Micah Haines

[Micah]

NAME: Micah Haines.
NICKNAMES: Micah is a very hard name to abbreviate or twist any way into any kind of ‘pet’ names, but even then, Micah is usually called by his given name, his surname, or his pack title of Omega.
RACE: Werewolf; bitten.
OCCUPATION: Pack Omega.
GENDER: Male.
SKIN COLOUR: Caucasian, with a very subtle tan.
NATIONALITY: English.
AGE: 98 years old, but he looks to be in his early-mid twenties, physically.
CLOTHING: Micah is, at the best of times, unpredictable, and his choice of clothing is a good example of that indecisiveness and spontaneity; he wears colours that clash, is sometimes found in nothing but black, doesn’t care a bit for fashion — though his tastes are very simple and therefore not exactly unfashionable by definition — and hardly pays attention to how he dresses himself. He’ll wear just about anything, from jackets to hoodies, jeans to slacks, boots to sneakers, even going barefoot sometimes. He’ll wear layers when he doesn’t need to, and occasionally when he is in the sanctuary of his own room, can even be found shirtless. He wears corduroy or leather belts sometimes, randomly has pins or buttons on his shirts or jackets, and even has a hat or two tossed haphazardly into his already-cluttered closet. This habit extends to coats, and he has several of differing styles and lengths. A lot of the time, Micah is, essentially, naked; he spends quite a good portion of his time in his wolf form, and prefers it to be natural, though he will slink away to a private place in order to clothe himself immediately after transforming back from his animal self.
HEIGHT: 5’10.
WEIGHT: 154lbs.
TATTOOS: N/A.
PIERCINGS: N/A.
JEWELLERY: Not exactly jewellery per se, but Micah has a eclectic little collection of cuffs and the like, leather for the most part, some with designs; he also has black plastic bracelets, simple rings that encompass his wrists. Micah also owns several bandannas that he will tie about his wrist, to balance out against what he is wearing on the other arm; if he can’t have a balance, he won’t wear anything at all, and if he misplaces one side’s ‘decoration’, then he will remove the other without hesitation.
BODY MODIFICATIONS: For a variety of reasons, Micah has a map of scars littering his body. He had a handful of accidents as a child that left their marks; to the left side of his back and ribcage he has claw and fang puncture marks from his turning; and down his arms he has several telltale slash and cut marks, presumably from blades that contained some amount of silver. It doesn’t take much to deduce that the latter, at least, are self-inflicted.

WOLF FORM.

BUILD: Easily mistaken for a wild Common Grey Wolf, Micah has all the proportions of one though with slightly more depth to his back and chest, and through the shoulders, making him ‘taller’ across the top of his spine towards the nape of his neck, where his shoulder blades arch to meet. He has somewhat large paws that house short but wicked black claws, powerful but average-sized legs that lack the muscles to the hind quarters which would allow him to stand and move in a bipedal fashion; his neck is thick to protect his jugular and his head in unmistakeably lupine, with strong features that are seen in the wild descendants of the lycanthropic family. He has moderately tall, rounded ears, and finally, a full, brush-like tail.
HEIGHT: Quadruped; 3’8.
WEIGHT: 232lbs.
HAIR: White shot through with various shades of grey, from light silver to dark-steel, Micah’s coat covers his entire body from the his muzzle to the tip of his tail, giving him a full layer of insulation and protection. The scattered, almost mottled colours give him a degree of stealth in patchy shadows, but otherwise, he is quite vivid. The only true dark points on his body are around his muzzle, where there are ‘shadows’ of much darker grey, and the outlines of the fronts of his ears are fully black.
EYES: A pale green with black pupils.
DEFINING MARKS: His tall shoulders, his colouration and his full tail.

PACK.
PACK: Lucian’s Pack.
POSITION: Omega.
TERRITORY: Beverly Hills, specifically the area surrounding their mansion home.

HAIR.[/i]
LENGTH: Varying lengths throughout: at its longest, Micah’s hair reaches the bottom of his neck at the back and around the sides behind his ears, where it is out of the way; it can be tucked behind his ears at the sides, tapering up towards ‘bangs’ that settle on his cheeks at the front, and often shield his eyes from view, something he seems to favour.
STYLE: Straight and usually raked through with his fingers or loosely combed, there is no real style to Micah’s hair other than what it does naturally. He doesn’t fuss with it.
COLOUR: Dark brown, appearing almost black most of the time.

FACIAL HAIR.[/i]
LENGTH: A few centimetres at most, varying in length depending on its location.
STYLE: Sometimes simply stubble from a day or two’s worth of growth, or at others, a ‘full set’ consisting of sideburns, short beard and goatee and moustache above his upper lip.

EYES.[/i]
COLOUR: Blue.
ODDITIES: Being a werewolf, Micah’s eyes will betray the animal within whenever he is experiencing heightened or suddenly shifting emotions; they are also likely to shift whenever he is in pain or if he is startled, and he can will them to change if he is looking to tease or intimidate.

PERSONALITY: Unpredictable at the best of times, and nigh on impossible to judge, Micah is complicated without being deeply complex, someone who is hard to understand, and yet, the reasons behind what he does are often almost painfully simple. He’s a torn, fractured young wolf, very much split into two sides and yet, they seem to blur almost frightfully at times, the wolf bleeding into the man and vice versa, making him spontaneous and even dangerous, if not properly managed. His Alphas have learned how to keep him tame, and there are others in the pack, the Betas and Jesse Richardson especially, who can keep him controlled, able to tap into what it is that makes him unstable on the baser, instinctual levels, and either talk him down or full-out intimidate him, which is sometimes the only thing that can get through to him when he suffers what is technically known as an ‘episode’. During these lapses, Micah can be found in a variety of states, anything from curling up as small as he can make himself on his bed, to systematically ripping anything paper-like into pieces, to almost carefully cutting into his own arm with a knife, often something with silver laced into the blade.

As an Omega, Micah is at the bottom of the pecking order in the pack, and is almost content with his place, understanding it completely. He is weaker than the others, mentally and physically, and doesn’t comprehend things on the same level, almost like a child and yet, at the same time, perhaps shockingly, highly intelligent. He can pass tests with flying colours, using the instinct and reflexes of his wolf side and his human advantages hand-in-hand to get what he needs, combining the pros of both sides to outweigh the cons if he needs to. He relies heavily on his animal side to tell him when to submit, which is most of the time, and when he can stand to his full height, something he isn’t overly fond of doing when in the presence of his superiors. Especially when around the Alphas or Betas, Micah will, in any way he can, be below them, literally; he will sit on the floor, or lower himself in some other way, eyes averted to respect their dominance, and in fact, he even spends a good portion of his time in wolf form because it keeps him below the others in the pack. He can often be found padding around the pack’s home in wolf form, keeping to the sides of the hallways, out of the way, all but blending into the wallpaper silently, knowing his place and respecting it. Micah is not at all bitter about his place, but he does become confused easily at times; there are two wolves in the pack, for example, who are targeted with tangible hatred, and he often wonders what makes him Omega in their place. But it is not in him to question the ways of the pack, and he trusts and obeys Lucian and Farryn without question, never arguing and never pausing to question; if he has trouble with something, he will wait to be told he is doing it wrong, he will never ask first.

Because of his mental condition, the frequency of his episodes something that would baffle or astound many a psychologist, he can tip to either end of the emotional scale very easily, but the one thing that always seems to keep him balanced and focused is photography; he is extremely passionate about his photography, a hobby he picked up some years ago, and most of the time, this is the only topic he will talk about with any kind of fervour, always waiting to be spoken to before he offers any opinion or view in a conversation, highly inclined to just agree with the most dominant pack wolf in any situation anyway. But photography is his and his alone, and he values it, the only thing he really clings to in the way of personal possessions and territoriality. He views it almost as a prize for good behaviour, and if Lucian gives him permission to take pictures somewhere new, then he considers himself very lucky. This almost makes him seem easy to please, but his mentality also makes this a slippery slope; photography is the only constant.

As to whether Micah would die for the pack, it is simply a matter of obedience, the loyalty of his wolfen side meaning he would lay down his life if it was indicated that he should do so, or if he is flat-out told to sacrifice himself. Micah would obey anything his Alphas told him, or failing that, the Beta pair; failing them, Jesse has full authority in his mind, the third most dominant in the pack without question in his wolf’s basic view of things.

WEAKNESSES: As a werewolf, Micah is typically weak to the metal silver, able to be nauseated, sickened, burned or poisoned by it, the worst case scenario being his death if the metal infects his bloodstream and eventually his heart, lungs or brain. Micah’s age also leaves him vulnerable to his wolf, something that will likely continue for many years; he changes uncontrollably during the three nights of the full moon, remaining in wolf form and becoming more or less a raging animal until the sun rises the following morning. If he has made any attempts to start controlling this yet, he isn’t showing it.

Micah is far from fighter material, and even when in wolf form, he relies more on frenzied instinct, leaving him open to attacks from other angles, his focus becoming shot, driven by feral madness more than anything else. There is no finesse in his style of combat; he is all tooth and claw and bloodlust, for lack of a better word, and though he will always stop when he is commanded to by any superior, he tends to switch much more to wolf than man when in his animal form and fighting; he isn’t careful, and he will shake any prey in his jaws violently, which could lead to unintended mauling and obviously death when it isn’t wanted or planned.

Arguably the greatest weakness is Micah’s diagnosed and highly unpredictable Bipolar Disorder, his symptoms and episodes classifying him as a Mixed State ‘patient’; he suffers from a wide variety of effects, ranging from clinical depression to increased restlessness to uncharacteristic aggression to racing thoughts, and everything in between, his behaviour erratic at best and extremely difficult to control and maintain, making him not only a challenge, physically and emotionally, but potentially dangerous, and not only to others. Micah has many scars on his arms from self-inflicted wounds, and all it would take is the slightest slip in his mental state for him to go too far. Even as an Omega who usually always knows his standing in the pack, his condition can cause him to forget his place where he normally never would, endangering his own life if nothing else. It is exceedingly difficult for just anyone in the pack to get through to him while one of the more extreme effects is in progress, but Lucian can get through to him without fail, as can Farryn and Jesse, and usually Christian and Dorothy. Oddly enough, more often than not, Jesse can get through to him with greater efficiency during these wilder episodes than the Betas, something that could cause unneeded tension in the pack, something Micah dreads and is ashamed of.

Because of his lycanthropy, Micah cannot actually be medicated for his Disorder, meaning his symptoms go unchecked, and his status as a werewolf even makes his condition all the more unpredictable and erratic. Where humans would normally only suffer shifts or episodes a few times a year, Micah’s are much more frequent and even enhanced because of his dual nature.

ABILITIES: Lycanthropy allows Micah to use all the textbook privileges of the race: enhanced strength, speed, senses, agility, grace, endurance, pain threshold, healing and balance; he can cover great distances in single bounds which would normally kill or at least cripple mortals; and of course, he always has his wolf form at his beck and call, save for the full moon, when he must change, whether he wishes to or not.

Having no combat or weaponry skills, Micah doesn’t really have anything to boast about, especially since he isn’t the boasting kind anyway. The only talents he really has at his disposal are his flair with photography and his voice; Micah actually has a natural gift for singing, even though he doesn’t display it much, or at least not without being prompted first.

WEAPONS: None. Micah either uses his natural assets in a fight or nothing at all, even though he does own a few small knives, mostly of the folding or butterfly variety.

PRIZED POSSESSIONS: The only thing Micah really prizes is his Olympus M1 SLR camera, one he has had for several years.

HOME(S): Red Moon Manor, along with the rest of the pack.

HISTORY: Born in 1910 to working class parents who barely had time for each other, let alone a child who had been, at best, an accident, Micah Haines was the type of boy who had to entertain himself if he wanted to have any sort of fun at all. An only child with very few friends — he was the ‘strange boy’, one who was avoided most of the time if only for his wild imagination and stories — he made his own adventures, exploring and always wandering too far from home, his parents too estranged to really take any notice. He would come home with various cuts and scrapes, and they wouldn’t even notice, and Micah didn’t care. He did what he pleased, went where he liked, and found people-watching to be a curious hobby indeed. Many an afternoon was spent sitting on a wall, watching the people go to and fro about their daily duties and desires, making up stories in his head about where they were going, who they would meet and what would happen to them.

Micah was barely fourteen when he really did wander too far from home. Intending to climb one of the taller trees in the woods near to his town, he had spent almost half an hour studying the huge trunk, trying to determine how he could get up to the inviting branches overhead. The light had been steadily fading without him noticing it, and before he even realised, night had fallen with very little progress made on his part, clambering up a few feet only to topple down again, undeterred by his failures. So involved in his self-set task, Micah didn’t even hear the rustling and the soft snapping of twigs as something approached; if he did hear, he passed it off as another person passing through, one who would likely leave him alone, as most people did.

The boy’s failure to pay attention to his surroundings led to undoubtedly the biggest change in his life; out of nowhere, the creature attacked, lunging and knocking him off his feet, pinning him to the ground and sinking claws into his back, his cries going unheard as teeth sank awkwardly into his side, grazing his ribcage and drawing a generous amount of blood. Micah never figured out what scared the creature away, only that something did. Whether it was another animal, something beyond the trees, or perhaps even another person, he never found out, never really tried to find out; after that night, Micah was never the same again, and not only in the most literal sense, given what had attacked him. The second night of the full moon followed his attack abruptly, barely giving him time to come to his senses before they were being torn away again. As his body broke and contorted, becoming something altogether inhuman, Micah’s mind followed suit. It fractured, splitting and deteriorating, twisting to try and deal with the sudden change, and failing.

Micah never returned home after that presumably unprovoked attack, wandering, lost and altogether hopeless and confused, stumbling his way across the countryside and past towns, clumsily trying to hunt his own food, or steal it, only having minor success in the latter, causing his weight to drop unhealthily. Unsure as to how long he had been wandering, his only clue to the passing time was the cycling full moon, which once again tore the wolf from within, bringing it howling to the surface and sending him on a rampage. He had managed to rip through an entire field of panicked sheep before he was stopped, but not by a bullet from a farmer’s gun, or anything else so expected, but by another wolf, or more to the point, other wolves. Not just one, or a pair, but a number of them, presumably a hunting party, and they managed to stop Micah’s moon-crazed actions, downing him and eventually knocking him out when he wouldn’t stop thrashing and struggling.

When he woke the next day, his head throbbing and his stomach aching but otherwise unharmed, he wasn’t alone; this was his first introduction to the man who would quickly become his Alpha, unquestionably, for years to come. Luckily — for him — Micah had been found by a pack who would take him in, contain him when he broke apart. Lucian Mar, the Alpha, over the coming years, saw in Micah the hints of mental illness, finally pinpointing it as best he could along with others as Bipolar Disorder, or at least the werewolf equivalent. When asked if his family had suffered from any kind of mania or anything similar, Micah always mumbled that he couldn’t remember; he didn’t know. The only explanation, eventually, was that being bitten had ruined his mind, somehow rocked it enough to cause something like the Disorder, similar enough to be classed as the condition but of a different brand, enhanced and therefore worsened by his lycanthropy; medication never worked, the drugs too weak and quickly overcome by the heightened metabolism, and as time went on, it turned out that only one tangible thing could tame Micah during an episode. He developed a passion for photography, and eventually came into possession of his own camera.

Over the years, he has developed a tentative sort of relationship with Jesse Richardson, someone his wolf responds to on more basic, instinctual levels, and even though he never rose above the ‘rank’ of Omega, his Disorder most likely a contributing factor to his position, Micah has more or less settled; he knows his place, he responds to commands and understands body language impeccably, relying on it perhaps more than he should. Still, his ‘episodes’ interfere with his life more often than he — or anyone else in the pack — would like. For the time being, the Alphas, Betas, and Jesse himself, are able to bring him around from one turn or another, with their own varying methods.

For whatever reason, Micah has never complained. Perhaps when he was attacked, his willpower fractured with his mind, and that is why he has remained Omega, showing no signs of rising through the ranks of the pack he has come to silently think of as his ‘family’, though perhaps not in the close sense he inwardly hopes for.