Bellflower

Kodiak (Brother)

Stag and Lynx (Brothers, NPCs)

Ivy (Sister, NPC)

## Application Sheet

Bellflower was a silver-gray she-wolf with darker markings and periwinkle-blue eyes. She joined the pack of Hintertomb as they entered the Domain, where her story is just beginning. Bellflower was created and RP'd by iBadge.

## Personality

* ***Well-mannered and Loyal.*** Bellflower is nothing if not polite. She is entirely aware of the kindness and graciousness that has been granted to her through her tentative acceptance into the Tomb, and intends fully to pay that forward. As such, her loyalty is easily bought, and is not easy to lose. The things and wolves that she cares for will generally be her top priority, and serving the Tomb is a duty that she takes incredibly seriously.
* ***Private, Introspective, and Unassuming.*** For much of her life, Bellflower has been something of a loner, and not just in the literal sense. In her life before the Tomb, even before she was on her own, she was not a wolf often sought out for company - as such, the pale she-wolf has grown used to the idea that thoughts are better kept to oneself. And when all one truly has is their thoughts, one’s mind tends to wander to all manner of topics. Conversation, and genuine connection with other wolves, have never been a part of her musings. For Bell, it is much easier and acceptable that her presence is simply tolerated, rather than something for others to enjoy or seek out.
* ***Insecure and Repressed.*** On top of not being used to having company or being around so many wolves that actually… well, don’t actively (seemingly) despise her, Bell has also never been in a position where praise and other affirmations and positive interactions are common. As such, there are a number of ways where this ember is underdeveloped and not quite ready to be fanned into a flame. In time, perhaps, her confidence may grow, but for now, Bellflower is an insecure female who genuinely isn’t sure how to or if she even can express affection even at its basest platonic levels.
* ***Adaptable, Scholarly, and Driven.*** There is only one thing that motivates Bellflower on a regular, steady basis: and that is her need, no, her desperation for knowledge. Understanding. If the dreams she has so often are a curse, she is utterly determined on figuring out the source and breaking her bonds from it. The Tomb has tempted her with potential answers, has offered her an explanation that could finally begin to make sense, and what’s more, they have the dream and inkling that she could one day be free. If there is freedom at the end of the line, Bell will seek it. Her naturally intelligent mind means that there is a cunning and adaptability that only has the opportunity to grow. Whatever is needed, Bellflower will figure out a way to make it happen.
* ***Resentful and Ruthless.*** There is a darkness to Bellflower born of a lifetime of neglect - as she very slowly learns that there is a better life out there, that her treatment as a young female was unjust, a sense of anger and bitterness for her family and the life she once led has begun to take root. She will do whatever it takes to achieve the aims that she desires, and to protect the Tomb that has given her a chance. She’ll stop at *nothing*. But that bitterness, that anger, has the potential to consume her if given the opportunity.

## Pre-Group History

Males were fauna. Females were flora.

Too many flora had already been born in the dry season.

To add salt to an already offensive injury to the pack, this particular flora was born weak and small, coughing and sniffling as fever threatened to take her. Her mother, father, and all of the pack’s healers watched as she struggled, and hoped that she would succumb so that there would not be another mouth to feed or take up valuable resources. But their Law was the Law, and so as long as she survived, she would be cared for. Even if she was a burden.

So, when the runt lived long enough to earn a name, she was met with a mixture of tentative respect and utter disdain.

She was given the name Bellflower, and by the time she was old enough to begin training, no Flora in the pack wanted to take her on as her seedling. Not even Bellflower’s own mother.

In a way, it was on account of the dreams.

For as long as Bellflower can remember, she’s had dreams. Vivid, colorful things that have always left her with a general sense of dread upon waking. More often than not, bad things just tended to happen when she had the nightmares; the reason why unknown, a mystery. When she first confessed to her mother about them, she was told to keep quiet. *“Never tell another living soul, you understand? It’s a curse. You’re cursed. We can’t have anyone knowing about this.”* The unspoken message rang clear: *The winter should have claimed you.* Bellflower was bad luck.

Even if nobody except Cleome knew of the dreams, young Bellflower was a wolf to be avoided. She was small, she was weak, she was a burden to them all. If they were to be saddled with a burden such as this, was this a curse in and of itself? A pack with rigid laws and almost brutal enforcement, the wolves that called their territory home were an incredibly superstitious lot.

She never stood a chance.

*“you’ll get it, bellflower. i promise you will!”*

Stag was the only wolf who showed her tangible kindness. Her brother was almost always at her side when he wasn’t training for battle. Where Bellflower was small and weak, her brother was large and fit - every ounce the model fauna that their pack sought in its young males. Where Bellflower was eyed with disdain and suspicion, Stag was adored and cherished.

But he adored and cherished Bellflower, and that was enough for her.

What little she knows of battle skills, she learned from him.

Flora were healers and hunters - they provided and cared for the pack. Fauna were warriors and educators - they kept the pack safe and intelligent. Bellflower was no huntress, but nobody seemed to recognize that she had the inner ferocity of a fighter. In turn, Stag was an educator at heart, but he had the body of a warrior. Thus, he would be used as such. And she was expected to keep to the densite and learn the secrets of healing herbs.

They understood each other in the way that only close siblings could.

But then he was ripped away from her in the most horrific way possible. Even if it was entirely expected.

Every fauna was put to the test through combat. Help an older warrior on a raid, and you became a true protector of the pack. Stag’s trial was fast approaching. He was nervous, but eager to please.

Bellflower was riddled with nightmares.

She dreamed of red, of blood, of carnage and pain and violence - the night before Stag’s trial, the nightmares were worse than they had ever been. Bellflower found herself awake long before the sun rose, shaking and breathing heavily as she pressed herself as close to her brother’s side as she possibly could. No matter how hard she tried, young Bellflower simply couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was going to happen. But her mother’s words, about never telling a soul about her dreams, echoed in her mind. So when dawn finally came, and Stag prepared to go off to prove himself… Bellflower stayed silent. She had to, didn’t she? Everything would be fine.

And then her brother was murdered.

She would *never* forgive herself.

Bellflower knew the second their older brother returned home without him, a despondent look on his face, that something terrible had happened. And as the details came out, all the young female could feel was horror. Her dreams hadn’t just been nightmares that time. She’d been right. *They’d* been right. Perhaps the nightmares weren’t just dreams at all. Maybe they were messages. Some kind of… of signal. She hadn’t listened when they’d tried to tell her about Stag, and perhaps that had cost her brother his life.

She would not, *could* not, make the same mistake again.

So when, riddled with grief, when Bellflower had another horrific restless sleep of night terrors and heart-gripping anxiety, she spoke with her mother, and some of the other flora. Something terrible was coming, she told them. She just knew so. Her dreams had indicated so. When they scoffed and her mother’s warning glare struck her, Bellflower did not relent. She told them: she’d had the same feeling the morning that Stag’s raid had gone wrong. Something else was about to happen. She was certain of it.

And then something else did.

The sun was high in the sky when the raiders attacked. First the sentries were brought down, and then havoc was unleashed upon their rocky, mountainous densite. Everything that Bellflower had feared came to pass - and for the first time, her nightmares were made living in front of her. Though the pack managed to fend off the raiders, several lives were lost, and blood stained the ground that Bellflower had come to know so well.

She would be even better acquainted with it than she ever wanted, in a way that she had never anticipated, soon enough.

Because as soon as the dust had settled, as soon as everyone had taken stock of what had happened, the same elders that she had begged and pleaded with, warning them that something terrible was coming, denounced the young Bellflower in front of the entire pack. They shouted and decried her to anyone that would listen: she had cursed them. The cursed outcast in their midst had spread her bad luck to the rest of the pack, and because of it, several of their number were dead. Her own brother included.

Everyone was angry. The pack was simply looking for something or someone easy to blame. It just so happened that the easiest scapegoat was the young and scrawny she-wolf that almost nobody seemed to care for anyway.

Not even hours after the slaughter had ended, Bellflower was assaulted - ruthlessly beaten and dragged before the pack’s alpha, her attackers demanding she be given a death sentence. She never should have even survived infancy, as such, her remaining alive was a hex on them all. Let her blood be the pittance for the lives they had just lost. She’d known they were coming, after all. Let her bear the punishment. Bellflower didn’t even have the strength to fight back in any way that made a difference, and by the time she was dragged in front of the entire pack, she was too tired, and scared, to speak in her own defense.

Bell still remembers with startling clarity, the stinging and aching of her injuries, as her face was shoved into the granite, as she stared up in panic at an imposing alpha who looked down at her with a disdainful sneer. For a moment, there was nothing but silence. One could have heard a pebble drop from one of the nearby ledges as everyone waited with bated breath for a sentence that they would all but relish in.

But when it came, it wasn’t the one that everyone might have expected.

***“Take her to our borders and leave her to rot. If she lives, she’ll be someone else’s burden. not ours. Enough blood has been shed today.”***

Bellflower was dragged by the scruff of her neck, roughly, to the edge of their mountain pass. Perhaps it hadn’t been what was intended, but in their haste (and perhaps, as Bell wholeheartedly believes, their joy), she was all but dumped down a shallow ravine. In pain, tired, and completely shell shocked by everything that had just transpired, she lay unmoving on the stone floor and simply… waited.

For a long while, she debated not getting up. She doesn’t know if she laid there for minutes, hours, or even days - time simply became a blur that had no meaning. Bellflower laid there, in pain, hungry, cold, and abandoned, and wondered if, perhaps, the wolves that had tolerated her for the entirety of her life were right. Perhaps all would be better, and the nightmares would cease, if *she* simply… ceased to be.

It was night when the steely resolve swept over her. To this day, Bellflower simply couldn’t explain where it came from, but like a spark, something in her gut ignited. *She would not die here.* She was going to *live*.

Despite the pain, she picked herself up, and limped her way out of that mountain pass and into the unknown. For months, she’s scavenged and picked her way across wilds she never would have dreamed existed, with a freedom and power to define her own destiny. It’s been… intoxicating, in a way she’d never anticipated, even if not always easy. The dreams… they still come, on occasion. And she can’t help but shake the feeling that every time she has them, someone, somewhere, suffers a terrible fate.

And, just a few weeks ago, she stumbled across a group of wolves seeking a new home… who call themselves the Tomb…

Perhaps they have answers. Perhaps they don’t. But, either way… Bellflower believes she’s found a new purpose.

She would, and will, burn for the Tomb.

## Trivia

* Just due to her upbringing, Bellflower can identify a *lot* of mountain-based flora. She may not necessarily know the medicinal properties, but she can absolutely distinguish one flower or herb from another. Her favorite is primrose (what we would identify as "Parry's Primrose," a variety found in North America). One of her favorite mindnumbing past-times is looking for and picking flowers. It was one of the only things she enjoyed in her former pack.
* Crowds tend to make Bell wary - she'll stay on the fringes of large gatherings. She seems incredibly shy, though she's almost always paying attention. She is also incredibly sensitive to sudden movements or loud, sudden noises. Characters that tend to be louder or more physically well-built tend to frighten her to a certain extent (for the time being).
* Given her experience in her last pack, a lot of the Tomb's traditions and more accepting aspects of their culture, and a lot of the occult studies that they do will confuse her - but Bell is *incredibly* interested in learning about them and has been from the moment she learned that they place some level of importance on dreams and the idea of Dust. She is an eager and willing student.

## External Links

* Official Application Sheet
* iBadge's deviantART Gallery