![]() She'd been the one to tell him what happened, when the news finally reached Norun. Ewan was originally supposed to go with them, but he'd come down with a cold, and so his parents had left him in the care of a close friend while they were away, a weaver named Rayna. He had been seven when his parents had gone on a business trip and never come back. He was so good at everything else, thanks to his intelligence, so why couldn't he master this? His parents always sounded so sure of him, so proud, and he wanted to prove, even if only to himself, that he had been worthy of it. You're going to do great things someday."ĭespite his parents words, Ewan still felt that he should have been able to do better. "The fact that you've managed a transformation as good as this at your age is amazing! I wasn't anywhere near that good until I was three times your age. "You're still young, cub," his father had agreed. Most don't manage it until they're much older." "They hold our power, and hiding them away like everything else is much more difficult, because of it. "The tail is always the hardest thing to hide," his mother had said. It was the one thing that he couldn't fully master. Even when he got everything else right, his tail always remained. Blending in keeps us safe."Įwan's parents had been impressed by how quickly he had learned how to change from fox to human, although Ewan himself was frustrated that he couldn't make himself look perfectly human. And when humans are scared, they lash out, and people get hurt. "Humans fear what they don't understand, little one," his mother had explained. ![]() A fox his age was too young to power illusions on his own, and it was important to be able to blend in with humanity. The most important thing Ewan's parents had taught him was also one of the very first things they had taught him - how to take on a physical human form. "You'll never know when it might come in handy, and people will hide all sorts of things behind locks." "It's a good skill to have, the ability to pick locks," his father had told him. From him Ewan learned how to bargain and haggle, how to read a person's body language, and how to pick locks. His father had been mischievous and witty, able to get people to dance to his tune with clever words and implied incentives. His mother had been kind and wise, and it was from her that he had learned how to read, how to write, and how to calculate profits. They had been merchants, living in Norun City and masquerading as humans. ![]()
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