Kyla Shepherd

[Kyla]

NAME: Kyla Shepherd.
NICKNAMES: The only nickname Kyla really allows is the simple abbreviation of Ky. Some of the pack call her by her surname, or the shortening of Shep, which she honestly has no problem with.
RACE: Werewolf; pureborn.
OCCUPATION: Pack Fighter.
GENDER: Female.
SKIN COLOUR: Caucasian; tanned.
NATIONALITY: English.
AGE: 336, though physically Kyla appears to be anywhere from her late teens to her early twenties.
CLOTHING: Usually Kyla dresses very unimpressively, almost as though she wants to fly under the radar and keep from drawing attention which isn’t far from being the case. She is fond of darker colours, plain items that are unimaginative and ordinary while still being practical and comfortable; t-shirts with long or short sleeves, thin sweaters, jeans, cargo pants, simple shirts. She is a fan of simplicity, avoiding flare whenever she can. Kyla is, however, a big fan of belts, and owns a ridiculous range of them in varying styles, thicknesses, and even colours; her belts are usually the most colourful thing about her, aside from her hair. For footwear, she can usually be found in a pair of boots that just touch on being feminine but still lack heels or when she’s training she can be seen wearing sneakers or nothing at all, enjoying the natural feel of being barefoot. When out and about in cooler or wetter weather, she favours a black faux-denim jacket that reaches her waist and has a high collar.
HEIGHT: 5’7.
WEIGHT: 142lbs.
TATTOOS: Kyla has a single tattoo on her lower right leg, above her ankle and reaching halfway up her calf on the outside, depicting a series of tasteful flowers with vines connecting them. The tattoo is inked in black, very simple and quietly elegant, and the most feminine thing about Kyla at any given time.

PIERCINGS: Kyla has toyed with the idea of having either her ears or her navel pierced but hasn’t yet worked up the drive to get anything done, especially since her kind heal so swiftly.
JEWELLERY: Around her neck she wears a white gold chain with a pendant that has an intricate design on the face, almost in the style of crop circles and other symbols woven around them; obviously that is not what they are, but she cannot for the life of her discern what they really are. The necklace is the only piece she wears with any consistency, an item that obviously has sentimental value given how consistently she can be seen wearing it.

BODY MODIFICATIONS: Given her age and role within the pack, it’s no surprise that Kyla, like all fighter wolves, has her fair share of scars. They are scattered over her body and vary in size from small nicks to the odd slash as though from a blade or claws. The most vivid scar she has is over the outside of her left thigh, three ragged lines, a telltale souvenir from another wolf’s claws.

WOLF FORM.

BUILD: In simplest terms, Kyla is built very much like a wild, common wolf but on a much larger scale. She has all the same kinds of proportions that one would expect to see in a wolf, all the same joints and the same general physical layout, so to speak, but everything is bigger. She is fairly muscular, almost surprisingly so for a female who is so agile and swift, but she has had a lot of time to learn how to utilise her wolf form. Because she possesses the extra joints in her hind legs necessary for such a feat, Kyla can walk just as easily on two legs as she can on four, giving her a full range of movement. She has a particularly wolfen head, easily mistaken for a common wild animal’s; the only striking difference between her quadruped form and that of a wild wolf’s is her mane, long tendrils of hair that hang down from around her neck and grace over her shoulders and down between her shoulder blades respectively. Her claws are thick and strong, valuable weapons in a fight and her feral form is finished with a full, sweeping tail.
HEIGHT: Biped -- 7’9; quadruped -- 4’3.
WEIGHT: 269lbs.
HAIR: Her pelt is a wide range of greys with the odd bit of white mixed in here and there and a general mottling of various browns. She is darkest down her spine and she becomes gradually lighter the further down the sides of her body you go, all the way down to her paws, which are white. The underside and very tip of her tail is white as well.
EYES: A pale golden-green.
DEFINING MARKS: Her wolfen structure, her mane and her thick tail.

PACK.
PACK: Rayne’s Pack.
POSITION: Fighter.
TERRITORY: Rayne’s side of Los Angeles.

HAIR.
LENGTH: Currently Kyla’s hair drops down to rest on her shoulders with layers of varying length all the way around, some as short as being level with her nose or eyes.
STYLE: Generally speaking the she-wolf’s hair is very simple, hanging in a layered bob of sorts with little in the way of tampering; Kyla doesn’t really have the patience for elaborate styles and usually the most she will do is to pull it back into a ponytail or clip it away from her eyes, depending on the situation.
COLOUR: Naturally Kyla’s hair is a full, rich brown in colour with natural high and lowlights. In recent years she has made a habit of dyeing her hair from its natural colour to a vivid, deep red with the roots and the underside being dark brown, almost black in a sort of vibrant contrast.

FACIAL HAIR.
LENGTH: N/A.
STYLE: N/A.

EYES.
COLOUR: Hazel, with the tendency to look green under certain lights.
ODDITIES: Like all werewolves, Kyla can will a shift in colour of her eyes, taking them from her human hue to that of her wolf; she can do this in order to display mischief or anger, or it can be triggered automatically by heightened emotional states, whether it be rage, jubilation or intense sorrow.

PERSONALITY: Though it might come as no surprise given how she appears on the outside, Kyla is a cynical, embittered, rather dryly sarcastic she-wolf who has genuine trouble getting excited or showing real enthusiasm for much of anything nowadays. She has changed a lot since her youth, days when she would smile and laugh, when she appeared so very feminine and actually cared for her appearance, a time when she had hopes and dreams and believed there was so much good in the world that she would one day be able to experience for herself. Kyla has left all of that behind, shut it all away, and the female left behind is so very different to that one from the past that it is almost as though she has become a different person altogether. She rarely laughs, her smiles are usually tainted with acerbity or wryness and she rarely takes part in much of anything that isn’t training with the other fighters. That antisocial tendency of hers has been a long time in the making, another stark contrast to when she was younger; she used to thrive on socialisation, but not anymore, now she pulls away from group activities and usually cannot really tolerate gatherings of more than half a dozen other people.

Kyla has more trouble than most when it comes to male wolves. Where once she put her faith in them, befriended and admired them, now she sees them as untrustworthy, prone to trickery and betrayal, and though she doesn’t tar all males with the same brush, she does have obvious trouble getting close. More to the point, she won’t get close, she simply won’t allow it. She is incapable of seeing the truth in any interest from males, no matter their words or actions; she simply cannot believe them when they seem drawn to her for whatever reason and will purposefully discourage them, whether it be verbally or physically, if necessary. More than once in the past Kyla has struck out at a male who simply will not take the hint and give her space. Kyla looks at interest from a male and sees ulterior motives, without exception; they either want something from her or want to use her to achieve their ultimate goal. It isn’t something she worries about so much when it comes to the male fighters in the pack, she trains and works alongside them and sees them as brothers in arms, but as for others, it’s another matter altogether.

Where once Kyla dreamed of being a dancer of one sort or another, a passion she has carried with her since childhood, she has shifted now to fighting, to defending the pack and clearing the territory of threats or unwelcome trespassers. She has reshaped her desire to dance, applying it to her training instead, taking as much as she can from her first love and changing it to benefit her current position. It doesn’t fulfil her as much as dancing ever could, but she doesn’t like to admit to those dreams anymore; she abandoned them a long time ago, locked them away, told herself that they would never amount to anything, that anything she wanted for herself would only ever be taken by someone else and there was no use in trying. It is an obviously flawed and pessimistic philosophy but one she applied to her everyday life all the same.

Kyla has a very dry, somewhat dark sense of humour. Sometimes, however, it seems forced, as though she is wearing a mask and a costume and on the inside, she would never dream of laughing or smirking at the things she does, but if it is all an act, then she is a very talented, steadfast actress, because she never gives the game away and never apologises for that laughter or those smirks, even if the individual on the receiving end seems hurt or shocked at her behaviour. Kyla seems to be in the race only for herself nowadays, a harshly learned lesson that she keeps in the front of her mind at all times: if she doesn’t look out for herself, no one else will.

WEAKNESSES: Obviously, as a lycanthrope, Kyla cannot avoid her race’s inherent weakness to the metal silver and the varying negative effects it will have on her depending on the proximity and contact, ranging from nausea to sickness to burns and finally, if it infects her bloodstream and in turn her organs, death. As a result of this weakness she has to keep her distance from silver and ensure she isn’t wounded with a silver blade or bullet. Her left leg can sometimes give her a little trouble in the form of slight but noticeable stiffness through her upper thigh, the occasional ache making her movements uncomfortable.

Her inability to trust males or believe in them could be viewed as a weakness, the way she distances herself from them and will not allow them close to her in most cases. She tends to alienate a lot of people because of her cynical behaviour and her dry sense of humour as well, she offends people without even thinking about the consequences, and though she is well aware of just how much she might alienate people, even her pack mates, she does nothing to rectify it. She acts the way she does and doesn’t apologise or make excuses, and that doesn’t really sit right with a lot of people.

ABILITIES: Like all others of her kind, Kyla has a variety of natural abilities; heightened senses, enhanced strength, speed, endurance, grace, stamina and reflexes, healing factor, pain threshold, the ability to jump to, from and across great distances without penalty, and of course, her wolf form. Because of her age and her experience, Kyla has full control over her wolf form and is no longer influenced by the lunar cycle like younger wolves.

Given that it was her first passion in life, Kyla is, understandably, an exceptionally talented dancer in a wide variety of forms and styles. She still practises by herself behind closed doors, so naturally she is much more skilled when it comes to solo styles than to those requiring partners, such as the tango or the waltz, but as and when possible, she indulges herself in her first love and keeps herself in peak condition. She applies that love for dance into her fighting style, and though she relies heavily on forms that make use of her strength and speed, such as kickboxing, she works as much of her passion for dance into combat as possible, working in a whole new range of movement and agility, keeping her opponents off balance and more importantly, keeping them guessing. Obviously she is proficient in all the weapons she has chosen to utilise in combat and knows just how and where to use them for maximum efficiency. More domestically, she can make a mean stew and a really damned good mug of hot chocolate; they’re not skills she brags about, obviously, but it’s not unusual to find her in the kitchen making one or the other.

WEAPONS: Kyla’s choices in weaponry are very simple, but very brutal. She has what she likes to call a weapon for each of the following: long-distance, close combat, and “really fucking close combat”. She owns a pair of high-calibre six-shooter revolvers, a pair of combat knives and a set of steel knuckle dusters. She likes to keep the knuckle dusters on her person somewhere at all times, usually in a case at the back of her belt.

PRIZED POSSESSIONS: Obviously the necklace she wears has a lot of sentimental value, though she never says why, or where it came from. It is simply downright unusual to see her without it, and as such, it is only natural to assume she values it and considers it prized.

HOME(S): Kyla lives with the rest of the pack in The Four Seasons on Rayne’s side of Los Angeles.

HISTORY: Born in 1670, Kyla Shepherd never knew her parents, or even her real family name, technically speaking. She was found, as an infant, in the woods not far from where Gabriel and Alisha Barrett’s pack lived; they heard her cries from their home and set out in order to find the source of the sound, only to discover a baby wrapped in a blanket with no note and nothing more than a pendant and chain wrapped in cloth, tucked into the blanket with the child. The pair, the Alphas of the pack, took the baby girl home with them, not having the heart to abandon her to the elements or the native wildlife, and the decision was made that the child would stay with them and be raised communally by the pack. They named her Kyla and gave to her the surname Shepherd, in a sort of tip of the hat to how she came to be part of their family; like a little lost sheep, she was taken in by them. It had been decided that she would not be claimed by any one wolf in the pack but instead raised by them as a whole, and as such, the Alphas saw no sense in giving her one of their names; it would only confuse the girl as she grew older, and they wanted to be honest with her from the outset.

It was only after the baby had been with the pack for a few days that a number of the wolves there who were sharing responsibility for her care and upbringing noticed her scent. She didn’t smell human, they realised, after they had bathed and clothed her. There was something undeniably feral about her scent, something they all knew well. It was only when it was remarked on in that fashion that Gabriel and Alisha realised they had not only adopted an orphaned -- or at least abandoned -- baby girl, but a werewolf infant. It only made them all the more determined to raise her as one of their own, so to speak, she was one of their kind, and as such they felt for her more strongly as a result.

By the time Kyla was four, she was already in love with dancing, sitting and watching other members of the pack as they practised and performed, following them around with wide eyes, fascinated. Before she even really knew what they were doing, she knew she wanted to do it too. They were so graceful and powerful, how could she not want to learn it for herself? She watched and learned as much as she could by sight until finally, those dancing wolves took her under their wings and began to teach her, finding her fascination and desire to learn endearing, leaving them incapable of resisting.

Kyla was almost five when the pack Alphas had their first and only child, a little girl of their own by the name of Aimee. Even before she could walk, Aimee proved herself to be a handful, always wanting what she couldn’t have and throwing raging tantrums when she was denied. Naturally, as the Alphas’ daughter, she was spoiled and pampered, given whatever she wanted, but Aimee’s problem was that she always wanted what others had, and if she could have things freely, then there was no appeal. Even with such a troublesome trait so early on, Kyla quickly took to Aimee and the two ended up fast friends. As the daughter of the pack leaders, Aimee was in line to succeed; when her parents passed, for whatever reason, she would rise without challenge into the Alpha female seat for herself. It was how the pack had worked for generations, and it was a pattern that was unlikely to change; when Gabriel and Alisha began to teach Aimee all there was to know about leading a pack, the others knew the tradition would continue and they all knew that one day the young female would be their leader. One of them, at least. The pack had never been without two leaders. Only time would tell who would rise to the Alpha male seat.

The two young females played and learned together for years, both becoming promising she-wolves with their whole lives ahead of them. Everyone knew where Aimee would end up, but until her parents passed, what would she do with herself? And what of Kyla? She had come to them under such unusual circumstances and perhaps because of that, the pack were curious as to where she would go in the future. There was no denying that she would continue to dance, well on her way to being one of the most talented females before she even hit her third decade of life. Things continued in that fashion for over a century, peace and quiet, simple pleasures and calm, comfortable routine, rarely a deviation or hiccup for the wolves to worry about.

When she was approaching her fifteenth decade, fully in control of her wolf and known indisputably as one of the foremost dancers in the pack and one of the brightest, most promising youngsters, Kyla found herself being courted by one of the males named Ewan Byrne. For years he had been one of the faces in the crowd, one of the other young wolves amongst them, a male beside whom Kyla and Aimee had learned as children. With his sights set on a fighter seat within the pack, he was driven and ambitious, a young wolf with a good head on his shoulders; he knew what he wanted, and he pursued it with open eyes and a clear mind. Finding herself pursued by such a male was surprising to Kyla, someone who had always seen herself as relatively plain and unremarkable; she had been Aimee’s best friend for so long that she was used to taking a back seat, and as such, having Ewan woo her was something that, at first, she couldn’t seem to wrap her head around.

Ewan was persistent, not one to be so easily dissuaded, and as time went on, he was with her more and more, following her at first, much like a lost puppy; Kyla couldn’t bring herself to be irritated by the attention, only finding it endearing and sweet, and finally she took down her walls and accepted him into her life. They were seen together frequently, Ewan bringing Kyla flowers or stroking her hair behind her ear, complimenting her on her dress one day and asking to see her dance the next. Kyla couldn’t help but fall for him, hard, each passing day only intensifying her feelings for him and solidifying those suspicions in her mind. She was in love with Ewan.

Months passed, Ewan’s patience paying off, and the two finally shared a bed and everything of themselves in doing so. Kyla had never been more convinced of her love for Ewan than she was in the quiet time afterwards, wrapped in his arms, listening to his heartbeat against her back. The sound lulled her to sleep, content and warm and safe, her only thoughts those of a future with the male who loved her.

In the end, Kyla realised she fell too easily, too deeply, too naively. Walking from her home to Ewan’s one day, she saw him with Aimee, and not in any platonic, harmless sense either. For months, Aimee’s jealousy had been obvious to everyone but no one had thought anything of it. She was who she was and had her ways; she always wanted what others had, what she couldn’t have. It was just Aimee being Aimee. But Kyla stood, unable to breathe or even believe what she was seeing, watching Aimee in Ewan’s arms and feeling the bottom of her stomach drop out, leaving her feeling hollow and nauseated. Nothing made sense, and more than anything, it hurt. Ewan had told her he loved her, and she had believed him. The longer she stood there watching them, the stupider she felt, allowing herself to be won over like that, wooed and complimented. It felt so naïve, so ridiculous and weak, and she was angry.

When Aimee and Ewan finally realised they were being watched and attempted to explain to her -- and not very sincerely either -- Kyla would have none of it. She told them both to shut up, that she didn’t want to hear their excuses or their lies. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Ewan, having put the pieces together already for herself; he had never been interested in Kyla, only what he could get by using her. Aimee never wanted things that she could have without a fight, and had Ewan pursued the Alphas’ daughter off the mark, nothing would have come of it. But seeing an attractive, promising, strong young male like Ewan with another female, even her best friend, Aimee hadn’t been able to help herself and had only desired him more and more and so when he offered himself to her, she accepted him without hesitation. When Aimee tried to tell her, and rather airily, that there shouldn’t be any hard feelings, Kyla snapped. She slapped Aimee, hard, and in doing so, confirmed to herself what she was going to do.

Kyla left the pack. Even though it was the only family she had ever known, she couldn’t bear to be around wolves like Aimee and Ewan, those who would stab their supposed loved ones in the back only to get what they wanted, further their own selfish ambitions. The betrayal only hurt worse with each passing hour and the longer she was left to stew, the more it tainted Kyla. She wouldn’t allow anyone to talk her out of leaving, and she did so without saying a word to anyone, too hurt and upset by what had happened. She turned her back on the only life she had ever had, taking her possessions with her and vowing never to return.

She didn’t know anyone, didn’t know anything outside of the pack, but she was a headstrong, confident female. Dancing had helped her with that confidence, brought her well and truly out of her shell, and she was done being hesitant and unsure. Kyla changed in the time following that departure from her home, she hardened, shifted from the pleasant, smiling female she had been in the pack and became someone with a sterner outlook; she couldn’t allow herself to trust males of any description, barely even acknowledging them at first, angry with them all because of what Ewan had done to her. It was as she travelled by boat from England to the United States of America that she told herself she couldn’t hate and ignore males forever, she would never get anywhere if she shut them all out, but she vowed never to let them in close, determined to keep them at arm’s length from that point on. She would never again be able to believe in their declarations or affections. Ewan had seen to that.

When she arrived in America, she was initially unsure of what to do with herself. New York was a bustling city with so much going on, and she saw a chance for income in the shape of her first love: dancing. She realised, however, that dancing for people, no matter whether it was alone or as part of a chorus, reminded her of Ewan, of the pack, and she was furious all over again, going on to ruin her small and dismal apartment that night in her rage. That was enough to show her that she couldn’t handle solitude, that she was a pack wolf at heart, but she couldn’t go home. She couldn’t go back to the group she had always considered her birth pack -- despite knowing that she hadn’t technically been born into it; Kyla had always known she had been brought in as an infant -- but she did need a pack.

So she left New York and went on the hunt, travelling in wolf form as much as she was able, thinking that she would have a much better chance of finding a pack if she was in her supernatural shape. And she was right, it didn’t take her too long to find one, coming across a group of wolves in the middle of a rough, chaotic combat. Kyla quickly ascertained that some of the wolves were rogues, but the others were fighters. She knew how to spot a fighter, had lived with many and watched them train and even seen them in action a few times when the peace of their home had been disturbed. Without even thinking she intervened on the fight when one of the rogues lunged from behind at one of the fighters; his jaws would have locked around the back of the fighter’s neck, perhaps even shattered their spine or outright killed them, had Kyla not tackled him from her vantage point. It was a brutal fight, but Kyla was left standing with the surviving fighters at the end. The group transformed and she followed suit and they invited her back to their home with them.

With no other options available to her, Kyla accepted, and once they were at the pack home she met the Alphas. They extended an invitation of membership to her with the promise of full training to become a fighter after one of the existing members of the fighting party told the leaders of her intervention. Kyla didn’t hesitate long before she accepted the offer and got to work on settling herself into their home.

As was to be expected, she had a much easier time socialising with the females in the pack than she did with the males, but as it was she was more focused on earning her place as a fighter, finding that she had a natural talent for it, much in the same way she had for dancing. In the training she found a place to apply her love for that art form and that was enough to keep her from missing it too much. Behind closed doors, she kept up her training as best she could, but Ewan had tainted her love for it forever, she suspected; she found it impossible to even entertain the notion of dancing in front of others. Still, she made do, working it into her life in subtle ways here and there; it would have to be enough, she told herself.

That is how Kyla has been living her life ever since leaving her first pack and joining Rayne’s. The old Kyla is gone, or at least thoroughly buried beneath a more concrete exterior, tougher than the old one, a she-wolf who won’t let anyone pull the wool over her eyes or lead her on for their own gain.