Let the temptation begin!

Name: Zephyr

Age: 6, born in Spring

Gender: Male

Appearance: reference!

Zephyr has the build of a fighter, without question. He is massive in stature, far larger than most wolves ever grow to be, standing at a solid 42 inches tall. His build is solid and bulky, his limbs lined with the muscles of a warrior.

His base coat is a dark brown, similar to the color of tree bark. His face bears a darker hue, resembling a mask slightly. A lighter tan color sweeps over his chest and belly, creeping up toward his back as well as around to his ears.

His eyes are a soft sea-green. They have always been full of expression, despite his rough outward personality - easily revealing the hurt and joy that they hold, even if his words show otherwise.

Personality:

Zephyr has always been a bit more rough around the edges than most wolves. Upon initially meeting him, he seems coarse and unrefined, unafraid to express himself in whatever way he knows how... which is mostly through words. He tends to be outspoken and even a bit snarky, full of sarcastic retorts whenever he can come up with them. His quick-witted and snappy reportoire makes him seem a bit condescending at times and definitely rude on the surface. His form of affection, even with those close to him, tends to be through words - playful banter is rather common with him and he means less harm than it seems he does.

Despite his slightly brash exterior, he enjoys meeting new wolves and has always been fond of exchanging words and ideas. When he ruled the West Wind pack, he constantly thrived to be respected and appreciated by those he ruled over. Though bordering on arrogant at times, Zephyr tried to never let his pride get in the way of what needed to be done. Seeing those he ruled over prosper was enjoyable for him, and between he and Caelum they made two very different, but very complementary and effective leaders.

Spending his early years on his own, he learned to adapt quite quickly - it didn't take him long to learn when to keep to himself, or how to charm his way out of unfavorable situations. He hasn't outgrown this adaptability. Once you get past his rugged exterior, and see that he doesn't really mean much harm, he's quite charming. He has a knack for getting what he wants, when he wants it - and no later.

In the past, he was known to be quite loyal to his family. He was proud of the life he had build beside his much gentler other half, and had an enormous amount of love and compassion in his heart for his mate and children. His loyalty, while not earned easily, is steady and true - he is not likely to betray someone close to him. Even now, though he doesn't recognize it, he still loves Caelum quite deeply.

When he first met {his mentor}, Zephyr was a broken man. Once a proud, ferocious leader, he had grown bitter with hatred and loss. {his mentor} took a liking to him, seeing him as a potential friend and partner of sorts, and slowly built him back up into some semblance of the man he used to be. He never fully recovered from what happened, though - there has always been a void in his heart that he's never been able to fill.

He has spent a lot of time ruminating over everything that has happened, and has grown considerably colder because of it. His rough, charming exterior seems a bit more standoffish now, more apt to lash out in anger instead of entertainment or humor. {His mentor} has shaped the way he thinks about what happened enormously, shifting the blame from himself to everyone else - especially Caelum.

At his core, Zephyr leans toward being good. He has never been one to wish harm upon others, though since meeting {his mentor} he has done things he hasn't loved, for the sake of survival. The inward struggle that he deals with daily is quite a focal point of his everyday life, though he doesn't reveal it much to others. At the end of the day, he is a good man whose losses in life have taken a toll on him and shaped him into something he never expected to be, and he fights himself over it every day, and has no doubt he will until the day he dies.

History:

Zephyr's early life was rather unremarkable. Born to a band of rogues, and as soon as he grew old enough to understand that the life of a loner wasn't what he envisioned for himself, he left of his own accord. To no surprise, no one tried to stop him. Even if they had tried, it would've been fruitless.

He met Caelum at a young age, and was instantly drawn to her kind and gentle heart. It wasn't difficult for the brutish boy to fall deeply in love with the delicate girl, and their love blossomed with little effort. It wasn't long before they began to talk of their dreams. They envisioned creating a pack and a family together, and it wasn't long before their dreams came to fruition.

Their young life, while not totally uneventful, was pleasantly normal. Wolves came and went, children were born and raised, and the reputation of their pack grew tremendously. Another wolf that he grew quickly close to, Asha, joined the pack not too far into its beginnings. Zephyr's friendship with Asha was one of the few things that he and Caelum ever argued over. His mate insisted that Asha was irresponsible and never quite grew comfortable with her presence.

On one particular incident, easily the worst squabble the pair ever had, Caelum banished Asha from the pack after an incident in which another pack-mate was injured. Zephyr argued with his mate over her choice, but he'd never been the domineering type; after days of arguing, he realized she would not cave and that her decision was final. It didn't stop him from keeping an eye on Asha from afar, for she never seemed to stray too far from her former home.

On the night he finally went to speak with her, Zephyr abandoned his post to slip away, unnoticed. Little did he knew, he wasn't unnoticed at all - a fellow scout noticed him and alerting Caelum to what he was doing. After speaking with Asha at length, he heard something off in the distance, from the direction of home. Without waiting, he headed home, but it was too late. The first thing he spotted was his closest male friend, Clash, fallen at the borders -- and when he made it to his den, he spotted Caelum fleeing from the corner of his eye.

The carnage he saw that day was something he could never forget. His children, many of them, were dead.. their bodies terribly mangled and unnoticeable. He still doesn't know who died that day, but he knows he saw no one else alive and more dead than he could ever have imagined. After searching the perimeters, panicked and alone, he slunk off somewhere for.. he didn't know how long.

After the attack, and suspecting Caelum had found out why he'd left in the night and had abandoned him after the attack, he was at a loss. His children were either dead or taken, and though he searched the lands near the pack for weeks he saw no trace of anyone. He left home that day, for the last time, a fully destroyed man.  He wandered near his former home for many months, weak and helpless, with little sense of self left.

It wasn't long before he met {his mentor}, a hardened man who seemed to take a liking to him, though at the time Zephyr couldn't imagine anyone liking him.  He slowly helped him recover, and helped him function at a somewhat normal rate again.

He didn't initially blame Caelum - {his mentor} got the idea into his head that she was weak and that she had fled instead of staying and protecting their children and their pack. Zephyr was fully shattered at the time and took {his mentor}'s suggestions as truth, and much of that has shaped how he thinks of the past now.

Future plans:

As of right now, I can imagine Zephyr's in a bit of a plateau. Much of his anger and bitterness over the past has been pushed back, and has been replaced with a more militaristic stoniness, and his main interest is survival. He avoids talking about his past and reliving it whenever possible. I do want for him to meet with Caelum and Asha both, and have real conversations about that day, if at all possible.

RP sample:

Zephyr knew he shouldn't have left, but it was hard not seeing Asha for so long.

His mate, in many ways, was right about her. She was brash and foolish at times, and often didn't think when she should, but the bottom line was that the accident had been a mistake. Despite all of Asha's flaws, she wouldn't purposeful put a pack mate in harm's way. Caelum had never liked her from the beginning, Zephyr had seen that -- but this didn't seem fair to him. Her decision had been final and there had only been a brief argument, before he realized that her mind wouldn't be changed. He hadn't watched as she left - Asha was, in many ways, his closest friend beside Caelum. Seeing her leave, likely for the last time, was difficult for him to handle.

That was why he'd decided to sneak out while on patrol. He felt guilt weigh heavy on his heart at the thought of Asha being banished - she'd never done anything wrong, not on purpose, but he couldn't go against his mate's words. Feeling unusually solemn, Zephyr moved from the borders, grabbing hold of Asha's scent and trailing after it. He couldn't help but feel torn about what he was doing - it felt wrong, like he was betraying his wife somehow, and even his posture betrayed his uncertainty. The large brute moved quietly through the trees, grateful for the cover that his dark coat provided him.

When he finally saw her, he felt a weight lift from his chest. She seemed to be holding herself together, though he expected nothing less. The conversation that ensued was less jestful than usual - usual quips and jabs were replaced by a more somber sort of small-talk - and he tried to avoid bringing up the giant elephant in the room: that Asha would not be allowed back in the pack. Everything had changed now. Their conversation grew more relaxed as they spoke, and he found himself losing track of time entirely. Quite some time passed before a sound in the distance tugged at something inside him. Something was off about the noise, though he couldn't quite place it. "I-" he started, head tilting to the side as an ear flicked in the direction of home. Had that been a scream? It didn't settle well with him at all. He had to see what was going on, even if only something minor. "-I need to go. I'll see you soon, Asha." He had no idea what he would find back home, but if he had half an idea he never would've thought to leave at all.

The trip back home was more nerve-wracking than he'd expected. After he heard that sound, there was nothing but silence. The world being so void of noise was unsettling. His nose knew something was deeply wrong before he even made it there - the air stank of blood and evil, and his hackles rose along his back instinctively. Perhaps there had been some sort of accident, or fight? At least Asha won't be blamed this time, he thought to himself, but the next thing he saw took his breath away.

"C-Clash?" Zephyr barely recognized his friend's tattered form, slumped among the vegetation as though someone had tossed him there. His coat was stained with fresh blood, his wounds raw and permanent. He swore he saw his friend flinch, but another few steps told him that there was nothing he could do to help him. Initial panic set in, slowly replaced by a white-hot flash of anger that filled him at the core and threatened to consume him. Whoever had done this would pay.

His instinct was to head to the family den, to find Caelum and their children and figure out what had happened here. But he soon realized that everything he had once loved had been swiftly shattered, his home torn to pieces before he could even react. The stench of blood and death grew even stronger with each step into his home, pungent and nauseating. Bile rose in his throat, and he pushed it back as his pace quickened. How could this happen so quickly? As soon as his den was within view, he broke into a full-out run, praying silently to gods he had never believed in to keep his family safe.

He hardly even saw her as he made it there - a flash of white and black fur, none other than his beloved, racing at full-speed from the same spot he was heading toward. "Caelum!" he called out, but his voice was weak and softer than he'd expected. Perhaps he hadn't called out at all; it was hard to tell what was happening. His ears rang with the deafening silence of the night as he dared to enter the den.

He couldn't handle it. The bodies of his children were there, mangled and broken. There was no life left here. Zephyr's eyes snapped shut, fighting to keep the image from his mind as he retracted from the place he'd once slept, the place his children had been born, where their corpses now lay. What had he done to deserve this? Why had Caelum been running away? His mind whirled, grief and anger and everything between nearly sending him toppling to the ground in that moment. In a single moment, his entire world had shattered and he already knew nothing would ever be the same again.

Why you want the character:

I absolutely adore this story line, and felt I knew Zephyr and could relate to his & Caelum's struggles immediately. I also appreciate that this story is something you've been working on for years - I have a family I've been riding with for over ten years now!

Other details or ideas:

Let me know if this doesn't work, but my idea goes off the idea that day. Caelum and Zephyr both harbor a lot of resentment and blame toward one another over what happened that day.
Since Caelum doesn't stikie me as the type to randomly turn on her mate and life-partner, I think something else should've happened to make them both react so harshly. My idea is that Zephyr had slipped away to secretly meet up with Asha, for no purpose other than to ensure she was doing okay after being banished from the pack, since he still cared for her as a friend despite his mate's decision. He knew he ought to have trusted Caelum's decision and forgotten about her, but he felt terrible still. While he was speaking with her, a guard on patrol caught scent of him and returned home to tell Caelum he was privately meeting with Asha. Maybe Caelum was frustrated, joined the patrol to blow off some steam (or even to go find Zephyr, up to you!) This happened immediately before the attack, so in this way she directly blames him for not being there. If he was there, he could have saved their children, but it surely feels like he chose Asha over her and their family in that moment, though he had no possible idea what could have happened.

As for why Zephyr blames Caelum.. he probably has some resentment for her banishing Asha (she could've possibly been on guard that night, and alerted them to danger). He also saw her flee (unaware that she was chasing one of the attackers) and assumed she had heard he was meeting with Asha, and abandoned him in the heat of the moment.  At first, he did blame her sister (she was supposed to be on guard, and she wasn't) but as he grew closer to {his mentor}, he convinced Zephyr that Caelum's personal flaws had been the downfall of their family (she was weak, she ran, etc.). I can imagine this was the easiest way for him to recover and rationalize the trauma that had happened to him.