Hemlock (Chandor)

## Application Sheet

Hemlock was a dark gray male wolf with one copper-orange eye and severe facial scarring. He joined the pack of Chandor, where his story is just beginning. Hemlock was created and RP'd by speckledplanet.

## Personality

* ***Disciplined, Discreet, Methodical, Observant, and Scholarly.*** Hemlock could have been deemed an extraordinary wolf if not for his fall from grace. He had always been a deeply studious character capable of picking apart the weaknesses of his enemies and friends alike while wearing a face of delight while he did so. An unruly, evil little boy, but a boy that was selective and astute all the same. Nowadays, Hemlock traded in his violence for patience, for observation and the art of waiting. It doesn’t really matter what it is he waits for. It could be a storm, a meal, a body, the list goes on and it’s one he doesn’t find much interest in fixating on. He’s open to sharing information and offer aid to those with no one else to ask, though Hemlock does this with as little contact and conversation as possible. He isn’t good with fillers and is punctual, almost to a fault. If a wolf cannot be honest with their desires then he will not press them for more. He’ll be as patient as he needs if it will get him where he needs to go.
* ***Conservative, Experimental, Hypnotic, Religious, Self-Conscious, and Solitary.*** But sometimes, waiting breeds loneliness, and loneliness brings out the flaws in one’s perfect little world. Hemlock knows he is unsavory to most and doesn’t pretend to be someone worth a thousand words. If someone desires something he has, he will offer it and expect nothing in return. The sooner the conversation concludes, the better for all parties involved. It takes quite a lot to work Hemlock up to the point he offers more than what he has on hand. To offer himself in any capacity is an intimate and disgusting affair, so he tends to keep himself small and uninteresting to avoid the syrupy-sweet nothings that wolves tend to share with one another. He wants no part of it outwardly, but even he would be a fool to say he does not feel special when he catches the eye of another, even for a moment. Sometimes that glance is enough to remind him he is alive, for better or worse.
* ***Asocial, Confused, Cowardly, Erratic, and Insecure.*** Social cues, civility and acceptable behavior are almost a myth to the wolf of a war-torn empire. He knows he was born from blood and lust and hunger, all of it leading to power and the desire for more. At one point he truly believed that was his calling— to be the monster that his enemies feared, to be their end and their beginning. Now, though, Hemlock serves the dead as if they are his only companions. He tends to the forgotten parts of the world. Old bones, graves, the elderly and ill, all of it. He has found a different kind of beauty in blood, blood he doesn’t have to draw with brute force and terror. Instead, Hemlock nurses his wounds and the wounds of others under the guise of mercy, though in the end… it’s just spilled blood all the same. Hemlock’s soul is dirtied, but he has long since made peace with that. His hands will never be clean again, but he can wash them until they’re raw if it means he can be of service to something greater than himself. The afterlife is not waiting to welcome him, but he can help shepherd others to it in his stead.

## Pre-Group History

Hemlock’s mind is a complicated and labyrinthine place with numerous dead ends and shadowed corridors. Quite a lot of their earliest memories are hidden behind the stones and overgrowth and the ones that are present are a blurred canvas of swamps and empires, of family and betrayal. They don’t seem to remember much beyond this, and if one were to ask, it’s almost guaranteed they would crack a grimace and shrug in response. It’s not that they don’t wish to share, but simply that they can’t.

What they do know is that they had escaped by some stroke of luck.

They had tempted fate as a stupid child and bore the scars to show their naivety, something that shaped the remainder of their early life, ranging from their position as a healer, their absolved marriage, their relationship (or what was left of it) with their siblings. They had wallowed in the stench of the sick and dying, doomed to fail over and over and reopen wounds that would never quite heal in the pit they’d been sentenced to. Hemlock (was that their name back then too?) was a disappointment to the God-Queen. To the Courts, they were no better than the troupes that performed for their entertainment, his lack of skill as a medic leaving him open to ridicule and punishment, none of which Hemlock had the will to fight back against. It was a game for most of them, really, to see how much the craven prince could shoulder before it snapped.

Only… when Hemlock did just that, it was not just themselves that they took down another peg. Those soldiers they were ordered to care for? The wounded they were left to oversee and patch up? The sick that relied on them for medication and safety?

Gone.

One by one, they were gone.

The Court called it failure. Hemlock called it mercy.

God-Mother called it treason, so what was one more death? Her own child, no less, not that she hadn’t seen two more perish before him. Only this time, Hemlock was in control. He was a doctor after all, and he knew how to make a body fall still with the least resistance possible.

They disposed of Hemlock the following morning and when his heart finally reawoke, he was alone. No Court, no patients, no wife, no one. Just him. Just Hemlock.

That peace was only temporary, lasting long enough for the prince to crawl out of Death’s arms and drag themselves up and out of the swamps to drink in the first breath of fresh air it had ever been allowed. It lasted just long enough for a meal of carrion before it was rejoined by the departed and it was there in the forest Hemlock had dissolved its faith in the God-Queen and swore itself to a new tenant.

Hemlock did not linger to find out what became of the empire after. It no longer cared.

What it cared for was elsewhere, far beyond the reach of the God-Queen and her consorts in some new place that was just beginning to recover from a plague of white spores. It was here that Hemlock’s work truly began as a doctor for the dying. It would care for those forgotten and left behind and give them the type of comfort and security it never got itself.

It would keep the dying safe from the greedy claws and mouths of those who would do them harm.

It would help shepherd them to greener pastures no matter the cost.

That was Hemlock’s promise to the little snake and the ghost.

They would make sure it would not fail its duties again.

## Trivia

* Hemlock has limited range of motion on the left side of his face. His eye can’t close fully and has a lazy squint at best and his lip never fully thins. Teeth are generally visible where his jowls collect.
* He primarily eats carrion and scraps left over from other’s meals. The only fresh meat Hemlock will consume are fish, if the opportunity arises.
* He often speaks to himself, to the woods, to the wind, but almost never to the living unless they initiate it first.
* He believes in ghosts and considers himself a medium, though there isn’t concrete proof to back these claims and is often a topic of discussion he doesn’t give readily.

## External Links

* Official Application Sheet
* speckledplanet's deviantART Gallery