Zhenya is a character originally created for a Finnish impro comic Kapina.

Setting

Zhenya lives in a corrupted and violent dog pack. She has joined a rebellious group of dogs who aim to overthrow the current leader group in hopes of bringing more peaceful and just leadership.

Physical description

Zhenya is a small-sized, lightweighted and agile young female. The coloring of her fur consists of hues of brown, from light yellow to toffee brown. Pads are dark grey. Zhenya has a helmet-shaped mask which hides her head from ears to cheeks and upper jaw. The mask is white and there's red star pattern over the left eye.

Usually Zhenya seems confident and attentive. She doesn't generally make anything unnecessary and doesn't let her behavior give away too much. However, slight moves of her head and steady posture tells about continuous alertness, and only rarely the young one seem to be lost in her thoughts. Her tail is usually down, but when she's interested or notices something, her tail rises up into a sickle-like curve. Sometimes Zhenya may tilt her head a little to show others that she's listening.

Personality

Even if Zhenya's still young, she's already very mature and serious female. She's left childlish romping behind and tries to act like an adult as well as she can. She despises every kind of humor and snorts contemptuously for jokers, especially if she's the subject of the joke. She isn't very talkative and focuses more on listening others. This young female may seem like a cold person, but she's usually composed and doesn't blow up right away if something bothers her or things don't go according to plan.

However, Zhenya's still just a growing child and may have too much responsibilities for her age. Living under the fear, being a rebel and planning to have a revenge are draining, but she has no choice and she knows it. Zhenya doesn't whine openly and stays behind her cold shell while being surrounded by others, but when the night comes, she may seek a hiding place and try to sort out her heavy thoughts on her own.

Back story

Zhenya was born outside the dog pack to her parents. She was a wanted and loved child and she was kept safe and happy - until her family was attacked. A few members of the pack happened to find Zhenya's family in their home and the family tried to escape, but attackers begun to chase them. Zhenya was too small to run and her father carried her until he decided to throw his daughter behind, hoping that the dogs chasing them would take the puppy and let parents go. And so happened: chasers let the adult dogs flee and took Zhenya to their pack. The little dog was heart-broken after being abandoned by her parents.

Zhenya didn't like the idea of being forced to join the pack, but she couldn't do anything to change the situation. Other puppies started to bully her, but suddenly one of the adults, an old saluki male, came and put an end to the bullying. His name was Cody, and he decided to take care of Zhenya. It didn't take long before Zhenya began to think of Cody as her new father, and Cody loved Zhenya like she was his own daughter.

Cody had been discontented about the situation of the pack for a long time, but there was no any rebel groups at the time (or at least Cody didn't know any). However, he wanted to protect Zhenya and didn't think that the pack would be the right place for a young dog to grow up in. The presence of Zhenya gave Cody enough courage to try to escape from the pack and give a good new start for Zhenya. However, things didn't go like planned. Some pack members were sent after them and Cody hid Zhenya in the forest before continuing his escape to lead them away from her. The morning came, and Zhenya went to search for Cody - only to find his ripped body. Zhenya had found someone who had really loved her, and now she had lost him. She was all alone... again.

Zhenya knew that she could be free now, but she wanted to avenge the murder of Cody. Despite her very young age, Zhenya was vengeful. Besides, she didn't want anyone inside the pack to suffer like Cody had suffered. And even if Zhenya was ready to learn to hunt and fight on her own, she knew that she was too weak to survive in the outside world all by herself and it would be just a matter of time before someone bigger and stronger would kill her. With all this in her mind, she created a new identity for herself and returned to the pack. Now she's in a rebel group, and she's ready to do anything to bring her revenge to the authority.