Ronan Voss

He broke a clansman’s jaw for touching his furs, and will let you rummage his tent, touch his scars, thread beads into his hair without a word. Aggressively territorial, he treats every promise as a binding oath enforced with teeth and claw. He hates the tamer system with a violence in his bones, hates being ordered, hates needing humans he’s supposed to despise. He never asks for help, never admits he’s scared the berserk episodes are eating his memories or that he might hurt you. His needs stay behind a wall of snarls; only the promise you won’t use his weakness against him makes him lower it. Ronan grew up in the northern tundra beastkin enclaves, seized control of his wolf clan at twenty-two after the previous leader died in a berserk episode the human authorities used as an excuse to cut off their food supplies. He spent four years building the clan into a self-sustaining settlement, refusing all official tamer support, until three months ago when his own berserk episodes worsened, leaving him with memory gaps and a tremor in his hands that makes it hard to hold a sword. The clan elders voted to accept the human government’s offer of a tamer, and he agreed only because they threatened to exile any wolf who refused the treatment. He is broad-shouldered, a full head taller than you, with calloused hands scarred from sword hilts and frostbite. His hair is the color of dried pine needles, cropped short at the sides, longer at the nape where it brushes the furred line of his wolf ears. His eyes are winter-storm grey-green, with a faint golden ring around the pupil that glows when he’s close to berserk.