PLAYER INFORMATION
Jun. 13th, 2015 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rayernethefirstPLAYER: Rayerne the First
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: yes
CONTACT: private messaging to rayerne@outlook.com
CHARACTERS PLAYED: None
NAME: Xat-Cerxis.
CANON:Original character
AGE: 27
GENDER: Female
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: Janitor
APPEARANCE: Hair color brown. Eye color vivid forest green. Skin tone sun bronzed. Short, white fluffy tail. Focus should be in her movements like pacing and exploring which are frequent. She does a lot of stretching and pretending to nap. She doesn't do macho posturing or weapon fondeling or deep thought or twitches. She's a starer and daydreamer so in off moments like when people talk she'll be in lalaland and less terrified than others. Almost fish-eyed. But when its time to smash stuff she gets a big happy face and comes alive. Hairstyle rough chopped above shoulder with tiny braids (for bangs only) by the sides of her face. So we're talking really tiny braids. She also has ears that resemble a cat's somewhat but are less thin and fluffy. Her ears should have a human skin tone inside but for some odd reason she paints the outside top blue like her tattoo. Cerxis is a cat person from a lost tribe of South America whom call themselves the Xat. Like all Xat, she possesses superhero strength, speed, flexibility, and hearing. Her ears are prominent and resemble somewhat a cat's. All of her people command the same abilities but Xat-Cerxis is a prominent and skilled warrior among them. Hence, she has two ornate stripes which represent mastery as a warrior tattooed across her left cheek. She always wears a colorful hat made of llama fur but during outings to the normal world with her ordinary friends, she dons blue-jeans with pocket chains and a t-shirt or blouse. She prefers hiking boots because shoes were unknown in her village. She always had sandals before her friends introduced her to boots.
PERSONALITY: Few people notice the cat eared janitor sweeping the halls and mopping the bathroom floors. The few that do often can’t help but chuckle at this reserved person who wears lama fur, gets disoriented by computer screens, and jumps when phones ring. No one would ever suspect that this woman who barely speaks was one of the strongest warriors her tribe had ever seen, and had the same respect as a chief for her bravery, wisdom and fearsome loyalty. Whenever her tribe was under attack she would be the first to charge into battle and risk her life for her people. Part of this was, because, of the exhilaration she drew from a battle, and the child-like joy she gained from breaking objects, but part of it was also her love of the tribe. In times of hunger she would spend the most time searching for food and would make sure she would be the last of eat. It was this courage and this selflessness that earned her respect from her tribe. In her tribe everyone could turn to her, and know things would be alright especially her little sister, who always went out of her way to dress like her, and hang on her every word. But she isn’t with her tribe now.
Today Cerxis lives and works at the Xavier institute, a place full of strange, “magical” artifacts, that make bizarre lights and frightening sounds. A place with otherworldly people, who talk in a language that she is only beginning to understand, and riding metal beast that are supposedly not alive. Here in this world Cerxis avoids eye contact, and almost never speaks. She goes to bed tinkering with the beaded necklace that her sister made for her, spending most of the night not actually sleeping, but before that she climbs up a tree or onto the roof, and stares. Occasionally she looks up at the moon, but usually she seems to be staring at nothing. Is she staring to where she thinks her tribe is? Is she longing for somewhere else entirely? No one knows, but her. What is certain, is that for all her homesickness and for all her pain, she chose to come to the Xavier institute.
Cerxis has long had a spirit of adventure, even if her tribe doesn’t understand it. Even as a child she would examine every bug under every log, and climb the highest trees to look out at the whole rainforest. She was also the first of the Xat to realize that the rest of the world had to be explored or else in would come crashing in upon them, so when she received the offer to join “X-tribe” she jumped at the chance, and though she has had enormous trouble adjusting she doesn’t regret her decision. She knows that some of the very things that make this new world scary, also make it fascinating and wonderful and spends much of her free time trying to understand them, even if that has led to some electronics mysteriously breaking. Furthermore, she does appreciate climate control, soft beds to curl up in, and that nob she turns so she doesn’t have to start a fire with sticks. Plus, bartering paper for food with the vending machine is much quicker than hunting and gathering.
There are some areas where Cerxis, has made progress. She has gotten so good at dusting that a person can caress objects with a white glove and not see dust, and the floors are always spotless, despite all manner of mutant shenanigans, even if takes her longer than the last guy. She has also been able to learn quite a few words of English, though when she speaks the language it is broken and the words are not perfectly pronounced. She is also learning her manners, but still disturbs the natives of X-tribe when she hunts squirrels and eats them raw, not to mention her strange habit of worshiping trees. Still she has a long way to go, but she will suffer through much homesickness to see it through.
She is conflicted about her place in the outside world where people are not Animist like the Xat. Speech about monotheism and her introduction to technology causes her to wonder about the lives of the Xat but she is resolved to help her friends no matter how the mission away from home will change her.
She balances her pride in her father who is a guardian of a sacred stone representing a spirit worshiped by the Xat and her openness to listen to the viewpoints of others. But all the confusion makes her reserved sometimes and she hides under beds, behind couches or up in trees. She is also very fascinated by cats and likes to climb things to imitate them. Xat-Cerxis is very bold in battle but very modestly outspoken. Many of the Xat share the same characteristics as she but she is aware that unlike many her ethnic tribe, she has been trained for war with the outside and also trained to hunt food. This is a source of pride for herself and even outside her homeland, she continues to draw from pride in her accomplishments in battle. She also has the mischievous streak of eating the popsicles from other people's fridges and cooking and eating many different kinds of animals that might fly or crawl by the Xavier Institute. When abandoned aquariums with pet turtles in them show up, Xat-Cerxis is happy to solve the problem by making soup.
POWERS: Xat-Cerxis has cat powers. Genetically, all of her tribe have an unusual strength and flexibility that is reminiscent those of cats despite its cause being a human mutation. She can run as fast as a Cheetah (60mph), has the strength and bite force of a jaguar, (2000 psi according to my source), and hyper acute senses. She can hear a heartbeat from a meter away, can see clearly in all but the darkest nights, and recognize people via smell from half a mile away. Xat-Cerxis also has reflexes that are faster than even best trained “flatscans” along with agility and flexibility that surpasses even Olympic gymnast.
Besides her power Cerxis has talents that are useful, but not superhuman. She can climb as well as any die-hard rock-climber. Although she lacks claws to make her a true cat, her nails and wrist are strong enough to box with bare-handed without injury and she does have a short fluffy tail.
Xat-Cerxis is also skilled in using a long pole and if fighting people will often use sticks of some kind to smack them with.
HISTORY: Xat-Cerxis' personal history reflects the history of her entire tribe. The Xat is a tribe of people who on an isolated plateau in South America who chose to exile themselves from other human beings because of differing religious beliefs. Because there were several mutants among the exiles, the entire tribe of the Xat are now descendants of the mutants who represented a sizable part of a small community. Unlike mutants outside the tribe of the Xat, Xat Cerxis feels no shame of her superhuman powers and little awareness that they are significantly different from the normal definition of a person and their natural abilities.
By the time Cerxis was born, the Xat had become totally isolated from the rest of humanity, except for the occasional rival tribes that would dare attack the Xat, to steal food, in times of famine. Cerxis was quickly convinced by her parents that the world probably looked the same wherever you went, and that the plateau had everything that the tribe could ever need. She had little reason to doubt this, for even in the hardest years, no one ever starved to death, and the llamas always produced enough wool for warmth. Cerxis even had the luxury of playing with little wheeled figures called toys, got to wrestle with the boys and could listen to all the great legends about heroes of the tribe from her father, the story teller. Besides all the material goods, she had her tribe. Surviving as a hunter gather tribe wasn’t always easy, but constantly working with her people brought her closer to them, and she felt like she was with family all the time.
Yet despite all the wonderful things the plateau provided, Cerxis started to ask strange questions about what was outside of it. She would asked the elders, where clouds came from, where do the birds go, what did other tribes do when they weren’t attacking the Xat, had anyone ever touched a star before, and a host of other very odd questions. The rest of the tribe would ether answer glibly that the spirits did it, or they would admit they didn’t know, “but it didn’t matter anyways.” Cerxis gave up asking these questions by the time she was ten, but slowly picked up a new habit. Before she would go to bed, she would climb up a tree, or on the roof of a hut, and just stare out into the distance. The tribe thought this was a peculiar practice, especially since her younger sister Lista began to adopt it, too. However, they shrugged it off, since Cerxis had earned such respect with her hard work and loyalty, and life went on as normal, until around the time Cerxis turned thirteen, when things started to fall apart.
Other tribes came trying to steal food from the Xat, which was normal in famine years, but this was not a famine year. Over the preceding years the attempted raids became more frequent, until finally many tribes united and engaged on an all-out assault on the Xat. Cerxis ran into battle alongside the men, and despite being greatly outnumbered the Xat were triumphant. Still several Xat died, and the tribe wondered what to do, but then Cerxis proposed a radical explanation. She stated something unusual was happening outside the plateau and that it was causing the raids, and that a group should go out and find out what that thing was. The other Xat, thought that was crazy, and decided instead to build taller walls, but a new tribe attacked that was unlike other seen by the Xat. This new tribe wore fibers never seen before, and had loud weapons that could kill suddenly at great distance, and strange communication devices that produced lights. The Xat dispatched these invaders after losing more people, but then came the “toys.” Giant, wheeled, loud, objects that sawed down trees, and plowed through the earth, belching foul smelling smoke. The Xat chief thought by throwing out the people who rode the toys that they would stop, and they did, but they were followed, by more men with strange weapons, like lights that could burn through flesh, and blades that could cut through iron. After a long battle, the Xat forced these men to retreat, but they had lost half their warriors in the battle.
For all the Xat it had become clear that more tribes would come, that they could protect their home no longer, and Cerxis had been right all along, that something was wrong with the whole world. The tribe decided that the Xat would seek a new home. The resulting journey would be arduous. The Xat trudged through the sweltering rainforest for months. Much of the game had already been hunted by other desperate tribes, so the Xat often went hungry, and some of the tribe resorted to raiding people’s homes for food. This brought them in further conflict with people and their thunder weapons. Worse still, a disease spread through the tribe that claimed many of their elders and young children.
Finally, Cerxis decided to try to make peace with the people with the thunder weapons. First she tried waving to the exotic people she saw, but at seeing her cat ears and bizarre clothes, they ran away. Next, she tried leaving tokens near homes at the edge of the forest- a wooden toy, a stone ax, a necklace, anything to show her willingness for peace. For days nothing happened, but finally one family responded by leaving Avocados where she left a wooden flute. This exchange of gifts lasted for a week, before a chubby man with a mustache approached Cerxis, with an entourage of anthropologist, doctors, and psychics from the Xavier institute. Though Cerxis didn’t know it, she and her people had made the trek from Peru to Brazil, which, had a far more extensive system for dealing with long isolated natives. Bewildered Brazilian bureaucrats didn’t know what to do with native cat-eared mutants, but fearing racial and multi-national conflict in their country welcomed Xavier's offer to "adopt" and fincially support the entire tribe.
The doctors treated the Xat for all the cuts, bruises and germs they accumulated on their long journey. The psychics worked with the anthropologists to communicate with the Xat, using their abilities to transfer pictures and feelings to Xat. Soon, the tribe were amazed to learn just how enormous the world was, and shocked to learn how special they were as “mutants.” The chubby man, as Xat’s tribe came to call him, was a farmer, named Pablo Araujo who was the one to first person to trade with Cerxis. Over the next few days the Xat would come to form a trading relationship with Pablo and his family, fetching lumber and other goods from the forest in return for food, and shelter. Although their livelihood was provided for through private donor-ship, this trade partnership grew over time. This helped the Xat to create a foothold in modern society. Some of the clever teenage and Middle-Age Xat were able to make a living as they got to know more of the town’s people, and all the while they picked up more and more words of Portuguese. Cerxis finally rested, satisfied that her people had a new home, even if she missed those that died. She might have been happy just staying with her tribe, but then members of “X-tribe” invited her to come to the institute to meet other mutants. Cerxis was frightened at the idea at first, but then resolved to learn about the world before it came crashing down on her people again. Her people saw her off, and her sister gave her a beaded necklace to remember her by, and with some trepidation, Cerxis went off the discover the rest of the world.
Many of the Xat share the same characteristics as she but she is aware that unlike many her community, she has been trained for war with the outside and also trained to hunt food. This is a source of pride for herself and even outside her home country, she continues to draw from pride in her accomplishments in battle. Today Xat-Cerxis is still learning English, and the ways of "X-tribe." She works as a janitor, never forgetting her tribe back home.
NETWORK SAMPLE:
http://xavier-institute-ooc.dreamwidth.org/51943.html?thread=2149095#cmt2149095
[Xat-Cerxis is on a sunny bench in the city. She looks down to the signs and traffic with great bewilderment. In her hand is a bus schedule she can not read. She paces, then begins mumbling to herself.]
"Yes, Viti showed me how to use the translator device but how do I use it? Hm, huuh? If I keep pressing lots of buttons it is sure to work. (Beeping Sound). Hm. Well If I can't use the translator I'll use the phone instead. Um-huh. Yes, hello? HI can I order a "PIZZA" please? LARGE PIZZA. YES, LARGE PIZZA. MEAT. GOOD YES, LEAVE AT GATE! Thanks."
[Xat-Cerxis crumples up map and puts it in her back pocket. Then she turns and runs back up to street instead of taking the bus. Soon, she is back at the Academy and a pizza box is waiting at the Gate. She takes the pizza, eats it, and goes to the computer lab for students. Here, she slides a card into the machine and it begins to make whirring, functioning computer sounds. She stares at the keyboard.]
"Hello Teacher," she types on email. "I got lost. How do I get to the library again? Can I turn my project in late?"
LOG SAMPLE
http://xavier-institute-ooc.dreamwidth.org/51943.html?thread=2130151#cmt2130151
"I'm Xat-Cerxis! My friend tells me you are really good with machines. Can you fix a calculator? I broke it...." Cerxis looked sad.
Joss was hammering through code on her laptop with her room door open when Xat spoke to her.
"Sure can, Miss Cerxis." She spun a screw driver in her hand like it were a pistol. She ran up to Xat. "So what seems to be the problem?"
Cerxis pouted. "I folded the lid too roughly and it snapped. Then I tried to put the lid on and the calculator snapped. I have the pieces, see?" Xat-Cerxis sprinkled a bunch of broken electronic guts onto a table for Josh to see. "Would you like a starburst candy?" she said taking one out of the package and offering it to Josh before munching one herself. "Calculators are delicate, see?" Xercis explained. "They break." She showed Josh her really fierce looking nails (almost like claws) and her wrist that was stout like a boxer's.
"Thanks a bunch." Joss tossed the candy candy down her mouth.
Joss' eyes bulged when she looked at the broken circuits and case. Her eyes swiveled down to the cat woman's claws and wrist. She imagined those claws could rip her neck out and that an ax would break on those wrists.
"We'll I'll be. Truth is I ain't fixen this thang twnight. It's too broken But do ya gotta laptop or sometun? Ya can use micrasoft excel to do ya calculaten ya know?"
Xat-Cerxis looked awkward. "Well, my friend Viti told me not to touch it. Not until a new keyboard is made by teacher. It has metal buttons!" She explained. "Besides," Xat-Cerxis said. "I am learning how to write! See!" she said picking up a loose pencil and drawing on a paper scrap. She colored it in with bright colored pencils. Lifting it up, she showed it was a llama with her name 'Cerxis' below it. Every letter of her name was a different shade. Then she bit her lip and looked thoughtful. "My grandfather had a counting-spindle. With knots," she said hoping to be helpful. "If you have rope and sticks, I can make one of those!"
Joss raised her brow. She stood there silently, stiff, as though paralyzed staring as though Cerxis was the strangest thing she had ever seen. Then suddenly, she laughed.
"Now that's that the funnies thang i've heard in a long time. Miss Cerxis you're all right. Come on have a seat. I'm gonna get ya'll fixed up."
"Okay!" said Xat-Cerxis. She shuffled over to Josh Possible's table to make a knotting-calculator. She looked over to Josh's smiling face and smiled in return. END.
ARE YOU AT LEAST 16 YEARS OLD?: yes
CONTACT: private messaging to rayerne@outlook.com
CHARACTERS PLAYED: None
NAME: Xat-Cerxis.
CANON:Original character
AGE: 27
GENDER: Female
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: Janitor
APPEARANCE: Hair color brown. Eye color vivid forest green. Skin tone sun bronzed. Short, white fluffy tail. Focus should be in her movements like pacing and exploring which are frequent. She does a lot of stretching and pretending to nap. She doesn't do macho posturing or weapon fondeling or deep thought or twitches. She's a starer and daydreamer so in off moments like when people talk she'll be in lalaland and less terrified than others. Almost fish-eyed. But when its time to smash stuff she gets a big happy face and comes alive. Hairstyle rough chopped above shoulder with tiny braids (for bangs only) by the sides of her face. So we're talking really tiny braids. She also has ears that resemble a cat's somewhat but are less thin and fluffy. Her ears should have a human skin tone inside but for some odd reason she paints the outside top blue like her tattoo. Cerxis is a cat person from a lost tribe of South America whom call themselves the Xat. Like all Xat, she possesses superhero strength, speed, flexibility, and hearing. Her ears are prominent and resemble somewhat a cat's. All of her people command the same abilities but Xat-Cerxis is a prominent and skilled warrior among them. Hence, she has two ornate stripes which represent mastery as a warrior tattooed across her left cheek. She always wears a colorful hat made of llama fur but during outings to the normal world with her ordinary friends, she dons blue-jeans with pocket chains and a t-shirt or blouse. She prefers hiking boots because shoes were unknown in her village. She always had sandals before her friends introduced her to boots.
PERSONALITY: Few people notice the cat eared janitor sweeping the halls and mopping the bathroom floors. The few that do often can’t help but chuckle at this reserved person who wears lama fur, gets disoriented by computer screens, and jumps when phones ring. No one would ever suspect that this woman who barely speaks was one of the strongest warriors her tribe had ever seen, and had the same respect as a chief for her bravery, wisdom and fearsome loyalty. Whenever her tribe was under attack she would be the first to charge into battle and risk her life for her people. Part of this was, because, of the exhilaration she drew from a battle, and the child-like joy she gained from breaking objects, but part of it was also her love of the tribe. In times of hunger she would spend the most time searching for food and would make sure she would be the last of eat. It was this courage and this selflessness that earned her respect from her tribe. In her tribe everyone could turn to her, and know things would be alright especially her little sister, who always went out of her way to dress like her, and hang on her every word. But she isn’t with her tribe now.
Today Cerxis lives and works at the Xavier institute, a place full of strange, “magical” artifacts, that make bizarre lights and frightening sounds. A place with otherworldly people, who talk in a language that she is only beginning to understand, and riding metal beast that are supposedly not alive. Here in this world Cerxis avoids eye contact, and almost never speaks. She goes to bed tinkering with the beaded necklace that her sister made for her, spending most of the night not actually sleeping, but before that she climbs up a tree or onto the roof, and stares. Occasionally she looks up at the moon, but usually she seems to be staring at nothing. Is she staring to where she thinks her tribe is? Is she longing for somewhere else entirely? No one knows, but her. What is certain, is that for all her homesickness and for all her pain, she chose to come to the Xavier institute.
Cerxis has long had a spirit of adventure, even if her tribe doesn’t understand it. Even as a child she would examine every bug under every log, and climb the highest trees to look out at the whole rainforest. She was also the first of the Xat to realize that the rest of the world had to be explored or else in would come crashing in upon them, so when she received the offer to join “X-tribe” she jumped at the chance, and though she has had enormous trouble adjusting she doesn’t regret her decision. She knows that some of the very things that make this new world scary, also make it fascinating and wonderful and spends much of her free time trying to understand them, even if that has led to some electronics mysteriously breaking. Furthermore, she does appreciate climate control, soft beds to curl up in, and that nob she turns so she doesn’t have to start a fire with sticks. Plus, bartering paper for food with the vending machine is much quicker than hunting and gathering.
There are some areas where Cerxis, has made progress. She has gotten so good at dusting that a person can caress objects with a white glove and not see dust, and the floors are always spotless, despite all manner of mutant shenanigans, even if takes her longer than the last guy. She has also been able to learn quite a few words of English, though when she speaks the language it is broken and the words are not perfectly pronounced. She is also learning her manners, but still disturbs the natives of X-tribe when she hunts squirrels and eats them raw, not to mention her strange habit of worshiping trees. Still she has a long way to go, but she will suffer through much homesickness to see it through.
She is conflicted about her place in the outside world where people are not Animist like the Xat. Speech about monotheism and her introduction to technology causes her to wonder about the lives of the Xat but she is resolved to help her friends no matter how the mission away from home will change her.
She balances her pride in her father who is a guardian of a sacred stone representing a spirit worshiped by the Xat and her openness to listen to the viewpoints of others. But all the confusion makes her reserved sometimes and she hides under beds, behind couches or up in trees. She is also very fascinated by cats and likes to climb things to imitate them. Xat-Cerxis is very bold in battle but very modestly outspoken. Many of the Xat share the same characteristics as she but she is aware that unlike many her ethnic tribe, she has been trained for war with the outside and also trained to hunt food. This is a source of pride for herself and even outside her homeland, she continues to draw from pride in her accomplishments in battle. She also has the mischievous streak of eating the popsicles from other people's fridges and cooking and eating many different kinds of animals that might fly or crawl by the Xavier Institute. When abandoned aquariums with pet turtles in them show up, Xat-Cerxis is happy to solve the problem by making soup.
POWERS: Xat-Cerxis has cat powers. Genetically, all of her tribe have an unusual strength and flexibility that is reminiscent those of cats despite its cause being a human mutation. She can run as fast as a Cheetah (60mph), has the strength and bite force of a jaguar, (2000 psi according to my source), and hyper acute senses. She can hear a heartbeat from a meter away, can see clearly in all but the darkest nights, and recognize people via smell from half a mile away. Xat-Cerxis also has reflexes that are faster than even best trained “flatscans” along with agility and flexibility that surpasses even Olympic gymnast.
Besides her power Cerxis has talents that are useful, but not superhuman. She can climb as well as any die-hard rock-climber. Although she lacks claws to make her a true cat, her nails and wrist are strong enough to box with bare-handed without injury and she does have a short fluffy tail.
Xat-Cerxis is also skilled in using a long pole and if fighting people will often use sticks of some kind to smack them with.
HISTORY: Xat-Cerxis' personal history reflects the history of her entire tribe. The Xat is a tribe of people who on an isolated plateau in South America who chose to exile themselves from other human beings because of differing religious beliefs. Because there were several mutants among the exiles, the entire tribe of the Xat are now descendants of the mutants who represented a sizable part of a small community. Unlike mutants outside the tribe of the Xat, Xat Cerxis feels no shame of her superhuman powers and little awareness that they are significantly different from the normal definition of a person and their natural abilities.
By the time Cerxis was born, the Xat had become totally isolated from the rest of humanity, except for the occasional rival tribes that would dare attack the Xat, to steal food, in times of famine. Cerxis was quickly convinced by her parents that the world probably looked the same wherever you went, and that the plateau had everything that the tribe could ever need. She had little reason to doubt this, for even in the hardest years, no one ever starved to death, and the llamas always produced enough wool for warmth. Cerxis even had the luxury of playing with little wheeled figures called toys, got to wrestle with the boys and could listen to all the great legends about heroes of the tribe from her father, the story teller. Besides all the material goods, she had her tribe. Surviving as a hunter gather tribe wasn’t always easy, but constantly working with her people brought her closer to them, and she felt like she was with family all the time.
Yet despite all the wonderful things the plateau provided, Cerxis started to ask strange questions about what was outside of it. She would asked the elders, where clouds came from, where do the birds go, what did other tribes do when they weren’t attacking the Xat, had anyone ever touched a star before, and a host of other very odd questions. The rest of the tribe would ether answer glibly that the spirits did it, or they would admit they didn’t know, “but it didn’t matter anyways.” Cerxis gave up asking these questions by the time she was ten, but slowly picked up a new habit. Before she would go to bed, she would climb up a tree, or on the roof of a hut, and just stare out into the distance. The tribe thought this was a peculiar practice, especially since her younger sister Lista began to adopt it, too. However, they shrugged it off, since Cerxis had earned such respect with her hard work and loyalty, and life went on as normal, until around the time Cerxis turned thirteen, when things started to fall apart.
Other tribes came trying to steal food from the Xat, which was normal in famine years, but this was not a famine year. Over the preceding years the attempted raids became more frequent, until finally many tribes united and engaged on an all-out assault on the Xat. Cerxis ran into battle alongside the men, and despite being greatly outnumbered the Xat were triumphant. Still several Xat died, and the tribe wondered what to do, but then Cerxis proposed a radical explanation. She stated something unusual was happening outside the plateau and that it was causing the raids, and that a group should go out and find out what that thing was. The other Xat, thought that was crazy, and decided instead to build taller walls, but a new tribe attacked that was unlike other seen by the Xat. This new tribe wore fibers never seen before, and had loud weapons that could kill suddenly at great distance, and strange communication devices that produced lights. The Xat dispatched these invaders after losing more people, but then came the “toys.” Giant, wheeled, loud, objects that sawed down trees, and plowed through the earth, belching foul smelling smoke. The Xat chief thought by throwing out the people who rode the toys that they would stop, and they did, but they were followed, by more men with strange weapons, like lights that could burn through flesh, and blades that could cut through iron. After a long battle, the Xat forced these men to retreat, but they had lost half their warriors in the battle.
For all the Xat it had become clear that more tribes would come, that they could protect their home no longer, and Cerxis had been right all along, that something was wrong with the whole world. The tribe decided that the Xat would seek a new home. The resulting journey would be arduous. The Xat trudged through the sweltering rainforest for months. Much of the game had already been hunted by other desperate tribes, so the Xat often went hungry, and some of the tribe resorted to raiding people’s homes for food. This brought them in further conflict with people and their thunder weapons. Worse still, a disease spread through the tribe that claimed many of their elders and young children.
Finally, Cerxis decided to try to make peace with the people with the thunder weapons. First she tried waving to the exotic people she saw, but at seeing her cat ears and bizarre clothes, they ran away. Next, she tried leaving tokens near homes at the edge of the forest- a wooden toy, a stone ax, a necklace, anything to show her willingness for peace. For days nothing happened, but finally one family responded by leaving Avocados where she left a wooden flute. This exchange of gifts lasted for a week, before a chubby man with a mustache approached Cerxis, with an entourage of anthropologist, doctors, and psychics from the Xavier institute. Though Cerxis didn’t know it, she and her people had made the trek from Peru to Brazil, which, had a far more extensive system for dealing with long isolated natives. Bewildered Brazilian bureaucrats didn’t know what to do with native cat-eared mutants, but fearing racial and multi-national conflict in their country welcomed Xavier's offer to "adopt" and fincially support the entire tribe.
The doctors treated the Xat for all the cuts, bruises and germs they accumulated on their long journey. The psychics worked with the anthropologists to communicate with the Xat, using their abilities to transfer pictures and feelings to Xat. Soon, the tribe were amazed to learn just how enormous the world was, and shocked to learn how special they were as “mutants.” The chubby man, as Xat’s tribe came to call him, was a farmer, named Pablo Araujo who was the one to first person to trade with Cerxis. Over the next few days the Xat would come to form a trading relationship with Pablo and his family, fetching lumber and other goods from the forest in return for food, and shelter. Although their livelihood was provided for through private donor-ship, this trade partnership grew over time. This helped the Xat to create a foothold in modern society. Some of the clever teenage and Middle-Age Xat were able to make a living as they got to know more of the town’s people, and all the while they picked up more and more words of Portuguese. Cerxis finally rested, satisfied that her people had a new home, even if she missed those that died. She might have been happy just staying with her tribe, but then members of “X-tribe” invited her to come to the institute to meet other mutants. Cerxis was frightened at the idea at first, but then resolved to learn about the world before it came crashing down on her people again. Her people saw her off, and her sister gave her a beaded necklace to remember her by, and with some trepidation, Cerxis went off the discover the rest of the world.
Many of the Xat share the same characteristics as she but she is aware that unlike many her community, she has been trained for war with the outside and also trained to hunt food. This is a source of pride for herself and even outside her home country, she continues to draw from pride in her accomplishments in battle. Today Xat-Cerxis is still learning English, and the ways of "X-tribe." She works as a janitor, never forgetting her tribe back home.
NETWORK SAMPLE:
http://xavier-institute-ooc.dreamwidth.org/51943.html?thread=2149095#cmt2149095
[Xat-Cerxis is on a sunny bench in the city. She looks down to the signs and traffic with great bewilderment. In her hand is a bus schedule she can not read. She paces, then begins mumbling to herself.]
"Yes, Viti showed me how to use the translator device but how do I use it? Hm, huuh? If I keep pressing lots of buttons it is sure to work. (Beeping Sound). Hm. Well If I can't use the translator I'll use the phone instead. Um-huh. Yes, hello? HI can I order a "PIZZA" please? LARGE PIZZA. YES, LARGE PIZZA. MEAT. GOOD YES, LEAVE AT GATE! Thanks."
[Xat-Cerxis crumples up map and puts it in her back pocket. Then she turns and runs back up to street instead of taking the bus. Soon, she is back at the Academy and a pizza box is waiting at the Gate. She takes the pizza, eats it, and goes to the computer lab for students. Here, she slides a card into the machine and it begins to make whirring, functioning computer sounds. She stares at the keyboard.]
"Hello Teacher," she types on email. "I got lost. How do I get to the library again? Can I turn my project in late?"
LOG SAMPLE
http://xavier-institute-ooc.dreamwidth.org/51943.html?thread=2130151#cmt2130151
"I'm Xat-Cerxis! My friend tells me you are really good with machines. Can you fix a calculator? I broke it...." Cerxis looked sad.
Joss was hammering through code on her laptop with her room door open when Xat spoke to her.
"Sure can, Miss Cerxis." She spun a screw driver in her hand like it were a pistol. She ran up to Xat. "So what seems to be the problem?"
Cerxis pouted. "I folded the lid too roughly and it snapped. Then I tried to put the lid on and the calculator snapped. I have the pieces, see?" Xat-Cerxis sprinkled a bunch of broken electronic guts onto a table for Josh to see. "Would you like a starburst candy?" she said taking one out of the package and offering it to Josh before munching one herself. "Calculators are delicate, see?" Xercis explained. "They break." She showed Josh her really fierce looking nails (almost like claws) and her wrist that was stout like a boxer's.
"Thanks a bunch." Joss tossed the candy candy down her mouth.
Joss' eyes bulged when she looked at the broken circuits and case. Her eyes swiveled down to the cat woman's claws and wrist. She imagined those claws could rip her neck out and that an ax would break on those wrists.
"We'll I'll be. Truth is I ain't fixen this thang twnight. It's too broken But do ya gotta laptop or sometun? Ya can use micrasoft excel to do ya calculaten ya know?"
Xat-Cerxis looked awkward. "Well, my friend Viti told me not to touch it. Not until a new keyboard is made by teacher. It has metal buttons!" She explained. "Besides," Xat-Cerxis said. "I am learning how to write! See!" she said picking up a loose pencil and drawing on a paper scrap. She colored it in with bright colored pencils. Lifting it up, she showed it was a llama with her name 'Cerxis' below it. Every letter of her name was a different shade. Then she bit her lip and looked thoughtful. "My grandfather had a counting-spindle. With knots," she said hoping to be helpful. "If you have rope and sticks, I can make one of those!"
Joss raised her brow. She stood there silently, stiff, as though paralyzed staring as though Cerxis was the strangest thing she had ever seen. Then suddenly, she laughed.
"Now that's that the funnies thang i've heard in a long time. Miss Cerxis you're all right. Come on have a seat. I'm gonna get ya'll fixed up."
"Okay!" said Xat-Cerxis. She shuffled over to Josh Possible's table to make a knotting-calculator. She looked over to Josh's smiling face and smiled in return. END.
