Jarvela Tribe adopts

Name: Mikkal Jarvela
Gender: male
Age: 1 (born in spring)
History: cousin! Mikkal-Daddy is Aki-Daddy's brother maybe?
Mikkal was not born in time to have met his elder cousin before he left, though he knows of him through the fond remembrances of his relatives. Growing up within the tribe, they were all he ever knew as a child. The brief touches of "civilization" gleaned through observation of settled packs held no interest to him as he grew older. His family and the reindeer were his life, and that was enough for him. That was all he'd ever wanted. Though he left his family it was with the best of intentions. His presence was a burden on his father's family, who already had enough mouths to feed. Though he was a deft hunter for a yearling and no one ever complained of him, he finally judged that it was time for him to move on from his family, and continue their way of life elsewhere. He left at the end of summer, year six, as the world moved towards snow and ice and the starving times once again, and sought the lands his cousins dwelled in.
Appearance: Mikkal is a tall, strong young wolf with a great deal of fluff in his coat - ideal for his preferred home in the north, considerably less for anything further south. It makes him appear to be a great deal bulkier than he is, though like all the males of his family he will as he reaches maturity prove to be a sturdy and muscular wolf. He is a dark steely gray over much of his form, the dark color ticked with black at the tips of some of the hairs as many timber wolves are, with most of the ticking concentrated near his back and sides with very little on his legs and face. A lighter silver-gray coats his underbelly from throat to the tip of his tail and down the insides of his legs to fade before his ankles. The same silver forms a mask on his face, running up the bridge of his nose to curve out over his glacial-blue eyes. The deep auburn red that tends to run in his family is present in a malar stripe that runs from the inner corner of his eyes along side his mask before angling down towards his chin, and from that same starting point back to line the bottom of his eyes before winging up at the outer corners. The color runs in a thin tuft along his spine from the back of his skull to his shoulders. He also bears a single, wide red band around his left front ankle. (not sure how tall I can afford to make him... probably less than 40")
Personality: Mikkal is an earnest young male, eager to preserve his family's way of life. As independent as any of his family, he nonetheless is very gentle hearted, very warm. While he is content with long, solitary hours following the reindeer herds and does not long for anything else, he is just as content to socialize whether it be with a small group of friends and family or mingling among a group of strangers. He is very accepting of whatever situation he finds himself in and slides into it like an otter into a river.

He loves easily, and strongly, with great loyalty towards those he has given his heart to. Loyalty, but within the bounds of his own culture. The idea of monogamy would not even occur to him as his family has always viewed it disfavorably; he loves so whole-heartedly, so completely but not any one person. If a lover were to chastise him for his poly-amorous ways it would hurt him, cause him great anxiety and make him feel absolutely wretched but he is incapable of monogamy and it would only serve to make him miserable if he made the attempt.

He is largely indifferent to packs and pack life. He doesn't begrudge them for wishing the life they live, but to him, he could never live in that manner. He was born to follow the reindeer, to shepherd them and to cull them so that they may grow stronger as a herd, and he would live and eventually die following where they led. It is his purpose and his focus, and while he would love to have a family to gather around him and teach as his father and his uncles and cousins all had taught him, he is equally content to husband Alacritia's herds alone.

He speaks mostly Finnish, and though he speaks some English it is broken and his vocabulary is lacking. He has never seen much point to it as his family all spoke Finnish and there was little reason to speak anything else. (possibly a smattering of other northern languages from the cultures that would traditionally be in contact with them? Norwegian, Swedish, Russian?)
RP Sample:
Mikkal cut eagerly in front of the herd, sending them bounding off in another direction, as his sharp eyes eyes watched carefully the way they moved. There, a stumble that may have been simply a misstep but possibly symptomatic of something wrong with the cow. There, an older bull lagging behind as they spun away from him. He marked their particular scents in his head to investigate them later. Just like wolves, all reindeer had their own unique scents, but few wolves bothered to learn them. Why would they? They were not like his people. They did not follow one herd, or seek to care for them. They cared only to kill what they needed to eat, and let the herds fend for themselves. Not Mikkal - Mikkal knew each reindeer in this herd. He knew where they bedded down, he knew which cows had calved that year and he knew which bulls had sired them. He would be sad to leave them... but these reindeer already had the care they needed, and they would not need him. His cousin Aki who had left before he was born, and Aki's sisters Sunniva and Sabine who he had known much of his childhood, had left to find a new place to live. It was time he did the same. There would be herds there that would need him, as he needed them, and perhaps he would find his cousins there as well. He would help his brothers with this last hunt, give his father his observations so that they could keep watch upon the potential culls, and then he would go. Ah - his brother had given the signal to move on the cow they had chosen to cull this day. She had taken a bad fall the month before and had not recovered. Likely she'd cracked the shoulder - it would be a mercy to kill her before she suffered further trying to keep up with her herd. Mikkal put on a burst of speed, cutting the cow off so that his brother could come from behind her to pull her leg out from under her. She went down heavily, and Mikkal spun on his heels back around to keep the rest of the herd at a greater distance while his brothers made the kill. A sad thing, but she suffered no more and would feed his family, and both they and the herd would grow stronger for it.