father stole away from mother, within minutes of birth because he claims she was a witch and a servant of evil powers. he regretted bargain he made that put his seed inside her, and to hopefully protect me from the taint. burned down the place i was born in so nobody could connect us. she should have died in flames along with attendants. he changed locations rapidly, smuggling me around. struggles he went through to keep me from the taint and should be grateful for that. risked soooo much to "save" me from this. woman he hired as my nursemaid he ended up marrying due to politics. marry and pretend baby was hers. formalized relationship. father never did familial duties with my "mother" is around enough to tell stories but isn't a great father. seems to spend more time telling me how i should be than listening how i want to be. i spent time running free instead of studying. making up stories, some people and animals intereacted with. ---- around age 6 or 7 there was a bunch of war going on in my vicinity, wasn't reallly involved, father was very outspoken and involved in recruiting and local fightin. mostly stay at home and hide. adults i knew didn't survive. father claims it was won by righteous and worthy but there was a lot of death. many kids i knew are orphans and not treated well. smuggle food to them. lot are in town work gangs. not unfamiliar with death, helped gather bodies. want to learn fighting skills so i don't die. found I'm good at fighting. get the concept, can work muscles, good at it because other kids who aren't so good i can help them learn. become the trainer for other kids. making my own training to make sure my friends can defend themselves. never fun letting kids become orphans, if i can help fight less kids would be orphans and be saved. ----- around age 11 or 12, puberty starts went from quiet unremarkable child to one of the tallest people in the village. friends all wanna be me all tall like me. made me more clumsy so i had to do a lot of retraining. father noticed how much i eat, hungry all the time, never enough food stopped bringing things for orphan friends. complaining to "mother' and 'father' that I'm hungry all the time. father decides to teach me to not be hungry by putting all the food on the table and force me to gorge myself. that was his plan. but i ate everything he gave me and i was still hungy. he took it as a challenge and setup a bet with the innkeeper about how much i could eat, if i ate more than a certain amount he wasn't going to pay for it. ate phenominally. so much i actually felt full and was going to keep eating but they ran out of food. people in town think i'm crazy. others think i'm the town hero because it's a great story. father has to make more barters. he realized how much i ate. felt guilty so asked what i could do to earn some too. he made arrangement for me to be a farmhand. means worked muscles. outperformed many farmhands as a teenageer. built a nice set of muscles. among eating and working and training kids. got quite a reputation as a giant among kids. started to fill out. ----- 14 or 15, largest and possibly strongest in town. lifted horse out of a gully. easiest thing i could do was lift it out. keep quiet about strength but getting strong. phenominally strong compared to everyone meet. sheep started having problems. farmers taking turns to guard sheep. i go with farmers. imma go camp in the fields for a week. that way whatever sheep are doing ill be there. it's so great i'm afraid to tell anyone so i sneak off to do it. with friends on 5th night an entire section of sheep disappeared. by the time we slept and woke up. only from that field. 7th night sheep in that same field disappeared. one of the kids claimed it's haunted. daring each other to spend the night in that field. many kids wuss out.most of the kids assume nothing is gonna happen because they have me. i have no idea what i'm protecting them from nothing happens 8th night, sheep didn't disappear. by now we're really tired, some kids went home, some came back. at some point we all fall asleep. not me. awoke in a field with our sheep but this wasn't the same field. stars and landscape are different. an adult we have never seen rounding up our sheep. guy is talking in a scared trying to calm down crazy person voice. not a familiar language. recognize tone, pattern of words, body language. he lets out a low whistle and the dogs that were herding the sheep start bringing them back. there's now more sheep than originally. but not all of them. camp in field post guards around field third night everyone fell asleep chase sheep out of the field we parade the sheep back some celebrations, some upset parents. some happy some angry farmers. stories of haunted field. my father is very quiet. i can tell he's upset. he's not happy.pretty sure it's not at me. don't want to push him because i've never seen him this upset before. i'm possibly more buff than him. giving him some spave, he gives me a tight hug. he was afraid he'd lost me. shoos me into house, then goes to deal with whatever is pissing him off. he's not back by nightfall when he got into a big fight he didn't come home for two days cos he was in med bay, nobody wanted to tell me due to embarassment. two, three, five days go by, ninth day i'm really worried. fight with priests, stalked off and left. he was just gone. may have gone to the field to see if mother was involved. nobody has seen him. nursemaid has no idea. ask priests what arguement was about, more arguement than fight. brother jonas took a swing and has been knocked out since. he was claiming they should have noticed the taint? they didn't know. he said we'll see about that and stormed off. he stormed off away from the field. in the direction of the local lord's castle. about a day's distance down the road i find evidence of a campfire and small bones i run down a deer and cook it, took the edge off my hunter something moving out of the corner of my eye all movement stops. in the middle of the night, have sensation that something is staring at me. a pair of very yellow eyes watching me blink and disappear into the night. all the offal is gone. later on i find another fire ring that looks like his. i take both deer down and at least now i'm not hungry. i make a pitfall trap, fall asleep waiting. startled awake by what i could have sworn was a dog's nose being pressed into the small of my neck. the offal is gone and the pit is intact. when i reach for my sword it is just out of reach like something dragged it. third night i take down two more bucks and i'm eating well i hunt a third one, lay it out and leave it woken to dragging sounds, i try to look at what is dragging the deer there are two large dogs dragging the deer into the woods. as i get up, a very large not quite dog sits in my lap. knocks me back down then scampers off. the deer drag left a mark. it was dragged 200 yards and then torn into. not much left.well chewed. can tell from the marks there were a bunch of large dogs. when i hear the dragging again, there's two dogs sitting on me while i'm sleeping really didn't want me following them i laugh, spook one, and pet one. could have sworn it chuffed the word "good" at me. one more night of this yellow eyes and feel like bigass dogs. as i finish butchering the second one not for me. I'm really enjoying having enough food for once. as I'm finishing, one of the sets of yellow eyes comes into the edge of my campfire and looks at me. it pauses and then nods and comes into the light. it's the first wolf i've seen. it doesn t really look like a dog. dogs look like more tame versions. the wolf comes about two sword lengths away. i ask how much it wants. i end up butchering all three deer. more than one set of eyes on me, look up and there are two other creatures. not as close as the one i talked with. i think one is the one that was laying on me. they are very distinctive. i don't know how i know, if i look with just my eyes they look very similar. she-wolf looks at he-wolf that was talking to me. she speaks to me. cue chaos. they go some human speaks wolf. human who was there nine nights ago. he went the way i'm going. smells like me. smells like brother, could be father? strike a deal to help find him if i feed them. asks if id like to meet the pack. yips twice, pretty sure he just said "ollie ollie oxen free about 12 wolves pour out of the forest around me. at a glance i can tell all of them apart. once i've seen them I know them and would never confuse one for another. when i'm just using my eyes they're all almost identical. I know them all. 3 babies and the rest are all about the same age. one who is the same age but really big. sensation he's really not bright. he'd be in charge if he was smarter. i can tell that they're giving him more room. he's just not that bright. he'd run into a tree. each one introduces themselves to me by pushing nose to palm. they all face away from the fire and grab some food. some have taken bones, they're all full and satiated. ---- i get a whole night's sleep, when i awake only the first one is with me. the rest have wandered off. symbol in wolf language that is this wolf's name. i know his name but can't say it in english. he's head of pack, descended from wolf. occasionally he bounds off and comes back. at one point in time he stops and scoots off into brush, min or two a cart comes wheeling down the road towards me. being dragged by a normal human. cart full of cabbages. he raises a chin in my direction and gives a non greeting greeting. smells bad so the wolf hides. one night from town when i come to another ring. i kill 5 deer again, two for me three for the wolves. as i'm bringing back the deer the pack is already at the campsite. one of them has dragged over sticks for the fire. a hint in there of the word 'fetch'. they've moved their places and it's like we've been doing this for years. night passes without incident. when i awake, they've melted off into the forest. as i'm walking towards the city, the pack leader stops, puts his nose in the air, cocks his head, and is talking to a wold i can't see. i get half the conversation. scent partner has already left the city. wolf looks at me and says "wouldn't it be faster if you ran?" "do you run?" wolf barks a laugh at that. a yipped conversation about embarassment and faster. "ill show you run. get on" a couple adjustments so i am not choking him. ankles crossed above haunches, arms loose on neck head next to his, knees next to ribcage. he takes off and it's exhilerating. i've never moved so fast. i understand why they howl. i let out a howl. the pack responds of course. now on the other side of the city, running along the scent track. the wolves had slowed down for me because in 10 mins they've covered the distance i would have travelled in a day. i'm now maybe three days behind him and the day hasn't even started. by nightfall i'm a day behind him. they stop at one of his fire ring. convince them to continue through the night after i've fed them their deer. well after moonrise and pack leader is nuzzling under me to get me on again. ride for another 3hrs and i can see glows of coals ahead of me and notice the only wolf in evidence is the one i'm riding. "they're there but not near" get off wolf and go towards coals. sneak up and see it's definitly father's. see a form sleeping by the fire. it's definitly human and asleep. definitly dad's sword pointing at me. i followed your fire rings. you disapeared. he sent one of the priest's boys with a note. he was trying to follow up on it and see about demons near the village. possible they followed him. he assumes priests are just being lazy. he thinks it's demon magic causing the sheep to disappear. he made a pact with a demon to save his village, that's how it got his seed? i'm supposed to be free of the taint. we both go to different areas for morning routines. i decide to stay with him and follow him and not tell him about the wolves. his stride isn't as long as mine and he has a full pack and he's old. not as spry as me. slow down to his pace no problem. i catch two deer so as not to embarass him and eat everything he doesn't eat. middle of the night almost awoken to a cold wolf nose. sets the pattern for the next six days. approaching kings keep. dad says 'your clothes are passable' he takes some rings out of his pack and adds a crevat with a pin in it to himself. introduces himself and me, pays entrance fees. needs to talk to clergy. asksa about fees and pays those. learned that there's skill in entering nobleman's city. money, words, looking right. i'm aware that the craft exists and happy he studied it. leads me off to large church. various priests and people. father looks around and finds specific priest. he nods to go inside. he approaches more custodial in nature looking priest. more money changes hands and paper. a time is set, after nons, in a couple hours from now. warns me about certain areas of city, shows me around the city.gets bread to feed pigeons for luck. purchased a confection thing. great taste but not filling. spun sugar sculpture. we're ushered into a study, handwritten books and shelves. chubby priest compared to ones im used to. starts to wave him off until dad gives description, priest almost dismisses him. i give whole story, how scared the person was, made us out to be heros. i don't have an guile. priest heard the honesty and accepted it. guests of the church tonight and then back to the village. church is worried about demon incursion. father doesn't complain about the lazy priests to this priest. food is really boring, they eat oatmeal. thankfully they didn't care about how much. i fill up on oatmeal. dad eats more than one bowl himself. morning comes and there's a whole train of horse drawn carts of carriages and supplies 12-15 priests coming. ride in carraiges.