Orion

Personality

Really likes eating bugs. HATES grass but keeps eating that too for some reason. No wonder he's always getting diarrhea.

Backstory
The Origins: Chapter One
Continued in Vampire's bio

In a comfortable cottage, surrounded by open plains and woodlands, a tiny wolf pup with a black pelt lay curled up in the lap of a human. He called him Orion, after the constellation and the great hunter of Greek myth. His human father was an amateur astronomer, who'd moved to the country to be surrounded by his first great love: the sky. The isolation had gotten to him after a while. Isolation, if left to fester long enough, ceases to be a feeling and becomes something physical. It becomes a hole in your chest big enough to stick an arm through.
But he had no spouse, nor children, only the sky. So he spoke to a woman who bred wolves on her vast, fenced property, and agreed to buy one of the newborns.
"He'll be a perfect pet for 'round here," she told him. "Wolves love this place."
And he did love it, though his experience of the woodlands weren't typical. His first memories were of his wolf mother's scent, but after that his memories were shaped by human hands; the smell of soup simmering on the fireplace, sleeping on a woolen blanket, milk fed from a bottle.
He loved his human, too. He had rough hands and a warm, earthy scent. He walked Orion through the woods, and let him gorge himself on freshly shot deer. He let him sleep on the bed, even when he started to get too big for it. He taught him about the stars and the moon. He let Orion mouth him gently when he wanted to have his ears scratched, or when he was hungry.
"Good dog," he'd say, scratching that one spot on Orion's back that he could never quite reach.
But Orion was not a dog. He was a wolf. And wolves, like all of us, inevitably grow up into something bigger. Something with teeth.
It wasn't a bite, not really. He was only mouthing for attention. But his adult teeth were coming in, and he'd never realised how fragile humans were. Not until he tasted blood and his human was yelping at him like an injured pup. Orion whined, dropping his head in submission. He watched as a thin, red trail of blood trickled between his human's fingers. He kept his eyes focused on it so he wouldn't have to see the snarl on his human's face.
He tried to be gentler after that. Tried and tried. But he was outgrowing the cottage, and his teeth were getting sharper. He broke skin, he broke vases, he broke his own heart trying to make himself smaller. Nothing ever worked.
One day his human drove him out into the woods for a hunt, then drove off. Without Orion.
He was a wolf. He loved this place. But he'd never been taught to hunt without a gun, or how to survive on his own. He'd never known what it was like to be lonely, but the feeling hit him hard and fast. Then the hunger came as he tried and failed to hunt. He was a shell, a being made empty of both food and love.
He would've starved if the she-wolf hadn't found him. Vampire, he called her, though that name came long after their first meeting.
He was laying in the dirt on his side, feeling his ribs press against his skin with every breath. Her scent hit him before the sight of her did. She smelt coppery, and of fresh prey. He should've been scared, but he only felt relief. At least she'd give him a swift death.
"You're all bones," she said, her voice surprisingly gentle. "Eat up, darlin'."
He opened his eyes to look at her, and then at the dead hare she'd dropped in front of him. Her fur was red and black, and her eyes were shockingly blue. She looked about his age. He shifted onto his stomach and sniffed at the prey, then devoured it embarrassingly fast. She watched him, smiling.
"What the hell happened to you?" she asked. "Can't you hunt?"
He let out a low whine in response.
"Oh."
He stood on shaky limbs, trying to maintain at least some dignity. The taste of blood was still in his mouth, and it was making him desperate for a larger meal. "Thank you," he said. "For your kindness."
"I couldn't let you starve," she said, like it was nothing.
"You could've. Don't you have a pack?" He briefly wondered if that hare should've gone to the hungry mouth of a young pup.
Vampire hesitated for a long moment. "I'm alone. My old pack — well, they decided it was best if I leave."
"So did mine." It was close enough to the truth. And then, with his heart beating in his mouth, he asked if she'd like to join him. "We could be alone together for a while."
"I'd like that."
And so they were.
By day, she hunted for him, and taught him how to catch food for himself. His first catch was a hare, and something primal in him awoke as its bones snapped under his teeth. He was a wolf, never a dog, he knew that now. The part of him that ached for his old home dulled.
By night, he would watch the stars and the moon spin in their orbits. He taught Vampire everything he knew about them. They were great beings in the sky, or something. He'd only caught bits and pieces of his human's talks. But of course they were great beings. Something about their glow made him feel stronger and more alive. When he howled at the moon, he felt Her response in his chest. Once, on a full moon, he'd coughed up something glowing. He'd been trying to harness that something.
"I cannot remember my mother's face," he told Vampire, "but I think I see it in the moon."
She looked up, her snout tilted towards the moon. Only a wedge of Her was glowing, but he could still see the shadow of the rest of Her. "I think so too."
"If I were to start a pack, we would serve Her. Worship Her."
"The skinny hare killer," said Vampire, nudging him with her nose playfully, "starting his own pack?"
"It could happen," he said, sitting up a little straighter. "Don't tease. You'd be the first to join."
"I would."
"So why don't you? We could stay together. Start a pack."
"Are you being serious?"
He sank back down. "I got carried away. I'm sorry."
"No, I was only checking. I'd like to join."
"Would you?"
She licked the tip of his ear in response, and the night felt a little warmer.