Astrid🌱 ✒️

Burial stone inscription:

Astrid

Beloved Mother, friend and skilled herbalist

Your pups miss you

Your alpha mourns the loss of a great friend

Burial site: Mountains

She joined the pack just looking for company and she was a great help, almost immedietly taking on the scout role. She has never had pups and is hoping that she could one day be a mother, and maybe this is the pack where her dreams could come true..


One day Tyr was gone unexpextedly, and when she came back and asked Astrid to be the packs herbalist, Astrid immedietly accepted the offer! Though she was getting good at scouting, this new job is more fulfilling to her and she is excited to learn as much as she can!


Astrid came home late one evening after studying herbs. She walked past the sleeping wolf bodies and laid down at her own spot and dozed off. The next time she opened her eyes, a dark figure sat beside her. "I'm sorry to wake you Astrid," she recognized her leaders voice, "I know you've been working hard. But I need to ask something of you". Astrid blinked and supressed a yawn as she sat up respectfully and listened.


"I can smell your heat, it is due tomorrow isn't it? I need you to leave the den and find someone to mate with" Tyrs words worried Astrid and Tyr could tell, "oh Astrid, I think I chose the wrong male to provide for my pack. I was lonely, I was young and naive, and he was handsome and helpful. But I'm scared he doesn't live up to any types of standards. This is my fault, I was too rash to love him and put him before the well being of the pack"


"Alpha, if I may.." Astrid carefully interrupted, "you didn't have a pack when you became pregnant. Don't be too hard on yourself"


The alpha lowered her head and closed her eyes. They opened and glowed their familiar glow right onto Astrid.


"Will you do as I asked you?" it was a genuine question, but Astrid would never defy her alpha. Astrid rested for a bit but left before anyone else had woken up. When she came back, she could not hide her beaming face. This was what she had longed for for so long, pups of her own, and they were finally on their way, waiting idly in her tummy.

-

"One pup per female", that's what the alpha had said. Yet, Astrid had three named pups as active members of the pack. At this point she had visited the packs breeding male, Gull, at every heat since the first one. She liked the boy, but she didn't meet him every heat out of love. She simply made him these visits because it felt natural, Astrid wanted pups! It had been all she wanted until she came to this pack and had her dreams come true. Perhaps that is why Tyr allowed her pups to stay in the pack. Oh, yes, Tyr is soft for this old herbalist lady. After Astrids third or fourth litter, she started getting grey hairs, and her eyesight wasn't what it used to. This clearly bothered Tyr, who had always seen Astrid as more of a young wolf than herself, who she saw as the mother of all of her pack, perhaps other than Räv. It was hars for Tyr to watch her friend growing old, and she got scared of sending her out to forage as well. Astrid noticed how Ragnvald, her own son, would come to her with herbs after hunts, and Tyr also started asking Astrid to craft things, trinkets, for her instead. Astrid was really good at it! 

-

"Ragn, is that you?" Astrid saw a light wolf-shape with two dark dots, eyes, on what must be the head. The shape came closer.

"No, it's me, Astrid," the deep rumbling voice told her it was Gull! She wasn't used to meeting him outside of her usual visits.

"Ah, have you gotten sick?" she figured. He responded with his symptoms and came to sit by Astrids table, where she started mixing some herbs together before reaching down to grab a finished elixir. She couldn't see well, but she knew where she had put things. She placed the pouch in front of Gull.

"He's a good male," Gull realized he was a bit unclear and added, "our son, Ragnvald"

Astrid chuckled, "and he looks just like you!"

"Anund looks a lot like you though," Gull smiled at the older wolf, who smiled back.

"We did good. Did you know my daughter is back in the pack?"