Imprinting

Imprinting is behavioral phenomenon among shapeshifters where a shapeshifter finds his or her soul mate.

Description
Imprinting occurs when a shapeshifter finds their soul mate. The moment the shapeshifter sees the one they are destined to be with, they imprint. It is described as having every connection with everything else severed and instead being only connected to this earth for the other person. After that, nobody else matters because you are only there for your other half, your soul mate.

If an imprinted person is killed by someone, the wolf who imprinted on them can never forgive the killer. If the killer happens to be another wolf from the pack, the wolves would have no choice but to fight to the death. For this reason, the most important law among the La Push shape-shifter pack is that no wolf may kill the object of a fellow wolf's imprinting.

It is unknown what would happen if a wolf was rejected by their imprinted one, though this is declared as almost impossible as the imprinter is the "perfect match" to the imprintee- they will be anything the imprintee ever wanted or needed, making rejection extremely unlikely.

Stages
There are stages to imprinting, especially if the person on who the shapeshifter has imprinted is young.

First Stage

If the person is young, the shapeshifter will act as an older sibling.

Second Stage

As the person gets older, the shapeshifter will also come to be their friend.

Third Stage

When the person is old enough, the shapeshifter's feelings are suspected to grow into romantic love, but this hasn't been comfirmed.

If the shapeshifter imprints on a person around their age, their feelings are immediately romantic.

Reason for imprinting
The reason for imprinting is unknown. Sam Uley believes that the person on whom the shape-shifter imprints is the person with whom the shape-shifter has the best chance to reproduce (this is debatable since Jacob Black imprinted on Renesmee, the half-vampire half-human child of Edward and Bella). Billy Black, however, thinks that imprinting is designed to make the werewolves stronger.

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