Reythyra Starbeam

Starter Wolf and Original Leader.

Reign: May 18, 2024 - January 8, 2024 (estimated)

Song: link

Description: An average-sized wolf with a pale pelt and yellow eyes that seem to pierce into your soul. Her body seems to glow with a faint blue light and her fur emits an ethereal kind of smoke.

General: Reythyra is the first Alpha of the Wildfate, as well as one of its co-founders. She manifested the ability to enter the Dreamlands at a young age, and her numerous travels to the realm have affected her appearance.

Personality: She is a quiet one, having been orphaned at a young age, but is kind and while she might not say much, she is always willing to listen to her packmates. She is fairly tolerant of all sorts of behavior, so long as she is not pushed too far. Her leading style is relaxed and she treats the pack like family.

Relationships: Her closest connections are her children, as well as her mate and Beta, Lugeiros Moonwalker. She has a motherly relationship with her apprentice, Aluria Phoenixsong, who she is teaching to take over as Alpha, as well as training her in the ways of Dreamwalking.

Powers: Reythyra has the ability to enter the Dreamlands, a gift called Dreamwalking. As a Dreamwalker, she is fairly powerful, being able to bring items back and forth from the Dreamlands to the normal world.

~~~

CHAPTER ONE: DREAMWALKER

Her earliest memory was that of herself curled up by her mother. She was but a young pup, perhaps two moons old at the time, and she had just gotten herself a belly full of milk. Her mother licked the fur on the top of her head to smooth it down as Reythyra yawned and stretched.

"Tired already?" her mother asked.

Reythyra nodded. While her mother had been away hunting, Reythyra had busied herself with playing with the other pups under the watchful gaze of her pupsitter. Now it was late and she was quite ready to lie down. "I want to see the blue place again," Reythyra said, closing her eyes.

Her mother paused her licks. "The blue place?"

"The place I go when I dream, sometimes," Reythyra said. "It's very blue."

"The Dreamlands?" Her mother pressed her cold nose into Reythyra's side. "Reythyra, don't joke around like that."

Reythyra whined at the touch and cracked an eye open. "I'm not joking. I really go there. I play with all sorts of weird-looking puppies and we have adventures. Don't you go there, mother?"

Her mother's expression turned wistful. "No, Reythyra. But my grandmother did, and her grandmother before her. Oh Reythyra, what you have is a gift. To traverse the Dreamlands is not something just anyone can do."

Reythyra blinked. She hadn't thought it was all that special. It wasn't as if she went there every night, after all. "Really?" she asked.

"Of course," her mother said proudly. "But you must promise to be careful there, Reythyra. The Dreamlands are full of wonder, but they can be dangerous. My grandmother was covered in scratches and scars from the beasts she would encounter there. You're still a pup, so there's no need to be picking any fights, you hear?"

"I won't," Reythyra said. Fighting sounded scary anyway.

Her mother laughed softly and curled up next to Reythyra. "I won't keep you from your sleep any longer then. Sweet dreams, dear. And remember to stay safe."

Reythyra nodded and snuggled into her mother's side. She fell asleep quickly after that, and dreamed of strange-looking wolves who danced in blue mists.

Several moons later when Reythyra had grown to adolescence, her pack would be ravaged by an illness until there was no one left but her.

CHAPTER TWO: FOUNDER

Long strands of grass tickled her paws as she walked, though it was the gentle breeze that ruffled her fur in the harshness of the late summer heat that made her stop. Reythyra brought her head up and for the first time in a while, she truly looked at the scenery around her. Towering mountains with snow-capped peaks lined the territory around her. Green grass danced in the wind. A babbling brook rushed beside her. It was beautiful. She wasn't sure when she had last seen something so beautiful. The Dreamlands she visited in her sleep were beautiful in their own way, but they could never beat the visage of the waking world.

The setting sun lit everything in an orange glow, and Reythyra felt the weariness in her bones. Her travels had taken her far and wide. Through sprawling forests packed with greenery to grain-filled grasslands that spanned miles. She was starting to get tired of it. Wouldn't it be nice to settle down somewhere? It was a thought that was often on her mind. But she knew that settling down also brought its own kind of danger. Claiming the area as hers would involve a lot of fighting. She would have territory disputes for the rest of her days. But as she had gotten older, her wariness of fighting had begun to wane. It would be nice to have something to fight for, she figured. Maybe this could be the place.

Reythyra began her search with a little white lie. It was just a place to rest her head for the night, she told herself. There were a few places she found that became a maybe, in the back of her mind. A hole in the ground. A cave on a cliffside. She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she barely noticed when she walked right into something.

"Oof," Reythyra said aloud, backing up and shaking her head. Her eyes focused on the offending object and her heart skipped a beat in dread. She had walked right into another wolf.

"Sorry about that," the other wolf said. It was a male, darkly colored with bright eyes. "Wasn't watching where I was going."

"Oh, no, I should apologize too," Reythyra said. He hadn't attacked her yet, but that could change in an instant. "I wasn't paying attention either."

The male laughed at that. "Well, great minds think alike. Or well, they don't think at all, apparently." He tilted his head, sizing her up with his blue eyes. "Say, I haven't seen you around before. What brings you here, stranger?"

"I'm a bit of a wanderer," she said simply. At his curious expression, she felt compelled to continue. "I was actually hoping to find a place to stay the night."

The male nodded. "Well, if you're looking for a place, I know a few. Maybe we could hold it out together?"

"I don't wish to impose," Reythyra said, feeling suddenly shy.

"You wouldn't be, promise," the male said. "I'm Lugeiros. Lugeiros Moonwalker."

"Reythyra Starbeam," Reythyra said. It felt odd to introduce herself to another. The last wolves she had spoken to had been her packmates. They'd known her. She'd never had to introduce herself before.

"Right then," Lugeiros said. "I do really know a few places we can rest. There's one not too far from here. Reythyra, you're welcome to come along, if you want."

With that, he turned around and headed off. Despite her better judgment, Reythyra followed.

He led her to a cave at a lakeside. The sun had set and the lake was aglow with the light of a thousand different stars reflected in it. They settled in, gathering a few stray supplies to hastily build a shelter inside the cave to make it more comfortable. After that, they laid down for the night, listening to the quiet songs of crickets and the distant hoots of owls until they fell asleep.

It originally was meant to be a temporary thing, she knew, but after several days, neither of them ended up leaving. Instead, they'd started acting as if they were a pack of sorts. Gathering supplies and hunting for food. Setting up the cave as theirs. A part of her was scared to ask if they were ever going to leave, or if this was just their lives now. She had gotten used to this strange situation, had bonded with the strange male. She didn't know what she wanted to be the answer.

It was Lugeiros who broached the subject, in the end.

"You know, if we're going to be a pack, we need a name for it," he said out of the blue after they had feasted upon a bovine carcass she had dragged back to the cave.

"A pack?" Reythyra questioned, and her heart sped up. There were so many things she could say in response to that. What left her mouth, though, was: "I'm not very good at names."

Lugeiros laughed. "But you're the leader," he said. "You're the one who has to name it."

"Since when was I the leader?" she asked, thinking over their interactions. Lugeiros had led most of them. "Don't you want to be the leader?"

"Nah," Lugeiros said. "Sounds like a lot of work. Besides, I like hunting. I'm good at it."

A leader also hunted, Reythyra decidedly didn't say. "Alright then," she said, and if her voice sounded wobbly, Lugeiros said nothing about it.

"But names, Reythyra," Lugeiros said. "We need the pack to have a name."

She thought for a good while, throwing out different names only to be rejected at each turn. And he said he didn't want to be the leader. Reythyra nearly rolled her eyes.

"What about Wildfate?" Reythyra questioned, ready to think up another when he inevitably rejected it.

"I like it," Lugeiros said, surprising her. "Short, but mythical-sounding. It's cute."

"I guess that's that, then," Reythyra said.

"That's that," Lugeiros repeated. She pretended not to see his tail thump on the ground.

Was it any surprise she ended up giving birth not a few moons later?

CHAPTER THREE: MOTHER

Time passed quickly from there. Summer turned to fall, fall turned to winter, and winter turned to spring. In that time, the pack had steadily grown to double digits in size, and Reythyra had managed to raise her two daughters to adolescence.

They were born early, too early, and they were both small and weak for it. Valtris and Daerona Moonwalker, they were named, and for a time, Reythyra feared the worst. But time proved them both survivors, and they grew quickly.

The weather was unstable as of late, here in the early spring. It swung from rain to snow and back to rain again, often before Reythyra could blink. And so the pack had deemed it a day to do nothing. Reythyra's skin itched at the prospect, but her packmates had begged her to rest and so she complied.

Now, she found herself laying in her section of the den, a cave secluded to those of her or Lugeiros's blood. Bereft of things to do, Reythyra found herself wondering about the future. Her body was almost recovered from having her pups. By the time she had her second litter, Valtris and Daerona would be adults themselves. There would have to be celebrations. Not just for their coming of age, but to celebrate the anniversary of the pack's founding.

Many things had changed since then. Many wolves had come and gone. They had even welcomed a few travelers as well. Who made up their pack now and then were different, but she still remained as their alpha.

Reythyra was drawn from her thoughts when she was pounced upon by several sets of paws. She rolled over to her back and playfully kicked at the intruders. As expected, it was Valtris and Daerona, alongside their ever eager-to-get-into-trouble father, Lugeiros.

"Alright, alright," Reythyra said, "you win. You win."

Their was a dual cheer from her daughters and a snicker from Lugeiros as Reythyra righted herself.

Reythyra laughed as well. "What brings this on?"

"Father said he could hear you thinking," Valtris began.

"And he bet we could catch you off-guard," Daerona finished, giving Reythyra an affectionate lick.

"I suppose your father wins that bet," Reythyra said and gave the wolf in question a playful glare. He merely stuck his tongue out at her, the cheeky dog. "Tell me," she said, "how have your days been?"

Her daughters launched into an explanation of how their apprentice training had gone, talking over the other as if they were in any way understandable like that. As they talked, Reythyra's heart swelled and she mouthed a thank-you to Lugeiros, who wagged his tail in reply.

With her daughters and her dear friend with her, Reythyra couldn't have been happier.

CHAPTER FOUR: MIGRATION

Their third summer as a pack was a hot one, with few rains to keep things cool. Her packmates that were native to this region often spoke of it in hushed murmurs, far from the pups so they could not hear. It didn't take long for the whispers to reach Reythyra's ears, however, and their words were ominous ones. They predicted a harsh winter, far worse than the two the pack had already lived through. It left Reythyra with plenty of thoughts and a dilemma.

To stay or not to stay. That was the question.

On one side, the mountains were their home. They had lived here for nearly three years and not only had they survived, they thrived. Her own pups had been born here, alongside many others. This was all they knew.

On the other side, if this winter was truly to be worse than the others, Reythyra knew within her heart that they would not make it without casualties. They had many pups already, and a number of the pack's females would be going into heat and giving birth around that time. Food, too, had always been a struggle during the winter moons, and they often had simply relied on what they had saved up. But that supply was dwindling. Even if she sent the hunters out every hour, would that still be enough?

It was with a heavy heart that she approached Lugeiros, her second-in-command, and laid out her concerns.

"I trust you to know best," Reythyra said, keeping her voice low so none could overhear. "This winter, will it be worse than the others?"

Lugeiros looked at the moon hanging above them in the starlit sky. "All signs point to that, yes."

It was not what she wanted to hear.

Reythyra closed her eyes. "Should we leave, then? Or should we take the chance it will all be fine and stay?"

"A hard choice," Lugeiros said. "If I were you, I'd cut my losses." He looked at her then, meeting her gaze with his blue eyes. "We can make a new home, if we need to. We cannot bring back the dead."

Reythyra sighed through her nose. "We leave, then."

Lugeiros nodded. "We leave."

Preparations were extensive. Reythyra and some of the other females were still nursing young pups, and the safety of their youngest was tantamount. She sent the scouts ahead to find them a decent den and the rest of the pack began collecting their things for the move. When the scouts returned with a location that would suit their needs, the Wildfate began their move.

They reached the riparian woodlands half a moon later, nearing the very end of summer. The scouts led them to an enclosed area with a cave system near a waterfall, and Reythyra could not help but approve of their choice. It provided them with shelter and ample access to water.

They set up the caves in accordance with their needs and settled in. Reythyra made a spot for herself and her nursing pups in a cave meant only for those who shared her or Lugeiros's blood while the rest of the pack got used to their new home. Many were excited at the prospect of a new place to explore and live in. Their excitement was infectious, and soon Reythyra's pain at leaving her first home since she was a pup faded.

Lugeiros was right, after all. They would make this place their home.