Briony

Briony is a pupsitter in The Dawn Shadow Pack. She is an amiable wolf; she is easy to befriend and get along with. She has a soft spot for pups and treats them all with equal love and passion.

She is in love with Florian but her feelings are quite obviously unrequited. Briony covers up her sorrow for her hopeless crush by pouring all her love onto the pups of the pack. She feels personal pride whenever a pup becomes an adult. She hopes to watch over the pups of the pack as long as she lives.

Excerpt:

Briony watched the pups bound across the grasslands. They looked so innocent and carefree. To them, the word was full of butterflies and sunbeams. To them, life was nothing but a game to be played. Briony envied them for a moment. Had she been like that too, as a pup?

She turned around and spotted Oleander. The she-wolf was hunched awkwardly by the side of the grassy clearing, stooping over the flowered graves of her pups. Briony blinked sorrowfully as she reminisced. All four of Oleander's pups had perished. The she-wolf hadn't been prepared to have pups, but that didn't mean she hadn't loved them.

The brown-furred wolf let her paws guide her towards the grieving hunter. Oleander didn't seem to notice her presence. She was too focused on the messy little mounds of earth that lay beneath her paws. 

"I'm sorry, Oleander," Briony said softly. Oleander jumped, spinning around to face her. She stiffened slightly. Briony wasn't surprised at how defensive she was being. Oleander had never been known to be particularly motherly. "You must have loved them a lot."

Oleander loosened. Her face contorted into an expression of despair that Briony had never seen on the wolf before. "I feel so sorry for them," she breathed. "I was a terrible mother. I felt so awkward around them! This is all my fault."

Briony shook her head. "It isn't," she countered. Oleander glared at her.

"Then whose fault is it?"

Briony didn't reply at first. She thought for a long moment. Whose fault was it for death? Who were they to blame?

"Mother Earth can be unkind sometimes," she replied at last. Oleander nodded wistfully.