Thomas

There is always something Thomas searched for. As a child, his Uncle spoke of the Forest King, spinning tales in impressionable mind strong enough to tempt a teenager into wandering the dangerous Verdelet paths. There was something he was destined to find. Something called him.

....the mountain calls its own....

But it took years.

He continued searching until early 2000, when he met several other boys out in the woods. Kurtis and Donnal accepted him, easily, and seemed to understand the strange calling he always felt. They seemed to know about this tale, memorized, that filled a teenager's fantasies. To find this Forest King. To realize the legend was far more than myth.

They guided him, step by tested step, towards the great mountain. The UnderBridge.

The kin boy had found his way home. He stayed, learned, and grew among those he felt far more comfortable with as compared to his family in the city. A family that seemed to understand that he needed to spend time with these others. A family that strangely did not question when he decided to never return to the city, but rather remain in the forest with what felt like his kind. He felt like he belonged with these strange creatures that walked the fine line between man and animal.

While Donnal disappeared somewhere along the way, Kurtis remained by his side. Teaching him, helping him learn about the ways of the creatures he called family. They played with the children born at the UnderBridge, but the young Pumonca remained a boon companion. And, shy as they both were about admitting their feelings, the boys soon became lovers. But they tried so hard to keep it a secret. Kurtis had been driven away, previously, because none at that Caern would accept a gay shifter as one of their own. The boys were afraid it would happen again.

But the Guardian of the UnderBridge proved them wrong. As Kurtis worked the trails to hunt, one night, an ill-timed pounce brought his quarry into the sights of the great lupine. The Wolvenkynde spoke words of wisdom, then, in asking how both the boys were, and admitting he had known all along of their feelings for each other. Kurtis was terrified, then, that he - and Thomas - would be told to go. But the lupus only growled a chuckle. Even though times where thin, and the blood scarce, he could never force another into breeding, or loving one there were no true feelings for.
And then the dreams began.

Kurtis asked another healer, Lessa Giovanni - the Guardian's sister - about the dreams Thomas kept waking from. Strange, prophetic, mysic dreams... visions he did not understand. Lessa, in turn, called upon a very old man, Granith, a Prophet, to help make sense of the boy's confusion.

Again, to their fearfilled questions, the boys were met with simply an amused chuckle. Thomas was no prophet. A mystic, one sensitive to the ways, perhaps, but not a prophet. The mantle he would wear was to be far lighter than one who held the future in his hands. But no secrets were given away yet. The boys left to ponder their own fates.

But as always, fate found them.

Simba Prideland borders the Northern boundaries, and one snowy evening, just before the Thanksgiving Holiday 2000, the boys took their evening walk too close to the territorial cat's home. An encounter with one of the females forced something to snap deep inside of Thomas - her advances put Kurtis in danger, who had already shifted feline to protect the kinfolk boy. The Rage stirred, terrifying him as his body leapt out of control and into a suit of velvet tabby fur.

.....ceilican.....

The Simba, recognizing the boy's first shift and a mother herself, allowed them to leave, to hurry back to the Caern. Neither could believe that this is what the dreams meant. But the old Prophet knew. Thomas reveled in a newfound commonality with the boy he already cared so much for. The one that was teaching him so very much about cat-kind, even if they knew not he was one himself. This scared Thomas, a little, for it also changed the relationship he and Kurtis had. They were allowed to be with each other because he was kinfolk ... he wasn't sure of what would be expected of him now that he was a shifter himself. Another fearful question brought a caring smile, and soft chuckle, from the Guardian. The Litany prevents shifters from breeding because of metis birth, it says nothing about preventing two shifters loving each other when they have no intent, or capability, of breeding.

In the years since, Thomas has grown emotionally, physically, and mentally with the help of Kurtis. He knows, now, why the family that raised him never questioned why he never returned. He was never supposed to return to them. They always knew. But for his sake could never say anything, never alert anyone to his presence until he was ready. He has learned from others at the UnderBridge about himself, the spirits, herbology and healing. In Christmas of 2001, Kurtis even took him into the city to see the professional production of Cats as a gift.

He could not ask for more.