Hawthorn

Raphael, Lazarus, Tzuriel, Killian, and Nero (Brothers)

Storm, Teva, Imelda, Dyana, Daenerys, and Artemis (Sisters)

Riley, Aivar, Miriam, Daphne, and Neka (Adoptive Siblings)

Hedge (Uncle)

## Application Sheet

Hawthorn was a dark brown male with black markings, born in the second litter of Alcatraz and Athena, alpha pair of Aryn. Hard of hearing, the young wolf formed a special bond with his father. His littermates were Tzuriel, Nero, and Killian. His family was heartbroken when he vanished at the age of six months, and they assumed that he had passed into the Song, though, in reality, he was beyond the Domain, living as a loner. He returned to the Domain many years after his disappearance, in the midst of the Hive Wars, finding company in a wolf named Leone. The two lived as loners until the war ended, at which point, tempers flared, and Hawke turned on his companion before limping his way home. His story is ongoing, alongside a new familiar, Keekitah the fish crow. He was created and RP'd by speckledplanet.

His other siblings included Raphael, Lazarus, Teva, Storm, Imelda, Daenerys, Dyana, and Artemis (though he never met his younger sisters). He also had five adoptive siblings in Riley, Miriam, Aivar, Daphne, and Neka.

## Personality

* ***Adaptable***. Being able to think and fend for himself on the fly is one skill in an ever growing catalogue of tricks he has stored up his nonexistent sleeve. While Hawthorn likes to believe he is not the product of his grandmother figure, he sure does take after her in a multitude of ways- most of which are, unfortunately, not too palatable to the general masses. Hawke cares very little about what others like or dislike about him, adding to his ability to see past most hurdles and look for results rather than problems. His ability to overcome his surroundings is innovative, and what he lacks in hearing he makes up for with his sight and smell.
* ***Confident***. Hawthorn exudes a sickly air of confidence that amalgamates in unsavory ways. He stands tall with a heavy sneer, shifty eyes that seem cold and cutthroat with little emotion beyond a rage that ignites at the flip of a dime. His puffy chested bravado, while good for ensuring his survival, is not necessarily good for making friends. It allows him to get what he wants when he wants, and with his stature and muscle, not many wolves are inclined to turn him down if he were to press for some information or a share in a kill. That being said, Hawthorn tries not to make it a habit to use his looks and posture to demean others.
* ***Humorous***. It’s not often or immediate, but Hawthorn does have a bit of a funny bone hidden under that gruff exterior of his. His jokes and interests are selective and scarce, ranging from morbid curiosity to commentary about mundane things. Most of the time it’s others expressions that get him to crack a raised brow and half smile, mostly because he finds it funny how odd everyone seems to be when they think no one is watching. His experiences are somewhat limited, but expressions and body language are a key communicator, so when someone doesn’t know how to conduct themselves-- he can pick up on it rather quickly.
* ***Ambitious***. Very little stands in Hawthorn's way that he doesn’t see as movable. His goals, dreams and desires are riddled with hardship and mixed messages, ranging from abandonment issues to the desire for family to the longing for a territory to call his own. He wants to wield a big stick but doesn’t want to become someone he hates, although some days he may feel it’s already a little late for that. Currently, Hawthorn thinks about searching for Aryn and finding his family again, but it is perhaps one of the most daunting and unpredictable endeavours he will undertake to this day. At the very least, he thinks, he can begin the search for answers and directions.
* ***Intense***. Despite his best attempts, Hawthorn is blunt and to-the-point, most often pairing his comments with snide remarks or passive aggression that isn’t necessarily personal, not that that matters too much to those he speaks to. He doesn’t show much emotion via his voice, so his monotonous tone simply adds another layer of uneasiness to his vocabulary. His posturing is always tall, broad and domineering, both out of habit and out of necessity. He is never small, not in his mind or body.
* ***Solitary***. The only wolf he’d spent most of his adult life with has come and gone, and his experiences with her have left him with a sour taste in his mouth about what it means to keep the company of others. He is terribly insecure on a social level and defaults to the above behavior because that’s what’s always worked, and the idea of trying to find intimacy or connection with new faces is more terrifying than the reality of being alone. He does not crave or want others in his circle, and even Aryn remains an uncertain future for him. Pack life, as of now, is not in his cards-- and he’s somewhat okay with that.
* ***Amoral***. Withe endowed upon him his dubious lack of concrete morals. Once upon a time he was a polite and quiet boy, but he does not hold himself so meek and small and utilizes any and all tools within his power to secure what he needs. Still, he does try to keep himself in check and not spiral out of control, but impulse and habit are a dastardly thing for a wolf who is still unsure of who he even is. He is a bully and a swindler, as much as he would hate to admit it. He is alive, and to him that’s the only thing that really matters.
* ***Destructive***. Be it himself, his environment or others around him, Hawthorn is a self destructive force with a volcanic temperament and little regard for the wellbeing of others. He has a lot of trouble disconnecting his past experiences from the present and future and, because of that, distancing himself from his most intrusive and volatile thoughts is a near impossible task. He believes he was abandoned, so it breeds resentment. He believes he is unworthy of love, and it hardened his heart. He doesn’t think he needs friends, so he remains alone. It’s a parasitic mindset to have, and deep down he knows it will kill him slowly. But what else is he to do?
* ***Insensitive***. Hawthorn doesn’t quite get social cues. He relies almost exclusively on body language, but his understanding of the manners of others doesn’t stop him from pushing and pushing until something breaks. Or he simply abandons whoever he’s working with if they prove to be incompetent or an adverse accomplice. He wants to get better about opening up and having a more sympathetic approach to others, but his memories of family and friends are so obscured by Withe’s teachings that she is essentially all that he knows. And she was not a kind teacher.

## Pre-Group History

*Hawthorn was born into a litter of four pups to Lord Alcatraz and Lady Athena in the pack of Aryn. He was hard-of-hearing and more reserved than the other pups, but loved by his family and packmates. He formed a special bond with his father. For six moons he lived in the pack, meeting packmates like Leto, learning important life skills from Alcatraz and Athena, and watching the pack go about its life on the verge of war. But after six months...*

It was presumed he had died.

That simple idea was unbeknownst to Hawthorn, not even an inkling of a thought in the boy's mind in the earliest days of his disappearance from the borders of Aryn. Shadowed by civil war and social unrest, it was easy to assume that something had indeed happened to the boy who must've been only six months old. He was born partially deaf after all-- it would be easy for someone to simply... do away with him. For Vektren to rip apart another fine thread that was barely keeping the growing family together. In reality though, Hawthorn just... disappeared.

A partial truth, but Hawthorn would be lying if he didn't admit that the idea of a false death didn't make coping easier. It was easy to play along, to keep himself hidden away from the world, and when he was discovered by an elderly she-wolf who smelled of wild berries and poultices, he was pressed with the question: Who are you?

And who was he, really? His two seasons in Aryn proved confusing, scary, and his father seemed to be the only consistency with the war-torn tides that surrounded the pack at its borders. When he disappeared, he wondered if anybody would even go looking for him. Surely someone did. His older brothers and sisters, his cousins, patrols... someone must've, but no one ever found the small juvenile who got himself lost in the wide forests far from the reach of Aryn's borders.

So when she spoke, firm and loud, he was too scared to answer. Did he want to go home? Would she bring harm to his family? How angry would his parents be? How long was he gone?

Question after question until finally he uttered out the name Thorn.

In hindsight, the old wolf was probably smart enough to see he was lying, but she never questioned his name or his origin beyond the tidbits that Hawthorn managed to share given time and patience. He learned early on that her name was Withe, and that she had lost her only son a few moons before she'd found him due to an unforeseen accident. He never asked what that accident was- not when he was little, and not when he was older. A tale not meant for him, and he wasn't sure it was fair to ask given he never shared his tales with her. But she didn't need them.

Withe was content to care for the boy as her own. She was firm but loving, she taught him how to heal minor wounds and seek out helpful herbs, she kept him fat and happy despite her age, but her sharp mind and clever tongue earned them many free meals by sweet-talking passing loners, telling them that her daughter's son was starving and that she was trying to find food for them both. Withe didn't have a daughter, Hawthorn wanted to say, but the conniving shrew saved them both over and over with her lies, and throughout the next year with her, he played into them each and every time without question. It was only after he'd hit a little over two that suspicion arose, both with the loners they'd encountered and with himself.

Most of the time he never noted how Withe stole from others. Not with force, but with words, filling stranger's heads with worries and woes that were so far from the truth that the little bit of reality in them could be brushed away in a flick of a tail. He'd asked her one morning after their latest heist, why not just hunt herself?

Now, their way of communicating was rough at best. The old wolf couldn’t hear very well most days, and neither could Hawthorn. Many-a-times their conversations were loud, most often short and to the point to avoid asking each other to repeat themselves over and over. But eventually they’d learned different ways of speaking, ones that didn’t include Withe’s sly tongue and Hawthorn’s impatient grumbles. They spoke with body language, directions, images, gestures. A paw swooping to the right to draw each other’s attention to a nearby trail, a sharp bump to the shoulder to keep one another from growing sleepy during their travels, toothy smiles that could be mistaken for snarling if it wasn’t paired with squinted eyes and happy wags.

It was… simple. Until Hawthorn began questioning her. Until he stopped relying on their wordless conversations and instead picked verbal fights and arguments over things he felt he could control. Withe, ever the opportunist, always told him it was purely for their survival. A stolen meal? Survival. Picking herbs on the fringes of a pack’s border? Survival. Hawthorn keeping his mouth shut and following her orders? Survival.

It was simple, he told himself. One day he would be able to survive without her. He would learn to fish like he wanted to when he was a babe, he would run in the moonlight without her limping along behind him, he would barter and hunt and socialize. He would find Aryn.

Without. Her.

But that day would not come for two more years.

He stayed in her shadow that entire time, harboring a whirlwind of feelings for the one he once affectionately referred to as his Grandmother. He loved her, but she was sickening in the light of what his dear Father taught him in their short time together. But he slowly overshadowed her, and his size put her small frame to shame. Eventually she leaned on him for support, sought his comfort, and depended on him for food.

He did not provide more than the bare necessities, no matter how much she pleaded with her words. He began to despise her voice, and when she could do nothing more than lay there and burrow against him for warmth, he was grateful. A selfish, sadistic part of him was grateful that she was giving up. But another part of him was deeply terrified of what it meant for his future. That idea of being alone that kept him going was growing more into reality day by day, and perhaps part of that is why he hardened his heart towards his caregiver. He didn't want to mourn family, not again.

But despite that, he cried the night she passed.

He buried her under the willow trees, and he scattered lavender over her shallow grave, hoping it would mask her scent from the scavengers and let her feel far more pretty than she really was. Her soul, while sickly and twisted, was not truly awful. At least, Hawthorn didn't want to believe so. Not with the words she parted on him before her feeble voice was rendered inaudible to his ears.

*"Go find your own place in the world, boy. It was never here. Never with me. We both know this, and now there is no more time to lie to ourselves about it.*

*I do love you, though. As much as I can. I hope you can forgive me if it wasn't enough."*

Early in the morning in the dense fog with a new storm rolling in, Hawthorn left her in the shade, and he began the long walk to retrace the steps that took him so very far away from home.

He would return to Aryn, and he would have a story to tell his family that would be told for generations to come.

## Group History

*His group history starts from his return from retirement.*

## Trivia

* The nickname "Hawke" comes from the few sounds he makes at birth: a weird, garbled high-pitched screech more akin to a bird than a wolf pup. That, and he hates birds because he cannot hear them sing.
* As a child, Hawthorn has little to no flecking on his coat until he reaches his Juvenile year. All of the dark tips come from his guard hairs, so his coat is rather thick and coarse as opposed to soft. Meaning, he could tumble through an actual hawthorn bush and come out unscathed. Not that he'd want to, but he could.
* Hawthorn's hearing is very limited. Normal speaking volumes are lost on him and one must be very, very close in order for him to understand. He can make out loud noises such as thunder or yelling from a distance, but only at close-range (such as mouth to ear) will he be able to articulate most words given.

## Quotes

* "I...very much appreciate my father's company. He is kind, but not overly. He teaches me instead of coddles me, and I feel...powerful when I'm with him. Like I matter." (from *November 2016 MSE*)

## External Links

* Official Application Sheet
* speckledplanet's deviantART Gallery