Leone

Temperance (Sister)

## Application Sheet

Leone was a dusty mahogany-colored wolf with very dark eyes. It entered the Domain in the midst of the Hive Wars, during which time it became extremely close to travel partner, Hawthorn. Their story ended dramatically, leaving Leone alone once again. Leone was created and RP'd by Jackalloops.

## Personality

* ***Duplicitous and a Social Chameleon.*** It blends in easily and finds remembering names and faces a simple task. Leone is exceptionally socially intelligent for a wolf of its beginnings, and slips in and out of various social circles with little difficulty. The masks it wears are many, and as varied as the company it keeps, at the cost of having an increasingly smaller inner circle as it progresses through life. This said, Leone has a difficult time estimating how others perceive it, and it may misjudge how to act to fit the image someone has of it in their mind. Glimpses of its true self are always visible, but one must untangle them and trust themselves that they have found it.
* ***Spirited***. Leone is a charmer. It navigates the world as its own being, following whatever whims or idle thoughts may cross its mind. It wants to enjoy everything life has to give (and leave behind some of what life already has), even subscribing to a hedonist lifestyle when the seasons and/or land permit. If one sticks by it, they'll find it's actually quite easy (if a bit quiet) company and has a welcoming and safe presence.
* ***Independent Thinker.*** Leone is a wolf who strongly values personal agency and being able to make the choice it believes is most well-suited for its goals and tends to assume others feel this way as well. It has developed an innate distrust of any hierarchy structure outside of loose affiliations where trust is earned through experience. It values its time and tends to trust its own experience, but will defer to someone clearly more knowledgeable. Leone also views itself as a student in this way.
* ***Dauntless and Steely.*** Leone is not a particularly intimidating figure (physically or socially) and those who come to keep its company may find its perseverance comforting. Rather than struggle against adversity, this wolf has pushed to grow comfortable with the unknown and embrace the odds even when they are against it. There is plenty it ruminates on but Leone is quick to recognize there is little that can be done to change the past, much less fix it, so it soldiers on alone and keeping distance from the world.
* ***Stormy***. The weight of past decisions has left parts of Leone empty, and something dreadful took up residency in its soul. Its tired and vacant stare is accompanied by a toneless voice and short temper. Its patience with the world can be thin, and there are some days this brittleness will be more apparent. The feelings it can't shake are frustrating, and prone to surfacing when least helpful (if they ever are).

## Pre-Group History

It's a common beginning to any story barely worth going into. Born an unwanted child, to a wolf who had been the same, he was set up for easy failure before his fur had even dried. Leone and its littermate were immediately conscripted into ranks they never understood, in a world that seemed just as unkind as their kin. Its sister, Temperance, needed more time to grow. She'd been born too small and initially developed so slowly it would've been easy to assume the two were from different litters born months apart. While the Empress decided what to do about the runt, Leone was trained to play war until it was finally sent at the ripe old age of one.

Aura's empire had been stalled on the edge of a bog, where a cultish pack that worshiped spirits they believed inhabited the water held strong. This would be Leone’s Time of Proving, under the leadership of one of Aura's former consorts who had recently fallen out of favor: Tanner. It was clear from the fact she sent the old wolf into the battle that she expected him not to return. Tanner's mind had lost its edge, and he led the forces to a miserable end. Wholly unfamiliar with the terrain, thrashing their way through peat and mud into the waiting jaws of their enemies, they lost more ground than they gained and Tanner issued a retreat order.

Tanner was… killed. How it happened never mattered, so what if his blood was on Leone’s teeth? And despite high losses, the yearling managed to wrap up the attack fine enough to bring a few surviving Templars back home. It would be viewed favorably upon arrival, but to the increasing disappointment of its Empress, after the battle Leone spent months riddled with guilt for the wolves it led to their deaths and performed poorly in its new role. Over time the guilt gave way to bitterness towards the wolf it had all been for, and Leone began seeking to undermine Aura wherever it could.

It was a past time she amused for a bit, perhaps thinking the pushback would make it more than a pawn to the council and a suitable replacement for the next member she replaced. But an Empress is a fickle thing, and eventually, has a wolf held down to break its paws. To this day it doesn't remember what had been the final straw. Maybe there were several.

Crippled as it was, there was no place on the battlefield for Leone. Aura's choices were to make it an Outriderr-- a sort of slave-warrior rank, often reserved for captured enemies who still had some fight in them-- or to condemn it to a life as a common Landseer. Thinking the latter would be more an embarrassment to Leone, it was stripped of all rank and military power, and sent to study weather.

After a grueling recovery, made slower by the constant travel of landseer life required, Leone made a bid to escape the badlands. It traveled to Aura's camp with the excuse of wanting to discuss a potential use for volcanic glass found in the region, and pulled Temperance aside to say goodbye. She had been one of its few friends and supporters since its return from the bog. It felt she was owed at least a farewell.

Unfortunately it was poorly suited for life alone. Leone knew how to hunt, but was still relearning how to walk without proper stabilization, running was even harder and mostly left it rump up in the dirt. Returning to Aura would mean certain death, though, so it pressed on, eventually meeting a small band who agreed to let Leone shelter with them in exchange for stories of where it had come from.

It was promptly driven off, shocked and stumbling, when they learned from where it came... but at least it had secured a filling meal before exile. And this was how Leone lived its life, betraying the kindness of strangers and hiding its origins until at last it reached lands Aura's name was meaningless. This, it thought, was where it needed to start its life. It would meet others here, skirt different packs’ territories alongside other loners, and eventually try to settle in one that assured they could make use of its talents as a cloud scryer.

Here Leone tried to make a life for itself, after a full year of traveling alone only to find itself feeling distant from the wolves around it. It struggled to settle into the day-to-day going ons of pack life. It grew restless, taking a young wolf named October as a mate it didn’t quite love, and wrecking the relationship by not knowing how to father their young. They would bicker frequently, and eventually, the arguments would come to a head in a full-blown fight. It all fell apart, and Leone left its wife, their children, and the pack where it never quite felt at home in the dead of the night following a black storm on the horizon.

It caught up with the rain and traveled east with the sound of thunder until its stomach rumbled as well. In its haste it hadn’t thought to eat before leaving, the angry fallout of its fight with October had spoiled its appetite for days, but now it was forced to finally do something about it. A few fruits and grass kept it sated for a bit, but Leone would have to hunt eventually. The opportunity presented itself in the form of a family of hogs. It went for a piglet. The mother went for its face with long tusks and hundreds of pounds.

She must have thought the predator was swiftly killed by the blow because the attack only lasted a few seconds. Leone woke hours later, still bloodied, in the care of a student-healer named Tégar. He explained that he had heard sow’s squealing a while ago, and came to investigate. She’d been long gone, but a quite-dead-looking wolf was left by her burrow. He’d meant to bury the poor fool and was surprised to discover Leone quite alive. A talkative but kind wolf, Té also introduced Leone to his family, with whom he was traveling to study his craft. His sister, Juliette, was a fine hunter. And Juliette’s betrothed, Atenn, was in training as a warrior for their pack.

Leone stuck with them while it healed, helping with Atenn’s training by passing on what it learned in its youth. It never explained where or how it learned to fight, and over time the two grew rather close. A warrior’s bond, Leone thought. It was something it had seen among other Templars, who had fought beside each other long enough to trust the other. Atenn had other thoughts, however.

At the first sparring session, the male was able to beat Leone, he confessed: “Juliette says you’re handsome.” Leone laughed. It was many things but didn’t think itself a homewrecker. It tried to stammer something out, deflecting its friend’s fiancee’s attraction to it, when Atenn spoke again. “I think so, too.”

Who was Leone to deny the advances?

The three of them tried to figure out how to proceed with a relationship, to Té’s quiet disapproval. It would eventually be doomed by him months later. The three felt their training in the wilds were complete and they could return home as full adults ready to take on responsibilities in the pack. Despite Té’s protest Leone was invited back to their territory and assured it would be welcomed.  When Juliette gave birth to a red-furred child, safe and warm in the whelping den they themselves had been weaned in, it all came to an end just as quickly as it began. His willingness to turn a blind eye to everything had reached its limit. The healer spoke to their leaders about the outsider, inferring Leone was just an interloper and not someone they could trust. Since he had traveled with the newcomer for so long they believed him and took his counsel that Leone should be banished for crimes it hadn’t committed.

It was quick. Simple, even. The pack was small and insular with conservative beliefs, and Leone hadn’t made enough of an impact on anyone beyond Juliette and Atenn to have someone vouch for it. So it didn’t protest when the alpha came to deliver the verdict, simply left without saying goodbye. The mountainous terrain was hell on its paws anyway.

Traveling only where the storms led it, Leone headed north, spending weeks without seeing another wolf. Then all at once, it saw many. A whole band, no less, though they were openly distrustful of strangers. There was something happening in these lands it couldn’t claim to understand, but felt eerily familiar, as though from a past life. It trailed the strangers for as long as it could without being discovered, but Leone had come to accept bad luck would follow it wherever it goes and wasn’t surprised when a lone figure spotted it on the open plains.

Storms favor the bold, but Leone couldn’t fend off a whole group, nor would it be able to run on the craggy grounds. Having to accept the inevitable, it stood still waiting for them to draw near. It called out over the thundering of the stranger’s paws that it meant no trespass if this was their territory.

“It will be our territory soon.” Spoke the stranger, circling Leone.

And, thinking perhaps it saw an opportunity to live in those words, Leone steeled itself against any other outcome. “Then you’ll want me around. I’ve helped build empires before,” it offered.

They did not exchange names but Leone, for the time being, had escaped any immediate harm. The leader interviewed it on what skills it could possibly bring, and was ultimately won over by the smallest of details. Leone had been a Landseer, and specialized in reading and predicting the weather. It joined them as a scout, surveying ahead of the group as it traveled and reporting back every few days of what they could expect ahead of them. Through three seasons it worked this position, rarely mingling with the group though working with smaller sects, and befriending one: a powerful but mostly silent wolf named Jackdaw.

Leone enjoyed his company, preferring tasks that saw it working alongside Jackdaw. They would splash in puddles of mud and play just as often as they’d work. They were friends. Or at least as close to friends as it can get roaming in silence for days on end, and it was simple. It was easy.

At least until Jackdaw vanished without a trace, and everyone grew so cagey about where he’d gone off to.

When it was sent to scout north of the stronghold the band created, it suggested perhaps it should carry this mission out alone. It’d been loyal, never questioning orders it’d been given, and becoming trusted enough the request to travel at its own pace wasn’t questioned. The leadership assumed it would return, an ever-loyal accessory and helpful tool.

How fortunate it is, that Leone has such experience in walking away from everything. It never returned, following orders to the point of heading deeper into the Domain and then vanishing from their sight without a trace. Here it hopes to find Jackdaw. Or at least… what became of him.

## Trivia

* Leone is nearly fully nocturnal and travels almost exclusively at night. An exception is made for particularly heavy storms, which it will follow.
* Prone to having a lot of ticks at any given time, especially around its ears and the base of its tail.
* Leone is pantheistic and believes all gods wolves and other creatures worship are real, though follows none personally.
* Very omnivorous. Its favorite foods are mushrooms and river fish.
* It would like to meet a seal.

## External Links

* Official Application Sheet
* Jackalloops's deviantART Gallery