Lolory
RWBY Tuesdays
CLASSIFICATION: Monster | Cursed-Jinx | Yokai
Kuro Nekomata was born a monster in Blackwell City, and she's from a generation of monsters that has never known humans to rule over anything. For as long as she's been alive, monsters have been the ones to run the place and she doesn't have any real knowledge of what it was like "before" things went to hell for humans. Despite her lucking out on being born into monster society as a monster and not prime food, she was also born cursed, something that's not very common for cursed creatures. Being cursed means monsters look at you as a lesser, as if you are essentially a waste of space and time, and that you bring nothing but trouble.
Kuro has grown used to the disgusted looks on people's faces when they see her and immediately sense that she is not a normal monster like the rest of them. Her curse is also one that's quite isolating. Her "Jinx" makes it nigh impossible for anyone to get close to her or touch her in anyway without something awful happening to them later. She has no control over it, though for a short time when she was younger she foolishly thought she could learn to use the curse to her advantage. She was wrong, of course. Kuro unintentionally cursed a lot of monsters when she was a kid, random strangers who'd pet her head not knowing what would happen to them later, a brush against another on the street that would end in some kind of tragedy for the latter half sometime soon. This Jinx also rubbed off on her own family, which lead to their unfortunate demise after she was born. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father followed afterwards due to a fall down the stairs. Her remaining family had soon learned she was cursed, and there was a lot of anger over who or what could've done it, but the answer was made clear the longer they held and cared for her. Kuro had been cursed from the very start.
But how does a monster become cursed from birth? It's a complicated issue and involved making deals with a higher being to gaurantee her creation. The Nekomata's were a very influential monster family, and expansive as well. They lived in the mountains, away from the larger monster society and kept to quieter traditions. The couple at the head of the Nekomata's were infertile for whatever reason. It was purely bad luck in their case. And so they sought out as many different solutions as they could to try and make an heir. All of their solutions failed miserably and they were close to giving up, until they met a mysterious man from the city. He called himself Umbra and said he was an average monster, just with a more human form. He told them he liked to travel and that his journey had taken him all the way to the mountains.
The Nekomata's were glad to welcome a visitor from the city and told Umbra everything about their traditions and family history. They treated him as an honored guest, and soon he had become a family friend. One evening, the Nekomata's decided to confide in him about their troubles of wanting a child. They told him they had no idea why nothing would work, and Umbra offered solutions as he claimed to be a doctor from Blackwell.
"I could write a presciption up for you, but it will of course cost you something in exchange." He said. "Your names would suffice. I see you are both confused, but let me explain. I am a collector of names, and I like to trade or buy them. My kind have always loved collecting names. I have a list here, see?" He handed them a list of names and amounts that had been given for them. "You'd be allowed to use your name for whatever purpose, it would just appear on my list of names that I own. As for what I do with them, well...? I think all monsters should be allowed to keep one secret or two."
It sounded like a very decent deal to the Nekomata's and they said yes in a heartbeat. Later that year, Kuro was born. And she was cursed. She never met Umbra as he was long gone, and by the time she had grown old enough to walk on her own, her family had all died. She was all that was left. Kuro left the mountains then, deciding that she'd just live on her own if for no other reason that things seemed to die if they touched her for too long. Animals and even humans were drawn to her despite her monster heritage, and yet some kind of accident would happen later that resulted in their death or injury.
She had gone from place to place, taking whatever scraps of food, clothing, or warmth that was given to her until the people who provided those things wound up paying the price for getting too near. It sounds tragic, and it was. But Kuro didn't view it that way. In her mind, her "Curse" was like any other part of her and was not something she should fix or change. The older she got, the more she began to realize that she could lure people in to care for her as a means of survival. She had lived a carefree life in this way, by using others selfishly for safety and security until they kicked the bucket, or were too injured to watch over her. Orphanages would take her in as many had a "No Curses" policy. She'd never known anyone to ever order her around, and she liked this life of hers very much.
Of course, curses don't just stop at effecting the people around the user. As she grew older, she became more and more disillusioned with the world around her. She'd had vague memories of her childhood and though no one now knew of the Nekomata's, she was wholly convinced that she came from the greatest monster lineage ever. It started as blind confidence, and quickly morphed into delusions of grandeur in which she believed she was akin to a god and that everyone around her was just mistakenly ignorant about her status. She would be more than happy to let them know, but she had nothing to show for it. So she traveled to Blackwell City as it was the largest city for monsters around. If you went there you could become something.
She ended up finding work for one Elvyra Highwater and though working under someone disgusted her, she dealt with it anyways, and did her job well. Elvyra was particular about picking her, because everyone in her employ happened to be cursed including herself.
