Josephine - Subordinate Female

Description:
Facial Features: Josephine has a smooth rounder ended muzzle, teardrop shaped well defined brown/grey eye patches and the same colour round the bottom of her ears that lie flat against the side of his head.
She has hazel/brown bright marble like eyes and her coat is sandy fawn in colour with a paler chin to under belly. All her whiskers are present and averagely uniform in length. Her cheek fur is her prized feature as it is always soft, fluffy and perfect for snuggling against.
Body Structure: Josephine has always been on the slim side, when nestled in the heart of an active group she tends to yoyo with her weight as she will more often than not choose to babysit for several days in a row without question. If she has to allolactate for young pups she will be encouraged to forage to keep up her strength to produce milk.
Body Features: Like her facial fur her coat is of the same colourings and her stripes and tail tip are the same colour as her eye patches.  The stripe pattern forms distinct bands horizontally down her back. All her claws on her paws are present and average in length. She has a full length tail for an adult female.
Scars: Josephine has several areas on her body where scaring has occurred from past injuries. Feint scars: Rear back legs (Scratches from a jackal chase), Tail (A bite from an adult female) Front right leg (Injury from migration back to Willows). Defined scars: Right front shoulder (Puncture wound Snake bite), Tail base (Eviction wound by subordinate female)

Personality:
Openness – Josephine is a conventional down to earth kind of individual. By herself she prefers being a part of a traditional familiar social group and keeping to routines and familiar experiences however when influenced by someone else who she finds herself safe and comfortable with she can be swayed to follow their lead and try new things or explore new places she wouldn’t have done alone.
She is not very creative with coming up with spontaneous different ideas and will stick to ideas or areas she knows have been tried and tested before and are safe for the task she is undertaking. If a tree looks too difficult to climb, there must be a safer alternative.

Conscientiousness – Josephine’s pride rests on her reliability and self disciplined actions when undertaking group responsibilities. She takes great pleasure in babysitting for a group she is part of and will always try to do her share of cleaning or sentry duty.
She will always be the one to try and encourage others to help others pull their weight if not she will take it upon herself to ensure the role is covered.

Extraversion – Josephine is the type of individual who is usually reserved and introverted when it comes to social situations. She is often quiet and will sit by herself early in the morning’s to contemplate her thoughts or gather her nerves. If a new individual appears on the scene she is not usually the first one to greet a stranger however if she finds someone hurt or struggling to find food her kind hearted traits will triumph over her wariness and no matter what she must try and do everything she can to help them instead.
Once she has formed a trust bond or a friendship with an individual she will then regard them as part of the family unit and it is then being around them and the ones she loves that gives her the most pleasure in life.

Agreeableness – What really sums up Josephine well is her good natured, supportive and kind hearted traits. She is a real sweet heart and only ever wants to try her best to do something for someone else. It is not difficult at all to feel at ease around someone like Josephine and even when someone has given her the roughest time she can come around eventually to forgive that individual.

This passive side to Josephine though causes her to be seen as quite cowardly; she considers herself to be a terrible fighter and will rarely have the courage to participate in a mob on mob fight. If faced in a standoff against another subordinate Josephine will usually act submissive to avoid causing trouble and it has been known from her history that she was bullied into eviction for not standing up for herself. The only time it has been recorded that Josephine will be known to show aggression if she is guarding pups or defending someone she cares greatly about.

As she has aged and been a part of such a close-knit family group Josephine has grown to become a very maternal individual and even taken up the role of being an adoptive mother to group infants who have lost their own for whatever natural reason. Josephine would love more than anything in the world to be a real mother to a litter or even just one pup but sadly even though even with  conscious thought planning and social bonding with those of a higher rank than her, having pups with the one she truly loves was still not meant to be.

Neuroticism – Josephine is a sensitive individual and has a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily. She can quickly get over anxious and it can be observed that she will chatter to herself and experience hair thinning if she put in a highly stressful situation.
She worries a lot especially about the safety of those she really cares about or about how someone else might react towards her.
Josephine has low self confidence in herself and her abilities to do anything outside her comfort box, when given a possible opportunity to become a dominant of a splinter group Josephine believed more in the suitability of her mate for the male position and worried she would have the suppress their relationship, than have the courage to seize the female position as queen of the mob for herself.  

Due to her current history during the event and loosing so many members of not only the Willows, her adopted pups and the loss of her own litter she was carrying, Josephine deep down is grieving terribly she finds it difficult to sleep at night and the cries of pups break her heart inside.  It is seeing her beloved Lancaster in a similar state of his own grief that keeps her going, she must do everything she can now to care for and provide for the one she loves or risk losing him as well.

Interesting Personality Facts -
* Unless she really 100% puts her mind to it Josephine has a pretty poor sense of direction, when out on foraging trips she usually has to follow someone else or stick close to the dominant female. There have been many occasions in her past where she has found herself lost out in the desert and ended up on a wild excursion before finally finding her way back to the safety of the group.

*Josephine has a habit of always needing to bring an offering of food with her if she has to summon up the courage to make a difficult interaction with another individual. She feels that it’s a safety net and will display her kindness as a good quality before any other part of her personality was judged or worse she needed to be given punishment to soften the blow.

*If something terrible ever became of her beloved Lancaster and she had no real strength to continue without him, Josephine would likely spiral into grief and likely die of a broken heart.

History:

Pre Birth
Before Josephine and her brother Napoleon were born their mother Broadway Queen was a comfortable standing member of a stable group of wild meerkats that inhabited the desert to the very North East of the original research area. The dominant female was largely successful with the aid of her loyal founding subordinates until an afternoon when a coalition of roving males paid the group a visit. Charmed by the rover’s amorous ways; Broadway Queen, her sister and Quentin the dominant female all became pregnant in the weeks that followed and a power struggle broke out between them causing Broadway Queen and several others to be evicted from the group and a small spilt to occur.

The small party of several adults lead by heavily pregnant Broadway Queen, struggled initially to compete with the original wild group. Many days would see a lone individual from the splinter group try and be accepted back into Quentin’s half, but each time she refused. The dominant female refused to risk the chance of letting one of the adults back in only to in danger the lives of her unborn pups.

Chances of survival alone for the splinter group seemed to be dwindling and it was only by a wild rover assuming position as a dominant male which sparked a potential ray of hope.

Early Puphood
Safe in the now stabilising splinter group, Broadway Queen gave birth to two pups: one male and one female.  Napoleon was the larger of the two compared to his sister but the pair with the help of the adults were able to survive their first weeks below ground in the small reclaimed Mongoose burrow that the splinter group resided in and made their first venture to the surface in the days that followed.

Josephine struggled initially with balance and co-ordination and getting her bearings around the burrow system often disorientated her and slowed her down. Her brother through after running off ahead to pester the adults for attention or his mother for an extra feed would always notice that Josephine was missing or hadn’t surfaced and would compassionately go back and guide her to his location.

Whilst Josephine loved her mother and brother, she found herself nervous around the other adults of the splinter group. She hated being left at the burrow with the babysitters and many days just cried out until her mother came home.
By the time Napoleon and Josephine were a few months old and old enough to join the group out foraging, hardships had started to cause stress on the adults of the group.
Two of the adults had migrated back to the main wild group and the rover that had occupied the dominant spot in the splinter had fled the scene one evening without question to return to his past occupation. Broadway Queen had not conceived another litter and with their numbers reducing they had to work harder to feed the pups.

Late Puphood
A particularly stressful day for Napoleon and Josephine came whilst they were out foraging close to the few adults that remained in the splinter group. An alert call came out of nowhere, there was no aerial predators in sight from what they could see but a lone sentry had spotted the original group war dancing at them.
Broadway Queen had no choice but to issue a retreat call and before Josephine knew it the splinter group and her brother has scattered.

For what felt like hours for young Josephine, she huddled close to the stem of a bush terrified. The thunder of running feet, the sound of bloodcurdling calls and snarling thankfully had subsided into silence but still she shook nervous and afraid. Where was her mother? Where was her brother and where was home?
Anxious and shaking like a leaf, she quietly tried to call out and initially no one answered her calls but eventually  a wounded adult female with a deep bleeding bite mark on her face emerged though the grass carrying Napoleon swinging by the scruff. He was partially covered in dry blood by was unharmed.

Having been led back to the safety of the burrow, Napoleon and Josephine spent the evening huddled together on the surface waiting for the rest of the splinter group to return. By the next morning what was left of splinter was two wounded adult females including the one who found them and a yearling male with a hobble on his back leg.
Their mother Broadway Queen was never seen again.

Juvenile Months
Josephine’s juvenile months were spent hard foraging with the remaining two adults. The young male had been predated by an aerial bird of prey one afternoon and Josephine’s nervous disposition had worsened now that she had to learn to dig and keep an eye out for predators and frequently she found herself subconsciously chattering just to keep contact with the remaining family she had left.
Emerging one morning, Napoleon and Josephine emerged and only found one adult female standing weakly on the burrow mound with a terribly swollen face. During the later hours of the evening before, a snake had descended into the tunnels and the two adults had done their best to protect the two juveniles but sadly both had been bitten for their efforts and one of the adults had already succumbed to the deadly venom.
Knowing that’s what their mother would have wanted, the gravely wounded female valiantly led Napoleon and Josephine away from the burrow on one last foraging trip; however this journey had little to no intention of finding food but instead would head away from the territory of the natal group and across the border towards the current research area.

Finding themselves alone after the death of the adult female who had got them so far away from their birth burrow, Napoleon found he had to once again be the support to his sister Josephine. She hadn’t really come to terms with the idea that their mother wasn’t going to be seen again and that their once small yet stable splinter group had been reduced to just the two of them in only a few short months.

The First Year
Luckily for Josephine, Napoleon had scouted out and followed a small cluster of individuals and the juvenile pups were warmly accepted into the ranks by the dominant couple.
Passing their first birthday was a huge milestone for two individuals who had been born and raised in a dwindling splinter group. Now under the watchful protection and guidance of several healthy individuals Napoleon was able to practice his group responsibilities more and Josephine became more interested in socialising and looking after the wild group’s pups. She found great comfort in providing those reassuring cuddles and learning from the chosen baby sitters how to watch out for their mischievous pup behaviours.

One morning Josephine received some terrible news from her brother Napoleon. He was leaving the group with some of the older males on a roving trip to explore the neighbouring territories. Josephine was distraught to learn of her brother’s plan but she couldn’t stop him, she would miss her brother terribly but she could not hold him back. Although he was of unrelated blood to the current dominant line, he was still too young and inexperienced to challenge the group’s dominant male for breeding rights so whilst being a rover was risky it seemed like a logical path for him to follow.

Anxiously waiting several weeks later after Napoleon’s departure from the group, for the arrival of the dominant female’s next litter of pups, Josephine had been out foraging with the usual group of regular babysitters and had been started by a panicked alarm call which had sent everyone scattering for cover.
By the time she had plucked up the courage to emerge from her hiding place the foraging party had moved out of the area and had left Josephine alone. Stuck without her brother and a limited sense of direction, Josephine became easily distracted and disorientated by the various scent markings and long grasses that she never made it back to the wild group that she had called home for so many months.

Years Gone By - Meeting Lancaster
Loner Josephine appeared in the Willows in the middle of September and was noticed by two of their newly recruited subordinates: Tank and his brother Lancaster as they stayed at the burrow to not only babysit but rest Lancaster’s leg as he has an infection and is unable to walk a great distance. Out of kindness Josephine overcome her anxiety and boldly chooses to try and approach the two males with a food offering and forage for food to help Tank to give to Lancaster so he can continue to try and recover. Once Lancaster has eaten enough to sustain his strength, Josephine leaves the two males alone knowing she couldn’t stay with them as they cannot accept her into the group.  Both males think that she has attractive qualities and hope that she makes it to find Buckeye, the Willows matriarch.

On her hoped route to finding Buckeye, Josephine collided with the Unknown splinter led by Cheyenne and got bitten and chased away by subordinate female Leaf. Josephine wasn’t to know that Leaf was only protecting a younger pup but the bite that she had sustained was enough to make her feel rejected and faithless in her search.
Returning to her bolt hole there was little Josephine could do but try and get her bearings and spot the two males she had encountered previously, unaware a small snake was sheltering in the bolthole to avoid the heat of the sun. Whilst foraging for himself Tank is the one who discovers Josephine again and becomes aware of the scent of the snake beneath her sentry post. Tank bravely tries to mob the snake out of the bolt hole but it’s Josephine who in a concerned state rushes over to aid him and takes the snake bite to the shoulder. She doesn’t care that she’s in pain; Tank is safe and can continue to protect his brother.

Gentlemanly Tank escorts injured Josephine back to the Willows burrow and Lancaster is surprised to learn of Josephine’s brave actions. Josephine is accepted into the Willows for her efforts and as Tank had found a female and mated with her whilst he was out foraging alone, he encouraged his brother to lead Josephine into the burrow and tend to her wound. Below ground Josephine is touched to see Lancaster again but the bite has left her in a critical place. All she wanted was to help him get better but now they have to help each other.

A week later and it's been touch and go for Josephine she is recovering well under Lancaster's vigilant protection and although she appeared thin, her spirit has been kept strong by the male’s admiration and kindness towards her. Due to their recuperation, both Lancaster and Josephine stay at the burrow with Buckeye's first litter of four pups and babysit them as they are old enough to start exploring the outside world.
One of the young females Glade, being active and playful encourages the two adults to take them all on a mini nature walk adventure around the nearby area.

Agreeing, Lancaster is the one that leads Josephine and the pups away from the burrow and unknowingly across the border into the Midnights territory. Due to the way she had been received and taken care of by Lancaster, Josephine trusts her companion to be their guide and protector and for once feels at ease to enjoy the walk and the company.  
As the sun moves across the sky, the intended short walk had somehow turned into a trek and Lancaster and Josephine are faced with trying to find shelter for the night and to keep four young pups safe and fed without their mother.  With too many nocturnal dangers about to surface, Lancaster finds a disused burrow complex which they can use but as they settle down inside it they are discovered by pregnant Mae and her mate Click who are leading a splinter alongside two other adults away from the Midnight's dominant female Teetsie. Although the Midnights and Willows are neighbouring rivals, both small splinters know the dangers of being above ground at night and so prepare to spend the night together for mutual protection.

Several days’ later Lancaster and Josephine are still observed sat alongside the Midnight adults, Mae is heavily pregnant and seems like a natural choice to assume the mantle of the dominant female position in the splinter group however no dominance displays have been enforced by any of the adults. Lancaster usually the more submissive in character has found himself interested and confident that he could be a good male leader and protector of the splinter but although Josephine also believes that Lancaster would make a good dominant choice, she does not have the confidence and belief in herself and is still in no fit condition to start a conflict against Mae. For this the splinter group remains neutral and they forage well taking it in turns to sentry watch and ensure that the pups are fed.

With Mae leading the group unknowingly back across the Willows border to lengthen her distance away from Teetsie, luckily for Lancaster, Josephine and the pups the bolt hole she chooses to shelter in to have her pups isn’t very far away from the Willows burrow. Whilst the Willows have been searching for the missing pups and been at war with the Midnights, Lancaster leads his little party back home safely. Better late than never.

Beginning of October and Lancaster and Josephine are back comfortable in the Willows. Lancaster is usually found curled next to Josephine in the mornings before the group emerges. Although they received a stern scolding by the dominants, both adults are thought highly of by young pups for taking them on an epic adventure.

Out on the morning's forage, Lancaster shows his flirtatious affectionate side by rubbing his cheek against Josephine and suggesting they go for a walk away from the group. Tank wishes he had the same charm as his brother as Lancaster slips away unnoticed by the group with Josephine in tow. Their walk is pleasant and they nuzzle each other as they slip through the grass watching the springbok dance, enjoying their alone time together. But for two lone individuals away from the protection and the safety of the group things take a dramatic turn for the worst as they are spotted intruding on a wild group’s foraging area.

Alerted by the presence of stranger scent, Lancaster vows that he would lay down his life to let Josephine escape. Josephine feels safe under Lancaster's protection and trusts that he would make good quick decisions if they were caught by the rival group.
Trapped out in open ground, the rival dominants pick up the scent of strangers and the couple are forced into a hasty bolt away from the oncoming war dance of angry meerkats. Josephine is terrified and her anxiety has taken over her as she is chased down by the rival group's dominant female who shows no intention of letting her flee with her life. The couple are saved by running into a sea of long grass and the wild group stop their advance in favour of returning to their burrow which has unexpectedly been raided recently by the Willows foraging party. Disorientated in the sea of long grass, Lancaster and Josephine are forced to shelter alone together for another night but rejoin the group at the burrow the next morning.

Mid November and things between Lancaster and Josephine have been blossoming and were going from strength to strength. Lancaster had been having thoughts about wanting to become a father like his brother Tank and Josephine is the only one he wishes for a mate.
Josephine spent a morning out with Tank foraging and together they aid an injured wild female back to the burrow. Her name is Mozart, and the flirtatious female can’t take eyes off Lancaster and Tank.
It becomes obvious to Josephine how Mozart's behaving but sadly can only try to not worry to herself and hope to ignore it. She knows she cannot challenge another subordinate nor outrightly display such a statement for her relationship with Lancaster with the dominants present. She doesn't want to be evicted as she loves being a part of the caring family of the Willows but is torn that she really cares about Lancaster. After the brothers try and make their feelings known by growling at Mozart, Josephine stops them as she understands that they have to stick together and instead of being jealous about is proud that other individuals can notice the wonderful qualities that Lancaster and Tank have.

By late November, Lancaster and Josephine choose to emerge and don't sit near each other anymore since Mozart has joined the group, they want to but are unsure how to handle the situation. Lancaster worries that Mozart's behaviour towards him has ruined his chances with Josephine and Josephine doesn’t want to cause any problems or alert Buckeye to the real relationship she thought she had with Lancaster.
When Mozart emerges with serious intentions about standing her ground if Josephine attacked her, Josephine becomes nervous and although she really wanted to stay behind to look after the pups she has no choice but to head out after the foraging party to keep the peace. Lancaster feels terrible to see Josephine walk away from him so heartbroken, he's angry at Mozart and sadly follows at the back of the foraging party also to keep an eye on Josephine.

As foraging begins, Mozart pretends to make a discovery of a cluster of eggs and calls out to Josephine knowing she was hungry to distract her away from Lancaster and instigates a fight with the intention to evict her love rival. Receiving a number of harsh warning bites to her tail, Josephine gets chased away from the Willows foraging party by Mozart and is left shaken and terrified. She hadn’t done anything wrong to provoke such an attack. Josephine can only hope that Mozart’s behaviour doesn’t go unnoticed and that someone else doesn’t have to face the same fate that she has just been dealt.
Trying to find her way back to the burrow but disorientated by her terrible sense of direction Josephine crossed over the border into the Tiny Kats territory as lightning storm breaks over head. Due to the a recent spell of dryness the lightning has sparked a wildfire.

Josephine encounters some of the adult females out foraging in the Tiny Kats but she's too nervous from Mozart's trick to hang around with them. With smoke filling the territory and dominant female Morning Glory's frantic alarm calls sounding out, Josephine gets caught up in helping the Tiny Kats evacuate their burrow and although in her kind efforts she rescues an innocent pup, Josephine is attacked by a subordinate who notices she is an intruder and Josephine flees the scene. As the flames engulf the Tiny Kats burrow Josephine crosses over to the Midnights territory.

Early December whilst away from the Willows, Josephine sought refuge in the company of a brother and sister rover party. Unknown to her that the duo were actually children of the dominant female of her mother’s natal group, Mungo Jerrie the male is aware of the potential possibilities of having an unrelated female in the group, he tries to show some warm affection towards Josephine but she plainly ignores his attention. She has neither eyes for another male nor any interest to be a dominant, she misses the Willows and Lancaster most of all.
For her lack of interest in the company of the twins, Mungo Jerrie instigates a playfight and Josephine is quickly chased out of their company and into the foraging path of a larger group where she is later accepted by Aliya their dominant female.

Having spent several weeks trying to grasp settling in with the Jumaa, Josephine struggled to find a place where she belonged. She isn't trusted yet to babysit the pups and doesn't really enjoy heading out with the group the forage.
Due to her nervous condition Josephine hesitates to leave the group but after losing a pup she was meant to be guarding in a three way mob battle against the Midnights and the Willows. Josephine cannot take the saddened feeling inside her any longer and leaves the safety of the Jumaa's on what could have been her last journey across the research area in a desperate attempt to find Lancaster and the Willows.

By early January and a Kalahari miracle, Josephine somehow made it back to the Willows territory but her journey took a terrible toll on her body weight, coat condition and she gained a deep slash on her foreleg. It is of this miraculous luck that during an aerial predator scare, Josephine is found by dominant female Buckeye and is taken back into the safety of the group and sweetly reunited with Lancaster who feared her lost for so long.
Together the couple reaffirmed their affectionate bond for each other and as the days passed, Josephine settles back into the comfort of the Willows resuming her place a trusted babysitter.

Josephine’s mothering skills were put to the test by the end of the month, Buckeye had been suddenly evicted from the group by a wild female and her two young sons Merry and Pippin were entrusted into her care as the old matriarch was forced away from the family. Having a kind heart Josephine adopted Buckeye’s last litter and a wild pup Root Beer and devoted her time to being the mother to them that the boys had lost. Being an adoptive mother awakened a purpose in young Josephine and she found great confidence and content in performing a role in the group that was suited to her personality. She adored the pups and ensuring their needs and safety was taken into consideration during the day.
Having faced so many hardships and comfortably back in a place where she felt she belonged with the individual she cared about and missed the most whilst she was away, Josephine and Lancaster put aside their concerns about the world and mated to potentially give them something to cherish and confirm their bond with each other. It was a risk that had been given several months of deep consideration but for the couple was one that they would face together.

Sadly and unbeknownst to the happy reunited couple, a drought came to the Research area. Food for the Willows family became difficult to find and what they did find wasn’t enough to support Josephine in the later stages of her pregnancy. After so much effort to retain her place in the group alongside a pregnant dominant female, she still stood no chance and sadly her body aborted her once growing infants.
Devastated, Josephine could only share her pain with a few close individuals, but they too were experiencing their own problems and each day the Willows numbers were dwindling as the drought forced tough decisions on the family. The three adopted pups she once loved had been divided and taken from her and as her grief spiralled into one tragedy after another, Josephine and Lancaster had no choice but to migrate out of the Willow’s research area in a desperate bid to find better living conditions and hopefully a new family to become a part of where they can grieve for their recent losses.
(Yosh we can discuss further ideas for this last section when you are ready and I will amend as we decide when and how they meet the Fiddle Nips)

Relationships:
Mother: Broadway Queen, Wild
Father: Unnamed, Wild
Littermate Brother: Napoleon [Skittles]
Brother in Law: Tank [Willows]
Nieces: Sunday Girl [Skittles], Ruby Tuesday [Wild], Ash Wednesday, Sweet Thursday
Nephews: Saturday Night Fever [Wild], Manic Monday, Freaky Friday
Adopted Nieces & Nephews: Triscuit, Olivia, Saja, Snicker, Carmella [Willows]
Adopted Children: Sarah, Merry, Pippin, Root Beer [Willows]
Mate: Lancaster [Former Willows, Now Fiddle Nips] - Yoshkatgirl

Miscellaneous Information:
* Josephine’s name and very small amounts of her biography are inspired by Joséphine de Beauharnais the first empress of France, wife of Napoleon Boneparte.

Image:

(Credit goes to PancakeShiners for her fantastic and easy to use template)

Eeee, Josephine. <3 Her design is just beautiful too~

I can see her and Wendy becoming good friends. X3

Wow, you must've spent hours putting effort into Josephine's bio. o.o Lol. Love how detailed it is, though. ^^ Her design is beautiful. ^^

YAY I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH LONG BIOS

Wow, what a fantastic bio. x3

Excited to see her in action again. Also, beautiful design!

Oh I'm so pleased you all like her bio and her design, I was writing it all day and I still have a small amount to add. I wanted her to have some detail to but crumbs I didn't think it would be that long. I love Her though and thank you Yosh for Lancaster. I can't wait to continue their relationship.

Well all of her history is up now, I just have to give it a final proofread to amend where I wrote it at different times and have change the tense.

Yosh I have scribbled in a rough recent ending but we can chat about the final details as you finish Lancaster's and I can amend mine as necessary.

I think she will get along with Wendy as well Night, I'm really looking forward to writing about Josephine in her new home with the FN's.

Just... wow LM, just WOW. That history was so enjoyable to read. ^^

Accepted 2/2~