Post by Marco Dawson on Oct 29, 2012 23:24:52 GMT -5
Player: 0173
Contact: (PM me)
Intentions: Heroic
Background
Name: Marco Dawson
Race: Beastfolk
Species: Raven
Age: 23
Tier: 2
Social
Place of Birth: Northshire, Northern Greenwich
Allegiances: Greenwich
Aspirations: Protect Greenwich from its own wildfey population, bring his men back alive and in one piece from the next mission, survive weekends at home without strangling the younger half of his siblings
Nicknames: Sergeant Grumpy, Coco the Indomitable, Ow, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle
Titles: Second Lieutenant Marco Dawson
Relatives: Jack Dawson (father), Nadia Tyler (mother), Eve Dawson (sister), Kolby Dawson (brother), Aya Dawson (perpetual thorn in side), Maya Dawson (perpetual sneaky thorn in side), Jacob Dawson (perpetual adorable thorn in side)
Significant Other: -
Mental
Personality: Stern. Dedicated. Straight-laced. Disciplined. Calm under stress, under fire, under nearly anything. The perfect soldier, if something of a tremendous bore at parties, Marco's funny bone is rumored to have atrophied from disuse. With his home town at the forefront of the ever-growing Wildfey conflict and its continued safety resting on his shoulders, every day sees him getting locked deeper into his rigid attitude toward life - he's a son of Greenwich first, ready to defend her borders from anything that threatens the peace, and anything else, even his own person, only a distant, dismal second.
Likes: His family, his hometown, his job, knocking goblin skulls together, waking up early, exercise, coming home, finding his family alive and well
Dislikes: Wildfey riots, the aftermath of Wildfey riots, goblins, clearing the booby traps out of his room when he comes back after a week out in the field on a major operation
Strengths: Being a good soldier takes discipline. Being a good leader of soldiers takes even more, and Marco has it in spades. He's certain of where his loyalties lie, and he knows exactly what he's fighting to protect, which gives him almost scary levels of dedication and mental endurance. He keeps a good balance between loyalty to the country and to his own men, another quality both honed and proven by numerous border skirmishes. When he marches, they're right behind him. His reputation stands well with his own superiors, who know he can be relied on to follow orders and keep in line.
Weaknesses: Marco may know what he's fighting for, but he hasn't given himself the time to enjoy it in a while. As the Wildfey become more hostile and sneaky, the border cityfolk and their defenders, who take the brunt of their anger, are likewise put more on edge. Sinking deeper into his military game-face is his way of dealing with it. His blunt, humorless work face isn't good for more or less anything outside of work, and constantly wearing it hasn't done any favors for his home life, with three youngest siblings who have made it their own mission to prank him into "becoming a real person again". He still hasn't taken the hint.
Physical
Major Details: Black feathers and beak, brown eyes, height of 6 feet (183 cm), wingspan of 6 and a half feet (200 cm)
Appearance: Even before he joined the armed forces, Marco was no slouch when it came to his fitness. A few more years of intense training have served to push his body to peak physical condition, rewarding him with an a sleek build, a full abdominal eight-pack and muscular arms and legs. In the subdued khaki colors of his field armor, his physical appearance still presents an obvious threat, albeit one harder to hit from range in open terrain.
Natural Abilities: Like all mature ravenfolk, Marco is capable of flight. He can lift, run or fly while bearing a heavy load for moderate distances, is very agile and has a high tolerance to pain.
Natural Traits: Beneath his feathers, Marco's hands and feet are covered in a hard keratin layer, similar to a bird's talon's.
Strengths: Marco has been trained to fight well. He balances aggression neatly with evasion and defence, and his wings grant him another dimension of mobility which he puts to great acrobatic use. At a distance, he's a fair shot with both a rifle and a pistol. His height and build have put off would-be muggers and quashed a number of public fights in the past.
Weaknesses: Marco is a classic "jack of all trades, master of none". While he's more than decent at handling himself in a fight, he's nowhere near the best at any specific method of attack, at least not without using magic to give himself an edge. There's something to be said about getting adequate rest, which he hasn't had too much of lately, and sometimes experience isn't just the best teacher, but the only one - he's only had a few years of it under his belt, even if they've been hectic.
Magical
Specializations:
- Tier 1: Physical (Astride the Crossroads), proficiency 2.5. Marco can manipulate the four classical elements of fire, water in its liquid, solid and vapor states, earth, and wind with his physical movements.
- Tier 2: Physical (Astride the Crossroads), proficiency 2.5.
Visual Display: None
Special Abilities:
Tier 1: Enhanced Strength 1
Tier 2: Enhanced Speed 1
Tier 3: Telekinesis
Bonus Special Abilities: Enhanced Vision 1, Enhanced Toughness 1
Unique Abilities: -
Strengths: Having four elements at his disposal makes for a versatile array of weaponry. Having their use tied to his ability to move well makes him quite the fearsome opponent in a brawl. Marco's form and movements are precise, built up from the same dedicated practice that hammered his body into shape. "Earth" itself offers plenty of options for attack and defense, with his study of the element extending to the use of metal as well. When he has to use fire, he's careful about aiming and spreading it, and always takes care to snuff it out completely when the dirty work is done.
Weaknesses: "Jack of all trades" doesn't completely apply to his magic - Marco is less proficient at controlling wind, and barely capable of manipulating water. His power over the elements is also limited to just that - manipulation - with no ability to conjure his weapons the way some other mages can. He has to draw all of his magical arsenal, even fire, from an external source, and has trouble shifting air in enclosed spaces. Having only one form of magic at his disposal brings the limitations of that form - if he can't move, he can't use it.
Inventory
Mundane: A semi-automatic pistol and rounds, a wallet with personal identification and credit cards, a combat jacket modified for avian beastfolk, a combat knife and a cigarette lighter.
Magical: ID tags - (Written, Perpetual): Military issue dog tags engraved with his personal information and basic tracking runes, allowing his movements and location to be monitored by military intelligence.
History
The firstborn son of Jack Dawson, mayor of the growing town of Northshire, Marco grew up with certain luxuries only the wealthy could afford, but most were kept safely out of his reach until he finished his homework and his vegetables. Especially his vegetables; his mother, a dryad, was jokingly insistent he honor the cause of the various plants who made the supreme sacrifice to ensure he grew up healthy.
He spent the first three years of his life as an only child, with his father mostly around at night and on weekends. After his sister Eve was born, both parents became a regular fixture of the house, and soon had their hands full as a brother, Kolby, joined them. By the time he was eight, Marco had learned how to keep the household chaos under control instead of adding to it, just in time for the arrival of a pair of twin sisters.
The better part of his childhood was spent being the responsible one, a role that followed him into school. While his grades were never the best, he frequently ended up as class monitor, and left middle school as the Head Boy.
He'd never been too sure where he would go after school. Eve looked cut out to be a magical healer, Kolby was developing a feverish obsession with mechanical science, the identical twins Aya and Maya already had their own opposite ideas of what they wanted in life... he knew he'd made a habit of getting classmates to behave, standing up to bullies, turning up early for classes and leading the school football team. He'd been raised to believe in upholding Greenwich principles and defending the weak. He had two and two, but couldn't seem to put them together to make four...
During his graduating year, an officer visited his school to canvas for His Majesty's Armed Forces.
A soldier's life wouldn't be easy, especially during an age of irritated Wildfey who were out to hurt people for destroying their homes with machines. Most of them, whatever their reasons, were hardly as understanding as his mother. It was almost a given that he would be garrisoned up here in the north, near his hometown, where something nasty might walk right out of Caledonia to give them hell. It didn't matter that the district had been lucky so far, that the few Wildfey riots in his life had never gotten past the border guard. He would be standing between innocents, and people who wanted to harm them. If the situation called for it, he might well end up taking a life. Or a few dozen.
His father told him all that, and more, over the dinner table that night. And after dinner, and even later, until both ended up going to bed long after midnight.
"As long as you know what you'll be getting yourself into," Jack said in the end. "Give it a while. Think about this. But if you're sure... at the end of the day, it's your choice to make. I trust it'll be a good one. I trust you. And I know you've never given me reason to change my mind."
"But if you ever end up on a hospital bed? I'll be the first one in to visit. And I'll have a lot more to say."
The year wasn't out before Marco was lugging his suitcases into Northshire Military Academy while his family cheered him on.
Life was grueling, but far from impossible. Somewhere between the daily schedule of waking up at five in the morning to run a mile, dropping into bed exhausted at ten every night, and hitting the ground for fifty push-ups at the drop of a hat or the whim of an annoyed drill instructor, he found time to write or phone home. He thought he sounded exhausted. Aya kept telling him he sounded closer to scarily optimistic.
And then he progressed from Basic training to the Leaders' Wing, and discovered his first three months of military life had been a walk in the park.
Over the nine months that followed, he had more experience with mud, insects, misbehaving wildlife and other horrible aspects of the great outdoors than most had a right to meet in a lifetime. When they weren't camping out in forests seemingly chosen for all the things that were wrong about them, he was struggling not to fall asleep in lecture after lecture, with dreaded written exams every few weeks. A few pessimistic phone conversations that ended with round scoldings from his sisters put an end to his occasional thoughts of dropping out.
He missed the winter holidays, but he emerged from military hell as an officer, just in time to surprise his family for the new year.
It was the best of times.
Perfect for disaster to come barreling in through the front door.
Border skirmishes had always been common. The Wildfey were getting sneakier. More trade convoys had been routed, border patrols ambushed, and one factory even burned to the ground in a magical inferno. More often now, the perpetrators were getting away.
Life within Northshire had always continued as normal, just with more gossip centered around the Wildfey. With most of his children growing up in a state of relative sanity, Jack was beginning to consider a return to politics.
Being married to a spouse from "the other side" had granted him insights into the Wildfey that most politicians didn't have, and hence a more balanced opinion on the subject of the forest-dwellers. In a town where the issue weighed much more on daily life, someone with moderate views who could stand for both sides at once - and get them to put down their weapons and listen for more than a few minutes at a time - would be able to take a substantial load off many nerves. This had won him the vote for three consecutive four-year terms, before he retired to help his wife around the house.
If he was banking on that reputation to ease his way back into politics, he was quite horribly mistaken. He wasn't alone in his moderate policies, but he was definitely in the minority. Being pushed further and further out into the cold over twelve years had eroded much of the rapport between the remaining fey and the other townfolk, and even during his time in office, he'd been swimming against the current to keep everyone together.
His first election rally was met with a cursed arrow that would have gone through his back, if his left wing hadn't gotten in the way. The explosives that went off across the square did little to help the matter. The goblin mages had precious minutes to spend wreaking havoc before the armed guard arrived to fill them with bullets.
In the midst of all the mopping up that followed, panicked and injured civilians to evacuate, rubble to search for survivors, dead bodies to account for, and a veritable mountain of paperwork, Marco was hardly the first to get to his father's hospital bed. Neither had anything to say.
The message seemed clear enough: the fey weren't interested in a compromise. For a few weeks, nobody else was. The attack left hysteria spreading like wildfire. The Dawson residence, as the most obvious Wildfey hideout, was vandalized and broken into several times, and Nadia had to evict armed thugs trying to start a witch hunt with her ashes. Word got to Marco's superiors, and they pulled some strings to station an armed guard outside the house until the paranoia died down.
Jack was on his feet in three months. He was lucky. The healer from Camford arrived soon enough that he only lost the damaged wing. The fact that he had gone down first in the attack was all that kept him from getting branded a collaborator.
The incident shook the town hard, to say nothing of how it affected the Dawson siblings. The youngest brother, Jacob, became a lot quieter. Kolby threw himself into his studies and refused to climb back out. Aya and Maya, who used to communicate like twins, got into more arguments, needled each other more, and were seen together less, with Maya even moving out of their shared room. Barely a week after the attack, Eve failed her exams at Camford in spectacular fashion, and had to repeat the entire year.
Right at the front lines, Marco spent every waking moment on edge. He spent months jumping at the chance to lead border patrols or take the watch, hoping to catch a glimpse of goblin skulls to shoot apart or smash together.
Another significant change to their lives was the gift from a family friend - one of Jack's old contacts, who spent much of his time traveling and gathering all manner of oddments from as far as the Archipelago. The cache of Upper Kingdom scrolls, the note said, were used for "a magical version of physiotherapy".
Insofar as mastery of physical magic strengthened the body, the note was telling the truth.
More than a little paranoid after the attack, the elder Dawson shared the scrolls with the rest of his family. The incident had made it clear to him that any one of them could be next, and he wanted to give his children a fighting chance of getting out alive.
Eve, already far ahead of the rest in magic, helped the others through the beginning stages. With help from their half-fey blood, Aya and Kolby picked up the basics within a year. They were still behind Marco, who was ready to strike out on his own in a matter of months.
Another year passed, and the town began to recover. The Dawsons picked up the pieces, thankfully more or less intact, and tried to come back together. Marco spent more and more time out of the house than in it, keeping up with the news of Wildfey attacks. Northshire might be safe for now, but he was sure there would be a next time.
Next time, he was going to be there before it happened.
Next time... if he hit them first, sent them a message in their own language of violence and magic, let them know Greenwich wasn't going back to the dark ages without a fight... maybe there wouldn't be a next time.
Appearance
Contact: (PM me)
Intentions: Heroic
Background
Name: Marco Dawson
Race: Beastfolk
Species: Raven
Age: 23
Tier: 2
Social
Place of Birth: Northshire, Northern Greenwich
Allegiances: Greenwich
Aspirations: Protect Greenwich from its own wildfey population, bring his men back alive and in one piece from the next mission, survive weekends at home without strangling the younger half of his siblings
Nicknames: Sergeant Grumpy, Coco the Indomitable, Ow, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle, Uncle
Titles: Second Lieutenant Marco Dawson
Relatives: Jack Dawson (father), Nadia Tyler (mother), Eve Dawson (sister), Kolby Dawson (brother), Aya Dawson (perpetual thorn in side), Maya Dawson (perpetual sneaky thorn in side), Jacob Dawson (perpetual adorable thorn in side)
Significant Other: -
Mental
Personality: Stern. Dedicated. Straight-laced. Disciplined. Calm under stress, under fire, under nearly anything. The perfect soldier, if something of a tremendous bore at parties, Marco's funny bone is rumored to have atrophied from disuse. With his home town at the forefront of the ever-growing Wildfey conflict and its continued safety resting on his shoulders, every day sees him getting locked deeper into his rigid attitude toward life - he's a son of Greenwich first, ready to defend her borders from anything that threatens the peace, and anything else, even his own person, only a distant, dismal second.
Likes: His family, his hometown, his job, knocking goblin skulls together, waking up early, exercise, coming home, finding his family alive and well
Dislikes: Wildfey riots, the aftermath of Wildfey riots, goblins, clearing the booby traps out of his room when he comes back after a week out in the field on a major operation
Strengths: Being a good soldier takes discipline. Being a good leader of soldiers takes even more, and Marco has it in spades. He's certain of where his loyalties lie, and he knows exactly what he's fighting to protect, which gives him almost scary levels of dedication and mental endurance. He keeps a good balance between loyalty to the country and to his own men, another quality both honed and proven by numerous border skirmishes. When he marches, they're right behind him. His reputation stands well with his own superiors, who know he can be relied on to follow orders and keep in line.
Weaknesses: Marco may know what he's fighting for, but he hasn't given himself the time to enjoy it in a while. As the Wildfey become more hostile and sneaky, the border cityfolk and their defenders, who take the brunt of their anger, are likewise put more on edge. Sinking deeper into his military game-face is his way of dealing with it. His blunt, humorless work face isn't good for more or less anything outside of work, and constantly wearing it hasn't done any favors for his home life, with three youngest siblings who have made it their own mission to prank him into "becoming a real person again". He still hasn't taken the hint.
Physical
Major Details: Black feathers and beak, brown eyes, height of 6 feet (183 cm), wingspan of 6 and a half feet (200 cm)
Appearance: Even before he joined the armed forces, Marco was no slouch when it came to his fitness. A few more years of intense training have served to push his body to peak physical condition, rewarding him with an a sleek build, a full abdominal eight-pack and muscular arms and legs. In the subdued khaki colors of his field armor, his physical appearance still presents an obvious threat, albeit one harder to hit from range in open terrain.
Natural Abilities: Like all mature ravenfolk, Marco is capable of flight. He can lift, run or fly while bearing a heavy load for moderate distances, is very agile and has a high tolerance to pain.
Natural Traits: Beneath his feathers, Marco's hands and feet are covered in a hard keratin layer, similar to a bird's talon's.
Strengths: Marco has been trained to fight well. He balances aggression neatly with evasion and defence, and his wings grant him another dimension of mobility which he puts to great acrobatic use. At a distance, he's a fair shot with both a rifle and a pistol. His height and build have put off would-be muggers and quashed a number of public fights in the past.
Weaknesses: Marco is a classic "jack of all trades, master of none". While he's more than decent at handling himself in a fight, he's nowhere near the best at any specific method of attack, at least not without using magic to give himself an edge. There's something to be said about getting adequate rest, which he hasn't had too much of lately, and sometimes experience isn't just the best teacher, but the only one - he's only had a few years of it under his belt, even if they've been hectic.
Magical
Specializations:
- Tier 1: Physical (Astride the Crossroads), proficiency 2.5. Marco can manipulate the four classical elements of fire, water in its liquid, solid and vapor states, earth, and wind with his physical movements.
- Tier 2: Physical (Astride the Crossroads), proficiency 2.5.
Visual Display: None
Special Abilities:
Tier 1: Enhanced Strength 1
Tier 2: Enhanced Speed 1
Tier 3: Telekinesis
Bonus Special Abilities: Enhanced Vision 1, Enhanced Toughness 1
Unique Abilities: -
Strengths: Having four elements at his disposal makes for a versatile array of weaponry. Having their use tied to his ability to move well makes him quite the fearsome opponent in a brawl. Marco's form and movements are precise, built up from the same dedicated practice that hammered his body into shape. "Earth" itself offers plenty of options for attack and defense, with his study of the element extending to the use of metal as well. When he has to use fire, he's careful about aiming and spreading it, and always takes care to snuff it out completely when the dirty work is done.
Weaknesses: "Jack of all trades" doesn't completely apply to his magic - Marco is less proficient at controlling wind, and barely capable of manipulating water. His power over the elements is also limited to just that - manipulation - with no ability to conjure his weapons the way some other mages can. He has to draw all of his magical arsenal, even fire, from an external source, and has trouble shifting air in enclosed spaces. Having only one form of magic at his disposal brings the limitations of that form - if he can't move, he can't use it.
Inventory
Mundane: A semi-automatic pistol and rounds, a wallet with personal identification and credit cards, a combat jacket modified for avian beastfolk, a combat knife and a cigarette lighter.
Magical: ID tags - (Written, Perpetual): Military issue dog tags engraved with his personal information and basic tracking runes, allowing his movements and location to be monitored by military intelligence.
History
The firstborn son of Jack Dawson, mayor of the growing town of Northshire, Marco grew up with certain luxuries only the wealthy could afford, but most were kept safely out of his reach until he finished his homework and his vegetables. Especially his vegetables; his mother, a dryad, was jokingly insistent he honor the cause of the various plants who made the supreme sacrifice to ensure he grew up healthy.
He spent the first three years of his life as an only child, with his father mostly around at night and on weekends. After his sister Eve was born, both parents became a regular fixture of the house, and soon had their hands full as a brother, Kolby, joined them. By the time he was eight, Marco had learned how to keep the household chaos under control instead of adding to it, just in time for the arrival of a pair of twin sisters.
The better part of his childhood was spent being the responsible one, a role that followed him into school. While his grades were never the best, he frequently ended up as class monitor, and left middle school as the Head Boy.
He'd never been too sure where he would go after school. Eve looked cut out to be a magical healer, Kolby was developing a feverish obsession with mechanical science, the identical twins Aya and Maya already had their own opposite ideas of what they wanted in life... he knew he'd made a habit of getting classmates to behave, standing up to bullies, turning up early for classes and leading the school football team. He'd been raised to believe in upholding Greenwich principles and defending the weak. He had two and two, but couldn't seem to put them together to make four...
During his graduating year, an officer visited his school to canvas for His Majesty's Armed Forces.
A soldier's life wouldn't be easy, especially during an age of irritated Wildfey who were out to hurt people for destroying their homes with machines. Most of them, whatever their reasons, were hardly as understanding as his mother. It was almost a given that he would be garrisoned up here in the north, near his hometown, where something nasty might walk right out of Caledonia to give them hell. It didn't matter that the district had been lucky so far, that the few Wildfey riots in his life had never gotten past the border guard. He would be standing between innocents, and people who wanted to harm them. If the situation called for it, he might well end up taking a life. Or a few dozen.
His father told him all that, and more, over the dinner table that night. And after dinner, and even later, until both ended up going to bed long after midnight.
"As long as you know what you'll be getting yourself into," Jack said in the end. "Give it a while. Think about this. But if you're sure... at the end of the day, it's your choice to make. I trust it'll be a good one. I trust you. And I know you've never given me reason to change my mind."
"But if you ever end up on a hospital bed? I'll be the first one in to visit. And I'll have a lot more to say."
The year wasn't out before Marco was lugging his suitcases into Northshire Military Academy while his family cheered him on.
Life was grueling, but far from impossible. Somewhere between the daily schedule of waking up at five in the morning to run a mile, dropping into bed exhausted at ten every night, and hitting the ground for fifty push-ups at the drop of a hat or the whim of an annoyed drill instructor, he found time to write or phone home. He thought he sounded exhausted. Aya kept telling him he sounded closer to scarily optimistic.
And then he progressed from Basic training to the Leaders' Wing, and discovered his first three months of military life had been a walk in the park.
Over the nine months that followed, he had more experience with mud, insects, misbehaving wildlife and other horrible aspects of the great outdoors than most had a right to meet in a lifetime. When they weren't camping out in forests seemingly chosen for all the things that were wrong about them, he was struggling not to fall asleep in lecture after lecture, with dreaded written exams every few weeks. A few pessimistic phone conversations that ended with round scoldings from his sisters put an end to his occasional thoughts of dropping out.
He missed the winter holidays, but he emerged from military hell as an officer, just in time to surprise his family for the new year.
It was the best of times.
Perfect for disaster to come barreling in through the front door.
Border skirmishes had always been common. The Wildfey were getting sneakier. More trade convoys had been routed, border patrols ambushed, and one factory even burned to the ground in a magical inferno. More often now, the perpetrators were getting away.
Life within Northshire had always continued as normal, just with more gossip centered around the Wildfey. With most of his children growing up in a state of relative sanity, Jack was beginning to consider a return to politics.
Being married to a spouse from "the other side" had granted him insights into the Wildfey that most politicians didn't have, and hence a more balanced opinion on the subject of the forest-dwellers. In a town where the issue weighed much more on daily life, someone with moderate views who could stand for both sides at once - and get them to put down their weapons and listen for more than a few minutes at a time - would be able to take a substantial load off many nerves. This had won him the vote for three consecutive four-year terms, before he retired to help his wife around the house.
If he was banking on that reputation to ease his way back into politics, he was quite horribly mistaken. He wasn't alone in his moderate policies, but he was definitely in the minority. Being pushed further and further out into the cold over twelve years had eroded much of the rapport between the remaining fey and the other townfolk, and even during his time in office, he'd been swimming against the current to keep everyone together.
His first election rally was met with a cursed arrow that would have gone through his back, if his left wing hadn't gotten in the way. The explosives that went off across the square did little to help the matter. The goblin mages had precious minutes to spend wreaking havoc before the armed guard arrived to fill them with bullets.
In the midst of all the mopping up that followed, panicked and injured civilians to evacuate, rubble to search for survivors, dead bodies to account for, and a veritable mountain of paperwork, Marco was hardly the first to get to his father's hospital bed. Neither had anything to say.
The message seemed clear enough: the fey weren't interested in a compromise. For a few weeks, nobody else was. The attack left hysteria spreading like wildfire. The Dawson residence, as the most obvious Wildfey hideout, was vandalized and broken into several times, and Nadia had to evict armed thugs trying to start a witch hunt with her ashes. Word got to Marco's superiors, and they pulled some strings to station an armed guard outside the house until the paranoia died down.
Jack was on his feet in three months. He was lucky. The healer from Camford arrived soon enough that he only lost the damaged wing. The fact that he had gone down first in the attack was all that kept him from getting branded a collaborator.
The incident shook the town hard, to say nothing of how it affected the Dawson siblings. The youngest brother, Jacob, became a lot quieter. Kolby threw himself into his studies and refused to climb back out. Aya and Maya, who used to communicate like twins, got into more arguments, needled each other more, and were seen together less, with Maya even moving out of their shared room. Barely a week after the attack, Eve failed her exams at Camford in spectacular fashion, and had to repeat the entire year.
Right at the front lines, Marco spent every waking moment on edge. He spent months jumping at the chance to lead border patrols or take the watch, hoping to catch a glimpse of goblin skulls to shoot apart or smash together.
Another significant change to their lives was the gift from a family friend - one of Jack's old contacts, who spent much of his time traveling and gathering all manner of oddments from as far as the Archipelago. The cache of Upper Kingdom scrolls, the note said, were used for "a magical version of physiotherapy".
Insofar as mastery of physical magic strengthened the body, the note was telling the truth.
More than a little paranoid after the attack, the elder Dawson shared the scrolls with the rest of his family. The incident had made it clear to him that any one of them could be next, and he wanted to give his children a fighting chance of getting out alive.
Eve, already far ahead of the rest in magic, helped the others through the beginning stages. With help from their half-fey blood, Aya and Kolby picked up the basics within a year. They were still behind Marco, who was ready to strike out on his own in a matter of months.
Another year passed, and the town began to recover. The Dawsons picked up the pieces, thankfully more or less intact, and tried to come back together. Marco spent more and more time out of the house than in it, keeping up with the news of Wildfey attacks. Northshire might be safe for now, but he was sure there would be a next time.
Next time, he was going to be there before it happened.
Next time... if he hit them first, sent them a message in their own language of violence and magic, let them know Greenwich wasn't going back to the dark ages without a fight... maybe there wouldn't be a next time.
Appearance