I was an assassin for the Ursan Kingdom at one time. Before that, I was the orphaned distant nephew of the king at that time, King Ulgar, with no prospect in life, and nobody to care for me but his family. I had magic, and could shapeshift like any other Ursan, though my magic was far more powerful than even he was aware. Four hundred and fifty years have passed since I last killed someone under the orders of the Ursan kings. I have seen the times change, lives I once knew vanish, wars, and the fall of kingdoms and rise of democracy and oligarchy in our times, from a distance. This tale of my life begins when I went on the mission that made me a parent. On my way to the Equine Kingdom to assassinate Lord Hayfield, I happened upon a pair of adult wolf shifters and their infant daughter, whose magic was already strong despite being only a few weeks old, as her parents told me. “Please, take our daughter somewhere safe. The Hidden Cities won’t take her,” insisted the father, hugging his wife and infant daughter close to him. “They won’t take our little Rayse, even though she’s already started shifting and her magic has started to blossom. She can’t stay in our tribe, and we can’t stay on the run for much longer before somebody captures us.” As he spoke, the clouds started to darken and the winds began to blow, mirroring the anxiety and sorrow they both felt. “Our pack doesn’t want her,” added the mother, holding Rayse out towards me. “Please. Take her. We can’t protect her like you, Mage.” I was not technically a Mage, but I had the training and power to hold the title, if I left my forced career as an assassin. To tell the truth, because I had, in recent months, severely damaged my right leg, and while it had healed to the point where I could walk with a pronounced limp and much pain in my hip–one of the places it had been broken and set–I couldn’t see myself staying in my position as assassin beyond this final assignment. I refused to take an apprentice, and the island that I’d found and added infinite-length spells upon in Polestar lake meant that I could disappear for centuries without aging, to stay safe and out of the hands of those who would try to continue using me. I wanted to take Rayse, to keep her safe from those who would do her harm, and raise her as my own child, but she was too young for me to take on. I couldn’t raise a baby on my own without her mother or some way to keep her fed and healthy. If only I’d married Luzia before she’d been wed to my cousin. Perhaps then I would have had proper knowledge of how to care for infants. “Perhaps I could take her to the Hidden cities until she is weaned,” I appeased. “They will accept me, and through me, accept Rayse. After that, I will do all that is within my power to care for and protect her on my own.” The father, his golden eyes brimming with tears of gratefulness, released his wife and clasped me in a hug. I breathed in the musky scent of the forest and wolf that permeated his every pore. His wife joined the embrace, then handed me their daughter, with one last word of goodbye, a pair of gifts for her when she grew old enough to know what became of them, and fled back into the forest before anyone else would happen upon the road and find them speaking with me and kill them. Wolves, feared for their powers over weather patterns, due to their emotions, unstable like the atmosphere, were being “purged” from the Shifter races. Rayse’s parents weren’t the first, and most definitely weren’t the last wolves to ask for my help. I’d sent dire wolves to the Hidden Cities, offering them as hunters to assist them in keeping their predatory Shifters appeased, ice wolves to the Hidden Cities of fire-type Shifters, and helped hide a few red wolves, but most of them died out rather alarmingly quick, within three generations, aside from a few small clans of dire wolves and the two wolves I personally protect to this day. Going on my way, I thought about the wolves and what was happening. Mainly, though, I thought about their clans and tribes.
Wolves tended to live rather less-civilized lives as opposed to the other Shifters, depending on their own people, the land they thrived on, the rivers and waters they lived near, and their magic, denying themselves any of the technology other Shifters used, and staying simple. In many others’ terms, they were savages. To me, though, they were the true survivalists of our world. They were not ambitious, and were loyal to a fault, and liked to live off of the land in tribes, like their non-shifter counterparts lived. Families stayed together, married outside of their own families, and moved to the male’s tribe. They kept records of genealogy, to keep bloodlines pure enough to prevent them from marrying cousins by accident. In this way, and their forms of wild magic, they were far more advanced than any other Shifter species. They were, in many other ways, a species I admired for so long, and mourn the loss of such wisdom as they held. If only they had not been purged, perhaps Rayse would not be out of her time, and I, still on my island, isolated, safe, and happy. This pup, Rayse, was going to change my life, for better or worse. To be fair, I promised you my tale of being an assassin, but I did not specify what aspect I wanted to tell you. In this, I have failed to explain why I became an assassin, and why I left my duties. It is a dangerous job. Not something I want to ever perform again. You regret it too much, and it makes you feel dirty after some time, like you can never be clean or forgiven for killing so many people, though I only hurt twelve, mostly through bad berries. Only two ever found my blade, and of those two, only one do I not regret. I wished to tell you how my life changed its course, thanks to my acceptance of Rayse and the beginning of my adopting a total of six children. Two wolves (one being Rayse, one being an ice wolf princeling named Drey), one Tasmanian tiger named Zara, one Carolina parakeet named Aira, and a set of twin Magdalena scaly-eyed geckos (Derik and Shayne), all born with powerful magic, and all from now-extinct species. These are my children. This is my family. This is why I founded Shifter Boarding. To protect what little wild magic remains out here, beyond the Hidden Cities and my little island.
