Decathect x Boeing

Iris x Nikolai

Nikolai

Age - 3

Gender - Male

Role - Forward Scout

~

Height - 77cm (30in)

Weight - 43kg (95lbs)

Appearance -

Nikolai wears a slightly off-white coat that forms a natural gradient along his side to resolve in a light brown that covers his stomach and hindquarters. This continues down his tail to form a black tip of it.
The brown flows down his legs, but abruptly changes to four short gark grey (almost black) socks.
Nikolai's underbelly of light brown continues up the underside of his neck, to stop just below the jawline. Here, his cheeks are a continuation of his off-white coat (which also covers the top half of his neck), but he has a greyish-black cap that tops off his head and his ears.
Nikolai sports dark yellow eyes. Set in his off-white coat, this goes in contrast to the rest of his face.
Nikolai's build is slightly more compact than the average wolf's build in terms of the rest of the pack. He stands slightly smaller than average, which he doesn't really like. Often, his fur will be slightly ruffled, partly due to his personality, and partly due to him wanting to appear slightly larger.

~

Personality -

Positive - Overly Playful - Loyal - Honourable - Curious - Stubborn - Possessive - Observant - Neutral - Pacifist

Nikolai has remarkable stubbornness when it comes to things. Once he's set his mind to doing something, it's remarkably hard to change his mind. This trait has been evident since his early years, and often drove his parents up the wall. This trait isn't as evident as it was before, but is still rather prominent in terms of his personality.
Despite this, he can also be rather socialable. Not to the point of "I'm the coolest in the region and you all know it", but simply being able to have positive interactions with his fellow pack-mates, and viewing them with mutual respect for their abilities - no matter who they are. He has integrity - and loyalty too, for that matter. Nikolai is willing to follow an alpha, or be loyal to, anyone that he believes is doing the right thing. When they're not doing the right thing, however... Nikolai prefers to more or less kind of stand off. Unless it directly affects him (and this applies to much more than alphas), he will just kind of stand off and be the silent observer and judger.
Nikolai, as stated earlier, also often comes with ruffled fur. The first part is his compact build - the second is that due to his compact build, he is more likely to try squeeze through smaller, tighter gaps simply because he can. While a larger, older dog would have difficulty in doing so, it only gets Nikolai's coat ruffled.
Doing such things has evoked a natural curiosity in Nikolai. He gets curious about the more minute aspects of life, and things he finds along his way. He simply wants to know more of the world around him. This contributes to his appearance, by either usually appearing rufled, or slightly dusty.
He has a lively nature in the way he approaches life and how he goes about it; he's pretty much firmly on the side of "just enjoying" life and what it gives. Long story short, Nikolai's just happy until he's not happy because of one of his other traits.
However, he has an innate possessiveness of things that he thinks are "his", for example, a sleeping spot that he classifies as "his". This is where many of his main disputes will come around - his stubbornness contributes to the feeling that "this is mine and you can't touch it!" Mainly small trivial things, it rarely slops over into major disputes, but occasionally can.
Nikolai, in terms of standing and mindset, is a very much "in the middle" kind of person. In terms of dominance, he'd usually sit somewhere in the higher ranks, but not enough to garner a special role or position. He's fine just living life as the main pack, but he'd sit somewhere in the higher sections of that role.
And in terms of mindset, he's very... neutral. If the pack wants more progressionism, he'll accept it. If it's more conservationalism, he'll accept it. In terms of progression versus conservation, he sits almost exactly in the center of it - he just doesn't want to get involved in the disputes. He's fine where he is, and with no need to endanger anything by going either side, he's content to sit in the middle - and usually quite unwilling to budge from his position. This may attract attrition from both sides for him, but as long as he doesn't get on anyone's bad side majorly, he's content.

~

Strengths -
- Curiosity. Nikolai is naturally curious about the world, and this trait persists far past his puphood. This is simply something he is naturally doing, and not something honed. This usually makes him more of a scout-type of role.
- Defending - both mentally and physically. Nikolai is physically capable of defending things that he loves, and is also mentally equipped in verbal battles. While built on the more compact side of things, Nikolai is still able to try pack decent punch against things he deems threatening.
- Mediating, as long as he's a neutral party. Nikolai's just a happy guy going about what he does. Like where his allegiances lie, it's dead-center as long as he tries, and usually neutral parties help, right?

Weaknesses -
- Stubbornness. Nikolai is remarkably stubborn (as stated before) when it comes to things. Once he is completely convinced that something is right, it's remarkably difficult to get him to change his mind. He gerenally judges people significantly harder on first impressions, and with a stubborn will, will continue to judge them similarly, despite if they show otherwise.
- Unnecessary (and often trivial) things.
Nikolai, on occassion, will be bogged down in his thinking by the most trivial matters. Rather than accepting it and going on, he will try to find a flaw in it (as his stubbornness shows). When everyone has already moved onto another topic, Nikolai will still be attempting to nit-pick the previous argument, and so on.
- Being too annoying. This is a real pitfall in Nikolai's personality - he can get too happy and too into what he's doing and go from being nice to being annoying. Usually he doesn't firgure it out until it's too late, when he's been yapping for too much and only just realizes it. His face when that happens-

~

The morning breathed gingerly over the campus. Pallid, filtering sun beams spilled lazily through the pine awning, dusting the woodland floor in a cool, sterile gold. The earth still harbored the coolness of nightfall, and a vague brume clung to the roots like cobwebs too tenacious to unweave. Inside Iris' cavern, dug neatly into the hillside and flanked with knotted tree roots, Iris lay curled --- not for comfort, but from habit. But when a low, curt bark cracked the silence like bone underfoot. Then another. Then a chorus --- layered snarls, yips. Iris flinched --- not from fear, but from irritation. Her eyes narrowed, their worn irises flashing beneath a crinkle of furrowed brow. She lay still, willing it to stop. It didn't.

The cavern vibrated faintly with the thudding of paws against distant ground --- hurried steps, crowding steps. Voices, too far off to understand, yet unmistakably argumentative in tone. It bled into the ambiance like a wound opening in the morning's tranquility.

She exhaled hard through her nose, lifting her head from her outstretched foreleg with the air of someone being asked once again to tolerate idiocy. Her lip curled faintly at the edge.

''Fantastic,'' she muttered to no one, voice raw like weathered bark. ''Drama before dawn.''

Dragging herself up with a slow roll of shoulder blades and spine, Iris stepped out of the cavern's hollow maw. The air bit with the dry sting of dewless morning. Her paws sank slightly into damp soil, the coolness crawling between her pads. She blinked once against the pasty light, adjusting to the full breadth of the domain --- the sprawl of the camp just below, encircled by brush and dense trunks, still shrouded in an early haze.

The noise was louder now. Too loud. Bark after bark lashed the silence, underscored by the transparent note of challenge. Her ears twitched. Her jaw tautened.

''Must be some wet-nosed yearling puffing his chest,'' she growled beneath her breath, already imagining the pretentiousness that might justify this racket.

She descended from her cavern's elevation in measured steps, her long limbs moving with practiced grace despite the prickling sense of dread in her gut. She could already see shadows gathering between the groves --- silhouettes of wolves forming a loose ring around something. Or someone.

A small throng was building --- not the usual inert dispersal of hunters and sentries --- no, this had purpose, direction. Curiosity. Alarm. A few glanced in her direction, but she flouted them, brushing past with the cool air of someone who had little interest in speculation.

Her gaze slid toward the center of the growing stir --- a young brute, taller than most, shoulders coiled and hackles high, pacing in front of the Alpha.

Of course.

She did not utter. She did not approach further.

She merely stopped a good distance off, shoulders squared, jaw set, her breath poised as she observed the commotion --- lips tight, eyes narrowed.

Iris had seen storms before. This one was beginning to darken.

Nikolai wasn't having the greatest morning.

Sitting under a tree, he silently watched the congregation grow. And grow, even as raised voices carried to him through the wind.

He was a pacifist. Unaligned. He didn't know - hell, he flat-out didn't want - to have to take a side in any way. But even he could see that this conflict wasn't going to be resolved in any means by kind words and understanding.

As he looked on, though, he wished it could. That there'd be some compromise that could work out for everyone, that maybe one or the other would settle down.

Wishful thinking, really. He looked at the gathering, almost able to visualize the orange dome of tension and anger surrounding the gathering. It wasn't that hard to see, after all.

As he watched from his spot under the tree, one of the pack elders -the elders - growled at one of the younglings. But instead of the youngling backing down, he bristled his fur angrily.

God, what a complete and utter mess this was making. He couldn't sit by and do nothing.

Standing up, he shook his fur slightly before padding towards the congregation. What he was meant to do, he had no clue. But he meant to simply do something - not just hang around the edges.

If there was a way to defuse it in any way, he could. Even though, as he silently wove through the worn grass towards the metaphorical orange dome of tension and anger, he doubted it.

This was going to go terribly indeed.

The throng of canines thickened, drawing inward like a tide being drawn by some imperceptible force.

Iris found herself jostled once, then again --- not hard, but enough to force her a step back. She yielded only as much ground as necessary, her treads unearthing against the moist earth before she retreated another pace on her terms. The atmosphere was weighty with the musk of tension, the bristling tang of raised hackles and adrenaline. Around her, shoulders pressed shoulders, pelts brushed in the throng’s unconscious desire for proximity to spectacle. She felt the heat of their bodies, the restless shifting of claws.

Her brow furrowed, carving a cloud over her gaunt gaze. She didn’t like the sensation knotting her chest --- it wasn’t fear, not quite, but a restless lure between irritation and something that hovered closer to apprehension. Her tassel flicked once, slow, restrained, the tip cutting a measured arc through the cool morning air.

This wasn’t her fight.

The thought repeated, solid as stone. She didn’t have to step in. She shouldn’t step in. If the chieftain couldn’t crush this young fool on his own, then perhaps the tribe deserved the storm that would follow. Still… her gaze lingered on the ring’s heart, drawn in by the astute cadence of snarls and the way the young challenger’s treads shifted, light and secure, as if daring the chieftain to make the first move.

A snappy bark rang out, closer now, and the throng leaned forward in a ripple. That ripple pushed her again, the mass of bodies tautening like a noose. She breathed out sharply through her nose, resisting the urge to bare her teeth at the nearest offender. Instead, she shifted back another step, letting the bodies close the gap in front of her until she was observing from the second row --- not obscured, but no longer in the thick of the crush. Her gaze cut between the two brutes, her mind an ever-churning ledger of judgments she kept to herself. The young one’s posture stank of impudence. The chieftain's stillness… that could mean patience. Or indecisiveness.

Iris’s lip twitched, but she dwelt in silence.