Wren and Sorrel

[Wren]

So give me something to believe
Cause I am living just to breathe
And I need something more
To keep on breathing for
So give me something to believe

I am hiding from some beast
But the beast was always here
Watching without eyes
Because the beast is just my fear
That I am just nothing,
Now it’s just what I've become
What am I waiting for?
Its already done

-Believe by The Bravery

-Above the Surface-
Name: Wren Whiteflash

Nickname: Lone Wolf

Species: Black Wolf
Age: 27

Birth Date: July 24th

Gender: Male
Occupation/Position: Loner, Traveler, Wanderer, Mercenary, Bounty Hunter, whatever pays fast.
Marital Status: Single

Appearance:

• Physical Build: Wren is certainly taller than the other species, to the point where mice might feel rather dwarfed, but around others of his kind he’s about average. He has a fairly slight bone structure (he’s not nor does he really have the potential to be a “big” guy) but he’s made up for it by being quite toned. His tail is thick and very rarely does it droop. He stands straight, never really prone to standing in unusual postures.
  
  
• Fur: His fur is black. Odd for a guy with the last name “Whiteflash” but that dates back to his white-furred great-great-great grandfather or something like that. He has thin but long fur, thickening at his tail and on his upper arms.
  
  
• Facial Features: He has sharper, longer ears than are perhaps average. He has a slightly short muzzle which adds to a sort of childish face about him. His eyes are light spring green but still very vivid with gold flecks. He almost always holds a grin, or seems on the edge of one. Even when he is in trouble that grin is never far.
  
  
• Clothing: He wears simple clothes, somewhat unusual for the folk around Mossflower. But then, Wren is from Mossflower. He wears baggy black pants, very large, they almost completely cover his feet. He wears a black long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves baggy but coming together at the cuffs (like those white shirts form medieval periods that apparently don’t have a name). Over that is a small red doublet (like a vest but cooler), which somehow actually makes him look scrawnier. No shoes. None of my characters have shoes. Around his neck is a long silver chain with a seemingly meaningless piece of scrap metal attached, twisted and burned.
  
  
• Accessories: He carries no pack, no personal things, no blankets or anything. He’s a traveler with very simple needs and he always plans for them to be met at the next place he visits. All he has is a pouch at his waist stock-full of gold.

- Face-to-Face -
Weapons/ Abilities:

He carries a Flamberge at his waist (that is to say a sword with a wavy blade), the hilt silver joined with polished redwood. He’s good with it, but it’s more for hacking and slashing at enemies. His more common weapon is his daggers. Good for short-range or for throwing. Unfortunately he can only throw three times—he only has three daggers. He has amazingly good aim, but generally only from certain distances.

-Below the Surface-
Personality:

Well…you don’t exactly want to mess with him. Or do you? There was a time when Wren was someone to be feared, captain of a small squadron under the warlord Austis. He wasn’t high-ranking by any means; there were many who ranked above him. But anyone of Austis’ army was not to be taken lightly. Training was a matter of survival and staying on the good side of the superiors was a battle of wits. Hence, Wren is skilled at speaking, at talking his way out of a bad situation. Well, at least he used to be. A strike of heavy cynicism sort of ruined that. Now he can be polite when he wishes to be, but for the most part he rather says something to the effect of “This is how I am. You don’t like it, stab me.”

He’s more or less even-tempered, but everyone has a bad day, and you do not want to frustrate him on such a day. He’s smart, knows when to fight and when to retreat. And he’s not a man to take a gamble.

He’s protective of Sorrel, or at least part of him is. You know, after killing his parents he feels almost a duty to be an adopted father. But the other half of him is the half that makes him keep trying to ditch the irritating little shadow. See history and Sorrel’s bio for more on this.

Likes:

• Anything meat.
  
• He likes cool windy weather, even the rain. He appreciates the sun but it’s not quite as thrilling.
  
• He seems to take a sort of morbid glee in the chance to fight.

Dislikes:

• Sorrel. Period. The kid is amusing, but in the end, highly irritating.
  
• Idiots or intrusive individuals. He likes his space.
  
• Excessive bloodshed…though he’s been guilty of it himself a time or two.

Alignment: Neutral, on his own.

-Digging Deeper-
Strengths:

• Throwing knives, he’s good at hitting a target from certain distances (distances he’s practiced). That is to say, at 30, 50, 90, and 120 paces he can hit almost any target.
  
• He’s a fast runner and has a strong arm.
  
• He’s immensely good with the sword, and if you give him a bow he’s got an at least decent aim, though it’s not outstanding.
  
• He can usually talk himself out of a bad situation when the need comes up. Unfortunately Sorrel usually ruins it.
  
• He can move with a silent, almost gliding walk.
  
• Extremely good sense of smell and sharp hearing. Though both can be negatives when in, say, the horrific, stomach-wrenching smell and frightening, ear-grating screams of the battlefield.

Weaknesses:

• He can only hit a target with his daggers from those said distances with any efficiency. From any other distance it’s all luck. He might be able to hit, but getting the sharp end into the target rather than some other end is the problem.
  
• He gets easily confused in the heat of battle.
  
• That ability to talk himself out of a bad situation is all too often overwhelmed by a need for his more cynical side to show, and he ends up just being a right jerk to whoever he’s in contact with at the time.
  
• He cares a lot for his life and I wouldn’t say he’s a coward, but he’s certainly not mister stand-up hero.
  
• He’s a terrible swimmer and has a slight fear of water.
  
• Okay, Wren isn’t a believer in luck. What idiot would put so much trust in something so far-fetched? But if luck is undeniably false…then why is it that Wren always seems to be a receiver for a lot of bad luck? It’s like something unknown is working against him. He’s skilled, he’s experienced, he’s determined…and yet more often than not he’ll wake up on the wrong side of the battlefield or in an enemy cell. He’s good with the sword, and yet all too often he nearly gets his hand hacked off by inexperienced travelers. But Wren’s fast, smart, observant…why is it that somehow even the simplest of creatures all too often get the better of him? Why is it that all too often there’ll just happen to be that rock for him to trip over or that watchful mouse who just happens to fix his eyes on Wren’s hiding place? Yes indeed, something must be working against him.

-Meeting Mom and Dad-
Parents:

Sire: Jay Whiteflash
Dame: Saphire Thornfoot

Siblings: Kierra Whiteflash, now gone.

Other Relationships: Other than Sorrel? Around these parts, essentially no one so far. He’s a traveler, a wanderer, and therefore doesn’t exactly have lasting relationships. He served under the warlord Austis, who lives a good many seasons’ travel Northeast.

History: For complete history, read further, as Sorrel and Wren’s histories are sort of combined.

______________________________________


-Above the Surface-
Name: Sorrel

Nickname: Sorrel the Rascal (A nickname Wren bestowed upon him.)

Species: Red squirrel
Age: Well he’s young…so the equivalent to 9.

Birth Date: June 30th

Gender: Male
Occupation: We’ll call him…a “shadow” person. Because basically his center of existence right now involves following a certain irritated wolf.

Appearance:

He’s short, even for his age and species. With deep reddish fur and a bushy wiry tail he is every bit a perfect red squirrel, a little scrawny perhaps, but he’s still growing. He has sharp leaf-green eyes and a triangular face. He hasn’t developed the little ear tufts that most red squirrel’s have, but he’s still young. He wears a dark brown leather jerkin, as sort of light armor. It’s a bit big, but it was his father’s before he died. And he wears simple breeches. Strapped over either shoulder is his bow or quiver. The bow is a tad too long for him and he can barely manage to pull the string back all the way. His aim makes up for it, but he could never do rapid fire. Sorrel also has a blue earring in his left ear and a deep scar on his right paw.

-Below the Surface-
Personality:

He’s innocent, light-hearted, happy, and perhaps a little ignorant. Sorrel is the hyper, cheerful, in-your-face but oddly amusing type. But he’s got potential, provided he’s guided by the right hands. Which is unlikely seeing as how his parents are dead and he’s following a wolf who’s an ex-military captain to a vermin warlord. He lives with one foot in a fantasy world where he is the greatest warrior on earth, and sometimes he lets his imaginations go a bit far. It’s unwise to be around this kid when he’s in one of his moods and is carrying his bow and arrows. He’s fascinated by learning anything new, especially new weapons. He’s fascinated by any and all stories of legend that anyone will share. Careful, if you tell him a story he might keep you up all night with his enthusiastic questions. He’s daring and doesn’t always think things through, and he’ll often say something just to irritate others.

Likes:

• Showing off, mostly.
  
• Learning a new skill or fighting off evil. Wren usually has to save him from the second one.
  
• Sitting around a camp fire listening to a storyteller. It doesn’t even matter if Sorrel has heard it before, he loves nothing more.

Dislikes:

• Bloodshed…he’s a ton more vocal about it than Wren.
  
• People who turn him down…you know, when he asks for a story mostly.
  
• When Wren’s in one of his moods…

-Digging Deeper-
Strengths:

• The main thing about Sorrel: He has outstanding aim with that bow of his. Well, it isn’t perfect, but he can hit a target’s center almost every time. It’s just about his only true skill, but by no means does this make him formidable. It’s really just a paltry trick, with about one good use in battle. You see, Sorrel isn’t very strong, and that bow takes a lot of work to pull back all the way. He could certainly never do rapid-fire and after firing once he usually has to rest for at least a few seconds before he can draw another arrow. So this aim of his, we’ll say it’s nature’s way of compensating for Sorrel’s other weaknesses.
  
• A resourceful climber, like all squirrels, he can disappear in the trees with relative ease.
  
• Eager. He’s always excited to learn, always willing to listen. Perhaps a little too willing, as this is part of what lends to his gullible side.

Weaknesses:

• He’s a kid. Very little experience, very little strength, overconfident and far too much of a dreamer.
  
• He rarely thinks things through and he will lunge into danger without scarcely a second thought.
  
• He has a bad habit of loosing his arrow first and asking questions later. He once killed someone’s pet beetle that way, got in a lot of trouble for that.
  
• Highly gullible.

Relationships: Other than Wren, no one in particular. All his friends and family are gone.


Combined History: ((I should mention, parts of this…might not be considered “PG”))
Behold the glory of a pack. Learning from the wolves of the northland, the arctic fox Austis gathered bands of foxes and wolves together. A great army of dogs of every land, anyone he could find—a pack as he called it. They took on the style of wolves, sly creatures, seeking weaknesses and exploiting them, then breaking up his army into heavy squadrons, sending them in one after another after another, tiring the defenders of any village Austis attacked, while meanwhile his own squadrons kept in a constant cycle of moving in and fighting and going out and resting. Even the greatest of warriors cannot fight for three days straight, and Austis’ army could last up to a week.

Wren was a part of this army, a squadron leader. It wasn’t exactly a position of extreme power—he was still rather low in the ranks of the hierarchy. But it had taken a lot of work to get there. After many seasons of serving in Austis’ army and going through rigorous training, whatever the warlord saw fit, Wren earned himself that position.

Perhaps I should go back a ways. To a weasel maid, actually. She was out fishing and trapping, trying to bring home a meal of some sort to her hungry pups back home. Weasels are well-known for their vicious selfish natures, but weasel mothers are something different. Like all mothers they care for nothing more than their children, otherwise how would the species survive? Traveling through the tall pines of her wintry home, she was going to check on a trap laid yesterday. When she heard a soft call on the air. A high-pitched repeated whistle, four whistles to each set of calls. A wren. Delicious…she could feed many mouthfuls with such a creature. Crawling carefully, silently through the sparse undergrowth, mostly killed by the icy frost, she came upon the bird perched several branches up in a spruce. Inching forward, she took up her sling, ready to take down the bird. But it flew off… She chased after it, further, further, the bird pausing occasionally to let her catch up. Like it knew she was after it and wanted her to follow. At last the bird landed, too high up for the weasel made to get it. But at the base of the tree was a bundle of black fur, shivering in the snow. The weasel approached…a wolf? Can you eat wolf? But she saw something in him that she saw in her own cubs, and tenderly took him in. Wren, named after the bird who had saved him from winter’s grip.

Wren was actually a well-behaved child, unlike his adopted siblings. They went off in search of treasure and fat stomachs, and Wren stayed to tend his aging mother. That’s when Austis’ army first came. The dogs burned the small village, there was scarcely need to send in the squads one at a time, Austis sent them all and they destroyed the village and dragged off money and food, anything they could get their hands on. Wren’s adopted mother was among the dead. But they spared the wolf. They always needed more dogs, especially a rare wolf, for their army. And so, with a few other new initiates from a previous raid, Wren was taken into Austis’ training program.

It was far from easy. Austis’ hired trainers were there to weed out the weak. The first day the new young dogs were shoved into an ice pool with a single mission—survive the hour. Wren doesn’t even remember how he managed that one. Next training session, a regular practice with weapons, but the trainers sliced the pads on the trainees’ feet and the palms of their hands. To toughen them up. Third lesson, a captive badger was brought in from the army and the new dogs’ job was to kill it, working together but without weapons. And so on.

Wren turned out better than he’d hoped. He wasn’t sure how, but somehow he managed to end up on top. Training ended after two seasons. Next thing he knew the responsibility of squadron leader was tossed upon him.

For a full season he helped in raiding the land. Austis gained himself a sort of fortress at one point, a place where he could finally settle. Now the army took in slaves as well as plunder. All was going fairly well. Until one day in autumn, they came to raid a squirrel village. It had been a hard summer, drought hitting the land, and now the autumn harvest brought little reward. Wren’s and two other squads moved in. Torched the village. Slaughtered more than usual. With supplies so low, they could scarcely afford to take prisoners. Why then? Why then did Wren just have to have a frightening flashback? Back to the day when his own village was destroyed. His mother killed…
---
Sorrel was dragged out of bed by his panicked older brother and carried to the ground with the rest of his family. But the ground was worse. They were under attack. An army of dogs had invaded, killing or capturing, catching panicked squirrels in nets or rope. Sorrel, still in his brother’s arms and feeling like one of his ribs would surely crack, was carried quickly to the only house in the village that was on ground level. A hut in the open, it was where an elder squirrel lived, though he had already been killed by a merciless wolf hound. Sorrel’s father barred the door and at last Sorrel was set down, gasping for breath.

The door didn’t last more than three strokes of a sword before it came crashing in under immense strength. A black wolf emerged into the house and as Sorrel’s father charged to defend his family, the same squirrel was quickly taken to the gates of Dark Forest. The whole family rose up, all of them fell. Soon Sorrel was all that was left, raising a knife from the kitchen counter in his defense. The wolf gave a grim smirk and in one slash knocked it out of his hand. Sorrel fell to the floor, hands over his head, crying because he was alone. All his family dead. And now he knew he’d be dragged off as a prisoner or something worse….

But he was left there. It took him several minutes before he dared to raise his head. The wolf was gone, the fires were still burning. Those who were not dead in the village had been dragged off. Sorrel was alone. But he vowed to hunt down the wolf that killed his family.
---
Wren didn’t know why he left the young squirrel. But later he was glad. The plunder was small, food was running out, and Austis watched the prisoners dragged in with a critical eye.
”Wren, kill the old, and the children. We cannot afford to feed them.”
”My lord?” Revulsion at the very idea rose up in Wren’s throat. He couldn’t say as much though so he leapt to another defense. “But the children at least, they make fine hostages. Without them the others will rise up against us, and they won’t care for their lives. Parents will do crazy things when their children are gone…”
”Indeed…alright, do not kill the firstborn. That way we still have leverage. But second and third children and so on, we do not need them. Get rid of them. That is my final word.”
Wren was trembling without realizing it. What could he do? The answer was nothing. He found himself dragging his feet to where the prisoners were being held in the cells below. His soldiers had already taken stock of which prisoners belonged to which family. Several children were dragged out into the open, to be slaughtered merely for not being born first. They were crying…it hurt his ears.

He could take it no more. Wren still doesn’t quite know what fury took hold of him, but he turned on his own men, killed some. He released the prisoners, and with them made a run for it. Austis called his armies down and a skirmish was fought, woodland folk fighting with teeth and claws, dogs fighting with swords. It was a slaughter…but somehow Wren got out. Not many got out with him. He set off on his own.
---
Sorrel was having difficulty finding the army’s fortress, but one day luck hit like striking gold. He stumbled through the trees to find his target alone in the woods. They eyed each other. Then Sorrel, wielding his father’s sword, charged. Wren drew his weapon and blocked easily. Again and again he blocked, as though bored. He threw the squirrel to the ground, but Sorrel kept getting up and coming again. Finally Wren just took away the sword and threw it in a high tree where it probably still lies. He bound Sorrel to a tree and then Wren himself finally got some rest. The next morning he released the squirrel and then went on his own. But Sorrel was still determined to kill the wolf. But with no weapon at hand, he had no choice but to simply follow.

A strange friendship rose up between wolf and squirrel. Sorrel is now a constant shadow, and despite wanting to kill Wren earlier, he now looks up to the wolf like an older brother. And Wren feels slightly like an adopted father. Wren became a wanderer, and he taught Sorrel a few basics with weapons. Around this time Sorrel’s amazing aim was discovered to Wren’s astonishment. Now their travels have brought them to Mossflower, and what awaits them there?