Species: Chakat
(Kline Hybrid)
Gender: Herm
Mother: Midnight
Sire: Boyce Kline Jnr
Born: 3 October 2333

COALDUST

Coaldust is the second child of Chakat Midnight and Boyce Kline. Because hir sister, Ember, had been an unexpected pregnancy, Midnight wanted to have another child with hir human mate who would be deliberately desired by both, and soon enough so that Midnight could raise all three of hir children fairly close together. Therefore while the youngest of the sisters, shi is only a little more than three and a half years younger than Windrunner, and a little less than two and a half years younger than hir half-sister, Windrunner who was sired by Coaldust's Milk-mother, Forestwalker.

Coaldust had a fairly normal life until shi was nineteen (Terran) years of age and attending college on Chakona. Hir favourite school sport was wrestling, and after gaining proficiency at the sport, remained undefeatable by any biped species until shi encountered Tam Catamount, a powerfully built cougar morph. A friendly rivalry grew into something more intimate, eventuating in them becoming lovers. Because they were totally disparate species, they did not see the need for contraceptives, so it was a huge surprise to everyone that shi fell pregnant to him. While hir father was infamously known to have the gift of universal fertility due to the meddling of a Rakshan deity, it had never occurred to anyone that the outrageous ability might be inheritable. A subsequent investigation found that alll of hir father's progeny also inherited the trait. The second surprise was that hir child was not a chakat, but instead a biped cougar like hir sire, but with all the enhancements of a chakat, including being a herm. Stargazer was born on 8/14/111 C.U.T. (7 December 2353). Because the large chakat family unit, Stargazer was able to be cared for by others in the family while Coaldust continued hir studies. After beginning hir career, shi bore a second cougar-type child named Iris, then later a chakat cub whom they named Newmoon. Medical scientists had initially theorised that the hybrid would adapt to the non-hybrid's DNA, thus why Stargazer and Iris were cougar morphs, but Newmoon's birth threw that idea out the window. The leading guess (and an educated guess is the best that they can make because they still can't figure out how the adaptation works) is that it depends on whether the fertilising sperm is an X or a Y. Coaldust frankly could not care less.

 

Sample art by and copyright to Rick Griffin.

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