Leafpaw Lore: Wolves of the Golden Forest [WIP][do not post]

C O N T E N T S :

1. Introduction | Leafpaw Clan

2. Characters | Wolves of the Golden Forest

3. Gallery | Drawings, Fanart, and Commissioned Pieces

4. Stories | Short Stories and Ongoing Lore

5. Comment Thread | Leave a Comment or Ask Questions

I N T R O D U C T I O N 

Leafpaw Clan

pack lore summary

C H A R A C T E R S 

Wolves of the Golden Forest

WIP short bios of each char, physical descriptions, page links

Rain Dove: Pack leader, mate of Noctilucent. Elegant, silent, kind, decisive. A large pale grey-and-brown wolf with ice-blue eyes, thick smooth fur, and a low voice. Named after the rain dove, or mourning dove, for his pale coloration and soft voice. He is called just Dove by his partner Noctilucent and a few others who know him closely.

Noctilucent: Pack leader, mate of Rain Dove, lover of Fogstep. Confident, commanding, fair, charming. A black wolf with sharp features, shimmering fur, and a white blaze between her striking golden eyes. Noctilucent means night-shining, referring to the phenomenon where clouds shine brightly in the night sky. 

Fogstep: Scout, lover of Noctilucent. Sociable (but content to spend much of her time alone/traveling), reliable, independent, pining. A slender grey-eyed wolf with pale gradient color, as if she is walking through fog. Fogstep has keen senses and naturally took up the role as the lead scout of the pack.

Fortune: Herbalist. Anxious, talkative, friendly, helpful. Fortune is a smaller than average wolf with a fiery coat and gold eyes. Her hind leg was damaged permanently, but she won't say how. Because she can't reliably run long distances she is unable to hunt or scout, but her skill in medicine and herbs makes her a crucial part of the pack.

Leveret: Hunter, daughter of Fogstep. Ditzy, scatterbrained, optimistic, energetic, naive, smart. Fogstep’s daughter via an outside male. Named Leveret for her energetic nature, but often affectionately teased by her packmates with the nickname “Bunny” since she also tends to be scatterbrained at times. A long-legged, slim wolf with very large ears, a grey-brown coat, and pale eyes.

Passerine: No definite role- currently helps with hunts as needed. Son of Rain Dove and Noctilucent, he has a high status within the pack. Friendly and sociable, loyal to the pack but disobedient at times. He has a strong connection to spirits and magic and spends much of his time with Fortune learning about herbs and medicine. Passerine is a young male with bright red fur overlaid with light and dark markings. He has a dark back and head, with the same pale mark between his eyes as his mother.

G A L L E R Y

Drawings, Gift Art, and Commissioned Pieces

(Fogstep and Nocti)

(Dove and Nocti)

(Fortune)

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(Dove, Nocti, Fogstep, Leveret and Fortune commissioned from #13722)

 (Dove commissioned from #23006)

 (Dove, from a trade with #3112)

 (Fogstep, commissioned from #27001)

  (Dove and Nocti, commissioned from #14273)

S T O R I E S

Short Stories and Ongoing Lore

1. Rain Dove

2. Noctilucent

3. Fortune

4. Leveret's First Hunt

5. Quest (short story based on events in explore)

Rain Dove

Named after the rain dove, or mourning dove, for his pale coloration and soft voice. He is called just Dove by his partner Noctilucent and a few others who know him closely. 

As a pup he never spoke, and even as an adult he speaks rarely. When he speaks it is with a smooth, quiet voice just above a whisper. His quiet nature does not keep him from being a powerful leader; his pack always falls silent to listen to him, and can easily follow the wordless direction of his body language. The flick of an ear, the length of his stride, a movement of his tail; these actions speak for themselves, so he sees no reason to speak aloud if it isn't necessary. 

When he left the pack he was born into, he travelled far, following the river down from the cold mountain region until the landscape changed. This new place was warm, dappled with cool shade and scented with the gentle, comforting smell of rotting leaves. The damp leaf litter clung to his pawpads as he explored, decorating him with soft gold-green gingko leaves. Charmed by this, he decided his new clan would be called "leaf-paw". Rain Dove found a resting place among the grove of gingko trees, on a carpet of gold. 

Shortly after settling in his new forest home, Rain Dove met the wolf who would become his mate: Noctilucent. She was a shadow among the trees, dancing gracefully along the edge of the river. Gold leaves adorned her dark paws too, and her face looked like the moon peering out from behind stormclouds in the night--dark, with a singular slim pale mark between her eyes as gold as the leaves the covered the ground. She did not seem afraid of him when their eyes met across the moonlit water. They watched each other for a while and then she turned, silently, and dissolved into the brush. She came to the same place across the river from the gingko grove every night and they would do this again-- each observing the other from a distance, catching scent on the air. One of these times, something was different. The air was heavy and tense, thunder rumbling low in the distance and threatening to move closer. The water was black between them. When Noctilucent caught Rain Dove's blue eyes this time, she did not stand still on the edge of the river. She danced and splashed through the dark water and he moved toward her with tail wagging until they met in the middle of the shallow river. Dove reveled in their scents blending together, their shoulders touching, finally this wolf was more than just a shadow on the river's edge- she was scent and paws and tongue and noise. Suddenly tangible. As the thunder drew nearer and rain threatened to pour, the wolves waded together out of the river. Rain Dove, as usual, said nothing- but Noctilucent understood and followed him back to the grove. In the shelter he had carved out for himself they mated many times and soon Noctilucent was pregnant with her first litter. 

Rain Dove's first pups were born in the forest, surrounded by a small but strong family of wolves that came together under his leadership. He had accomplished what he left his family in the mountains to do- form a pack. Though it was still small, his wolves were loyal and capable. Rain Dove's new life was just beginning....

Noctilucent

Noctilucent was born into the Charred Pine Pack, along the far border of the coniferous forest. Her oldest companion is Fogstep, one of Leaf-Paw's scouts, who was raised in Charred Pine as well. Noctilucent had always been a confident, commanding wolf even as a child, and Fogstep was a friendly wolf about as old as her, so naturally they were close friends from the start. Though both wolves had many friends within the pack, they were closest to each other. As adolescents they had dreams of founding their own pack; many within Charred Pine joked they were as good as mates already. This wasn't entirely off-mark- Fogstep and Noctilucent loved and cared for each other deeply, though they never proclaimed themselves mated the way other wolves in their pack did.

This was the start of the two of them growing apart from their pack; disagreements with old traditions, hierarchies, and so on grew as they grew older. Disappointment and disagreements steadily grew until things came to a breaking point when leaders began whispering about, then outright discussing, Fogstep's white fur posing a threat to the pack at large. Noctilucent was outraged despite her friend keeping silent, her head held low when leaders came near. She argued on Fogstep's behalf for several days until one night her friend approached her while the pack was sleeping, saying she was leaving for the good of everyone and not to follow her. 

How could such a strong-willed, loving wolf agree to this? Noctilucent insisted on leaving with Fogstep that night, and they slipped past the borders in the moonlight without notice. Noctilucent saw one of the night watch in the distance, his yellow eyes glinting in the dim light, as she followed behind her dear friend. She knew he must have seen them, must have known what was happening. She knew he did not speak out because he wanted Fogstep gone. Bitterly, Noctilucent turned her ears back and slunk into the trees after her friend, deciding she would not mention this to her later.

Life without a pack was bliss for a while, the two young wolves finally free of stiff traditions they did not understand or wish to partake in. During their wanderings, they did not need to plan hunts or gather herbs- they lived in the moment eating small animals and scavenging carcasses they came across. But after some weeks they had to face the reality of the situation: they could not live like this forever. They were skirting the edges of the Charred Pine pack's territory to keep out of danger but they knew if they stayed, eventually they would be found by their old pack members and either forced back into the ranks or killed as if they were outsiders. Noctilucent made the decision to head south, away from the borders and toward the river. There would be plenty of fish and birds on the river to keep them fed, she proposed, and they could travel along the river to find new territory to claim or a new pack to accept them. 

It didn't take long for Noctilucent to find the scent of an unfamiliar wolf once the pair was clear of the borders. She saw him across the river- a pale grey-and-brown male with bright blue eyes. He was alone now, but did he have others coming to meet him? Was he also without a pack? She caught his scent on the air as they stared across the water at one another- pine and cold air, but something else... a faint scent of strange wolves. He watched her silently. He didn't seem to be sizing her up or ready to strike, so she let him look as she observed him, then turned back towards her temporary camp to tell Fogstep what she had found. The male wolf did not move to follow her, and she was intrigued. Noctilucent returned night after night and each night there he was across the river, willing to simply observe from a distance. His scent changed each time, always less of that strange scent and more wet leaves, rabbit fur, the pungent smell of ginkgo fruit. He was living over there--she concluded-- alone, across the river in the grove of yellowing ginkgo trees. 

The night Noctilucent's heat set in, she came to the river again but did not stand still at the edge of the water like she had on previous nights. The young pale wolf interested her so much, she wanted to know him at last. She was confident he was alone, not a threat, and she threw her body into his as they ran to meet in the shallow river. He must have been about her same age, she guessed, because he did not seem to immediately sense her heat or at least he didn't act the same way as other males she had encountered. He was clearly interested, but not forceful or crude. Eventually he took things on instinct, and she followed him back across the river to where he had created a small den. 

His name was Rain Dove, he told her, and he had traveled down from the mountain territories to found his own pack. Noctilucent told him of her friend and how they left the coniferous forest in search of a new home. Rain Dove quickly accepted Fogstep as well and they suddenly were a family, somehow all mates and not, at the same time. This new, uncharted territory was where Noctilucent knew she felt most at home.

Fortune

Breathing heavily, cornered on all sides by wolves she had never met, her ears flattened against her head and tail tucked, Fortune whined gently. All she could do now was try to look small and non-threatening. Pain shot through her back leg as she gasped for breath, the large wound there pounding in time with her heartbeats. The wound, wrapped hastily in moss, was old; the wolves that surrounded her now had not attacked her yet. 

A large, black wolf with a blaze of white between her gold eyes approached Fortune with teeth bared in a threat, her ears standing tall on her head. Fortune noticed the chunk of flesh missing from one ear before she averted her eyes from the pack’s leader. 

No one is sure where Fortune came from. She was discovered one day in the clan’s territory, wet with mud, a hurried wrap of herbs affixed to her hind leg to cover a large wound. At first Noctilucent thought she was an adolescent pup, due to her unusually small size and long legs, and held the others back from attacking after they had surrounded her in the woods. The undersized, injured wolf was clearly no threat to the pack, and it was springtime so there were plenty of resources to be shared. 

Noctilucent and her hunting party brought Fortune to their core territory to let her rest and tend to her injury. The wound was much more severe than it looked at first and never healed fully- this meant that Fortune was unreliable for hunts or scouting. Her proficiency in herbalism was more than enough to earn her a place in the pack, though, and she quickly proved herself as a reliable and effective healer. 

Leveret's First Hunt

All she had ever known was lighthearted play- wrestling with the other pups, harassing mice and voles in their burrows-- but suddenly everything was serious. The open meadow was red in the light of the setting sun. Leveret stalked among the trees, following behind the more experienced wolves in the hunting party. Novo’s ginger tail signalled to her and a moment later she caught the scent herself-- a small herd of deer gathered just past the treeline where the wolves were hidden. The group tensed as a single unit, moving imperceptibly slowly into an advantageous position. Leveret caught Willow’s eyes, the older wolf did not need to speak to communicate to her- Don’t mess this up…

Leveret crouched low, her light eyes trained on the small doe they had collectively chosen to target via some unknown force that made their minds work in unison. She waited for that final signal; one step closer to the trees, one slight hesitation of a hoof on the grass, or a glance in the wrong direction. 

Now.

Leveret surged from the cover of the trees, heart pounding in her ears, Novo’s breath heavy on her flank. Willow was out of sight but Leveret felt her heart in her own chest. She was not a wolf, she had transformed into some new creature, some being that existed in three places at once. Their beating hearts honed in on their prey, synchronizing with the dull pounding of hooves on the soft earth. She ran with Novo like she had never run before, she couldn’t see or hear or smell, she did not exist, but she ran.

Now!

The three-headed beast they had become folded in on itself. Willow appeared suddenly from the nothingness, and then the air was full of blood. Leveret returned to herself, seeing Willow with her jaws clamped on the throat of the kneeling doe, and moved forward to join her cousin. The taste of blood was not new, but the feeling of it flowing burning hot and still alive transformed Leveret once more. 

Tearing the trembling flesh of the deer with her two cousins, she consummated her new role in the pack- a hunter, a heartbeat, a wolf.

Quest

short story based on explore events! 

Rain Dove felt ill after his brief morning excursion. He had been in the mountains seeking felines and rare herbs at the behest of the red snake, but was distracted as he wandered past a strong scented deposit of poop from some animal. He set about sniffing curiously, trying to determine the origin. Fox? Or maybe a small cat of some kind? Either way, it was impossible to resist rolling around in the stink of it. 

Fortune, the clan’s herbalist- a small, red wolf with a permanently injured hind leg- nodded as Rain Dove recounted this to her. “Well, I can’t blame you for rolling,” she said, “any wolf would have done the same. But it’s definitely what made you ill. Unfortunately, I don’t have everything I need to help you right now… but I will get more supplies and have a medicine made for you as soon as I can!” She hesitated, shy as always, then briefly nuzzled her face against her leader’s thick pale fur. “Thank you,” Rain Dove said in his quiet voice, returning the gesture. “Til then,” Fortune said, “Be sure to stop often for water. If you get tired, it’s best to just come home and rest.”

Rain Dove nodded and gave a small wag of his tail, but left the territory again to resume his quest. He had made a promise to the snake, and even if he had not been the kind of wolf to care about keeping promises, the snake had valuable rewards, so staying home with a minor illness was not an option today.

Meanwhile, Fortune was also venturing out of the territory. She walked south, away from the river and towards the neighboring territory where an ally pack lived. The wolves of Grist were friends, and Fortune knew their herbalist Sherwood well. An herbalist crossing border lines was less of an offense to any pack, so she knew she was safe traveling here. All she needed was a piece of charcoal to complete the remedy for her leader, but Sherwood greeted her warmly and sent her home not only with the charcoal piece but also a large ginger root. When chewed, the juice could ease discomfort in the stomach. 

Despite not feeling his best, Rain Dove walked on through the forest until the damp leaf litter beneath his paws turned to soft, dry pine needles matted on the rocks. Entering mountain territory never felt fully safe; even though he knew he was far from the patrol zone of his former pack. When he had to come here, his pale eyes were always wide, alert, and his tail was held low. 

Perched atop a rocky outcropping, a small creature called out, startling him at first. He saw it was just a pika, signing its little song and happily chattering its teeth. Rain Dove approached cautiously, and, sensing he was not a threat, the pika touched its little nose to his. A little zap of static electricity shot between them and Rain Dove jolted back. The pika, startled, darted away and vanished into its nearby burrow. The spike of adrenaline from this startling but harmless encounter helped him forget his discomfort and he foraged around the rocks for a snack of insects, licked his paws, and continued on his hunt. 

The snake had asked him to bring down two felines that had caused it trouble recently, and as Rain Dove had no alliance with any of the cat families, he was willing to oblige. Soon, he picked up cat-scent on the trees. The pale wolf followed the scent until he spied a bobcat among the rocks. It had sensed him and was standing frozen, its green eyes wide, mouth slightly open to taste the air. Rain Dove did not hesitate- he lunged at the cat. It dodged him deftly, and he only managed to graze it with his teeth. But his next move did not miss. He snapped his jaws and caught the cat by the rump, shaking it forcefully to tear its flesh as it writhed in his grip. Rain Dove released it briefly only to bite again, and clamp his jaws around the cat’s throat this time. It gave one last strained scream before it went limp. Rain Dove had suffered a few scratches as the bobcat flailed desperately, but nothing Fortune could not patch up easily. He held the body with his front paws and gnawed and tugged until the cat’s stumpy tail came off in his teeth. This would be enough for the snake. 

His task complete, the leader of Leaf-Paw clan began the trek back to his own territory with the trophy held delicately in his jaws. Rain Dove did not feel tired because he knew Fortune was waiting for him at home, and the snake would be ready with a hefty reward that would keep the clan comfortable for days...