Grief

The first leader of Leonharts. He started it with Artemy, who brought reason where he brought chaos.

Though he was a prankster and a rapscallion, the pack loved him, and he cared deeply for his fellow wolves.

In his time, he was seen akin to a fox, and so foxes, as well as wolves that look like foxes, are sacred to Leonharts.

One day, he went missing. As hours turned to days, and days turned to months, his pack assumed he had died. Artemy didn't truly accept this until a full year after the disappearance of his love, and would routinely hold private rituals in the hopes that it would bring him back home. He was an aging wolf, though, and this optimism was agonizing to him. For every day that passed, it was as if he grew a little colder.

He started to seclude himself from the rest of the pack, focusing solely on his work as the pack's herbalist, the job that Grief had given him. It had always meant something for him, but now he held onto it like a lifeline.

It got a little easier to bear with time, and by the end of Artemy's life, he had opened up a little again. Angela, the new pack leader, respected his boundaries, and would never force small talk. She would bring him food, and occasionally quietly sit in his den with him in the late hours of the night. She would claim that it was simply to catch a break from the burden of leadership, but he found that he enjoyed her presence nonetheless. And then, there was his apprentice. Seeing such youth for the first time in so long lightened his heart. He was fond of the eager adolescent, and remembered how Grief often told him how good he was with pups, before he went missing.

His last days were not spent in longing, but contentment. And perhaps, as his eyes slipped closed one last time, he saw Grief beyond them.