarded by an enormous stock of defense mechanisms, and although he can play the part of the gentleman, he finds social webs dangerous and shies away from them by choice. To Attrius, the future is avoidable and the past can be denied. What friends he does make are few and far between, but held—at least to him—on the highest of pedestals. Sometimes, the odd word will trigger an old ghost to sail down memory lane and his mood might swing from neutrality to dark, venomous anger. The sheer unpredictability of his mood swings erects walls to any sort of intimacy beyond shallow, often awkward friendships. Some right-hemisphere brain damage, PTSD, depersonalization episodes, the odd bit of clinical depression, and a good streak of nihilism round him out.
HISTORY Attrius doesn't really talk about life before he was nineteen or so, but he's slipped up now and then, and it's known he's the half-brother of the now-dead and well-mourned rockstars, Crail and Prazen Medhsjyta. The other rumours offer some bits about child abuse, a dead mother, pro-Grader vigilantes, molestation, patricide, and from there--he finally surfaces into the public eye. But those are rumours, of course.
Those sort of things are always just rumours.
At nineteen, with a few years of apprenticeships under his belt, Att became a student at the Janardan Acadamy, studying vigorously, determined to finish his healing courses in the next year.
And then he met Pyemme Ryubi-Djaam.
Not long after their relationship budded, Attrius disappeared for two quarters to track down his nephew and sibling's murderer. He returned, was crowned a minor cult hero, and continued with a relatively peaceful life with Pyemme (whom he planned to propose to).
Pyemme Djaam disappeared in Tessera of 81381; her current wherabouts are unknown.
Shortly afterwards, Atti finished up his schooling, and attempted suicide. He recovered fine, and began receiving psychological counseling - however, darker bits and pieces of his old personality have begun to resurface...
Attrius now owns a four-story building in Bhim, where he (illegally) runs a tattoo parlour and healing clinic.
ETCETERA Typically on his person: nujeq, a flask, a lighter, cigarette case, scalpel, needle and thread, iodine, tape, condoms, a jaw harp, rolling papers, kittens in his pockets, a six-inch fixed-blade knife, his sixteen-hole combat boots, and on occasion, a gun. ALSO HE SOUNDS LIKE TOM WAITS. Due to trauma recieved in the genital area as a kit, Atti is sterile. Everything is still there (pretty much), but he's got some ugly-ass scars--hence why he likes to keep the lights off. A good ninety percent of the time, though, if things progress to him taking off his pants, he'll freeze up or leave. :{
