Tawny Speckle

In charge of keeping her keen eyes on not only the puppies in the pack, but the other pupsitters - Tawny Speckle leads a busy life. Her paws are never only full, and while she has a large responsibility in the pack, she has always found a way to grow and flourish.
The biggest example of that was how she'd gotten here in the first place.
She hadn't always wanted to be a pupsitter, and she'd certainly had less regard for life than now. Yet an injury when she was young stopped her from being anything else.
At first it was "light duty" as ordered by Flowering Bamboo, though it became apparent after two months of recovery that she wouldn't be able to hunt. Not well enough to keep up with others in a party, at least.
After getting the devastating news, she was determined to prove them wrong - to hunt.
At night, she'd sneak out to hunt. To bring back something - anything for her pack. But it was so much easier said than done.
She quickly realized that there was a reason why they hunted in groups. It was hard work for a regular, adult wolf to do the job of 5 people and even harder for her.
Stalking was the easiest part and chasing was the worst. Though she'd never had the best nose, she made do. And her leg never got in her way when she was stalking.
Chasing, on the other paw, was a pain. Literally.
After she realized that that wouldn't work, she had tried to ask some of the others to hunt with her - she'd track the prey, they'd chase and finish it. That was the plan, anyway.
What ended up actually happening was that Dusk, her only friend at the time, did his best to help her chase it, but he was always already tired from his regular duties. She'd also be the one to finish it off.
It was nice feeling normal for a change, having someone who didn't look at her with pity, but she knew it couldn't last. It wasn't sustainable for her, and even less so to Dusk.
So she made a hard choice. This time, her own choice.
She knew her packmates would support her if she still wanted to wait. To see if her leg would recover, to see if she could still be the hunter that she'd thought she was destined to be.
But a realization had come during those long nights she'd spent hunting with Dusk. That what she wanted wasn't just to hunt, to chase prey across the hard rock of the mountains, and soft dirt of the grasslands.
She wanted to help her pack. And while she'd always seen pupsitting as nothing more than busywork, Tawny knew that if she couldn't chase rabbits across their territory, she could still find contentment chasing pups around their camp.
That was the day that she'd decided to help her pack in any way she could, that she'd learn to love pupsitting. It was the last day she'd snuck out at night to hunt.
It was also the day she got her full name - Tawny Speckle.
And the news that she was sure would've devastated her, that she'd never recover or be a chaser like she'd wanted, felt lighter somehow.
Tawny Speckle wouldn't let an injury dictate the rest of her life. She had chosen this. This was her choice, and nobody else's.
Looking back on it, she was sure now that the others had known. She was never clean with her kills, and she left even more of a trail sneaking out of camp. And rabbits definitely didn't live in the mountains.
Yet she thought back to those desperate days and smiled. They were some of her fondest days, and she hadn't even realized they would be at the time.
She never would've guessed that she would've learned some of her most valuable lessons struggling to run and catch up with prey, the moon her only company.
Or out gazing over the river waiting for fish to show above the surface with Dusk, or sitting in the herbalist's den alone.
It's always the things that she doesn't expect, isn't it?