Status:
2653: Fade
Owned by BendustKas
Island: Isla Kela
Biome: Coastal, Urban, Forest, Oceanic, Swamp
Diet: Fish, invertebrates, small mammals, seabirds
Faction: Shipyard Bask
Mate: Ruaidhri [future]
Weight: Lean
Height: Tall
Length: Long
He's surprisingly spry for a sucho, and almost delicate of frame. Incredibly fast on land, though surprisingly slow in the water due to low muscle mass. Despite his somewhat imposing height, Fade carries himself in quite a small posture, often with his head ducked down and relatively low to the ground in a generally submissive stance around new or visibly stronger dinosaurs.
Notable Traits: He definitely looks like he's been at the wrong end of a scrap more than once in his life, being a little roughed up. He has significant and distinctive scarring on his face as the result of a childhood injury. While he has sustained many other injuries during his life, the vast majority are hidden beneath his feathers. His feathers have a notably "unkempt" appearance, as he often forgets to or doesn't have time to smooth them out.
Personality
Fade is a quiet sucho who much prefers to be in the background and away from the center of attention. As a result, he tends to stick to the outer edges of the bask's territory. He's relatively submissive, preferring to find a solution that will avoid bloodshed if at all possible. That being said, there is something that he'd stand up for and defend to his last breath - the family that he's built for himself. He has a strong paternal side, doing everything he can to take care of those that struggle to care for themselves, and will adopt dinos younger than him if they appear to be without a guardian. His temper can run quite fast, though he tries to keep it in check so that no one - especially his "kids" - sees him angry.
There is a sucho that wandered into the bask that both quieted his temper and put fire in his soul. His first interaction with the inexplicably southern-voiced Ruaidhri was a bit rough, snapping at the strange male after the resident utah pack attacked the bask. Continued run-ins with Ruaidhri proved to have an impact on Fade, though. He couldn't quite get the kind sucho out of his thoughts - or his heart.
History & Relations
Fade struggled, growing up. He wasn't the strongest, nor largest of his siblings, and with the relatively dismissive attention of his mother, Susurrus, he ended up being bullied viciously by his siblings - Hyperion, mostly. Cocoa and Mire were relatively kind, by comparison. His larger brother's playtime rapidly became more and more aggressive, until it ended in a violent accident that nearly took Fade's sight from him when they were both still young. Susurrus would later drive Hyperion away, and fearing what she might do to him, Fade left and struck out on his own shortly after reaching adolecence.
Fade traveled by himself for some time. He managed well enough on his own, though he never claimed anywhere as his own territory. His wanderings eventually lead him to cross paths with a very young sucho. He adopted Austa as his daughter and did everything he could to care for her. Having two mouths to feed, though, proved to be a bit more of a challenge than he was prepared to handle without a territory to provide for them. He found himself on the shore, where he had heard word of a sucho bask that had been founded by none other than Hyperion. Hyperion offered to take Fade and his daughter into the bask as a sort of "olive branch" for how they had interacted when they were younger. Fade accepted, cautiously, and joined the bask.
He wasn't the strongest fighter, nor the strongest hunter, but was still expected to pull his weight to help the bask - so he offered to watch over the bask's hatchlings. This was not a task he would be taking on alone, fortunately. He joined other queens of the bask, and found good company with Lophonetta. Durian, as well, was someone that greeted Fade with kindness, though Fade was at first wary of the male due to his apparent closeness to Hyperion. It seemed more than anything, though, Durian just wanted everyone to get along. Spider was welcoming enough, and from time to time has helped Fade with his tasks as a queen, though Fade has notable issues with trusting the male around "his" children. Calabar, Fade was wholly uncertain of - he struggles to understand the bizarre relationship that Calabar has with his adopted son, Ahkenaten.
It wasn't long after Fade had gotten settled into his role that he unexpectedly encountered a ghost from his past. Susurrus arrived at the bask, bringing with her one of her younger offspring. Eyeless, as she was known at the time, had been through a horrible accident that left her blind and scarred, and Susurrus had brought her to the Shipyard to rid herself of what she saw as a useless child. While Hyperion was the one that accepted her into the bask, Fade was the one that took her under his wing to raise her just as he was the rest of the bask's swimlings. He helped her navigate the world and taught her how to be strong despite what others saw as a weakness, and he helped her find a new name - Inspirational, for that's exactly what she was.
In an odd way, Fade ended up adopting another dinosaur around the bask. Malachite wasn't around as often as some of the other bask members, and he was in fact a utah; that made him no less of a son to Fade than any of the others he'd helped raise. Malachite came and went, often for varying amounts of time, and on one such return he brought with him an incredibly small, malnourished suchomimus hatchling that Mal named Zaca. She was extremely fearful and distrustful of others of the bask for a long time, and Fade developed an especially strong protective sense when it came to the small hatchling. Her slow-growing strength and shyness, Austa's powerful temper, and Inspirational's apparent "handicap" eventually widened the ever-growing divide between Fade and Hyperion.
It became more and more apparent that, despite Hyperion's best efforts to hide it, his bully behaviour of his youth had never fully gone away. If ever Fade questioned Hyperion's authority, he was put to work on long patrols or unfair hunts, working himself to the point of exhaustion on top of his normal duties of looking out for the bask's younger members. Fade struggled to control his temper, but if ever it flared, he quickly bowed down to Hyperion's authority to avoid bloodshed. His children didn't need to see such aggression from either of them. The neighbouring utah pack's occasional raids on the bask never helped matters, raising alarm amongst the bask and agitating Hyperion further. After one such attack, in a fit of exhausted confusion, Fade lashed out on an unfamiliar suchomimus wandering the bask grounds. Ruaidhri didn't seem to be too bothered by Fade's reaction, shrugging off the experience as though little and less had happened - it was all good in this neighbourhood.
Ruaidhri was not the only suchomimus to come to the bask after Fade joined Hyperion. Shane, a male that Inspirational rescued from a tangled fishing net beneath the waves, became a full-time member of the bask after he healed from his injuries. Fade is unsure of him, and though he knows that Inspirational is fully capable of taking care of herself if she thought him unworthy of her attention, he struggles with Shane's advances on her.
This tumultuous, unsteady peace between Fade and Hyperion lasted for quite some time, with Fade being kept in check both by his concern for his children and what Hyperion might do to them to get to him as well as fear of Hyperion, himself. He would relent, defaulting to Hyperion's leadership. Despite all Hyperion's faults, he did seem to have the bask's health and safety in mind...most of the time. As tired as he often was, agreeing with Hyperion was just easier, and safer. When Obsidian joined the bask and stood by Hyperion's side, Fade hoped that her love - or whatever they had together - would temper Hyperion's aggression. Disappointingly, he was wrong.
He does wonder, sometimes, if he had just argued with Hyperion that night, if things might have turned out differently. When the rain poured down in sheets, and when the night suddenly turned into day.
Fun Facts:
- When pleased or happy, Fade will "hum," a sound that is very similar to an alligator rumble or a purring cat
- As a hatchling, Fade would sleep on his side with his tail tucked close to his body so he could hold it with his front claws - which he still does from time to time when he is very cold and sleeping alone
- Does not like having his face touched by strangers or others that he doesn't know very well. If he doesn't know you well enough to bump you with his snout, it's likely that he doesn't want you in his space
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