Behind the walls of my mind

“Do you know me, really know me?
Are you passing by?
I've been waiting for a lover to see me like no other
There's a road to be discovered, I'm dying to be uncovered
Uncovered
I want to show you all my colors”
- Indica - Uncovered

Name
Nadjez, full name Nadezhda Xenithova

Species, gender and race
Siderian, female, (East-)Russian.

Birthplace / Hometown
Towards the eastern Siberian coast, near the sea of Okhotsk.

Age (birthdate)
She is the grandmother of Rubi. Rubi is around one year younger than the famous Stian
A rough calculation puts her at 111 years old at the 'zero point' as used by Mystic (but this can deviate a year or two)

Parents and siblings
Parents unknown yet. She has one full sister, Ratha. Ratha is a collaboration character, initially inspired and developed by KalahariMeerkatfan.

Mate
First mate: Iaira (under construction), died at a young age (approx. 41 years). Approximately three years after the death of her first mate, she gets to know Ivan (Ivan Nestor Erimos).

Offspring
She has two sons, Mika (under construction) and Theron.
Mika was born when she was approx. 34 years old. Here is a sketch of Mika and a short description of his appearance. In ultra-short, he is a cinnamon silver flamed charcoal tabby with flaxen and sooty and yellow eyes. Mystic and I call him drittsekk (‘asshole’ in Norwegian), because he is a bit of a grumpy shithead towards his younger half-brother (Theron), his steph-father (Ivan) and sometimes even his mother (he has very good reasons, I learned recently. He tremendously misses his real father, who died when Mika was approximately 6 years old…).
Theron was born when Nadjez was approx. 44 years old. Some of you may know Theron from the first "fun in Malta's plants" drawing by Mystic. He's the father of my main character Rubi.

Appearance and personality
At first she seems strong-willed, determined and straight-forward, not extremely kind. Not very active, but not lazy either. Very closed personality, although she was more open at a younger age. Slightly introspected, but not at all lost in thoughts. She somehow has a bit of a pessimistic bias sometimes, but that may be because of her history (first mate). She can be very loving and warm as well, but her first son sometimes disturbs that. She is almost forced to act cold, just to keep the peace in the family, but her pessimistic way of acting may also be a results of conflicting emotions and long-term stress. Underneath those layers of coldness and indifference, there is actually a pretty sensitive lady. Not that she is easily offended, but she can easily feel the mood and motivations of others. However, she has difficulties acting accordingly to their emotions and motivations and this is a 'weak' feature of her that becomes worse over time, after her first mate's death. That's why Behind the walls and Uncovered  by Indica are such good inspirational songs for her.

Physical appearance
Red cat! Average shoulder height. Clearly lynx-biased built back and hind: angular, with a straight backline and a clear transition to the waist bone. Somewhat heavy skeleton and smooth muscle lines, adding to her stiff appearance. Her walking gait is a bit different from the general cat gait; she is like an Icelandic pony that has multiple gaits and can shift fluently between gaits XD. However, she becomes very stiff as she ages, and that is how I first saw her: a very stiff gait, as if her joints are frozen, but rather long and heavy steps, head kept low (even when walking). Her head is with ‘siamese’ influence. Relative small cheek bones with an average sized muzzle and a prominent chin (Russian type).  Her ears are long and pointy, and the top of her ears is tilted forwards (not hanging, but dented!). The top of her head is pointy. Her profile is pretty angular and simple, with a tiny small dent between/below her eyes, but apart from that she has a roman profile (kind of a blend between Rubi and Stian). Her eyes are a green shade of yellow, with a green circle around the pupil. And she has those dark membranes in the inside corners of her eyes, like all cats have (nictitating membrane), but hers are slightly visible (like this cat has).

She is obviously autosomal red, dark variety. I believe that Mystic called this deep red / chocolate red, whereas Rubi would be orange red. Nadjez has a deeper red colour than Theron; he is more towards the chocolate hue. The longer hair tufts are somewhat diluted, especially in the neck (the agouti effect shines through, somehow; it’s too vague to be flaxen).
At first, I thought that she was short-haired with some long-haired ornaments, but I think she has short hair on top of her head and neck, medium on her back and then long ornamental hair in the neck and on the ventral side (underside of her neck and belly) and the tail. She has a few tufts of hairs on her wrists and ankles (like Yava). The ornamental hair between the shoulder blades looks like a shark fin, but you can’t see that in this position.

Voice and manner of speaking
Her voice sounds a high-pitched/thin, harsh with a low undertone, penetrating/resonant, dry, sometimes slightly guttoral and as if she hits her limits and other times more nasal.
She can talk with a sneer, that is how I first got to know her. However, I know that she can also talk with a soft and tender voice. Although she has a very closed personality, the subtleties in her voice can give away a lot. She doesn’t talk much about how she feels (doesn’t feel the need to or just feels awkward doing so), someone who pays attention can tell if something is up just by listening to her.

Voice references
The band Indica is a 100% match. When I heard this band for the first time, I just knew that this would be the voice of Nadjez! These are good references:
Indica – Helmet
Indica – Uncovered

Skills and hobbies
Undefined yet. She has average intelligence.

History
Lost love
Nadjez lost her first husband. He drowned in a huge swirling river, taken by a strong undercurrent and unable to get out of the water in time. Possibly because he hit his head against a rock or tree trunk or something like that. It was extremely bad weather (wet, slippery, stormy weather, although not cold because there wasn't any snow) combined with lots of bad luck. Nadjez almost lost her first son (Mika) as well during this storm, as he desperately wanted to go to his father, not trying to rescue his father but simply panicking and, afraid to lose him, jumped after him. Mika was more attached to his father than to his mother. He was only (approx.) 6 years old at that time, and Nadjez just barely kept him close to her. It took days before the storm started to lie down, and she never found the body of her love again. Mika was broken, and for a long time they were alone. Now Nadjez had to take care of her son on her own... She barely managed to do that, as she was so distracted and mentally lost after she lost Iaira. Mika of course must have felt neglected, and this likely has affected him up into adulthood.

Hidden love
Approximately three years later she meets Ivan. I still have to decide how they meet and how their first interactions go, and how much time it takes before Nadjez is pregnant of her second son, Theron! Theron and Mika don’t go along, mostly because Mika acts like an idiot. He still misses his dad tremendously and never really processed his death, resulting in a very tense situation between him and his step-family. He doesn’t blame them, but he is clearly not happy with this new ‘fake family’. There is some sort of a personality clash between Mika and Ivan/Theron. Maybe he can’t stand their good-hearted and tolerant personalities? Or he is jealous of their ‘trauma-less’ life? Angry that his mother seemed to forget his real father, able to feel love for another male? The way they can entertain his mother, make her laugh, stealing her from him?
Nadjez is right in the middle of this tense situation every day. At some point she breaks under the pressure of her two dear sons quarrelling about their fathers. Mika was being rude, again, to Theron about Ivan, while Theron – normally very rational, social, clever and optimistic – took this chance to tell him in a very offended way that he doesn’t have to take this shit of his half-brother anymore and that he should go away if he doesn’t like it here. Yes, there are a few foul words involved, even from Theron. Nadjez was shocked to hear Theron acting like this, and, already extremely tensed from the whole situation, as a results she slaps him! Theron got bitch-slapped by his mother! Apparently Nadjez felt the need to protect her fatherless and firstborn son, even when she knows that her firstborn son is behaving badly as well and Theron was actually right. She immediately regretted this, but it was already too late. Ivan sees that Nadjez slapped Theron, and he growls to Nadjez in return for hurting him. I don’t know what he does further, but there's no conversation between them. Only unspoken feelings.
Somehow, Ivan tolerates the bullshit coming from his stepson, empathising with his situation I guess... But of course his stepson will learn about his mistakes, too!
At some point, Theron decides to leave his home. I don't know if he met Helena - his wife - by then, or that he meets her later on. Mika stays with his mother for a very long time. He may be travelling a bit through what we know as Russia.

The lost son
She will very likely meet her grandchildren Rubi and Arto when they are adult. She probably never meets Jade, but I'm not sure of that. Theron is not actively seeking or avoiding his mother. I do know, however, that he will meet his mother again, and also his half-brother Mika. Nadjez is very old then. Theron may even be surprised that she is still alive? Theron is a bit sceptic but open-minded about seeing his mother again, but Nadjez firstly reacts very cold and distant. She didn't really expect him, and she cannot show her true conflicting emotions really well, which results in a cold mask.

Inspiration
Her story was inspired partly by the songs ‘Hush now baby’ and ‘Uncovered’ from Indica. I saw her feeling hurt and missing her first partner, her first love, remembering how he died. And after that, wishing that her second partner (Ivan) gets to know her how she really is, not burdened from all the stress that their sons bring upon them. The title of this drawing is from the song Behind the walls by Indica.


Siderians are a fantasy feline species by @BlackMysticA.

Character Nadjez by me, with permission from Mystic.
Nadjez is also featured in this huge collab drawing by Mystic and me! The one who is biting someone's ass..