The Chained Angel

The Emblem of a Hunter

Totem took his name from the symbols from his ancestors. He is a descendant of the Native Americans of Earth, and his parents were proud of that fact. He, however, couldn't be bothered where he comes from. He lives for his future, not the past of family he never met and never will meet. The name Totem is a pseudonym, and he never uses his real name in his work. His bosses know him as Totem, his neighbours know him by his real name, his marks know him as Totem, and the society of space knows him as evil. He doesn't look evil, but more caring and wise and honourable.

His skin is the shade of a freshly fallen acorn, his eyes a deep puce and holding secrets that many would desire to find the more he conceals. His face is more rounded than you'd expect, though not fat or full in a way that suggests gluttony or baby fresh-faced innocence, with a thin nose and lips that are ever so slightly darker than his skin tone. He's thin, though not unhealthily so, and has very slight muscles thanks to his work, even if those are rarely to never shown. He isn't the warmest man, but he's tried. He's tried to have relationships and a proper life but it just doesn't ever work out for him. His work makes him go away for long periods of time at once and his partners never really managed to deal with it. Eventually, he just gave up on having relationships. His family ask regularly why he won't settle down. He says that it just isn't the right time. In truth, he has no interest in that sort of thing. The only people he will ever and has ever loved are his family. Why would he need a relationship when all the love he could ever ask for is already there? Even after they're all gone, there will still be the children of his brothers and sisters, of his cousins, all loving him and laughing with him. That is, if he's still around that long, which his line of work dictates that he won't be. A happy family man, Totem never really understood why having children never appealed to him. Well, it did, but the act of conceiving those delightful beings was disgusting to him. There was nothing he would love more than to have a child, to be able to show them both the joys and the perils of the world without them being naïve nor poisoned. His work says that he cannot have a family, his mind says that children are gifts but that the acts committed to have them are repulsive, and he certainly can find room in his heart to look after a few of them. Human children or alien children, he doesn't care. He wants to help people, though his job would suggest otherwise. He has no other talents, in his eyes, he's just a hunter and that's all. He's not a hitman, though his job sometimes does entail such work to get to a 'delivery', but he has the same internal conflict as a hitman. Does he stay in his job, well paying yet morally poor, or get another job with his limited experience and his lack of acceptable grades? But another job always comes in whenever he has that dilemma, so he has no way of refusing because he needs the money.

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That money decorates his tiny home with plants and surrealist paintings and plush furniture with a mattress that feels like a thousand hugs from a thousands fluffy dogs. It keeps his fridge stocked and his clothes clean and his life ordinary, the presents of his family bought and his will kept bountiful. He needs no extreme things in life, no fancy vehicles or a lavish home, just his little pleasures and his own aesthetic. No money is spent on the 'sinful' things in life though he has no religion. The occasional alcoholic drink, though never a drug nor nicotine laced tube of paper or a evening companion came into his life. He lived in a multi-species neighbourhood with alien households and kind people everywhere. Children felt safe playing and running around and they knew only to speak with people that they knew were safe, so Totem was a friend to all of them. If only they knew.

Totem isn't really him, nothing about Totem seeps into his everyday life. He knew that if he and Totem merged, he should quit then. Until then, jobs will flow through.