Tamara

"Where are my sunglasses?"

Temera WhiteEagle is a conflicted personality. She is basically a nice girl, but life is very difficult for her. She's had to be self-sufficient most of her life, and she does bad things sometimes. She knows the difference between right and wrong, but does what she must to survive. A Cobra experiment in recombinant genetics, Temera's genes are infused with DNA fragments from various reptiles and snakes. Aside from making her incredibly fast and tough, her unique heritage provides her with other assets and weakness. Cobra killed her mother, and attempted to kill her. At five years old, Temera was able escape to a life on the street, using her animal side to keep her alive. She struggles to survive, but longs for something better. She's had to struggle up for everything she ever attained, and is willing to do anything that has to be done, in order to keep herself alive and free. She has a venomous bite and reptilian eyes, but her cold-blooded physiology can sometimes be a disadvantage.

Creation
Temera was created nearly from the ground up in a laboratory owned by a dummy corporation of Extensive Enterprises and Cobra. The human side of her genetic material was from Lori Ann WhiteEagle, one of the junior lab staffers needing the money. The other side was a mix of reptilian DNA, prominently cobras (expected) and diamondbacks, among others. The experiment was never intended to last very long, simply enough for the end result to be analyzed. If successful they would use it, if not, terminate it. This was disrupted shortly after she was born, when the Joes caught wind of the front cover and true owners, and raided it to catch them with unauthorized experiments. The upper staff who were 'in the know' about their employers attempted to destroy all evidence of the experiments, including Temera, but Lori Ann managed to get away with her, evading the raiding party and the staff, and trying to slip deep into civilian life.

Childhood
It wasn't to last. When Temera was five years old, Cobra finally caught up to the two of them. An agent in disguise approached their house, and killed Lori Ann when she opened the door. He was going to go in after Temera next, but she struck first, spitting venom in his face and biting him in the leg. Blinded, paralyzed, and poisoned, the agent lost his weapon as the toxins took effect, and fell to the ground. Temera didn't know what to do with him, but she knew she was hungry, so decided that with her mother laying there not moving, she'd just eat the one who tried to attack her. She ate most of his body before it rotted, by that point she'd realized that somehow she was on her own. She lived in her mother's house with the dead bodies until the utilities were shut off, then took what she could and went into the streets of New York.

Life in the streets with her physiology was an interesting prospect. Her instincts kicked in far more when she was outside a 'home' environment, and when she was still very young, she found the joys of live and fresh killed food. She wouldn't eat a sewer rat for certain, but anything else she would consider 'fair game' to keep herself alive. Strays and loose pets especially. Though when circumstances got bad, she learned to unlawfully enter enclosed yards for a meal. Even what she knew at that point said that sometime eventually she needed to enter school though, so when not living in condemned buildings and hunting for her food, she was trying to keep herself enrolled in an elementary school, and cover up the fact she didn't have a parent to sign for her. And her not-quite-normal looks. The school had too many students to care too much. But she also needed notebooks and such, so learned even more how to break into homes and pick pockets to afford such things, not truly knowing a whole lot better at that point.

Eventually she learned more. She started actively avoiding eating people's precious pets early on, after being too close at some point after and hearing the anguish someone had after finding their protected animal missing. She didn't eat for quite a while at all, after that, in fact. It made her wonder too much how many other situations like that she didn't overhear. She limited herself to untagged strays, and non-pet animals. She still moved from condemned building to condemned building though. She'd learned quickly to only pick pockets of those who quite apparently had money. And she would wash off the prints from the wallets and drop them in mail slots of random places when she took the bills out, feeling more guilt about other things as well. The situation worked through grade school.

Junior high
Junior high saw an incident that would require Temera to switch locations and schools, however. During an incident during a Physical Education class, she got knocked senseless by an unlucky strike from a ball. At a point when she was in shock and not entirely 'with it', her 'prescription' sunglasses were off when she opened her eyes really wide, and in her shock she didn't recognize the instructor immediately when he came to check her. And instinct kicked in on her before she did, she spat venom right into his face as she scrabbled away. That caused great consternation among many, and would slip around the tabloids for a while, once it was figured out what was spat onto him. She felt horrible about it, and ashamed of herself. But she was too afraid of what others would to, to come out and own up to it. Just another guilt to carry with her into the future. She switched schools, and the furor died down soon enough. She tried to avoid and be more aware during such activities after that point. She also started wearing a strap on her sunglasses for when she was involved in athletics.

Teen Years
Temera was starting to grow up though, as well. When she reached late seventh grade, she had begun to bloom noticeably into a woman from a girl. Boys started taking notice of that, even boys in upper grades. She didn't notice it at first, but as she developed further, eventually one day early in eighth grade, her mind became hazy for some reason during the morning, and she noticed the attention of the boys much more than normal. She licked her lips at them, even as she wondered why she felt strange... When one of the boys responded to the teasing, her control over her own body began to slip. She tried to lure him into somewhere 'private' away from anyone else, while they were on break from classes, and when they got there, all her control was lost as she pulled her clothes away and basically jumped him, not stopping until she had what she wanted. She left him dazed and scrambled off then, laying an egg somewhere in a cool dark spot a few days later, before scrambling away from the spot and coming back under her own control. She remembered parts of what had happened, though not locations, her body had responded so well to it... She knew though that it would be a problem if that happened often.

Because she had developed so much by that point, and had learned so much more about life and people and things, she realized that there were other things she could be doing to earn money, rather than steal from people. She dressed herself up nicely, covered her eyes as usual, and by that point was trying her hand at selling herself for money. She wasn't terribly successful at first, but by the 9th grade, she looked older than she was, and got much more interest from people. It only got better as time wore on, by the time she was halfway through high school she had her own apartment rented, had some things of her own, and felt much better about herself. She was even able to buy an... extremely used car eventually, a 1960 Volkswagen Beetle. It didn't look too good, but it ran, even when it looked like it wouldn't, and did so reliably. The selling of herself also had a fringe benefit, whenever she felt the haze coming on, she would find a potential customer and not charge them, or wait to take money. She'd just sabotage their protection, and vanish when it was done. It still took a few days to lay the egg, but she'd gotten better at explaining away missed school as a medical condition needing routine treatment. The high school was worse than the grade school, so didn't make a fuss. They were more worried about drug dealings and weapons on the school grounds, and keeping teachers safe from unruly students who might be involved in gangs, to take much notice of a quiet girl who got her homework done and didn't raise a fuss.

Even realizing that her cycle would play hell with her, though, she knew that what she was doing then would eventually get her in trouble, and she would need to get a different job to make herself money later. She'd become more aware as time wore on about who caused her tot need to live in the streets, and killed her mother. She'd saved the identification and such of the one she'd eaten, as a trophy. It also identified him as an agent of Cobra. She hadn't looked at it in some time, when she looked at it as a high school student, it was just early memories in a box. But when she looked then, it sealed her fate, and she looked at the idea of the G.I. Bill. Money for college, but more importantly a possible chance if she was lucky to get back at the people who did that to her. Not long after her graduation, she went to the recruitment office. With the interesting events in the world, she had some hopes of being allowed into the military. Not thinking about the idea that they'd have a physical as part of the enlistment program...

OOC Notes
Tem still has her creepy parts from the physiology she's stuck with. She can sense heat even with her eyes closed like a pit viper. She has an extremely long, thin, black forked tongue, with Jacobsen's organ with its highly enhanced sense of smell. The appearance of her eyes owes more to a rattlesnake than to a human, even if they're chocolate brown. The 'whites' are minimal, and the pupil is a vertical slit. Her teeth are razor sharp even if they look initially like human teeth, a bite from her even with her regular teeth would easily slice into the skin and potentially bite something off. And for serious situations, a pair of long hollow fangs can spring down from her upper gums and jaw, delivering a horrible venom directly to someone's bloodstream. She can spit it through her mouth as well, for quite a range. The jaws of her mouth are able to come unhinged easily, allowing her to open her mouth far larger than anything normal, and her esophagus can stretch out to the sides significantly, as can her skin, to allow her to swallow very large objects whole, and get her mouth completely around something large to deliver a bite. Her skin is extremely thick, and appears semi-scaly at one point during the year, just before she sheds it. Her fingernails are black. They're shaped like human fingernails, but razor sharp like claws, and extremely strong. They grow a half inch beyond her fingertips, and are extremely hard to trim back. They grow back to that point quickly as well. Her rib cage and spine are extremely flexible, and can rotate around to a highly unnatural degree. Her internal organs can shift if her rib cage is compressed, and flatten significantly in order to enable such twisting. Her spine overall alludes to how much diamondback she truly is. The color patterns don't cover her entire backside, but the familiar diamond shaped patterns run all along her spine on her skin, from the back of her head clear down to the far end, easily visible against the general skin tone. The far end is interesting in and of itself, instead of a human tailbone, the bone grows out to the outside at the point of her rear, splitting into multiple sections. The muscle of her behind is attached to the part that comes through the skin initially, and the multi-segment rattle is thusly completely functional, it sometimes goes off on instinct when she's agitated or upset. Her mating cycle runs every three months seemingly like clockwork, and still essentially forces her to comply and lay an egg.

Players
Temera was created and is played by Carrie.