My name is Myche. I appear to be in my mid-teens, but I'm much older than that. I'm not sure how old exactly, I was too young to realise the importance of counting the years when I set out on my own. My Mum was obsessed with a swan-winged elf with delusions of grandeur. She worshipped the ground he never quite walked on. I just thought he was an arrogant dick. He showed up whenever he needed her and then flapped off again to 'serve his master'. Don't get me wrong, he was, and probably still is, beautiful, but he left her to raise me on her own. Apparently I'm too human to be accepted as one of his own people. I don't quite fit in with the humans either. For one I wasn't growing fast enough. For another I have these weird looking ears and these awkward twisted wings on my back. The fact they were tied down while I was growing to make me look as normal as possible meant they grew to be even more malformed than I assume they would have if they'd been allowed to grow naturally.

Being an outcast gave me a lot of time to read. Anything and everything I could get my hands on. A lot of the books were written by scholars and wizards, and were far beyond my comprehension, at first. Over time I was able to make connections by cross-referencing other volumes and beginning to draw some assumptions and conclusions that allowed me to muddle through. I was still living at home with my mother, who was fussing about trying to tidy the house in preparation for daddy's anticipated arrival. Sadly this was mostly guesswork and she was often wrong. Anyway, I'd managed to fashion an arrowhead from lifeglass [resonite - Jansten] and take down a rabbit. I'd then powered the purple crystal and fashioned a little rabbit hide pouch to keep the powder in. Mom was standing on the table dusting at the oil lamp that hung above it when I muttered the words to focus my mind, thought 'rabbit', and flicked a few specks of the purple lifeglass dust into the air. A phantom rabbit hopped across the table and made my mother scream. It faded before it was all the way across, but I was beaming with triumph still when my mother told me she was done with me and demanded I leave. I was planning on it anyway. One of the richest deposits of lifeglass in the known world was in the foothills around a mountain range east of my pathetic little settlement. It was suggested in the books I read that it was particularly rich on the far side of the mountaiins, but a guarded gate prevented easy travel through the mountain pass. The world beyond is supposed to be a paradise, but only the best are allowed through. I already know I don't qualify. My misshapen wings make me appear hunch-backed and grotesque even under clothes. Nevertheless, I intended to make my way to the City of Gate and make my fortune as an enchanter. It didn't take me long to pack since I was already prepared. The trunk was heavy but I mixed the remaining rabbit powder into some lacquer and varnished the trunk with it. In this way I was able to coax the trunk to hop ahead of me as I walked, thwapping at it with a cane to keep it from hopping off in the wrong direction.