Mirzam

Mirzam was once a kind and friendly young wolf, borne on by a strength of purpose. Caught in a forest fire as a youth, Mirzam saw a vision in the flames: death and chaos rising, and amidst the destruction, packs turning away from one another to care only for their own. In the end, that stubbornness would doom them all. Only through love, togetherness, and putting their faith in Heart of All could wolfkind survive.

Carrying this vision with him, Mirzam set out to transform the world. Over the years, others began to gather around him: stragglers at first, charmed by his strength of personality, but soon he had formed a powerful pack of his own. He called them the Heralds of the Burning Heart, and dreamed of spreading his message of love to the whole world. Unfortunately, the world had other plans.

It began with several other competitive packs moving in close nearby—a sore test of the young leader's philosophy. Though he was able to negotiate fair hunting rights for all, it wasn't without a few scuffles breaking out between all parties. The wounds of time began to wear on him as well: lost pups, hard winters, lean prey. As the years wore on with no sign either of calamity or of his mission's success, he became more and more obsessed with his own mortality. After a strange encounter in the swamp by moonlight, he grew fascinated with the phenomenon of "foxfire," and of foxes themselves, especially the mythical powers attributed to their eldest kin. Many a fox skull and pelt is lined up in the leader's den, the subjects of his macabre study.

After the death of Flint, his primary mate, he retreated into himself even more. He only ever left the camp alone, often by night, and spent the rest of his time curled up around a perpetual fire at the mouth of his den, feeding it sticks and brush and staring into the blaze. His fur became stained with soot, and his eyes red-rimmed from smoke. Increasingly, the duties of leadership fell to his aging herbalist, Elkheart, and to his young heir Gwawriad.

When strange lights began to appear in the forest, when neighbor packs began to lose their pups, when odd cries were heard in the night during the seventeenth winter AEA, Mirzam is said to have laughed in his once-handsome voice and cried "The fête begins! I am called to the dance!" Only the herbalist's apprentice saw him, and only by the crackling firelight, but he said the aging leader looked five years younger as he strode off into the night—draped in a half-dozen fox-furs and with a skull set jauntily upon his head. None have seen or heard from him since.