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You enter the first room off to your left and you see a cougar waiting for you. "So, you wish to know more about me?" The feline gives a gentle smile. "First, I shall tell you about the real me, and then about Cougar."
About: A jack of many trades likely describes me more than anything. I have interests in just about everything, though my true passion is music. I have been in a musical ensemble for a very long time, and still am really. I've been in many concert bands, jazz bands, recorder consorts, handbell choirs, flute choirs, singing choirs, orchestras and worship teams. My first instrument was technically the recorder, which everyone learns in grade school, but I set it down as I dabbled in keyboard, and percussion throughout gradeschool. By 6th grade I picked up the flute as my first band instrument. I have since learned the trumpet, bassoon and trombone. My main instrument will always be the flute, and I love the piccolo and alto flute equally as well.
Another passion of mine is writing and drawing. I love writing stories, and I always liked writing papers for school (yes, I'm weird ;) ). I'm involved in all sorts of storylines through both roleplay and traditional writing. I'm unfortunately a little slow when it comes to translating roleplay into traditional story form, but I hope to someday share everything! My flights of fancy often take the form of fantasy stories as well as science fiction. Alongside that, I love to draw various creatures of both myth and my own craziness. This was the main reason I wanted a webpage, in order to share my sketches. I'm by no means "good", but its still fun to play around with. Shading and coloring are still things I know I need to work on, as I typically just do line sketches.
For inspiration and the pure joy of a good book, reading is another passion of mine. I love to read. I love stories. And often times they inspire my own work. I thoroughly enjoy books by Diane Duane, and Diana Wynne Jones, K.A. Applegate (Animorphs!) as well as Lilian Jackson Braun's "Cat Who" books. "Tailchaser's Song" by Tad Williams and "The Wild Road" by Gabriel King are also two of my favorite books. The former is the source of a series of stories I wrote in that universe as fanfiction, and the second is the reason Alchemists make me squirm!
Collecting is yet another passion, and I have a decent sized collection of Breyer Horses as well as rocks and minerals. I have even "corrupted" my husband on the joys of rockhounding! I'd have to say, if I had to pick a favorite rock, it would be Obsidian!
If it hasn't been obvious yet, cats are a passion of mine! I love cats, always have and always will. I've had many feline friends over the years, both mine and those I've helped at various shelters. They've always fascinated me in how they interact with the world and each other. One can learn a lot by watching. They are yet another inspiration to my art. You could also guess what my favorite "big" cat is: The Cougar. I am also rather fond of Servals. I'm currently owned by three lovely felines: Andy, the "old man" who is a Himalayan, Ying Liang, the spunky short-hair mix, and Isabella, the crazy Ragdoll.
I'm also involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism where I am (you guessed it) involved in music and in scroll work, amongst other things. I was never a fan of history class, but history itself always fascinated me. What sealed it was two Chinese classes (one history, one literature) in college. This is to be my eventual focus in the group, in addition to my French persona of the 14th century. I've been the Minister of Arts and Sciences for a while, and enjoy learning new things in the field of Arts and Science. This is also dangerous as one can then gain new "talents" that eat away time! But as I've heard many times, you aren't a true craft-person if you don't have at least 10 unfinished projects laying around!
Lastly, I have a fascination with Weather which led me to my career as a meteorologist. Where else can a person who dislikes statistics and probabilities go? Though I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not a closet statistician considering my interest runs in climate and the various extremes and historical climate information. I'm the one who you ask what the hottest temperature ever recorded was, or how many days in a row did we reach 100 degrees last summer and so on. I may not be able to go off the top of my head (memorization is not a skill I possess), but I can look it up!
Now that I bored you to death with reality, shall we meet Cougar?
Cougar, in her natural form, looks like any other human female of the age of 18. She has shoulder-length medium brown hair and blue eyes that speak of knowing more than she may appear. Most people describe her as shy until you get to know her, and then she will open up, to an extent. The only ones that truly know her describe her as loyal and strong. The description of a leader, yet never desires to be one. Her full name is Irene Lynn Stevens, but her friends, and her enemies, call her Cougar.
Cougar is what is known as a shapeshifter. She is a mixture of several species, most predominantly Morpheran and Sorceress which gives her access to many forms as well as a penchant for fire magic. She is part of a resistance stationed on Earth trying to stop evil that threatens civilization both on planet and off. While she enjoys her shapeshifting abilities, her weapon of choice has been the sword. One can often find her with one of two blades. One is the Sword of Light, the one that she is the guardian of. Or the Nathadian blade she was given when she was young. And that was far longer ago than the mere 18 years she appears.
There are a fair number of stories feature Cougar, and I do hope to have them appear on this website someday. For now, you have one story that she is involved in. I have been writing stories about her since the mid 1990s, as she was my first character.
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