irnhos (eernhohs)
deep ocean
personality
imaginative: text
fair: she believes that everyone should be on an even keel, having watched others suffer for her benefit when she was young and worshipped. blood doesn't make you important, or special - only you can do that. the Pines suit her well in this aim.
adventurous: after her abrupt departure from the only home she had ever known, and a hard year of surviving by herself, Irnhos has learned to take pleasure in the new and exciting. though she likes the swamp (and the wolves in it), she enjoys a change of environment every so often - and by the time she's home again, she finds she only appreciates it more.
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history
with coral-coloured eyes and fur the blue of deepest sea, Irnhos' shore-living natal pack thought her a blessing from their ocean god - a demigod, in essence. pups like her were rare and worshipped by them. Irnhos was raised as a princess; she ate alongside their leaders, received the best and swiftest treatment from their healers, was taught to hunt and fight only enough so that she might defend herself. and Irnhos thought this was her right, as the daughter of the seas. she thought it was right.
then, as she grew, she saw the ribs beneath her packmates' flanks. she watched their hunters die of sicknesses she had recovered from in days, saw the elders left to starve when they grew too old to hunt for themselves. wolves who had been her friends in childhood suffered and expired. they were dying, and it was because everything that might have kept them healthy went to her - and to their leaders. one dusk she went to the leaders, confronted them and told them that their resources should be spread among the pack, not hoarded by their higher ranks. the leaders snarled in tandem, said that Irnhos should keep her mouth shut - that if she was so eager to defend their inferiors, perhaps she should live like them. fearful and frustrated, Irnhos reluctantly backed down.
as she lay in her nest that night, Irnhos imagined that she fought the leaders, sent them both sprawling to the ground with the power of the ocean in her jaws. stood over them as they pleaded for their lives, ordered them to flee the lands and never return. falling asleep, she dreamed of this future, of her pack's freedom - then she awoke to a horrible crash. as she slept, a storm had whipped the sea into a fury; as the pack was stirred by the thunder and rain, the largest wave any of them had seen drove into the cliff, and half their camp slid into the sea.
it was not only their leaders who went with it. the royal guards, for one, and for another all their youngest litter. some of the leaders' elder children dove after, trying to save their parents or siblings, to no avail. there were many commoners taken as well, and as the last head vanished beneath the churning waves, grief-stricken howls joined the raucous sound of the storm. Irnhos stared after them, frozen. her nest was hardly three paces from the crack in the ground. had she done this?
Irnhos found it easy to blame herself. as she looked to her horrified packmates, she realised that they would find it easy to blame her, too. and so she ran.
for some time Irnhos lived as a wutoul, wandering the lands alone. she was hardly a year old when she fled, surviving on what little she had been taught and what she could scrounge from others' leftover catches. this was what the others' lives had been, in the pack she had once called home. she really was living like them.
after nearly a year again, she had learned how to feed herself, protect herself from enemies or flee them when she had to. it was around then that she met two other dispersals - sisters - Hoirauc and Laisihra, whose lives sounded so simple and loving when they shared their story with her. Irnhos wished her own family had loved each other like that. she told the sisters that they had, when it was her turn to speak; it was easier than explaining the truth.
they stuck together after that. soon Laisihra was expecting a litter, and Irnhos realised that she wanted the same. she wanted pups, wanted to raise them as no different from anybody else, teach them the value of mutual respect and shared strength. but, as well as that, she wanted them to live - and she knew that between the three of them, they were unlikely to. there was a pack nearby, a large one; they were kind, she had heard, from the other loners in the area. they took in wandering wolves, and all of them were equal, considered just as valuable as one another no matter their blood. Irnhos liked the sound of that.
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relationships
Hoirauc: mate.
Laisihra: friend.
Halop: nephew.
Aiurnus: daughter. so similar to Irnhos, but so much more hopeful. she has never seen the cruelty of others the way that Irnhos has, and her mother is glad for it. as an adult Aiurnus became a scout, as Irnhos herself had been. maybe she will find out how cruel the world can be, but unlike Irnhos, she will always have a kind home to return to.
Kinawun: son. he looks like his sire, and acts like him as well; Irnhos is scared for her son, who walks places she cannot conceive of, but she's proud of him too. he has the adventurous spirit that she had to foster in herself, and she would never try to keep that from him.
Siwur: son.
Henigril: daughter.
Ensturet: daughter.
Alucos: daughter.
Hinsut: daughter.
