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Marten

• Player: Forest Family
• Forum Profile

1.  Basics

• Sex: Female
• Species: Eastern Timber Wolf
• Date of Birth: 30th March 2021
• Luperci: Non-Luperci

2.  Appearance

Long-legged and lean, Marten's appearance is typical of eastern wolves in the northern half of their range. Her agouti coat is mostly a mix of rich browns and warm grays, and a cape of off-black fur stretches from the top of her head to the base of her tail. Her cheeks, muzzle, and much of her underside are a pale cream color, and the light hue also frames her emerald green eyes.

Marten is 28 inches tall at the shoulder and typically weighs around 55 lbs. Her fur grows long and thick during the winter, making her look larger than she is. Marten is also well-fed for a loner, and even when her coat thins in the summertime, it's clear she gets enough to eat.

Unable to take advantage of much more than a leather bag slung over her shoulder, Marten wears just that. It's simple and plain, with a large flap that she can nose open as needed to get to the random trinkets she stores inside, and she's very careful with it. Occasionally, if she can convince someone to help her, she likes to stick flowers and other greenery in her fur.

Marten’s fur hides many small scars, most of which were obtained incidentally while under the possession of her “animal guides.”

3.  Personality

Goofy, gregarious, and curious to a fault, Marten is an intelligent young woman who leaves no stone unturned and no leaf unrustled. Her wanderlust is insatiable, but she's just as eager to explore an interesting patch of woods as she is some far-off land from a trader's story. And what a trader they were, she would say, having committed their face to memory without meaning to — if only it was that easy to remember what she'd caught for breakfast, or where she kept disappearing to in the middle of the night.

While such hyperspecific forgetfulness may alarm some wolves, Marten prefers to take her life one day at a time. She doesn't dwell on the past much, except to reminisce about her family out west, and rarely worries about what the future may hold (except for more adventure). Living in the moment hasn't steered Marten wrong yet — at least, not that she remembers — and if it ever does, she trusts her "animal guides" will be there to help her.

These "animal guides," — which include a black bear, a woodland caribou, a Canada lynx, and a particularly precocious eastern chipmunk — all appeared to Marten during times of great stress during her childhood, and having been invisible and intangible ever since, she believes that they're spirits of the Earth who've chosen to join her on her many adventures. How does she know they've chosen to specifically guide her? Because no one else can see or hear them, of course.

Marten takes great pride in her hunting, fishing, and tracking skills, and rarely gets lost when she has somewhere to be. Despite this, it's clear that she has a lot to learn before she can be considered proficient at any of them, much less teach others more than the basics.

Unbeknownst to Marten, she's red-green colorblind due to being a non-luperci; she just thinks that's how everyone sees things.

4.  Relations

• Father: Lichen
• Mother: Fisher
• Littermates: Fox, Squirrel, Grouse
• Best Friend/Adopted Father: Thread

5.  History

Marten was born the smallest of four siblings on a cold, spring day in the heart of Wabakimi Provincial Park. Her young, recently dispersed parents were ill-prepared for pups, but prey was abundant within their meager territory and the hunting was good. As was customary in Fisher’s birth pack, on the full moon following the pups’ birth each sibling was named after an animal that inhabited the forest around them: Fox, Squirrel, Grouse, and Marten.

The first few months of Marten’s life were peaceful. Once she was old enough to leave the den, most days were spent playing with her siblings, followed soon after by joining her parents on hunts around their rendezvous site. She learned to fish in river shallows, identify birds by their calls, and pray to the Earth and its creatures for guidance.

Flooding was not uncommon in the dense forest Marten grew up in, with unseasonably late snow falling well into spring. She was warned away from rivers that overflowed their banks, and kept far from muddy wetlands that spread with heavy rain, and knew not to wade past the shallows without her parents on the shore.

But all children grew curious, and rendezvous sites were boring when the sun was hot and all your littermates were sleeping. How could Marten, only just shy of her fourth full moon, have known she would lose her footing in the river and be swept downstream?

After riding a floating branch to a slower, less terrifying part of the river and collapsing on a sandbar, Marten met Bear for the first time. The large, dark-furred animal stared at her from the shore, clearly spooked by the crying girl’s presence, before darting back into the woods. The next thing Marten remembered was waking up warm and dry in an old, abandoned den, and a voice telling her that everything would be alright: Bear’s voice.

The now invisible and intangible Bear kept her company until her parents tracked her down a few hours later; it turned out she’d been carried less than a mile away from the rendezvous site, and it was easy to find her once they were close enough to hear her high-pitched howls. Lichen and Fisher weren’t sure what to make of their daughter’s story at first — an invisible bear had helped her out of the river and led her to safety? — but it was similar enough to their beliefs that they came to accept it in time.

Bear was only the first of several “animal guides” who would appear to Marten in her time of need: Chipmunk cheered her up after a fight with her parents, Caribou led her home when she got lost in the woods while hunting, and Lynx comforted her in the aftermath of a terrifying and destructive blizzard. Marten’s forgetfulness and distractibility seemed to worsen with each new guide, but she didn’t mind; she took care of the Earth just like her parents had taught her, and she was rewarded with her animal guides’ wisdom and companionship.

As the snow melted and winter turned to spring, a yearling male arrived on the edge of her family’s meager claim. He only needed a little bit of food, a place to sleep where the wolves were friendly, before he continued on his way in search of a territory of his own. While her parents were initially hesitant, he was one of the only outside wolves Marten and her siblings had ever met; if he stayed the night, they’d all insisted, he could tell them stories of places even their parents hadn’t been!

No sooner had Marten learned that there was a great, wide world beyond her family's territory, one where wolves stood on two legs and giant fish swam in giant lakes, she made plans to run off and explore it. The yearling male pointed her south, toward something called a “town” named Thunder Bay, before continuing west the following morning.

Sometimes Marten wondered how her family was doing back home — were they happy, healthy, well-fed? — but with her new best friend Thread at her side, it was easy not to worry about things like that.