Born to the chief of a clan of sea raiders in the far northern islands, Sonic was raised on the coastal ocean on drakkar and snekke class ships. At ease in his youth aboard such vessels, as his father's eldest child, he was given the honor of commanding one of the drakkar of the clan's fleet on a raiding expedition the year he came of age.
Setting off at a privileged position near his father's ship, Sonic proved himself a capable and steadfast, if green, leader on the open water. His crew respected him, and he led their songs with the rest of his father's fleet every night. Gaia smiled on the boy, and he never stopped smiling in return,
Until the slavers came.
Ulfhednar were prized for many reasons by arcana hunters. Their teeth and claws were used by alchemist to brew potions of strength, resilience, and bloodrage. Their pelts were collected as trophies and presented to the mundane jarls of the north for bounty- each fetched enough to keep a hunter and their crew for months at a time. Even more, their labor- the ulfhednar, the iglewolf, were famous for their unending strength, speed, and energy. Catch one, bind it, and they could replace a hundred ox and mundane workers.
These slavers were ill equipped, but this made them no less deadly. The battle that ensued destroyed most of the small clan's fleet, ships burning in the gloom of the New Moon- their weakest point. Many were killed, tails taken for bounty in lieu of pelts as none were shifted. Teeth and claw taken, too, for selling to apothecaries. Rare prisoners, of those who could be captured alive, taken for the slave camps.
Sonic among them, of them, the only one to survive both the attack and the return trip to the continent. Away from his people. His clan. His family- if any remained to him at all. The shame settled on his pelt like a cloak of nettle and hot ash, burning him, needling, never giving him a moment's peace-
Anyone would break. But the slave camp... the years he spent there...
The night he became vargulfr...
He cannot escape the blood, not of his family's, not of the slavers' or the innocents caught in his feral gaze that night- not of his own. So he runs, because he cannot escape it, but he can ignore it, and live as the other vargulfr do. The shameful, the cowards, the oathbreakers-
His people, now.
Along the way, his form shifted, his True Form- that of the Moonwalker, of the Beast- began to hide itself from Gaia's eye. He has since lost control of his transformations, and shifts only under the cloak of the New Moon. He has no control in this form, no reason, and no mercy.
He is not alone. In his travels, he met a young fox kit- an arcana, even, a kitsune seperated from his people and thousands of miles from the nearest known community of them, who he called Tails. The kit has grown now nearly into a adolescent, though is still reliant on Sonic to care for him and keep food and shelter at both of their disposals.
It isn't easy. Sonic takes what jobs he can, though they must always keep moving, lest the mundane of the villages and cities they hide in begin to suspect arcana in their midst. His most lucrative assignments come from working as a mercenary- a soldier of fortune. And ohh, what a job he's found recently...
Die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself became the thing you most hate. Hunting dragons, after all- that's not the same as hunted ulfhednar, right? Dragons are evil, and besides, his brother needs to eat, and this job can keep them fed and housed for a year or more if Sonic's frugal.
How hard can it be, to kill a dragon?
