Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2023 22:44:22 GMT
DAMIEN OF AH'MIR
PERSONALITY ⚘
♔ There's a flag wrapped around a score of men ♔
However, that isn't to say that his scar-ridden body is just for show. Damien is a virtuoso of violence, with his canna name stemming from the way that the fight dims in his opponents eyes after he beats them down. Greyo'miera, the light thief, has no qualms about resorting to brute force if words don't work.
Possessive and protective in equal measure, he defends his territory and the dogs within it with unwavering dedication. He is no saint nor a scion of good deeds, but dogs who pledge themselves to him and make themselves useful to him will gain his regard in turn. He regards his clan as his, but they are also his to protect, and he considers the wellbeing of his clan with a dead seriousness that some may find surprising.
HISTORY ⌛
≡ A gag, a plastic bag on a monument ≡
When he and his brothers had reached the age of six months, their small family was captured by humans. These weren't well-meaning volunteers or veterinarians, though; the men ran an illegal dog fighting ring, and saw easy money in the band of rogue dogs. Muzzled and encaged, the three young canna watched with dawning horror as canine was pit against canine in horrific fights to the death, with the loser ripped apart with no semblance of mercy. They were left with only two choices in front of them: learn to fight or die.
And so learn to fight Damien did. For over a year the great black beast of a dog made inflicting violence into an art form, foreboding size and weight paired with his willingness to fight dirty making him a favorite among the bidding humans. He arose in the ranks as their top-dog, their money-maker, and every scar he gained was a testament to his will to live another day. No creature, canna or otherwise, would steal away his right to live.
The dog fights bested his brother Abraxas, but his brother Lucien lived on beside him. The days passed in a blur of blood and snarls until one day the human enforcers in their vehicles flashing blue and red lights came to disrupt the illegal ring. The operation was shut down, and all the participating dogs sent to a pound, where they would be reconditioned to be less violent, less likely to snap at the hands that fed them.
The conditioning never quite worked on Damien, who retained that slick air of danger that he had picked up during his year of fighting. He had been slated to be put down when a lone veterinarian offered to take him in, give him one last chance to prove that he could socialize with other living creatures. And so he was adopted by a well-meaning but ultimately uninspiring human woman, who went by the name of Marcy and who had an extensive garden in the backyard of her home.
It was there that Damien would discover the plant that would change his life: shilah'mira. The sleeping flower.
The potent drug held little appeal for the tightly-controlled mutt, but he knew at a whiff that it would hold dogs tight within its grasp. He began to use the flower to bargain with dogs he met on the streets; dogs that would bring him prey and baubles and just about anything they thought would please him, if only it meant he granted them access to the shilah'mira flower. Seeing a grand opportunity, he escaped Marcy's home in the dead of night, packets of seeds tucked carefully into the thick tangle of his pelt.
It was after some time living as a stray and cultivating his own private garden of shilah'mira that he was approached by another dog. It was a rare canna that outsized Damien, but Orion had been a monster of a canid, with a body of pure muscle and a grin like a snarl. He ran his own gang of dogs, nameless and disorganized as they were, and he'd heard talk on the streets of Damien's growing influence. Orion offered Damien a place within his ranks, and the black dog had accepted, becoming Orion's second-hand man.
He was the older male's enforcer. Whenever there was dissent among the ranks, it was Damien that Orion would send to deal with it, using his unique penchant for violence to his advantage. It wasn't long until he began to hear whispers of his new name: Greyo'miera. Light Thief, named for how the fight bled from his enemy's eyes when he approached. Soon, Orion's group grew from a ragtag gang into a true clan, with misfits and crafty canna approaching from far and wide to join the promising new ranks. Their power came from their control of the shilah'mira plant, and Damien would lead groups of dogs to sabotage the flower growing in other areas, making it rarer than it already was and increasing their trade power.
All went smoothly until Orion died unexpectedly in a brawl with a rival gangmember. With the old leader dead, Damien stepped up as chief, as was his right as Orion's second. His first matter of business: finding a new home for his clan, which he named the Ah'mir after the flower that had granted them power.
When he found that a dog had been scheming to take others and leave with seeds of the sleeping flower, he met them with no mercy. Three of the betrayers saved their pelts by claiming that one dog had forced them to do it, and so he made an example of him. He stripped him of his name as was his right as Chief, naming him an askabi and banishing him from sight.
But not before he mauled him, popping his eye so that he'd have a permanent reminder of the mistakes that had half-blinded him.
Many months passed before the humans conducted their mass raid on the dogs of the city, capturing Damien and many others in their attempt to combat the dogs running rampant through the streets of Kah'ren. Once again, he had been trapped within the confines of an animal shelter- but this time he had no intention of staying put until some human deigned to free him. The great earthquake that shook the building apart must have been the gods themselves responding to his defiance, breaking his cage apart and setting him free.
The strange new world he emerged to was free of humans and their influence. Something peculiar had happened during the earthquake, ridding the land of humans and leaving only the animals behind. That mattered little to Damien, though. He had an empire to run, regardless, and he'd sooner show his belly than give it up just because the humans had disappeared.
Damien, Greyo’miera, was in charge of the Ah'mir now. And he planned to rule for years yet to come.
RELATIONSHIPS ❤️
≡ I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies ≡
Lucien || brother || alive
Lady || fling || alive
Marrow || fling || alive
Orion || former boss || deceased
credit to Laura of Adox