Marcelo Carvalho

General Information:

Name: Marcelo Carvalho

Nickname: Chell

Species of Shifter: Jaguar

Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual

Physical information:

Gender: Male

Age: 28

Human Hair Color:  Dark Brown

Human Eye Color: Green

Human Distinguishing Marks: Marcelo's most notable feature are his eyes which are an almost unnaturally verdant green.

Human Description of General Appearance:  Before the end of the world, Marcelo was pretty flamboyant, wearing designer outfits, fur collars, jewelry.  He even went through a phase where he wore dark eyeliner to stand out just a little more.  After the fall, there hasn't been the same occasion to dress up though he still holds a taste for it. 

Outside of clothing, he has a strong angled jaw, a family trait, and bright green eyes (like his grandmother, or so he's been told).

He's put on a bit of muscle since the world ended but still has the long lean lines of a jaguar.  That said, he's large for a jaguar at just over six feet and around 185 pounds.

Shifter Color:  Golden Brown with black markings

Shifter Eye Color: Green

Shifter Distinguishing Patterns or Marks:  In jaguar form, Marcelo has golden fur with dark black markings and linear spots on his face.

Shifter Description of General Appearance:  In animal form Marcelo appears as a rather large but fairly standard jaguar.  The most notable feature beyond the clarity of his markings are his eyes which are the same verdant green as when he is in his human form.

Society Information:

Occupation in Society: Beta

What brought you to Three Valleys?  Ostensibly Marcelo is in the region to see about setting up trade lines, as well as observing whether the mixed species community can really work (and how to replicate the idea in his part of the world).

Love History:  Marcelo has had several human girlfriends while in college as well as back home but has never actually met another jaguar shifter outside his own family.

Shifter Designation: Leader (Beta to his sister)

Personality Details:

Personality:  Marcelo takes his 'godhood' seriously.  While he's not delusional and recognizes the limits of his own abilities, he does view himself as being superior to humans (and to a degree, other shifter species).  This can sometimes border on arrogance or at the very least come across as the sort of privilege which comes from immense wealth (or at least did when wealth was the main deciding factor of social status).

The end of the world has actually been pretty good for him on a personal level, forcing him to become a bit more mature and responsible, with his concern first and foremost for his sister, then his people, both those still trying to survive in Macapá, as well as those who are actually more likely to survive in the jungle (though to be fair, they really don't need much other than their continued isolation, which he hopes to maintain).

He was always focused and intense, so that hasn't really changed all that much, only that now he's focused on more precise things.  That said, he's not overt about what those precise things might be so it's quite possible that he will seem indifferent and aloof to those who don't quite understand what he's really looking for.

Strengths:  Marcelo believes in the place of shifters at the top of things (food chain, social structure, etc.).  That comes with a certain degree of confidence and drive.  He's fairly tireless, both physically and emotionally.  He's also surprisingly easy going, in the sense that he's not inexperienced with things slipping from his grasp and in fact, secretly enjoys that feeling.

Weaknesses:  Like most 'animals', he has certain instincts he struggles to control.  The desire to stalk, pounce and devour is chief among them though remembering an older story, he often lets things go after only a nip and a bite so he can resume the chase, something which is often self-defeating.

Fears:  His greatest fear is that there simply aren't enough (or any) suitable jaguar shifters in the world to find a true mate for himself or his sister and their bloodline which has been alive for millennia will die out alongside humanity.

Background/History:  "We were gods once," my grandfather used to say.  "We still are," my mother would assure him.

There were never many of us and those of us there were, were spread across the fractured lands of South and Central America, one or two here, one or two there.  We were never pack animals, like the wolves and lions.  Most of us were solitary creatures, pushed out further and further to the edges of civilization, always close to the fringe of the jungle if not disappearing entirely into the depths of the green, always becoming shadows of what we once were.

There was a time we ruled a dozen kingdoms and exchanged royalty like something out of a fairy tale, a prince here, a princess there, less to secure treaties and peace than to keep our bloodlines pure.  Not that we called them kingdoms.  There hadn't been a true Jaguar kingdom in over a thousand years, only territories, or maybe, if we were feeling dramatic, realms.

But we were gods, once and forever, not marked by any mere constellation but the sky itself which is our hunting grounds where we chase the sun and moon and one day when we catch them both and decide not to let them go the world will end.

The sun has always been the trickier of the two.  We get our claws on it a few times a year but it always slips away.  We get our teeth on it every other year, but only after we've already caught the moon when the darkness of the darkest night is ours to rule and we can get close, so very close to our prey.

"Why do we let it go?" I asked my grandfather once and he smiled and put a finger to his lips calling for silence.  Later, when the sun had set and the moon had risen high and bright he took me out onto the balcony of our home and pointed to the sky.  "She was once the daughter of the Earth, and being his most precious child he hid her away in the darkness of the underworld," he explained, recounting the earliest days of the world.

"But like a lot of children, she longed to explore, have adventures, fall in love, and one day, wandering in the dark she saw a light and following it, she found the Gates, and beyond the Gates she saw the Sun, and he was beautiful and alluring and called to her but as she approached he was far too hot and she knew he would hurt her, so she retreated."

This went on for days, weeks, months, then one day when she went to the gates he wasn't there and she was sad until slowly he rose, now wearing the robes of the Morning Sun, cool, almost cold.

"What's wrong?" she asked worriedly, coming out of the underworld to comfort him and he said sweet things like he couldn't live without her and needed her and took her into his embrace and when he threw off his cloak it was took late and she was his.

When the Earth God saw this, he was furious, but the Sun just laughed and took her further into the heavens, out of his reach.  Unwilling to watch the Sun parade his daughter around like a prize, the Earth God plucked his own eyes out and swallowed them down into the underworld where they fell, glowing like twin shooting stars until they were snatched up by swift claws and the ground trembled when a jaguar growled and burst forth, chasing the Sun away before bringing the Moon Daughter home.

"But why do we let it go now, when we catch it?" I asked again, even more confused at the time.

"That's a story for later, when you're older," he said, smiling again, like he knew all the secrets of the world and passed them out like candy but only when the mood struck him.  Looking down over the valley, Chell wondered if it was a story for now.

---

The Carvalho had walked in twin worlds for more than a thousand years.  One of those world existed deep within the green jungle of the Amazon Rainforest,  the other, throughout the sprawling urban centers of Brazil, boardroom and back alley with equal easy.

Their official 'seat of power' was in Macapá, a city which had lost nearly a half million people in the first wave of the Gray Plague.  It was still clinging to existence, thanks in part to it's location, isolated from the larger cities in the country but also because it had already been a well-established trading hub for the region and one of the few that still retained some semblance of functionality.  That said, the city was still mostly human.  Jaguars were few and far between and the region didn't see many other shifter types.  Not that they weren't welcome, at least now they were, but Macapá was a pale imitation of Three Valleys in that regard.

That was one of the reasons for his visit, to 'see' how the Americans were doing it and learn what they were doing right, or at the least, what they were doing wrong.  It was also something of a trade mission.  Trade routes were getting longer and stretching thin but Macapá had supplies, gold, iron, timber, oil, tin, and manganese, which was a surprisingly versatile ore, used in everything from steel production to nutritional supplements.

That wasn't the only reason though, the story his grandfather had told him was part of it too, though the odds of catching the Moon were slim.  Catching the Sun for his sister would do as well, though the odds were even slimmer.  Still, the odds were better in the wider world than they were back in their little slice of, well, it wasn't exactly paradise but neither was it the hell other places had become.  So, while his hope might not be as high as his expectations and requirements, it was not completely absent, and so, he would give it a try.

Skills and Abilities:  The Carvalho have (or at least had) their claws in everything, which generally means that he knows a little about a lot of things and learns very quickly when he sinks his teeth into a topic.  That isn't often though, as again, they have their claws in a lot of things and that comes with a lot of demands.  In that respect, in a certain way, his current travels are almost something of a vacation, though he'd be careful not to tell his sister that as she's stuck back at home keeping order.  He speaks Portuguese fluently, as well as English, French and Spanish with only slight accents.  He reads them all as well, though his French is the weakest of the bunch.

Is your Shifter Pure or Halfling?  Marcelo's family is said to come from the very first Jaguar to ever walk the Earth though he can only trace his lineage back a thousand or so years, before it just becomes a series of 'great grandfathers' and 'great grandmothers'.  In fact, there's a wall, painted in their home, of all the ancestors going back through time though the branches eventually become nameless but as far as he can tell it puts the first Jaguar as arriving in the world some five thousand odd years ago.  While this is impressive enough in itself, what has always stood out to him was how, at least the named ones, had managed to find mates without suffering the sort of inbreeding common to most human royal lines, especially given the small size of their kind.  What also stood out was how difficult it had become to find a suitable mate since, even several generations before their current situation, which, truth be told, gives him great pause.

Were you mentored or trained in your abilities?  If so, by whom?  Marcelo grew up in a royal shifter family and while he never knew his grandmothers (on either side), he did know his grandfather (on his mother's side), as well as his father (deceased prior to the Gray Plague) and his mother (still alive).  He and his sister were raised and trained by them all, with Marcelo mostly being mentored by his grandfather.

Education:  Marcelo (as well as his sister) received the finest education money could buy.  In Marcelo's case that led to an MBA in Business from one of the most exclusive universities in the United States, graduating a year prior to the Gray Plague.

Special Learning Prior to fall of Society:  Marcelo attended university in New York and attained an appreciation for art (and art history), music (mostly classical), and dance (mostly ballet).  He's taken lessons in painting (his talent is poor), and violin (his ability is passable).  He didn't need to study dance as that comes naturally.

Special Ability:  As a descendent of gods, he can speak with the spirit world, though given his 'world' is in an entirely different hemisphere, it's unlikely they will be easy to reach and in the case of the spirits of the Three Valleys, it's unlikely they will speak the same language.  This is only possible at night and requires a blood sacrifice, typically his own, burnt in a fire to rise on the smoke.

As a creature of the Underworld he is able to interact with the dead, speak to them before they've departed (i.e. newly dead), chase them away if they are lingering, and get a sense of the judgement they will face (or have faced).  Speaking with the dead requires the same sort of blood sacrifice as speaking to the spirit world, though without the fire.  Chasing away the dead is only possible in jaguar form.  The sense of judgement comes naturally though he has to 'look for it' which is similar to beginning his transformation into animal form and leaves him in an agitated state (whether he completes the transformation or reverts to human form).

He has on a rare occasion gotten this same sense of judgement about a living person, sins needing punishment or virtues deserving reward.  He's never been able to purposefully 'look' for it but the experience is the same, like a transformation coming unbidden and needing to either be controlled or embraced.

---

Writing Sample

If he were being honest, he'd admit to having a sheltered life.  That's not to say he hadn't seen the more unsavory parts of the world, he had.  It also wasn't to say he hadn't travelled the world and explored other cultures (he had, to a small degree).  That said, he had never met another shifter outside his kin, at least not until after the Fall of Humanity and that had only been a single Boto, an enchanted river dolphin who had grown up in States but decided to return to his family's homeland, the Amazon.  He planned to set himself up as a king in Manaus, which on the surface seemed a ridiculous idea but he was so damned charming that even Marcelo conceded it might just work.

He'd enjoyed the hospitality of Macapá for a few months as well as the company of Marcelo's sister, and in return, shared everything he knew of the world at large.

The variety of shifters was not news, at least not exactly.  Marcelo had known about wolves and bears, even if he'd never met one; lions and tigers too.  He even knew not all shifters were predators, with their own local tales telling of capybara who could take on human form (though it was always capybara into human, not the other way around).  Conversely, the Boto was always human first, said to originally be a handsome warrior who made the gods jealous and was cursed and bound to the river for eternity.  Even if the Boto's parents had escaped the river, the blood knew, and that knowledge gave Marcelo some comfort.  His blood would always lead him home.

It was the River King (which was what the Boto wanted to be called, even if it did illicit an eye roll from both Marcelo and his sister) who told them about the Golden Kingdom and New Republic, along with the Three Valleys Territory.  They debated for some time whether to proclaim Macapá a haven or let it become just another lost side in the Amazon.  It was a debate that had never fully been settled, though both he and his sister agreed, they needed to know what was going on in the world.

The plan had been to approach the Three Valleys first, certainly before they approached the New Republic.  Stories of the Golden Kingdom was troubling and even if the River King said they seemed trustworthy, jaguars were cautious and discerning, he assumed more so than canines though he didn't know enough about bears to say the same of them.  Regardless, he wanted to get a sense of the unified territory before he approached the others, especially a human one.

He'd been travelling quietly, mostly at night, taking up residence in abandoned houses along the way.    It had taken about a week though he probably could have cut that in half if he'd run full speed.  He'd never actually run that long but was confident he could.  He'd reached the Territory the night before but that then left the question, did he just march in and present himself?  There didn't seem to be any checkpoints or stations, so he wasn't where to do that, even if there was a way how.  Should he remain hidden, wait for night (which was his time) and sniff around?

The decision was more or less made for him when he heard a car passing by.  It drove off down a road that disappeared over the horizon, only a little cloud of dust marking where it had gone.  It was more curiosity now than anything else.  It was a cliché that he hated, especially because it was true and though his curiosity had never killed him, it rarely turned out well.