I venture into Terramagne again! Heads up,
ysabetwordsmith. This poem is set in T-Wisconsin, specifically T-Madison, and features a hero of a different sort indeed. If anyone needs translations of the Spanish throughout, please let me know.
Trigger warnings: Please take note, this poem features nongraphic but still vivid references to a house fire. It also features several levels of racist and otherwise bigoted nasties attempting malicious mischief and worse, including in cemeteries. Said nasties absolutely get theirs, and no damage is done to anyone's resting place, but this could still be sensitive territory. There is also one instance of a person not responsible for their actions being stopped in the act of pyromania, and one averted car wreck. There is absolutely no on-screen harm to animals here. None.
( Fuego, Agua, Nieve ) Khallo
Description: He is a longhaired, very fluffy neutered male black cat, possibly Norwegian forest cat or Maine coon in ancestry, but that's never been confirmed. He's approximately four years old. He is able to make the sounds necessary for humanoid speech with ease, though his mouth remains in a feline configuration. In addition to fluent communication with fellow cats, he speaks and understands Spanish, English, conversational Hmong, a few words of Mandarin, and some basic Lao. He's also literate in Spanish and English. His feline name is pronounced closest to the English word 'callow', which will never describe him.
Origin: Khallo survived a house fire as a kitten. His home suffered an unpredictable, truly bad luck electrical short and burned to the ground, and he was separated from his human family in the aftermath. His super abilities grew in gradually but noticeably as he recovered. He's now a friendly if shy stray on the streets of Madison, Wisconsin.
Khallo's humans are Hispanic and Latinx, and Spanish was the first human language he learned. It's still his admitted favorite, and his human default. He has an ongoing bias toward the city's Latinx and Spanish-speaking residents as a result, and he knows it. He is determined to find, or at least find information about, his human family. He currently has no idea if they survived the fire (they did), and the extremely scant few applicable details he retains from kittenhood memories of them don't help his search very much. He has, for example, neither surname nor street name to work from. This doesn't stop him trying.
Uniform: None. He goes nude, except for a very generous coat of fluffy, fancy fur.
Qualities: Good (+2) resourceful, good (+2) fierce, good (+2) stealthy, good (+2) cat skills, good (+2) loyal, good (+2) observant, good (+2) sense of justice, good (+2) one beautiful kitty
Poor (-2) skittish
Powers: Good (+2) superintellect, good (+2) human speech, good (+2) charcoal wards
Khallo's superintellect puts him on a level with a well-educated human. His facility for nonfeline speech is a mystery to him, but he's unlikely ever to object to the ability.
If he concentrates, Khallo can create a type of intent-based energy shield or ward on or around an object of his choosing. This manifests through his footsteps, and results in charcoal pawprints being left anywhere he walks while actively warding. They can be intentionally swept or brushed away, though natural forces i.e. wind will not disturb them. He frequently uses his wards as a fire-retardant shield or forcefield barrier, often while assisting or protecting local minorities.
Motivation: Todo por mi familia.
Logan Reyna Duarte
Description: Just slightly taller than average, and slim but not at all unhealthy. Logan is openly both sexually female and genderqueer. They prefer to use they/them pronouns, but will answer to she/her. They are currently a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and have just turned twenty. The hair on their head started changing from dark brown at puberty; all their usually-visible body hair has been entirely teal for several years. Any hair commonly concealed beneath a swimsuit has not changed, though they aren't in the habit of revealing this fact to the public. Their eyes remain dark brown. Their heritage is Latinx, specifically settler and indigenous Bolivian.
Qualities: good (+2) student, good (+2) approachable, good (+2) deductive reasoning, good (+2) friendly, good (+2) thoughtful, good (+2) multilingual (English and Spanish, and a few words of Imara)
Poor (-2) patchy family acceptance
Powers: average (0) teal hair, average (0) extended ultraviolet vision
Jordan Gonzalez Reyna
She has middling brown skin, dark brown hair and eyes. She's fairly average in height, and is reasonably physically fit; no one's likely to call her fat. Jordan is currently twenty, not quite twenty-one, and a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She's good friends with her cousin Logan, who's of similar age. Her heritage is Latinx, mostly settler and indigenous Bolivian.
Qualities: good (+2) student, good (+2) friendly, good (+2) approachable, good (+2) colored pencil artist, good (+2) multilingual (English, Spanish, and a few words of Imara)
Poor (-2) target of discrimination
Powers: supernary
Jordan is actively working to improve her sense of direction and situational awareness, among other things. She isn't entirely sure in which direction she wants to go with the improvements to her skills, though she's considering training up to assist domestic abuse survivors.
Abd-al Latif (Rahim Abdullah)
He has short, straight black hair, dark skin and black eyes, and a short length of neatly-kept beard. He is tall and as muscular as his profession requires, though not overly bulky. He's currently twenty-six years old. He's a certified and well-respected construction worker locally, and an active member of both the African American and Muslim communities in the city.
Qualities: Good (+2) construction worker, good (+2) friendly, good (+2) honest, good (+2) watch out for the other guy, good (+2) civic skills, good (+2) Muslim, good (+2) emotional first aid, good (+2) Green Heart, good (+2) African American culture
Poor (-2) DWB
Powers: Average (0) empathy
*Jordan and Logan were inspired by two (presumably female) college-age people I met when getting horribly, embarrassingly turned around on State Street! They were absolutely lovely, and thus got written up as characters of the same sort. I have no idea of their names, origins or circumstances, but I very much appreciated their assist. Whoever you two were, thank you again for sorting out my silly self.
*Wind Sled is a white cape regional soup living on Lake Superior's south shore. He takes his cape name from the vehicles used as travel between islands and the mainland once the lake's iced over. He has good (+2) ice powers and average (0) snow powers.
*This poem was inspired, first and foremost, by a magnificently fluffy former stray of a shy sweetheart over at
Love And Hisses. I've altered his name, because that'd get me smacked for copyright infringement of an already-fictional universe (the actual kitty's name is Khal Drogo!). It'd also be crossing a line I'm unwilling to cross. On a related subject, the circumstances of this poem's cat losing his first home are in no way meant to reflect back to the And3rson folks. I got the permission of the delightful Robyn of L&H writerly fame before posting any of this to DW. Thank you, Robyn!
*If you want to see what the floofily fabulous inspiration for this poem looks like, go
over here and scroll down. The caption connected to the last picture in this entry is where a few verses came from. The charcoal wards thing actually sprang from that same kitty getting up the chimney of the (not in use!) fireplace, then climbing back down and leaving little black footprints all over the house. :) All the permanent resident cats featured on that blog, including the marvelous flooftastic house panther in question, have dedicated tags of their own, though prepare to lose time both reading and squeeing if you click!
*The second inspiration for this poem came from an entry to a livejournal comm that I can no longer find, and if the poster is reading this, please speak up? Someone had, and eventually had to say goodbye to, a black and white rescue cat whose first couple years were unknown to her. She was certain that, due to Oreo's (?) reactions over the years, his first family had spoken Spanish. She speculated that there'd been a woman in his first house who'd crooned ballads like a Spanish-language star on Telemundo, and a teenager who'd sung in the shower like Lady Gaga. ... I wish I could find that post.
*For reference, all the streets mentioned in this poem are real and local to Madison, Wisconsin, but the houses of worship have had their names altered. See above and crossing lines.
*During World War II, a red-tailed plane distinguished the all-African American Tuskegee Airmen from other flyers. The military was still very much a segregated organization at the time.