Thaulka

[transferred from Weaselheart's Wolves of the Winter Pines at 3yrs old]

"Great Blue Heron"

The lastborn daughter of Hryhoolou, the Pines’ founder, and Olsac, their first lead denminder. Olsac died soon after his last litter’s birth, and Hryhoolou was distant as ever towards her kin, so most of Thaulka and her brother Lumatesn’s raising fell to their elder sister Rulahou. This they were content with; Rulahou was most of their companionship when they were young, aside from each other. They never quite actively avoided interacting with their denmates, but were happier left to their own games, away from the crowd.

When Thaulka and Lumatesn were new trainees, Rulahou’s littermate Aulosac returned on the brink of death, with his equally battered young daughter. Once their young niece, Huckleberry, had recovered from her sickness and exhaustion, she soon proved an excellent entertainment for the twins - when not training, they spent much of their free time in Huckleberry’s company, growing quite close.

Their lives were uneventful, past the birth of the four forbidden litters in the midst of winter, two to Thaulka and Lumatesn’s sisters Toad and Leir-barru. Tensions came to a head when Aulosac, Rulahou, and Fleabite faced each other down in the middle of camp, Fleabite threatening that if his pups were culled then he would do the same to Huckleberry. The fight ended in blood drawn and Hryhoolou vowing to never bear a litter of her own again, to save the pack from this conflict in the future - as such, Thaulka and Lumatesn truly became the last pups of the Pines’ first leader. Thaulka never thought much of it, in the end: most days she hardly remembered that Hryhoolou was her mother in the first place.

And time went on. Thaulka and Lumatesn reached adulthood, temporarily hunted as a pair and then a trio when Huckleberry too was of age - then places opened in the Moonlit Hunt, and the twins joined them as their new chasers. It was strange to hunt now with Fleabite, after the events of that cold winter, but each focused on the hunt over their personal feuds. Thaulka grew to respect him in a way, by the end of it all.

An end that came too soon, with the advent of another winter. Disease struck the pack, badly; struck Lumatesn, badly. He was dead within the moon, his body dragged out to the border so that nobody would catch the sickness. In less than a moon, Thaulka’s companion since her birth was gone without a trace. Aulosac caught the same illness, died of it as well - Thaulka and Huckleberry grew closer than ever before in their grief, a friendship both thought would last the rest of their lives. Then Thaulka herself fell ill. She was close to death for several days, finally recovering under the dedicated care of the herbalists, but she was still weak, and she was scared. Many wolves, after recovering the first time, had taken ill again and worse. Thaulka didn’t want to die. Unable to face the scorn of her packmates, she left camp quietly through the shadows, and walked - and kept on walking.