TW: emotional and mental abuse, depression

Name: Pema Dawa Moondancer; Lotus Moon (Pema means lotus, Dawa means moon; her names are of Tibetan heritage just like she is)

Nickname: Pem, Daw, Dawa, Blessing

Age: 30

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Pansexual

Species: Werecat-Werewolf hybrid

Looks:

(Faceclaim: Tsunaina - @tsunaina on Insta)
She's 5'5

Personality: Pema is an enigmatic woman. She can be very demure, shy, and bashful or she can be very pretentious, arrogant, and confident. It seems to depend on the day or situation. That said, she has her fair share of admirers and an equal share of enemies - Pema is not always an easy woman to get along with and she simply refuses to conform herself to anyone else's standards and ideals. Pema's true nature is more aligned with her confident, almost pretentious displays. Pema knows exactly who she is and what she wants, even if she doesn't always make those things clear to outsiders. She is an ambitious woman with a calculating mind, with the goal to be respect, hold power, and live her life as fully and openly as she pleases. Used to conforming, she's been refusing to do so more and more each year that passes, which confuses many - she was always so gentle and shy, what happened? She seems so different than she did as a child, teen, and young woman and the difference is that she stopped caring what others thought of her and stopped trying to be someone she wasn't. She won't get anywhere in life by diminishing herself. Though still at times flustered or bashful, all that is more a performance than anything, a manipulation to get what it is she wants. She knows when to hold herself back and when to unleash all that she is, and she won't jeopardize her dreams of power and freedom just because she disrespected someone who held power to derail her life. Pema doesn't have many close friends - none, in truth - and doesn't fully let anyone see her real self. She loves people, yes, but she is tired of sacrificing herself for them - it's her turn to get what she deserves and she will bulldoze anyone in her way. Scheming, she often relies on outside power for her goals - gossip, rumors, and even other people - because she knows her limits. With the end goal of becoming Alpha of her pack - or forming her own pack, to succeed from Two Nations - she will now do anything to get herself that power and the freedom that comes with it. Willing to compromise her own morals for such power and freedom, she is becoming more desperate for escape with every passing year. An ambitious, scheming, enigmatic, and confusing woman, Pema is a woman with many conflicting perceptions and rumors flying around about her - she is woman who finally found her voice and refuses to lose it again.

Likes: freedom, power, being herself, being respected, being feared (because she is at the point that fear equates respect), being trusted, gossip, rumors, succeeding

Dislikes: conformity, diminishing herself, disrespect, the way she 'let' herself be held down for so long (her perception of herself, not reality, she had little choice), failing, her own weakness

Powers: shifts into a werecat (looks above); heightened speed, senses, strength, durability, and reflexes while in human form

Backstory: Pema is the illegitimate child of the current Alpha of the Two Nations pack. Her father did something rare in her pack and took a lot of time away from the pack to travel - traveling the nation, he met plenty of people and werecreatures and he happened to get one of them pregnant. Pema's mother was a werecat - unbeknownst to her father at the time, who assumed she was a werewolf - and after many drunken, irresponsible hookups, Pema was the result. There was a time when her father was everything to her, and she was everything to him - his little Lotus Moon, the apple of his eye. He was good father to her, those early years of her life. He took care of her mother, even though they weren't in love, and he took care of Pema. However, after receiving summons to return to the Two Nations pack, her father refused to return without Pema. He refused to be separated from her, and in turn separated her from her mother - though for years Pema was told her mother abandoned her. That was the beginning of a different father, for Pema. Arriving in Two Nations, Pema was unwelcome. Only 4 years old, it was a hard reality to deal with. Illegitimate, her grandparents refused to acknowledge her as part of the Alpha line, only acknowledging her as granddaughter in public, but as nothing in private. Her father, well, he still loved her. But being back home he became who he once was, but only got worse. He held Pema at arms length, he grew to resent her while also loving her, which created a hard perception of reality for Pema. He could be the best father in the world sometimes, the man she remembered, and other times he would be so cruel, cold, and scary - a man she feared and hated and did not want to be near. He never laid a hand on her, but his mental abuse was enough to keep Pema meek and mild-mannered, while inside she was a raging storm. She had nowhere to put that rage, that fire, so she suppressed it over and over again, building it up over years. When Pema was 6, her father took a mate - approved by his parents - and had his 'real' family, the true Alpha family. By the time she was 7, she had a new baby brother, named Nenaginad, whom she adored so much. Then a few years later, she got her sister, Ogimaabinesikwe. She loved them so much - still does - but they weren't raised to love her the way she loved them. Pema was pushed aside, the eldest daughter whose role was useless. She was used as an extra help in raising and caring for her siblings, more like a nanny or maid than anything else. She once more got the father she loved, only it wasn't directed at her, but rather at her siblings. This created a resentment in Pema that was not dissimilar to the one her father felt for her - she resented and loved them all at once, though she held her resentment back far better than her father did. Pema loved them as best she could, and over time she was treated less harshly - accepted but only so far as to be tolerated. However, outside her family, she was respected, treated kindly, because she still held the blood of Alpha's in her veins, still had the last name Moondancer. She didn't make many true friendships, but she had people in her life that weren't so harsh or cruel to her - but treated as the help at home, she had to make her way back there immediately after her schooling, never able to hang out with anyone her own age. This created an untouchable gap between herself and her peers - they liked her, even wanted to be her friend, but her inability to foster such relationships by needing to get home proved detrimental. Though they never turned against her, they started to think that she thought she was better than them - viewed her as pretentious even by their pack standards. It wasn't until Pema was around 25 that she finally started to change. Despite a few outburst from her every so often growing up, she was still that meek, bashful, shy young woman who always did what she was told. At 25 she started rebelling. Why? Her mother finally found a way to contact her, to let her know what happened, and all the pent-up rage, anger, heartache, abandonment, and resentment exploded out of her. She turned on her family - she screamed and screamed at them, saying some truly cruel things, one night over family dinner - and has hardly spoken to them since. In public, she is civil but icy. In private, she is a stone wall. She will not give them the time of day to hurt her anymore, refuses to accept such treatment. If they want her back, they need to apologize. Since, she's built up a relationship with her mother, finally getting the true, loving, unconditional parenting she deserved all along. She's built a strong relationship with her mother these past five years and her new-found confidence has certainly attracted interest and rumors within the pack. Pema has finally started to shine. She no longer holds her tongue, she no longer does what she doesn't want to, she no longer hides her intelligence, she no longer dulls herself to let others shine. She still has dark days, and her recovery is an ongoing journey, but there is a new inner light and beauty in Pema that had long been hidden. With this new way of life, she has managed to start making some friends - not deep friendships, per say, but friends - with those who once thought she shunned them. She is also starting to make friends with people outside the Two Nations pack, using her last name to gain access to other packs, and traveling to meet them and other werecreatures. Going to visit her mother helps, allowing her to come into contact with more than her pack, and Pema has had a new world of opportunities open to her. Establishing herself where she can, she has started exploring the avenue of succeeding and starting her own pack, but does not yet have all the resources, numbers, and support she needs to do such a thing. With contacts underground and in other packs, she's slowly building out her network. As for her family, they project a united front to the pack - Pema is one of them, even if she isn't in line for the pack title. That's how it has always been, though: call her a Moondancer in public, treat her as Nameless in private.

Other: Pema hopes that, one day, her siblings find their own voices and power and join her
Pema resents her family, even hates them, all while loving them - it's so hard on her mental health and soul
Pema does know who she is: She is Pema Dawa Moondancer, the Lotus Moon of the Two Nations pack, Alpha-blooded and entitled to respect - the problem is getting everyone else to see it, too, but gradually she has been making herself known
Pema struggles around her family - she sometimes nearly falls back into how things were; she misses them, misses the good moments, and craves to have them again
Sometimes Pema's memory plays tricks on her - she sugarcoats how she was treated, tricking herself into thinking she is overreacting; that's on her dark days, though
Pema does go to therapy - a human therapist, without connection to the supernatural world
Pema will either be Alpha of Two Nations or her own pack, that's her goal, but being Alpha of her own pack is seemingly more plausible at this point
Pema has built up a strong relationship with her mother and started uncovering some very heartbreaking truths about her father - truths she already knew, but refused to confront
She feels a deep, gaping hole and ache in her soul and chest where she knows her family is supposed to be and she desperately hopes that they can heal and be whole again
Pema does a lot of her business at night, sneaking away from the pack - she has ins with some of the patrol wolves, leaving when they are on duty in their sector - and doing what she has to do
Pema lives on her own, which also makes phone calls and planning easier
She is currently looking for property - just in case - for her own pack and seeking alliances that can support her through the inevitable fallout with Two Nations
Her family still treat her as part of them, so during political events and travels, she typically travels with them so that they can presented a strong, united front to their allies and other packs; only those within Two Nations know of the rift, otherwise the Moondancer family seems picture-perfect
Her father was 19 when he had Pema, and her mother was 21
No one knows that Pema's other form is a werecat - when she shifted for the first time, her grandparents were horrified and said that if Pema were to ever reveal that secret she would be stripped of her name, her home, and her family for good; that's a fear that Pema still holds onto tightly, fearing her father will enact her grandparents threat
Pema has depression
Her father became Alpha when Pema was 14
Pema is 7 years older than her brother and 10 years older than her sister
Pema can never be fully cruel to her siblings, not when she helped raise them - almost more than their own mother did
Pema is religious, same as her pack, and she sings at every religious event the pack holds; her voice is hauntingly beautiful, some say
Pema understands but does not speak the Ojibwe language; her father nor grandparents taught it to her, for different reasons, but she doesn't speak it nor does she speak Tibetan - she feels disconnected from both cultures because of it, but she's slowly learning Tibetan
Pema is truly just a lonely, desperate little girl trying to carve her place in this world; inside, she still feels like that wide-eyed 4 year old who was taken from her mother and pushed into a family that hated her
Pema is Tibetan on her mother's side...and her father's side; the man she thinks is her father is not, but rather another Alpha-blooded werewolf who is now Alpha of a pack overseas called Sangye - Enlightened Ones in English. Her biological father was traveling stateside and her mother slept with him around the same time she slept with the man Pema thinks is her father; this is a truth that Pema does not know and never will if her mother, who knows the truth, can help it. Her father found out the truth about a year after returning to Two Nations and that is why he resents Pema, for she is both his daughter and not