Stahl

## Application Sheet

Stahl was a blue-gray and cream male wolf with charcoal markings and large, pale yellow eyes. He arrived in the Domain with his pack, Hintertomb. His story is just beginning. Stahl was designed by Celtic-Barbarian, and created and RP'd by otterbells.

## Personality

* ***Observant, Considerate, Playful, and Studious*.** Stahl is always paying attention, and weaker eyesight does not prevent him noticing things. His senses were carefully honed to serve the pack and he is destined to use them, even if he wishes he could turn them off. In an act of rebellion to his father – who sought to use him to improve his own status – but not seeking to harm the pack itself, Stahl leaned to using his skills in ways his father hates: indirectly and from the shadows, where the credit would easily go to someone else and not him. He knows he’s not the perfect candidate to solve *all* problems, but the least he can do is little things that make the weight they all carry easier to bear, and the best way he can think to do that is with a light smile and warm heart, even if they may not know it was him that did it.
* ***Eccentric, Nonchalant, Musing, and Witty.*** He’s drifted about the pack like a ghost since puppyhood, and the result is a strange wolf that looks at the world through a different lens, where sounds and smells have their own voices and opinions instead of just, well, being what they are. The things that come out of his mouth can be anything from mundane to witty to weird. Stahl spends a lot of time to himself. This makes him somewhat socially awkward, though he does his best to emulate what he’s observed. How successful he is at this… varies. All that time alone lets him contemplate a lot, and much of it has assisted in his ability to navigate his emotions. He takes to things at his own pace and is not easily provoked, but isn’t a rock wall. He’ll smile, laugh, frown, brows furrow when confused, and he can be provoked if pushed enough, though it’s very rare to push him to that point. It’s one of the few things he gives credit to his father for.
* ***Shiftless, Self-Effacing, and Secretive.*** Trying too hard to force one thing often leads to the opposite result. Attempts to mold Stahl into a dutiful, dedicated soldier failed. Well, sort of failed. While it embedded a deep motivation to keep busy, and he will follow orders, there is a lack of drive to excel at any one task, and an aversion to taking credit for things done with the talents he does possess. He prefers to stick to the sidelines and do his work quietly, so those ‘more talented’ in areas than him can get the priority he believes they deserve. While socially awkward, he does enjoy conversing and spending time with others, though he is somewhat cagey when speaking about himself. This does make him good at keeping secrets, he just isn’t one to trust easy in extending that trust regarding secrets of his own.

## Pre-Group History

Born on a calm night, hidden away from Wax’s prying squint, Stahl was small and round, like a pebble rolled up into flesh, fur and bone. His mother absolutely adored him, and his father, a former Stray, entered the nursery den excited to meet his children. Only to mistake the singleton pup as a teething stone. He was corrected in good humor, of course, but unbeknownst to them all, that one interaction would go on to chart the course of much of Stahl’s life.

Just like every pup born that year, Stahl had many expectations to live up to. This was especially so from his own father, who – in his resolve to further prove himself to Hintertomb’s wolves – sought to use his child as a vehicle to achieve higher respect within the pack. *Unlike* other pups born that year, however, Stahl had no noteworthy qualities, and often went unnoticed due to his naturally quiet nature. As the weeks rolled by, other problems began to arise, and the answer came through a great dose of irony. One morning, while settling to rest in the sun with his mother, Stahl mistook his father chatting in the distance as a particularly cranky looking boulder. Clearly, Stahl’s eyesight was flawed. Not so flawed it’d keep him from pursuing any Attunement of his choice, but enough that it would be an obstacle for him to overcome.

This was a setback for the path his father wanted Stahl to follow. But it was… not impossible. It just meant the pup would have to work harder, spend more time and effort to get where he needed to be. Time and effort that would come to rob Stahl of what should have been most of his childhood.

Seasons pass and things are shifting. Amidst the whispers of the Omen’s interest beyond the valley and the rising concerns around it, Stahl’s father was learning to be careful what one wished for. He wanted a dedicated, hardworking son, one that would be a symbol of prestige, to help further cement his own place within the pack. And he succeeded, in a way. Stahl was growing into a diligent boy, eager to work to the point it neared detrimental to his own health, but a mean streak of teen rebellion also reared its head, and it manifested in ways that did not align with what dear old dad wanted.

Stahl’s father wanted a strong son with unshakable resolve, like a boulder. What he got instead was a damp stone, small and scruffy with layers of lake moss. He wanted a son that followed orders, and followed orders he did, but not in the ways that was wanted. He wanted a son that’d earn him respect and what he got was an ambitionless boy that refused accolades of any sort, and even went out of his way to help put the spotlight on peers Stahl felt were more deserving of attention than himself. It was a cold war between father and son that went mostly unnoticed from one side’s desire to avoid negative attention and the other’s natural ability to slip under the radar. His mother found it hilarious, but also rather sad. It was not the ideal family she had wanted but at least her child was thinking for himself, and honestly, that's all she could ever ask for.

But just as things started looking up was when it all came crumbling down. It was a picture perfect crash, truly, though tragic in its unfolding.

Winter came in frigid and harsh, with a crescendo of blizzards and landslides in the valley a background symphony to the hushed hearsay spreading in Hintertomb’s halls. Lack of food and rising hazards rose in concern, and worst of all, a plague had slipped into the tunnels and afflicted a portion of the pack with illness.

One of the affected to catch the disease was Stahl’s own mother, and despite all efforts from the pack’s Cores, there was nothing that could save her. All he could do is stay close with her in her final days and keep her company so that when she faded away, she was not alone. Something in Stahl broke that day, and he has not been the same since.

After that, things became a blur. Words of the Omen’s lessened presence due to illness floated in one ear and sat in his mind for barely a full moment before exiting out the other, unable to focus too hard on anything in particular. Instead, he buried himself into work, seeking distraction of any kind to avoid thinking of things he did not want to dwell about.

It wasn’t until the mountains started speaking from the depths that he was roused back into paying attention to the world around him, seeking for signs of a pattern to the booming groans of stone and peering with his head held high for signs of the leering lights and any signs of life returning to normalcy. But all around him every outing was a din of silence his ears had never heard of before, as if the world had stilled, coiled in fear or anticipation of… something. The fur on his hackles rose in anxiety with each passing day, some instinct deep within his ribs urging him to do something. But his feet were planted to the ground. So afraid of the urging in his heart, he turned and fled back into the caves, intent to stay there until the feeling faded.

On that fateful day he was curled up within his own space, and his father approached him, intent to question him on how long he intended to stay like that after several days.

Stahl’s not sure if it was his nerves. Or his grief. Or the mountain of frustrations with his father. Perhaps it was all of those things, but something in him snapped. Uncoiling as if possessed by a beast of rage, Stahl lashed out at his father, searing up their cold indifference to each other to a boiling point that was long coming for all the right reasons and at the worst timing.

The mental rift between them split further with each passing word exchanged between them, the ground above and beneath them split and cracked as well, halting their argument as the horror dawned on them both. Stahl turned to grab whatever he could, jaws wrapping around an item from his mother’s personal collection and attempted to get more before his father tackled him, heckled him into running and leaving the rest behind. A hesitant glance back rewards him with a falling rock to the face, sending him tumbling, already swampy vision swimming and taking longer to focus.

Just as he resigned to lay there and become buried, his mother’s item to become a makeshift obol, he feels teeth wrap around the loose skin of his neck and scruff him harshly, yanking him back to his feet and dragging him along hastily to the point he’s forced to move his own legs to keep up. The grip is not released until he’s running properly on his own, speeding ever faster and urged by what would become the last thing he’d hear his father say. *Keep going and don’t look back.*

For once, Stahl did not have to be told to do something proper twice. He ran as fast as he could, scraped his way out, and streaked past anyone slower than himself on the way. He heard the screams, the cries for help, but he kept going. He didn’t look back. He did not even stop when his feet carried him outside and into freedom. He did not stop when passing other wolves that were returning to find the tragedy. He ran and he ran until he could no more, and when he did, he collapsed where he stood, and slept.

Stahl was not sure how long he stayed there like that, but when he awoke, the sun was high in the sky, and upon his hobbling return to what was once his home, there was no one in sight.

There was nothing left at all. *Keep going. Don’t look back.*

The events in his escape were a fuzzy blur, but Stahl knew that there were pack members that had been outside. Nose to the ground, he searched until he found the path of stone, and with a tired ache that went bone deep, begging for rest but knowing it can't quite yet, he began to follow it.

He lost count of how many paces he took before he finally allowed himself to stop.

An urge to turn around twitched at him. To see just how far he’d gone, in comparison to how far he likely still needed to go. But he resisted. It was the least he could do. The last thing his father ever asked of him, in a way.

*Keep going.*

Oh he will. He can assure his old man of that.

*Don’t look back.*

He lasted all of three days before he broke that part*–*

*Dumb brat.*

*–*and it winds up becoming a mistake he will quickly regret, for the moment he takes to look away allows thieves to take his mother's item, the one thing to escape with him from the rubble.

*Wouldn't have if you had listened.*

But a tiny last bit of rebellion with his father before laying it to rest with those buried seemed ideal at the time. The cost simply wound up being too high a price, and became a lesson harshly learned that he either long needed or was not ready for.

*Keep going.*

He'll catch up to the pack and replace that which was lost.

*Don't look back.*

## Trivia

* Stahl is nearsighted. Not extremely so, but it does impact his ability to navigate a bit and left him stumbling a lot as a pup.
* He holds his head at shoulder height or lower, rarely ever lifting it higher. The posture is a constant and breaking it is noticeable.
* His rocky relationship with his father is pretty well known, though the exact whys are up to interpretation.
* Likes water, but is not a good swimmer.
* He blends in with the crowd, but is not impossible to spot. Like difficulty scale of a Where's Waldo page, the more familiar one is with him, the easier he sticks out, the less the longer it takes to locate him.
* Collects rocks based on mouth-feel.

## External Links

* Official Application Sheet
* otterbells's deviantART Gallery