Time to ramble about my Bone Shadows.
Or rather like. The main two.
Gretchen is an Irraka Bone Shadow, who experienced her first change when she was down in Missouri looking for birds while trying to complete research for her Doctoral Degree in Ornithology. While there, she met May, a local who offered to help show her around. Thing is, May is an Iron Master and Gretchen would have been easy prey for the hunt. Would have, except Gretchen, who was lost Wolf-Blood, experienced her first change when May attacked her. The two fought, with Gretchen eventually losing, mostly due to lack of experience.
In her pack, Gretchen is... borderline the leader, which is something that most folks meeting her wouldn't expect. She isn't the most smooth of people, but she has ambitious aims and in step with her wife, May, is one half of a dedicated duo intent on keeping their territory on lockdown.
What's really worth noting about Gretchen, though, is that she's a member of the Lodge of Doors. Her mentor there, a grizzled man by the name of Old Cutter, is a guy in her city who owns a rifle store. It's highly likely that if Gretchen weren't an Irraka, she would not have been able to track Old Cutter down and prove he was a member of the lodge, but the natural stealth of her auspice proved a major help. Upon introducing herself, Gretchen was allowed in as she passed the initial test of "prove we exist".
While most people overlook her because of her demeanor and apparent nervousness, Gretchen is one of the more menacing pack members, and she takes her duty very seriously.
The second, Erszebet, is a bit more off the wall, because she was born to the Predator Kings. That she is a Rahu, however, makes it clear that she was never scoured of her auspice. In fact, Erszebet was essentially believed to be useless in her youth, but she witnessed the brutality of the Predator Kings and took it to heart. When she was given to a pack leader as a mate, Erszebet managed to get away -- because the stress of the situation forced the first change out of her. She left the old leader with many deep scars and raged into a nearby campground, killing four people; when she woke up, she was naked and soaked with blood in the alley behind a club... two cities away from her origin point.
In her years as a Ghost Wolf, Erszebet did many, MANY rough jobs. She broke kneecaps and killed as needed -- and she doesn't know it, but one of the people who approached her was a Bale Hound, testing her for later use. After an incident involving a woman's runaway husband and Erszebet's baseball bat, she was dragged into a meeting, bound in silver-twined rope.
It is highly likely she would have been killed. However, it immediately became clear that she truly knew nothing of Uratha life. As such, she was taken in and allowed to adapt-- which led to her joining the Bone Shadows due to her curiosity about... well. The Hisil.
Erszebet is an unconventional Bone Shadow, which is likely why she wound up in the Lodge of the Throatcutter, a Lodge for Bone Shadows that pride themselves on being "rougher" than their kin. As her initiation, she had to hunt and kill a spirit stronger than she was.
Four hours later, Erszebet received her tattoo of admittance.
