Parn

History: His people had wandered the great ice plains for as long as they had stories, and had actually only just settled in the mountains when he was born. He's noticed a lot of folk seem to think that the Go-Backs were there, and named such, much longer than they actually had been. But that was likely due to them having refused to allow mere Recognition to dominate their breeding cycles - many more generations of their people had passed than, say, the Wolfriders or other such elves, in the same amount of time. Thousands of turns of the seasons meant that the Go-Backs had plenty of cubs, deaths, and fights; stories to tell around their camp fires that sometimes seemed legendary. It was only after Khavi became chief that they moved into those mountains, and only just after that, when Parn was born. He slept closer to the elk pens early in his life, and lost his parents to a quick and dirty fight with a hunting party of Trolls - didn't even hear about it until someone mentioned it in passing. How casually cruel the elves could be, he didn't understand the words but he definitely understood that concept. They claimed they 'had' to be, to survive. And in a way they weren't wrong, but... It never sat well with Parn.

While life and nature could be cruel on the surface, animals picked off the weak, the elderly, the sick, in a herd. That made the rest stronger for it. Were his parents weak? Sick? Neither - they had been good trackers and hunters themselves. It made the whole tribe weaker by not having good prey trackers, it put them all more at risk. Disappointed in the tribe for such shallow thinking, Parn bided his time. He fought with the Trolls and it felt good - it was still in his blood after all. But it wasn't where his heart beat strongest. He even fought in the biggest battle - the one within view of the Palace itself! He was young, scared, he'd taken trophies from other battles in the caves and out in the snow, but not here. It didn't feel right.

At one point the tribe began fracturing, even before the yellow-eyed betrayer Rayek sent everyone scattering. He'd never heard of this until arriving at Bald Mountain, actually! Some Go-Backs packed up and ... well, 'went'. Wherever. He and some others including ones which were wolf-blooded, or had the darkly tan skin of the Plains elves, made their way out from the Go-Back lodge for good. There were two hands of them at first, whittled down by bad luck, bad weather, and Trolls. Always Trolls. And they were not alone on their wandering, a fact realized when there was a freak lightning storm that... brought Eshuu to this group from his own harried and beaten party.

Teyfu, Eshuu, himself, Jit, Ahec, and Gaor - they moved around after losing Oyd and Teln to that nasty white-bear. It could have taken the elk but apparently it was out for elf blood, and that was terrifying enough to just get on the elk and run. They ran much farther, into the day and through a night, thanks to Parn's magical encouragement.

Finally, they met up with the trio of unusual others - Aoku, Meysh, and their scarred, blind but capable daughter Tabea. (And of course it was Ahec that was so baffled 'how do they have a daughter' he sputtered, dim enough in the head that he just could not understand 'adopted'...) Eventually as they moved more and more south, it was again Ahec who convinced Gaor that they should investigate a nearby Troll cavern entrance. Neither of them were proficient enough with sending to be able to communicate outwardly from that depth, and... that was probably for the best.

For the first time in his life, Parn actually thought perhaps, their cruelty befitted their end.

It was not very long after, that they picked up a strange mental ping. Curious! And even more so when they realized it was an elf that had... well, dragons? With her? And was she related to the trio? Kinda-sorta? Things moved very quickly after that, with the group moving down to this place they called a Holt, Bald Mountain by name. What a grand place that was! Even if the mountain was pretty small particularly when most of this group had seen the great Frozen Mountains all their lives? But still it was busy with life - and the elk seemed to like it here. They had possibly been kept up north after migration, hands and hands before, as the local herds seemed to be apt to move both farther north and deeply south with the weather and seasons.

So Parn and the others were then shuffled off, it was a confusing place - not-place - he couldn't pin down what exactly this Den thing was. From there, a new snowy place - they all felt much more comfortable there than inside the Den, frankly. And even more so when these lovely furry dragons, somewhat like Nivoan that had come with Ainea was, started choosing among them for their life-long bonds!