Akela

Backstory

Akela opened her eyes and yawned, looking around at the other wolves in the clearing. There were only 4 other wolves in the pack, which she wasn't the alpha of- actually, it wasn't much of a pack at all- more of a family group. Her father and mother were the "alphas" of the pack, and she and her brother were the only "members". They rarely settled down for long periods of time, and would instead move around, wandering through trees and across vast meadows. She rose to her paws and stretched, padding over to her father. "Where will we go today, father?" She asked, her tail wagging. She was only ten months old; nearly an adult, but still with some puppyish traits.

Her father smiled at her. "Well, we'll probably just be following trails today, unless we get lucky and come across something before nightfall. Your mother caught the scent of a lone deer earlier this morning, so I plan on heading after that scent as soon as your brother wakes up." He explained. Akela nodded, and opened her jaws to say something. Before she could speak, though, multiple strange wolves crashed through the bushes. One of them tackled her father, and the clearing broke into war. The rival pack outnumbered them 2 to 1, and were snarling and vicious.

Akela scrambled backward, only for one of the wolves to dig its teeth into her tail. She yelped and scrambled away, and the wolf gave chase. Quickly she began to flee, realizing that she and her family were no match for the angry pack. She sprinted away, without any specific destination other than to get away. After sprinting at top speed for multiple minutes, a loud, victorious howl split through the air. Her ears flattened worriedly as she realized that it was the howl of one of the rival wolves, not her parents. But she couldn't stop running.

After a few days, she carefully returned to where the wolves had attacked. They seemed to be gone for the moment, but the forest was freshly marked- clearly they considered this their territory now. When she arrived at the clearing, there was dried blood spattered across the ground, and tufts of fur danced in the wind, but no sign of her parents. Claw marks had been scored through the earth in the frenzy, making it clear that there had been a struggle. But still, the scent of the unfamiliar wolves had completely drowned out any trace of where her parents had gone.

With nothing else to do, nowhere else to go, Akela decided to give up on finding her parents. Instead, she began wandering territories like she had in the past, except this time, she did it alone. Eventually, she found the Mystic Woods, and decided to start her own pack there- swearing that she would not lose them, too.