King, Ethos

[Deleted]

Name: Ethos
Gender: Male
Age: 48 moons
Species: Snowy Owl
Kingdom: Guardian of Ga'Hoole
Position: King

Description: For a Snowy Owl, Ethos looks a bit lanky, mostly due to his upbringing. Living as a kraal, Ethos has a few scars on his body from the fight he's gotten into, though most of them are not covered by his white feathers. He has slight black speckling over his wings and chest, but they are not very prominent. He is also noticeably smaller than your average Snowy Owl, which is a result of having an fairly horrible and inconsistent diet in his youth. His family were of low rank, so when food was available, his family often got the scraps and, when food wasn't plentiful, his family often had to go without. Though his improved eating habits have allowed him to grow out some, he nonetheless is still shorter than other Snowy Owls of similar age. Despite leaving the kraals for a new life, Ethos has never been able to resist the urge to dye his feathers and often sports green and red patterns around his eyes and beak.

Personality: Though once brash and careless in his youth, Ethos has matured considerable and no longer takes risks without properly weighing the risks and other options. He is much more knowledgeable know, thanks mostly to the readily access he has to information at the tree. He has worked hard to be a loyal and trustworthy owl, partially because of the continued scrutiny he is under for being a former kraal. Unfortunately, he is unable to handle stress very well and will often develop sleeping and eating problems when under such and because he has difficulty talking to others about his feelings, he tends to suffer under these conditions for long periods of time until he is finally confronted about them. More often than not, he takes on more responsibility than he can reasonably handle, hoping to solve as many problems as he can while disregarding his own needs.


Strengths:
~Skilled in the Use of Weapons
~Knowledgeable in Weather and Air Patterns
~Decisive Leader
~Loyal and Trustworthy
*Cautious and Thoughtful

Weaknesses:
~Easily Stressed
~Low Stamina
~Difficulty in Expressing Feelings
~Too Preoccupied on the Opinions of Others
~Takes on More Responsibility than He Can Handle

History: Ethos was born in the Northern Kingdoms, the only son of a family that would eventually have five offspring. Ethos' family were kraals, pirate owls, and had been for several generations by the time Ethos was born. As the sole male of his family, Ethos was expected to follow his father and was groomed early on to continue as a kraal. As a young owl, Ethos was fairly enthusiastic about being a kraal and took part in almost a dozen different raids over his first year. At the start of his second year, Ethos was given his own band to command. With feathers colored red and green, he dared to push his band to venture further and further south into areas that the kraals had mostly avoided. He had hoped that he would find something to impress his fellow kraals and set himself up with a much more respected position, but he would instead discover just why the kraals avoided going south: the Guardians.

His first encounter with them was fairly unremarkable, his band coming across a Guardian on routine patrol. Against better judgement, his band decided to attack the owl, but the Guardian was far too smart for them and led the group into an ambush by fellow Guardians. Losing two of his group, Ethos planned to return home, but his subordinates demanded revenge for the death of their comrades. So, in order to satisfy their demands, he led another attack on the Guardians, only for himself to get captured while his subordinates abandoned him.

Brought back to the Tree, he was put to work to make up for his transgressions, but because his attacks had no produced any major injuries, he was allowed to leave once his work was done. Of course, initially Ethos planned to return home and make his subordinates pay, but after several months spent amongst the Guardians, he had lost all interest in the kraals and had become enthralled by everything the Guardians knew and could do. He was allowed to join a chaw, the Weather-Interpretation Chaw due to his knowledge of the weather patterns in the north, as well as the combat haw to help hone his somewhat clunky combat skills. In either case he was still put under heavy supervision, though this began to lighten up a bit as time passed.

At the start of his third year, he was finally granted full autonomy by the Parliament, who voted in favor of allowing Ethos free-reign as an official Guardian. At that point he decided to finally return home, with the hope that he could convince his family to abandon the kraals and join him with the Guardians. His initial meeting with his family was about what one would expect, they tried to convince him to return while he tried to convince them to leave. He would ultimately fail to convince the majority of his family to leave the kraals, but he was able to convince his father to allow two of his sisters to leave and join him at the tree. The others were more than content to remain and that would be the last time he would see his parents again.

Ethos attempted to maintain a low profile for himself, but the leadership of the Guardians were routinely pleased by his work and he was slowly given more and more important assignments and eventually command of his own small squad of owls. He turned down the position of Ryb for the Weather-Interpretation Chaw, but was instead tapped to be an adviser for the king with regards to the Northern Kingdom. It was at this point that Ethos developed some of his harmful habits, particularly his willingness to take on too many projects and assignments at one time. Stress-related issues such as insomnia first emerged, though they were still fairly mild compared to his later years.

However, it was also this time that he met the owl that would become his future mate, the fellow Snowy named Verae. She was such a kind and friendly owl, and unlike others she showed no hesitation when talking with him. He thoroughly enjoyed spending time with her and he knew fairly soon she was the one. His father always told him his heart would let him know who his destined mate was and it was telling him that she was the one. He, however, found himself at a loss on how to properly pursue her, since she wouldn't be impressed the same way a kraal female would be. He would spend weeks attempting to impress her, though mostly just making a fool out of himself in the process. Yet, his awkward charm seemed to be enough, as she did accept his proposal to become mates, cementing their lives together.

At that same time, though, the current king suddenly passed away and there appeared to be no clear candidate to replace him. Parliament ended up becoming deadlocked as several owls were put forward for consideration, but the members were fairly divided and no decision was made. A whole month passed with parliament at a standstill until it was finally decided that an independent candidate would be put forward, one who was independent from the individual parliament members. Ethos made it quite clear he felt he was not worthy of the position, but he was nonetheless chosen to replace the previous king by the Parliament.

It was at this point that the Pure Ones first made their reappearance, dropping one major problem right in front of Ethos just as he took the position. It took no time for Ethos' bad habits to reappear, but now they were far more severe and the effect were more costly on Ethos. He maintained a professional appearance to the rest of the Guardians, but in private, only with his mate, did the heaviness of his position and responsibility show and even then he refused to allow her to know just how much he was suffering.

In Character

Ethos sat up, along on one of the highest branches of the Great Tree, his eyes staring out across the vast Sea of Hoole. It was far too early for an owl to be awake, but Ethos couldn't sleep. He mind was racing, too much to do, too much on his mind and now his head ached painfully. He had spent much of his time reading the accounts from the last time the Guardians had fought with the Pure Ones, trying to gain some understanding of them. Something had to be done, he knew that all too well, but he didn't know what. Did he dare risk the Guardians to strike at them now, without knowing what kind of strength they had? Was it better to wait and get some intel on their strength even if it meant that they had more time to prepare themselves? He didn't know and no one in Parliament had a clear idea either. Some wanted to attack them right now, some wanted to wait, some wanted to go ask for help from the north. Normally he tried to be quite decisive when it came to things like this, but for one reason or another he found himself paralyzed by inaction. What should he do?

Of course, all this stress was bearing down on the poor owl, he found himself constantly waking through the day, unable to get a good rest and having no appetite to speak of. He was... afraid.... yes that was the proper word for it. Never had he made a decision that would affect such a large number of owls. He knew his mate noticed, but he could not bring himself to talk to her about it. It was his responsibility to figure these things out, she needed not to be disturbed by his own ramblings. He took a deep breath and plunged from his perched, stretching his wings out and catching the wind. Maybe a nice like fly around the tree might help him clear his head so that maybe, just maybe, he could get some sleep.

[Sompom]

Wow! You really took the challenge. This is the fullest bio I have ever read. Since Felidae has expressed her approval in the chatbox, I will accept this bio. Nice work!
Please change the subject line to match the new bio protocol.