Socially, Ira is reserved. Until he isn’t. Socially, he is responsible. Until he isn’t.

Until the reckless, impulsive nature that is more true to himself, to who he really is, breaks through the rest.

Sometimes, you daydream about a conversation you will have with the gods, or the angels, where you are dead and they are alive. It will be music and bright, golden light and they will ask, “Ira, what made you, you?”

And you will not know what to say.

Not at first.

But in death, time no longer seems relevant. And so you sit quietly for days—perhaps even years—until the answer comes to you, and your life has played out on a reel in front of your eyes.

“My duty to my father,” you say.

And the angels, with their thousand incomprehensible eyes and in their voice that echoes as only mountains can, “Your duty?”

“To be a good son,” you say.

And then you think for another ten years. And expand, “And my love of country.”

And the angels ask, “What of the woods?”

And the reel of your life fills with the light between the boughs of trees, and the silent crack of leaves and brambles underfoot. The law, you think, of nature—and the limitless sky above the striving trees. You are hunting in those woods, for wolf or stag, for griffin or dragon, and each animal you ever kill finds you in the afterlife. They are not spiteful, because in life you had held each of them and made the most use of their bodies.

“I love the woods,” you answer.

And the angels will say: “They made you wild.”

This, too, you are. Wild, you think in this daydream of death. Wild as the trees, and the deers, and especially the wolves. Those you watched the most in the Arma Mountains visit you again. The black wolf with amber eyes who led the pack through winter; and the gray wolf with pale yellow eyes who taught you how to be silent, and docile, and to know everything with silent knowing.

You too, are Wild.

The angels ask, then, “And what of your country?”

In this daydream of death you remember coming first to Denocte, fleeing a coups. Your father had a scar above his eye and you found the statue of Caligo in the center of the market. You stood beneath her and felt, for the first time since leaving, as if you had felt where you belonged. No one asked where you were from, or of your strange accent, and slowly that accent faded.

“I love my country,” you answer.

The angels are displeased. “That is not enough, Ira. Who are you?”

And for the first time you feel frantic to explain what your actions cannot: beneath the austerity, beneath the lack of eloquence, you are a man who loves his country. You are man saved by his country. You are a man bound by duty and love, with the heart of a bird that tries to soar and yet cannot.

“I am Ira,” you answer, hopeless, and the angels answer:

“That is not enough.”

“I am Ira, son of Morgenstern. I love the woods, and I love my country."

And then, there are no angels. Because the conversation is in your mind, and now you look out into the woods and see the gradual fall of a leaf to the earth. It is getting dark, and you are getting cold; and so you turn back to Denocte.

It is enough.

Older than a child’s should be, she said.

And that was your beginning. Maybe the gods of your homeland knew that they would not keep you, and so they imbued you with some wisdom beyond your years. Later, it would be your silence that kept you from being killed. Later, it would be your silence that spared you, as your mother hurriedly pried up the floorboards in her closet and hid you beneath them.

You smelled her perfume (like the flowers on the fruit trees before the fruit came) and the silks, extravagant and lush from a land far away. You could smell her wool cloaks, the one she wore for winter. And you could smell her blood, when they killed her in the other room.

(This is what you remember; the smells, and not the sounds. Not the squelching of flesh or the hard hooves on the extravagant oak floor; not the ripping of fabric, or the sound of your mother’s voice when she first screamed. Not the way she kept screaming, until she stopped. Not the way that the men laughed in brusque tones and spoke in your own native tongue).

It was many hours before her blood began to drip through the floorboards where you hid.

It was many hours before your father found you.

-----

It would be too easy to say you were never the same after that. A cliche, that you refused to be. You were the same after that. Perhaps a little colder; perhaps a little more attached to your father’s hip. But you were the same. Quiet, with wise eyes. The girls loved you as you grew. They called you handsome, but you did not pay attention to it. Perhaps that had something to do with the way you ran.

You mother had been a gypsy, once; and those are the people your father returned to, when he fled from the Capitol. He did his best to teach you of your heritage. He had been a politician, after all. That had been important once and he struggled, sometimes, with the lack of esteem in their flight. But the gypsies did not mind. They taught you other things.

In this way, you suppose, you began to learn the duality of man. How you might be both cold, and soft; dutiful, and wild. You never spoke of the night your mother died. A girl, once, she asked you. Saige. She, too, had been a refugee; your father saved her, during the Night of a Thousand Cuts.

(They called it that, because the Imperialists implemented their plan to overthrow the Enforcers. Your father had been an Enforcer. And his friend, Avian, whose family had been killed on the initial onslaught. Everyone but Saige, who your father found, hidden away in the family kennels, among the hunting dogs. One day, when you were both older, she would tell you that she heard Ivy, her oldest sister, when she broke out the back door and ran toward the treeline. She would tell you, one day, that she heard the way an arrow sings, and Ivy ran no more. And you would think a moment, and nearly say: I heard my mother die. And then you won’t. You won’t say it, because you never speak of your mother, and your silence is what saved you).

-- -- --

You were young when you boarded the ship with your father and Saige. You were young when you first saw the sea, jewel-bright and mysterious. The vastness of the ocean frightened you, at first; and then you learned to trust the sails of the ship, and the gypsies told you stories of the land beyond that you would visit. The fear transformed into elation, and the days passed in as close to childish ignorance as you could reach. You and Saige would climb the masts during the day, or hang from the nets, and count the sea-birds you saw flying overhead. You would listen to the gypsies sing and dance and Saige, sometimes, too.

Your father spoke less and less during the voyage; he had been a softer man in your youth, more prone to empathy, more prone to affection. He used to tell you that he loved you; and somewhere, that stopped.

Somewhere, the sadness became too much for him. And so he spoke little, and you spoke little, but each night he would read you page by page A History: The Lore of Novus. You believed the book to be full of fairytales, until you first docked in Denocte and your father, for the first time in a long time, brushed your disheveled hair from your face and said, this is our home now.

We must be the very best Denoctians.

He had let you choose which Court. You had not known it, but when he told you the stories of each and their gods, he let you choose. It was Caligo you asked the most questions about; and Caligo you expressed the most empathy for. She sounds like a goddess for us, father, you had said, and he had listened.

And that is how you found yourself on the streets of Denocte.

Your father, who had been a politician as a man but a leatherworker as a boy, opened a shop in the market. Your childhood passed with Saige as you ran to and from the market and the docks, playing in the shallow sea. Those were years when the laughter seemed bright, and hope seemed almost tangible.

(But sometimes, on the nights when your father came home late, you could hear him crying from the loft where you slept. Never loud sobs; but silent tears, the kind that are less expression and more breath).

The only place you feel as if you belong is the forest outside your cottage. You live with your father on the edge of Denocte, and go each day into the woods. It is there that you follow the creatures of the land; sometimes, you hunt them, to sell their hides in the market. The nobles of Denocte love the luscious plush of a wolf’s coat, or the ornate antlers of a stag. This work does not bring you fulfillment; mostly, it brings you sadness. But this allows your father to retire comfortably. That winter, the sickness comes; and he remains sick into the summer. But you care for him, nobly, because that is what a son does.

And Saige still lives there; but she never stays in Denocte. She has too restless of a soul, and wanders all of Novus. You have always loved her and can never tell her, because she is your only friend. So you smile when she visits, and smile again when she leaves, albeit sadly. You are accustomed, by now, to putting the needs of others before yourself.

So, you go into the woods, where you do not feel so alone. You are young, and restless, and anxious for something new—

This is when your life begins to change.

* Tier 1: Discipuli — At the discipuli stage, every shadow begins to hold a suggestion toward life. Ira might make shadows the size of a dog or smaller “walk.” His magic will always require a subject; but at the earliest stage, Ira can “raise” the shadows of smaller animals, rocks, and plants. They become animated creatures, or objects. However, Ira exhibits little control over them at this stage. He might “animate” a shadow, only for it to completely disobey him. Although they possess true physical form, they will quickly dissipate. Ira fatigues easily, and cannot sustain his magic for long. The only exception to these rules are Ira’s own shadow. From the earliest tier, Ira’s shadow is more biddable than others. He can “raise” his shadow for brief periods of time, and generally speaking his shadow is more biddable. At this stage, Ira cannot utilize his own shadow for combat or extended errands, as the shadow will dissipate if physically confronted by another individual.

* Tier 2: Vexillum — Ira can now raise slightly larger shadows. They obey him more than previously, and he might “ask” them telepathically to accomplish certain tasks. (For example, he might request the shadow of a bird flit across a field to report whether a nearby stream has water). Each shadow, however, possesses a different character. Some are more willing to bid him than others, before dissipating. At this stage, Ira might send a shadow on an errand, although there is no telling if the shadow will fulfill the task or not. Ira can utilize shadows in battles, although doing so fatigues him rapidly, and the shadows will dissipate upon contact. Ira’s command of his own shadow has increased. He can send his shadow on largely successful errands but the shadow will dissipate if confronted physically.

* Tier 3: Periti — At this stage, Ira’s shadows no longer dissipate upon contact with others. He might “raise” more than one shadow at a time (a previously difficult, if not impossible, task). The shadows Ira can control are larger, and more biddable. Ira still cannot create “new” shapes, but can raise any existing shadow near him. That said, Ira cannot create a sword from shadows; but if he has a sword, and his existing sword casts a shadow, he might “raise” the shadow sword. The shadows Ira raises might last a few hours up to a day. They can be utilized successfully in battle. Ira can send his shadow “walking” for extended periods and on a variety of errands. At this stage, Ira can see and speak through the shadows he "walks," but doing so exerts energy and can fatigue him if done for extended periods. When "walking" Ira is most successful if, physically, laying down in a quiet are. Ira can "walk" through shadows while awake or in company, but doing so requires intense multitasking, and his concentration might break and the shadow might dissipate. Ira can now “meld” with his shadow, but not for extended periods of time. “Melding” with his shadow allows Ira to walk among darkness, go without being touched, and makes it incredibly difficult to see him. Ira's shadow remains the most biddable shadow in Ira's arsenal: he might "walk" his shadow on errands more successfully than others. The shadows Ira walks might now dissipate after a period of a handful of days.

* Tier 4: Dominus — Ira has mastered his magic. He no longer fatigues from use of his magic, and can raise shadows of any size. At this stage, Ira can raise his shadow and go shadowwalking (walking as his shadow) for extended periods of time. He no longer tires, and can deftly deploy shadows for a variety of tasks and in numbers. Ira does not require extensive quiet or privacy in order to "walk" successfully as shadows, and might be able to employ shadows effortlessly while holding a conversation or interacting with others. Ira might employ two shadows to two different tasks and "be in multiple places at once." He can now speak, act, and collaborate with these entities he raises. The shadows might exist for a multitude of days before dissipating.