Profile of Merrin

Merrin’s coat is a beautiful mixture of her father’s darker sable hue and mother’s light fawn colors. The fur that makes up the top half of her body is a deep umber with highlights that are the likeness of the stars and the night sky. Her coloring transitions from the more tinted browns of her back into shades of earth tones until it blends gorgeously into a bright cream that boldly envelopes her from muzzle and cheeks along her underbelly. Her delicate paws blend once more from the white pastel into a tawny coloration that also dusts her flanks.

In her youth, appearances were everything to her family and Merrin was raised to be of high class and noble blood, always well-groomed, prim and proper. There was never a hair out of place, lest she be punished for it. She held herself with a false confidence that was not her own, but something that was rehearsed to perfection and if ever found by herself she would take this time to deflate. Long separated from her old pack, sometime she will still catch herself forcing her body into this gait that is the product of learned behavior and have to adjust herself to give her tense muscles a break.

The extended travel she underwent during her escape her prior situation had done a number on her body as well, but she she cleans up nicely, having gone from an unkempt voyager to a properly presented knight-in-training. The woman's eyes of silvered lilac taht were once dull, now sparkle with an intensified radiance of hope and dreams that she refuses to let go of.

Who am I? A question not so easily answered by a grown woman never given the chance to discover this for herself. Spending nearly the first three years of her life being told who she was, it is difficult to break away from such a mindset. Merrin is quick to warm to others as long as they have a pleasant demeanor and she will become immediately engaged in any interaction she has. Firstly, she is satisfying curiosities of the world around her based upon how another may have experienced it, somewhat relying on this information in order to help her gain her own understanding. She might study another wolf with an intensity as she forms her opinions about who they are versus who they present themselves to be. This is her way of trying to refine her skills of intuition and may lead to a lot of questions from her side that may seem like they’re way out of left field at times while rediscovering the art of socializing.

Being on her own has given her time to think on and process her past, slowly starting to discern that what her family called ‘love’ was nothing close to it. ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child’ was a term used often in her household and so ‘discipline’ was a cornerstone of what she understood love to be. Witnessing from another perspective, she could tell that it was wrong, that it caused pain and suffering. She’s now beginning to realize that these wholly unrealistic expectations she had once strived for and mostly met to please her mother had all been conditioned by physical, mental, emotional abuse. Abuse was a term she knew, but she had never associated it with her experiences.

While she is friendly, she has the ability to maintain a farce of confidence in her demeanor as needed to hide the damage done. There are many parts of her are fragile still and would likely only be revealed in the closer bonds she comes to forge. Unwrapping the timeline of her youth has proved to be overwhelming and recently she’s begun to have nightmares as she works through her own internal trauma. She has many undiscovered triggers that will cause her to either be fully reactionary or to disassociate and shut down when presented with certain stimuli (the sound of babies crying, being touched around her scruff or paws, any sort of swift movement towards her, and figures towering over her – not by height but dominance).

Thus far she has only ever had herself and relies heavily on her own personal strength, but Merrin has already begun to move towards her own post-traumatic growth, searching for ways to heal as she builds relationships, finds a greater appreciation for her own life, and looks towards the brighter future a new day may bring.

Merrin Etherea
*Detailed History can be found in Diary of Merrin Etherea*

Merrin came from an upbringing that was verbally and physically abusive, though they claimed it was 'love'. She was in an extremely controlled environment managed by her mother where every moment of her life decided almost down to each breath she took. Where she went, who she spent her time with, what she wore, how her like was to play out down to the exact time of day each event was to happen.

For a majority of her young life she was a shell, disassociating and following the day-to-day as though that was how it was simply supposed to be. Merrin was married off as early as possible and almost the instant she was the age for breeding she became pregnant and gave birth to a litter of three. Those three were taken from her and her own mother began to mold them just as she'd done Merrin. As she watched the way her children were treated, she began to wake from her conscious slumber and realized it was all wrong.

When she became pregnant again, she stole away in the night, determined to see her unborn pups grow up in an environment where they could be themselves. She barely survived her journey and her declining health forced her into labor. For a single day and a single night, Merrin had another daughter, but when she woke the next morning, she'd found the pup never had the chance to greet the new morning.

Merrin gave up then and willed the natural world to take her for she had nothing more to live for, but a voice in her mind rang clear, ‘This is not how your story ends.’ So she carried on, discovering a particular group of wolves, the Zyphears, that would help her begin to heal her physical and mental wounds, becoming so close to them that she considered family. They themselves were a bonded family of knights from another realm and each of them inspired the confidence in her to pursue becoming a knight herself.

While still in training Rafiel brought her to the remaining Kingdom nearby where he had grown up where they could find themselves a purpose in their pursuit of the greater good for all. In their travels, she became closest with Rafiel Zyphear, who had become her mentor, teaching her the way of honor, valor, and of self-love and perseverance that gave her the confidence to become the heroine of her own narrative…