Havi - Manifesto of a Skinchanger

Being orphaned as a babe is not easy. Even less so when you grow up being called half breed by people dumber than you, but those were the circumstances I found myself in. Street kids in Havdrar don’t usually live to resent their childhoods, unless they get a stern hand to keep them from pickpocketing. For me that was Olgier, hunter from Buckingwatch who I convinced to give me a job skinning his game. It paid not two coins to clink together but put a roof over me in the nights and allowed me a slab of wood to sleep on, which beats the dirt. This town was no kinder to me than the one before, having me beat and mugged more times than I can count. Once all I had to be stolen were some shoes, I had made of leather scraps, and the cravens took ‘em. If I got robbed of Olgier’s money, he’d hold onto my pay and for another night I wouldn’t sup. He was getting on with the years though, and his bow arm grew trembling, so he taught me to shoot, then to carve and string a bow. The small game I managed to haul home was hardly ever more than enough for a stew, and often not even that. Hunger saw me hunting in the woods and begging in the streets. No one really knows the cruelty of folk until you’ve entirely depended on their kindness.

Around my fourteenth year, a fruitless hunting trip had me make camp in the woods overnight, in hopes of bounty in the daylight. In the quiet of the wood, one of my snares snapped. Thinking I had finally had a break and could head to town early morn, I went out to check. I saw it before it saw me. A majestic, gigantic, muscle-bound, fur covered titan, glistening in the light of the three moons, licked by the shadows of the foliage and colored by the flame of my torch. In the ignorance of my youth, I feared it, and as with all things we fear, I wished it harm. Three arrows I managed to loose and hit before she faced me, pain feeding the bloodthirst. It took no more than four strides for claws to reach me and rip the side of my leg. The blessing had then been bestowed, now I know, wittingly or not.

In pain and fear of death I let other two arrows fly, both hitting the mark and toppling the woodland colossus. Bleeding and trembling, I drew my knife and approached my kill, which to my surprise was a human woman. Not even fear ought to distort a silhouette so, what I saw that night was a brute of a creature, not this slender shape that lay before me. But alas, the arrows were there. To my mind, whatever had taken place that night, I had killed a woman. Deciding hunger would be a better fate than the gallows, I gather my bow and track back to camp, and lay there, eyes wide open, wounded leg and jumping at the flap of wings, unaware that understanding would come to me eventually. Sleep caught me unaware that night, and so did the sunrise. Marveled at not having bled to death, I inspected my wounds, to find none but an irregular pink scar. I remember having thought myself lucky to get away with just a flesh wound and to heal so easily. My understanding only came the following night, after I had returned to a cold home with an empty larder and a weak caretaker, having been scoffed, teased, and pelted on my way into the city. Not even Olgier believed my tale, and the scar did little to change his mind. Half a loaf of bread was my meal for that day, and I remember it well.

And to this day, I rejoice to remember of that night. The pain came in a tidal wave, my body contorting to positions I had not known possible. My bones and muscles extended beyond the size of my body, I could not hold myself together, the powerful feeling of raw physical strength was intoxicating. I’d take pity on the fool who dared pelt me. Then, there was only hunger. The world became a red smorgasbord of prey, and I the most capable predator. I feasted that night. All living things were food and I’d eat until I had my fill, and that I did. Come the morning, Olgier called for a hunt of a brazen beast, who had killed and eaten two people and a dog in the dark hours of the night. That day, none was taunted, pelted, or cursed. I had become something more, and the shift in power had already been felt. What a magnificent feeling, that of becoming who you were meant to be. At dusk, I ambled on back to the woods, to finished one uncompleted task. That night, I feasted on the corpse of the one who blessed me, the late matriarch of our future pack. Leaving her to lesser folk would have been an insult to one who had done me such favor. As I do not know her name, to honor her I saved a lock of her straw-colored hair, which I shall keep with this letter. As he has done for me, I believe it is the duty of our kind to impart our own blessing unto our prey, be they deserving of ascending, or find others thus blessed. Those who are not, may be feasted upon, for the lot of a skinchanger in this world is to rule.

Let this testimony serve as the manifesto of our kind.