Songbird 🦜

Credit to Void #11236 for coming up with this gorgeous design!

Songbird was born a runt, sickly, first pup in a litter of 6. They were an accident, their parents dreaded that they would arrive deep in the grip of winter - but they were late. Songbird came into this world just as the last gusts of the worst blizzard his pack had ever seen died out.

Songbird comes from a pack that believes in the power of names. Speaking a pup’s name for the first time quantifies something, attaches firmly to their life force. A wolf’s life is proven through it’s name. His pack was small and his litter’s chance of survival was slim, but his parents had faith in his strength and wished to give him the best chance possible - so they gave his litter their full attention and named them within their first hours. He received his given name, Spring’s First.

Recovery from the blizzard was rough - he brought spring with him, but it took time for the ice to melt away. His siblings narrowly avoided hunger, his father narrowly avoided injury on the hunt, but they survived. Spring’s First was the light of his pack - though he never quite caught up to his siblings in terms of size or ability. 

By summer he had proven himself to be a bit of a poet, always enthusiastic and always joining in on the pack’s howls - perhaps he was even a bit too keen on music and flirtation, but he was well loved. As it would be inauthentic to be known only by the circumstances of his birth, he, (with significant help from his mother,) was named again. He was now Spring’s First Little Songbird. 

But by autumn his pack’s luck began to turn.

Nothing ever stays the way it is.

 ——————

Frankly, Songbird never quite learns to stop fearing change.

It brings good things - nothing new ever grows until the old is on its way out - and some of the best changes in his life came from quick, unforgiving change. From a split second decision to follow that thin stranger on her journey, to the very first time he saw a doomed pup and decided not to let them stop fighting, Songbird has somehow found himself a family.

He never quite understood why his mate never took a name. He never understood why they had to stop walking - though boy do his paw pads and joints appreciate it. But he understands what he needs to, and he has found multiple meanings to his life.

Under Songbird’s eye no wolf goes unnamed. The names aren’t always good, and they’re rarely permanent, but they’re unique and they’re tangible and they prove to every pup that they are an individual with a future.

He fears that future. Time brings change, and change leads to loss, but truly who knows what the future will bring. Songbird believes that future can be so much brighter than an unlucky pup can imagine.

That’s how his worked out, after all.