Amelia's father was the Head of the Dunkirk clan and thus, naturally, also of its tribe.  She was the second born of he and his wife's second litter.  All told, there were three litters: two pups in the first, three in the second, and three born in the last, though two later died because they were born undersized.  This last sadness crushed Amelia's mother into depression, and so Amelia was raised primarily by her father and a series of nurses, governesses and tutors.  Lord Dunkirk had every right, in both human and werewolf societies, to take another wife, seeing as how his first was generally considered mad and kept herself locked away day and night; however, he never so much as looked at another woman with a serious eye.  Occasionally he'd bed a woman, only once, and very rare; Amelia hated him these weaknesses, but she came to realize eventually that it was a weakness held by all men, and that he needed the release, the feel of someone next to him, the temporary assuaging of the loneliness.  He went to visit his wife every day, though she usually ignored his presence; he would sit and talk to her of the children, hoping to bring her around, but as far as she was concerned, he wasn't even there.  The only times he didn't go to her to make the attempt were when he was away from the manor (naturally) or when he took a woman to bed; he'd avoid his wife's chamber for a week thereafter, out of guilt and perhaps out of a hope she'd ask where he'd been.  He would have loved for her to yell at him, to do anything, to acknowledge him even.  But she would sit and stare out the window or in her mirror, or at the wall.  He always came at night, and before he left, he would take her to her bed and tuck her in, kiss her forehead and say goodnight.  She never really seemed to notice; she was a living doll, being picked up and carted about.  When she eventually died, Amelia felt no more grief for her mother than she would have for a lost piece of furniture - a sense of longing for something that had always been there, but no real affection.

Amelia's upbringing then was hardly normal.  Her nurses read her fairy tales at night, as they did most children, but with no mother and a father torn to distraction between his estate and his 6 children, she had no one to tell her such things were fantasy, no one to discourage flights of fancy and daydreaming.  She demanded to learn how to read and write, and snuck so often into her brothers' lessons that they eventually went ahead and began teaching her as well, to cut down on the interruptions.  The rest of her sisters thought she was a silly pup for wanting to know such things, and went about their needlepoint.  Her own sewing was so atrocious that one of her sisters had to make her dresses for her, but Amelia was content with simple peasant dresses, except for fancy occasions (she did love "dressing up" for parties).  She would curl up by the fireplace and read any book she could come across, though eventually her tastes sharpened into histories and fictions and, of course, her beloved fairy tales.  She began writing little fictions too, though she was clever enough to keep such a scandal hidden. 

By the time she was 14, the suitors were sniffing around.  Dunkirk Hall was a day's ride from the city of New Haven, which had a substantial (though still well-hidden) werewolf population.  Thus Amelia and her two sisters had a wide variety of acceptable suitors.  Her sisters smiled and tittered and wore lovely dresses; Amelia continued to curl up by the fire and read, though some men were handsome enough to occasionally turn her head from her books in furtive, blushing glances.  But whenever one approached her, he always expressed a sort of shock that a woman should know how to read, and would talk about how unusual a gift this was.  She didn't like the reminder that she was different, and she certainly loathed the idea that women shouldn't be literate! 

Thus it was that Alistair Kensington stole her heart, by being the only man to not only walk straight past her sisters and head directly for her, but to merely sit down and ask what she was reading.  "Edgars's History of Rome," she answered, and he made a face before explaining that he'd always preferred Vernon to Edgars and if she had no copy of any of Vernon's histories around, he would fetch one for her straightaway.  He sat there by the fire with her and talked about books, sat next to her at dinner and discussed history, and eventually bid her good night by quoting one of her favorite poets to her.  True, he was half a decade older than she, but it only added to his allure in her eyes.  She would have no one else.  As a wedding present, he gave her Vernon's History of Rome.

Her sisters cried tearfully about her leaving for some place as far off and remote as the small mountain town of Kensington.  They fretted over the "dreary provincial life" that faced her, but then she'd never had much need for opulence.  Alistair did insist she wear nicer gowns, but did so in so romantic and loving a fashion that she couldn't help but agree.  A small team of seamstresses was needed to make up for her own dreadful ability to sew, and they even began correcting her needlepoint, as someone pointed out to her that a wife who didn't make and display needlepoints was looked upon very oddly indeed.

She hated bending to the Expectations of human society, but she had long ago had impressed upon her the necessity of such silliness: at one point, in New Haven, a wolf had been caught.  It had been tracked for some time now, and was returning to its home - the home of Mr. Quickly, the butcher.  It was eventually revealed that the wolf and Mr. Quickly were one and the same; "the demon" that was Mr. Quickly was forced into wolf form and then skinned alive and left outside New Haven to die and be the crows' breakfast.  Granted, it had been his carelessness which had led to his discovery, but Amelia lived so in fear of a similar fate that she strove to be as human-appearing as possible. 

This was one of the joys of the "provincial" Kensington: She and Alistair could shift into wolf form and run amongst the trees on the mountainside behind the manor, with no one the wiser.  In their newlywed days, they would often go racing through the forest, first on two legs and then on four, shift back to human to make love in the forest then bound back to the manor, curl up by the fire with hot tea and read.  She'd never been so happy, and her first heat as a married woman was a joy to her. 

And then war broke out.  The Crown called for its Lords to join Him in battle, and just as she knew she had conceived, Alistair got the news.  Her joyful, smiling lover was transformed overnight into a grim and serious soldier as he and his father prepared to heed the call.  She tried to get him to stay, for the sake of the unborn pups, but he merely put a hand on her stomach softly, kissed her cheek, mounted up and rode off.  Her entire pregnancy was spent anxious, and eventually the doctor prescribed her a sleeping drought, to be added to chamomile tea and taken thrice daily.  She slept through the months leading up to her first litter's birth.

But then they were there.  And though her anxiety and longing for Alistair did not abate, she found new joy in her children: two girls and a boy.  She named them Thomas, Kara and Mary Elizabeth.  She had to stay in wolf form to nurse them, which meant she couldn't read, but she was so enraptured with new motherhood that it wasn't a terrible loss.  Looking at the pups, she knew Alistair had to come home to them, he just had to. 

It took him two years, but he did, in fact, return - as Lord Kensington.  His father had fallen in battle, and the manor fell into grief when it when should have been celebrating Alistair's return.  He himself had long finished mourning his father, and was more than happy to play with his children until they passed out, then sneak into his wife's bed and attempt to hush their joyful reunions.  She would trace his scars as they lay together, but any mention of the war or of fighting killed his smile and stilled his joy.  She stopped bringing the subject up, though she desperately wanted to hear about the pitched battles and the fierce beauty of it all.  It didn't matter though: Alistair was home again, they had their pups and so all was right and proper in the world.

War snatched her love away from her again, two months into her next pregnancy.  She made a solemn vow to seal herself away during her heats from then on, and though Alistair thought she was joking, she in fact wasn't.  Every time she and her husband spent her heat together, he was called away to war.  She thought it terribly unfair of God to be so cruel.  He wasn't gone as long this time, but Mark and Anthony (named after the Roman general who had fallen in love with the Queen of Egypt - a favorite story of hers) were still nearly a  year old by the time he returned, and the first litter had reached 4 years of age.  He was even quieter this time back, and though he still played with his sons and daughters, he was more interested in sleep than love-making for a long time.  He would crawl into her bed, pull her close to him and promptly pass out.  He couldn't sleep apart from her, he said, but he made no other move to touch her.

He finally did again, after she, as promised, sealed herself away during her heat.  He spent a sleepless week able to smell her by lurking outside her door, but unable to do anything about the alluring scent that filled his nose.  When she finally readmitted him, he turned the children out to their nannies and governesses and kept her to himself for an entire day.  She sighed, content to have her husband returned to her, or so she thought.

More wars came and went, and the business of the estate tore Alistair away from her more and more often.  He became more serious, more like the soldier all the time.  She learned to content herself with sex two or three times a week, rather than every night, but from what she'd heard from the other wives, she should count herself lucky to have even that much.  He wasn't the joyful intellectual of her youth, though he still loved to read, and sometimes would still curl up next to her by the fire.  The world had made him somber and protective.  When the call came and Thomas was old enough to answer, Amelia's heart went cold with fear.  Her husband and son both marching off...and what if they didn't return?  What if only one did?

The last question was prescient; when Alistair returned to her, her heart leapt....until she realized that Thom wasn't with him.  For awhile, she feared she'd gone as mad as her mother, for she spent a fortnight locked up in her room, howling and sobbing her grief.  Let those who don't know my secret find out, she thought.  Let me die with my son.  But eventually Alistair muscled his way into the room, and he reminded her of those yet living.  "They need their mother," he told her, and she thought of her mother.  She remembered Mother dying and how distant she had felt, when she should've been grief-stricken.  She didn't want to abandon her children that way, and though it was hard, she let Thomas go.  Alistair was, for a time, more like his old self with her out of concern.  It soothed her, this reminder that no matter how else he had changed, his love for her had not.

Kara was married off to a noble from New Haven - a liberal who insulted Alistair at his own table and called him a tyrant.  Kara viewed her suitor as some sort of intellectual rogue, and she couldn't be dissuaded from her choice, so Lord and Lady Kensington sighed and shrugged and approved.  Mary Elizabeth, or "Mezzy" as the boys had often called her, was all but seduced out from under their roof by a man Amelia considered more weasel than wolf.  He had obvious ambitions, and Alistair put him off for a long time, but Mary was caught in a plan to sneak out to him during her upcoming heat.  Amelia eventually persuaded her husband that young love knew no other recourse, and whether she liked it or not, he was the man Mary Elizabeth had chosen.  He grudgingly gave his consent to the union - but not his blessing.  And just like that, within a few months of each other, her daughters were gone from her. 

The land had been peaceful for some time, so much so that Amelia pondered unsealing herself during her next heat....and then Mark was killed.  Just like that.  He and Anthony had been in the town, drinking too much, as usual.  There had been an altercation with some merchants, and blows were exchanged, as both her surviving sons were always one for a tussle when in their cups.  One of the merchants produced a dagger and stabbed Mark in the side.  It was a conceit of the man to use a pure silver blade, and by the time Anthony had laid the remaining attackers out, thrown his brother over his horse and ridden hard back to the manor, there was little that could be done for the lad.  Only 17, the same age Thomas had been when he died, and she suffered through the horror of watching her son eaten alive by the silver poisoning.  Death was his only release, and he begged for it.  Alistair came in with his sword and set his wife out of the room, leaving him alone with Anthony and Mark.  She never heard a sound, but she knew, she felt the blow hit her own heart when Mark died.  She turned and walked back to her room for another fortnight of unrestrained grief.  The story went out that he had been stabbed, but then taken ill while recovering from the wound and died.  The merchant who had stabbed him was hung in the square and the rest banned from the town for life.  Justice, it would seem, had been done.

Justice or not, Alistair never recovered from that.  She knew he blamed Anthony; he was always the one who suggested hitting the pubs, and he was more aggressive than Mark.  She knew, for that matter, that Anthony blamed himself.  The two men she loved most in this life both turned away from her for a long time, and she wondered if madness might not be preferable.  Alistair came back to her first, though still distant.  Their intimate times dropped to once a week, if that, but she never dared think of straying.  She took solace in her books, even as Anthony began to spend more time out in the forests behind the manor.  She figured he was running wild, as she and her husband had once done, though his was less to savor the joy of running so much as to simply run away.  He was the Heir now, a role for which he had never been prepared, and a responsibility he had never wanted.  He did his best to shoulder it well, but years of being given his head and let roam were not so easily reined in.  So, depsite Alistair's disapproval, she let him run.  He needed the escape, whether he was literally running out in the mountains or doing so more figuratively, through irresponsible behavior.  She scolded him, as was Expected, but she never actually punished him for it.  She wished she could run too, back into the past, to hold onto Alistair and her pups as tightly as she could and never stop whispering "I love you" to each and every one of them.