Riley (Mhor)

## Application Sheet

Riley was a reddish-brown she-wolf with topaz-orange eyes. She joined the pack of Mhor as an adult, where her story is just beginning. Riley was designed by Therbis, and created and RP'd by otterbells.

## Personality

As a former traveler that handled all matters of inventory and trade, Riley enjoys sorting things. Every thing in this world has a purpose and a place, and while others may find meticulously picking over it all dull, it’s something she quite enjoys and will even volunteer to do, should anyone ask of it. She also likes to explore the world around her, peeking under every rock and log purely from a want to see what is underneath, before putting it back as she found it.

Riley also isn’t one to rush to any one thing, either. Much as she sometimes hates the weight of it, life is meant to be lived, and so she takes the time to go at a slower pace than what her addled nerves urge her to do instead. Tasks get done well within the timeframe given and time spent after is left… contemplating, seeking new things, and anything else that can fill out and otherwise occupy her for the day. She’s a quiet and lonely wolf that’s spent a lot of time in her own thoughts, and has gotten somewhat sick of her own mental voice, so anything that keeps her mind focused and silent is ideal.

While not the most talkative, she speaks clearly and often is honest in what she thinks, even if at times it may come off a bit blunt. Getting her to go into details of *why* she has the opinions she does, however, is more difficult to get out of her. She’s not the biggest fan of small talk for the sake of filling silence and doesn’t go too far into detail with her own stories, and often sticks to saying only what’s necessary without any embellishment that stories often have.

For what little her words reveal, however, her eyes and ears make up in spades. Riley’s not one to lie – she doesn’t see a reason to – but lack of control over her expressions often display her mood and thoughts in better depth than what she says tends to portray, so things she may try to hide may lack the full picture but are a bit easy to guess on occasion anyway. This can make her either easy to communicate with since it can worm out more details from her, or frustrating because she’ll shut down the conversation if it broaches topics she has no interest in touching.

Riley is easy to please and not used to gifts. Food, shelter, and safety are all she’ll ever ask for in exchange for a chance to exist among a pack. Anything more she’s… not quite sure what to do with. Not one to collect things for herself, so any hoard she builds is often 100% things that given to her that would make her feel guilty to discard.

Appears a bit skittish and overly cautious to her surroundings at times, and sometimes gets stuck on what the *expected* answer is, rather than what feels right by her own instinct. When alone she’s often ambling about a bit out of the way, or lazing by water somewhere, mind somewhere else entirely and perhaps laying in the water on the beach looking like a half-drowned weirdo.

Enjoys company in silence over small talk to fill it, but tolerates chatter provided her conversation partner is okay with doing most of the talking and don’t mind her compact responses.

## Pre-Group History

*Speaker of the tides, I grant you passage through the seas between.*

Envoys were the peacekeepers of the land. Marked for life by cutting of the right ear, they were allowed free travel between the territories and partake in trade. It was a lifetime position that could not be taken back. To be an Envoy is to be a vessel of nature itself, divorced from one’s natal pack in favor of serving as the coast’s will and little more.

Any standing role in their birth pack was revoked, and by swearing the vow, so too does one surrender starting a family of their own.

Riley had thought the prospect of serving the land itself over a bunch of stuffy traditions were what she wanted. The free travel across the alliance packs, and escaping the arranged marriage that wasn’t even necessary for her were simply a bonus. Thoughts she kept to herself, though they were plain for all to see in the smugness on her face.

It wasn’t unexpected. Many have asked to take the vow to escape their duty, only to wash out and resign to their place in fate’s endless current. Riley’s family – save for several exceptions – thought no different. They expected a week, a moon at most, and she’d come home, humbled from the experience and ready to take on a more suitable role for her instead, like a hunter, or a fisher.0Until she didn’t. A week came and went. The moon waxed and waned. A season passed right on by. Two. A full year.

She sat through countless lessons as an apprentice of an Envoy, learning of the plants, the trees, the migration patterns of the seals and salmon in relation to the sea, and of the respect the mountain demands while its rocks and ledges lay right beneath her feet. Much of it didn’t matter much to her, going in one ear and out the next more often than not, but she did her best to memorize the important things, engraved it into her own soul to be a step ahead of her mentor’s pop quizzes.

When she returned back to the rocky shores of her family home one season from adulthood – a final test to ensure this is what she really wanted - things were… different. Or, rather, *she* was different. Being back home and helping out with the pack, hunting otters and seals to trade for their neighbor’s beaver pelts and fish wasn’t *bad*, but… it didn’t feel *right* either.

“It’s weird.” She confessed one day, less than a moon’s wax to season’s end.

“Weird how?” Her mentor asked. “Something wrong?”

“Not *wrong*,” It was not the right word at all. Annoying family traditions may be, nothing about it rang as *wrong*. It was something different. Something else. “More like...*tilted.”*

Crooked, warped, misaligned. The picture and the flow of life was functioning fine, but something was… not there. She couldn’t put her paw on it. She expected her mentor to tease her, to laugh and tell her she’s wrong and that she needs to flip it upside down and over a hill a few times before getting it right.

But he didn’t. He stared at her with a focus she’d never seen before, and just as she before she gave in to fidget under his gaze, he smiled, warm and friendly in compared to his toothy smirk and eyes sparkling with pride.

**“You’re ready.”**

**“No, I wasn’t.”**

Envoys were the peacekeepers of the land. Marked for life by cutting of the right ear, they were allowed free travel between territories. In exchange, they traded away their place in the pack and the right to start families of their own.

But what was an Envoy with no alliance to uphold that vow? Does it even mean anything anymore?

*From the sea we were born, and to it we will return. Such is destiny in the cycle of life.*

Tired paws carry their owner out of bracken onto a rocky beach. Her right ear is shorn, fur all the way from her belly to her paws a mess of burrs and dirt as a testament to her travels and state of mind. Not for the first time, she gazes around in quiet wonder, taking in the early morning birdsong and leaves on the breeze as the waves caress her paws.

It was a stark contrast to the dead lands and silent shores she left behind in her youth, now devoid of any wolf or seal or gull, scorched to ashes in a fire none of them could have imagined.

A fire she had so foolishly dismissed as unworthy of reporting, having spotted it days away when traveling through the borders of territories when it had been just a tiny, little thing.

**“None of us were, and it's all my fault.”**

## External Links

* Official Application Sheet
* otterbells's deviantART Gallery