EDIT Updated his reference sheet!

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General

Name Laertes

Nickname: Taze, Laertie (only called this by Thalia)

 

Gender Male

 

Age 1 year, 11 months

April 22nd birthdate, 49 BC

 

Rank Shadow Empire Gladiator

 

Species Amur Leopard

 

Voice Actor Ross Lynch

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About

Personality

 

Spunky and Energetic

_{Laertes is very enthusiastic about everything he does, whether it is excitement or dread. He puts a lot of emotion into life and tends to "wear his heart on his sleeve." He's very quirky and outspoken, which sometimes gets annoying to others. He always put his two sense into everything, and that trait will probably carry on when he is older. It is typically only around those he is comfortable around that you will find him being calm.}

 

Devoted and Loyal

_{Laertes grows very attached to others. He loves to be everybody's best friend, but that sometimes causes him a lot of drama and confusion, eventually leading to him not having very many super close friends but a lot of regular friends. However, he would be willing to lay down his life for any of those friends in an instant with no second thought. This also may cause him to get into a bit of trouble, but he usually doesn't mind.}

 

Motivated and Determined

_{Because of Laertes' love of learning, he oftentimes becomes obsessed with figuring something out. Whether that be a battle move or even a simple apprentice's game, he will think and analyze until he has perfected himself.}

 

Dreamy and Idealistic

_{Laertes thinks anything can be solved in a simple way. He sees everything as a whole picture, and can quickly see how it works and what to do. He often times gets very dreamy, however. He will go into trances where he just sits and thinks about things, thinks about the future and the past and the present. Everything is simple and amazing to him.}

 

Impatient and Irritable

_{Particularly for immaturity, Laertes doesn’t have much patience. When dealing with young cats, he gets easily irked and usually just leaves them to someone else, even with his childish nature. He also doesn’t have much tolerance for selfishness, stupidity, or obnoxiousness.}

 

Thoughtful  and Empathetic

_{Laertes takes a lot of things to heart and tends to overthink a lot. He over analyzes and takes a lot of things personally, and some things even send him into deep stress-induced depressions for long periods of time.}

 

Background

<sub>North of the mountains, north of Ice Empire and miles past any sort of Bounty Hunter or human city, there was a small forest. One chilly night, in a cave under an oak tree, a young female leopard gave birth to a beautiful son she named Laertes. The leopard, named Willow, realized after the birth of her son that the forest they resided in was no place to raise a cub. It was overrun by bears and wolves and was scarce of prey. So when she was strong enough to leave the cave, she took her son out of the forest, to the South, into the mountains.

Willow was not expecting such a long trip. It was hard, carrying a newborn cub and weak with hunger. Birds of prey were constantly flying around her, waiting for her to fall dead or leave her son laying around for a while so they could scoop him up. But they never got the chance; Willow was protective and smart. She hid Laertes in abandoned caves and bushes to hunt small prey, and always kept her health up enough to keep walking throughout the day. But weeks into their trip, Willow began to think she had made a horrible mistake. What if there was nothing on the other side of the mountains? What if it was just nothing except these dangerous rocks? She began to think she had damned her and Laertes to death by leaving her old home.

But not long after that, she saw the end. The end of the mountains, the end of their struggle. It was a place with rivers and the ocean and huge forests and open grasslands. The only thing that worried Willow was the strange and unknown figure by the sea...the human city. She had never heard of humans, or Bounty Hunters, or their dangers. So she ignored them and vowed to stay away. They emerged out of the mountains on the edge of Lightning and Fire Empire's territory. She was starving, and she could smell prey everywhere so she hid Laertes in some brush and told him to stay put until she returned. By this time, Laertes was nine months old and could understand most of everything...except why his mother never returned. He waited in his bush for a couple days; Laertes lost track. Finally, he decided he was hungry and sitting in his hiding spot was not going to help him.

And he knew his mother wasn't coming back. So he decided to go look for her, as well.

Unfortunately, Laertes never found Willow. But what he did find was a Shadow Empire patrol, having wandered into their territory. They took him in, gave him armor and told him stories of the fearful and merciless Bounty Hunters, the brave and powerful Coliseum fighters, and the terrifying and evil humans who lived in the city. Laertes was captivated by the stories; to him, there were just stories, after all. None of it was real yet. He was fascinated and intrigued. He decided to stay with Shadow Empire until he found his mother...which he knew might be a while.

Laertes spent about eight months in Shadow Empire. He was assigned a mentor, Evander, who would eventually become the leader. While there, he met a lot of new friends; included was his best friend, a snow leopard by the name of Thalia. Immediately, Laertes and Thalia clicked; they were inseparable. As they grew, cats used to tease them and tell them that they were dating. Right away, they took the jokes as just jokes, and sometimes they even played along. After all, Laertes knew that Thalia had her eyes set on another leopard named Kostenlos. But after a while, Laertes began to notice that he liked Thalia as more than a best friend. He was scared; Thalia didn’t feel the same about him, and he didn’t want to feel rejection. Little did he know, Thalia was beginning to see Laertes as more than a brother, as well. But Laertes was paranoid, and he tried to think of any reason to get around the possibility of being picked second. So he decided to go find his mother on his own.

He left in hopes that Thalia would be with Kostenlos and eventually she’d forget about him. She didn’t forget, though. Laertes’s leaving caused Thalia to hate Kostenlos, and she was left with no one. Laertes was clueless, optimistic that she would just move on with her life without him. Cassandra, a Persian leopard and another friend of Thalia’s, ended up following Laertes out of the territory. For four months they travelled along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, until they reached the territory of Rome.

For the short time they spent in Rome, Laertes changed. There they met Scaeden, the former leader of the Massilian Bounty Hunters and the, at the time, current leader of the newly born Roman Bounty Hunters. They also encountered a new group of escaped Gladiators called Defectors. And Laertes finally found his mother. Sort of. He heard that she had passed through, but she hadn’t been expecting to live very long, so she had left to die on her own. No one knew why she had been travelling, and Laertes couldn’t fathom why she had just left him there and never bothered to return. Angry, he decided to return to Shadow Empire.

However, Scaeden had a proposition. He also wanted to return, so he offered Laertes a trade. He told him that if the leopard showed him the way back to the city he would protect Laertes from any danger as much as he possibly could. At first, Laertes refused, but then offered Scaeden a rearrangement to the deal. Laertes didn’t care much if he stayed safe, but he desperately wanted Thalia to be protected. So Scaeden agreed to keep her safe instead, and they ran away from Rome.

During the three months it took for them to return, Laertes learned a lot about the apparently dangerous Bounty Hunter. At first, Laertes refused to trust him; he only would go to sleep after he was sure the lynx was asleep, and even then he would travel far away to get his rest just in case Scaeden woke up and wanted to kill him. One day as they were travelling, Laertes snapped and stupidly attacked Scaeden.

They fought, and even as unpracticed as the lynx was, he managed to pin Laertes down over a cliff edge. Laertes was sure he’d be killed and he’d never make it back to Shadow Empire, but Scaeden simply let him up and walked away, pretending that the entire ordeal had never happened. Laertes decided to trust Scaeden a bit more; the lynx had noticed that all they were doing was following the shoreline and he could have easily made it back on his own, but he still kept the leopard alive.

When they finally arrived in Shadow Empire, Scaeden met Thalia on the border. They exchanged some words, and Laertes, watching secretly from the trees, finally realized what a massive mistake he had made. Afterwards, Scaeden warned him to not tell Thalia about their deal, because she would never trust him for making an agreement with a deadly Bounty Hunter.

Laertes, conflicted on what to do, returned to Shadow Empire and a heartbroken Thalia, still trying to decide on whether or not to be honest with his best friend or not.</sub>

 

Extra Facts

 

Build

_{Taze has a very stocky and large build. He is muscular from his travels but quick on his feet. Even though his training was cut short, he has become an excellent fighter from natural skill and from a little bit of educational sparring with Scaeden. He stands 35 inches at the shoulder and is 59 inches from nose to tail tip.}

Armor

_{Laertes's armor is simple and light. The gray bandana around his neck was from a cloth he found on his way back from Rome; Scaeden has the other half. They keep it in reminder of their pact. Taze’s leg bands are made of chainmail.}

 

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Relationships

 

Family

Mother

Willow
---Amur Leopard
---Loner
---Presumed Deceased

Father

Unknown
---Unknown
---Unknown
---Unknown

Siblings

None

Other Family

None

Mate

None

Cubs

None

Past Mentors

---Evander
---Cassandra
---Scaeden

Current Apprentice

None

Relationships

 - hate, - dislike, - oath (an agreement, mentorship, etc),

- indifference, - like (not romantically),

- friend/close friend, - love/mate,

- crush - respect



<sub>/ Thalia- "She's fun! We played in the forest a little...She was the first cat I met so I guess that means we are friends? I'm not sure though!"
/ “If I had to spend the rest of my life apologizing to her, I would. I would spend every waking moment of the rest of my life waiting for her to forgive me. I’m so sorry Thalia. I never meant to cause you so much pain. I hope one day you’ll trust me again. I love her, and even if she doesn’t feel the same way anymore...I’m never going to stop trying. I’m not going to give up like I did before.”

// Cassandra - “Gods, she’s obnoxious. I think it was her goal, the entire time we were on our journey, to get me to want to rip her head off. She’s...still my friend, though. I miss her. She trained me for a long time, and even though she wasn’t much better than me, we both improved. I’m so grateful for what she did to get me home, too.  She got me back to Shadow Empire. Thank you, Cassandra.”

Evander - “My old mentor...I’m scared of him, to be honest. He’s the leader now, and Thalia’s brother, and I’m scared that he’ll hate me now that I left without saying anything. I’m sorry Evander. Don’t kill me.”

Kostenlos - “...It takes a lot to get me to hate someone. And I mean a lot. Maybe I hate Kostenlos for irrational reasons. I probably do. But I can’t help it.”

Zapada - “She was Thalia’s old mentor, and so I always trained with her quite a bit, too. She seemed nice.”











/ Scaeden - “Yeah, well. If anyone ever found out that I actually enjoyed Scaeden’s company, I’d be killed on spot. Pretty convinced. He better keep our agreement, though. If he doesn’t, I swear, I won’t hesitate to kill him just like I killed that lion in Rome.”

Rome

/ Benedictus - “Under different circumstances, we could have been good friends, I think. He didn’t seem too far insane, for a Bounty Hunter. He seemed to understand my ordeal with Thalia well enough, and he’s a big part of the reason I made the decision to come back.”</sub>

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Roleplay Example

<sub>Laertes had left his scent on the juniper bush the second he realized where she was going.

The leopard was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea that Thalia was the Healer...during training, she had always seemed so eager! So ready to learn! Why hadn't she continued on with her training?

It's because you weren't there, dumbass, he thought to himself. No, that was wrong. Please let it be wrong. Laertes couldn't stand the idea that he had been the reason she'd quit training. He was the reason she was so upset. He had caused her pain.

She hates you now. No, please, stop thinking that. He had to believe that what she had said was just words. Nothing more. Just fear and anger and nothing more. She didn't hate him. She couldn't.

Had he really meant that much to her that his disappearance turned her love into hate?

"No, he's just like my father and just like you, he doesn't give a damn to what others feel towards him. Not my brother and not me. He's just a blasted silver tongue like you, who plays with others' feelings for his own enjoyment."

Her words stung. No, that was wrong. More than stung. A sting was a prick in the fur, a twist of the stomach, a thorn in the paw. Her words had broken him inside. If Rome and Cassandra had changed him, then Thalia's words completely killed him. He was terrified that they wouldn't be friends ever again. He was so scared. He had expected her to be angry, yeah. But she completely and utterly hated him. That was a new feeling. Even his natural enemy, Scaeden, the once great and powerful leader of the Bounty Hunters, didn't hate him. Taze had never felt such hate directed towards him before. And he was scared, because Thalia actually mattered to him.

He pressed the side of his head against a tree as he watched Thalia's gray fur wander around the forest, going everywhere except the juniper bush he had marked. She was so concentrated. She seemed so...calm compared to the rage that had swollen from inside her just five days ago. Her paws were careful, her tail was graceful. Her eyes scanned the forest with such professionalism, the leopard wouldn't even be able to tell how furious she was inside if he didn't already know. He had forgotten how much he loved just watching her. She had grown even since he had last seen her. She was gorgeous, and his heart ached every time he remembered he had missed months of her life that he could never make up.

He hadn't come back for days out of terror of what laid for him in Shadow Empire. Scaeden seemed pissed after his conversation with Thalia; pissed at Laertes, that is. "I can't believe you were so stupid that you couldn't even see how much she cared for you, you complete idiot," the lynx had snapped. He tried to leave right away, but Laertes made him recite exactly what they had agreed to. Obediently, Scaeden told the leopard their agreement, told him he would hold it up, then left for his own home, where he would probably be greeted with open paws. Laertes would be shunned and punished; he left without saying a word. And, obviously, his disappearance hadn't gone unnoticed.

His ears pricked when he saw her crouch down next to the juniper bush and begin tediously organizing the berries. Nervous, his claws dug into the bark of the tree branch he was carefully perched in. Now's the time. I'm done hiding. Just smell the bush. That's all it'll take. Just smell it, Thal. I've come home. I've come back for you.</sub>

Taken from a roleplay with Asante-Sana

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