The morning passed the way good ones always did — slow, steady, and quiet enough to forget the weight of days ahead.
By the time the sun had started to tip higher over the tree-crowned hills, Jim's mother shooed them both out of the house with a half-hearted wave and a warning about not coming back covered in mud.
"Go wear yourselves out," she called, smiling as she leaned in the doorway. "And if anyone's playing Chaser today, remember to stay in the low fields — no shifting near the cliff paths."
The Low Fields stretched out like a broad, sun-drenched plain at the village's edge, a patchwork of soft, knee-high grass and patches of wildflowers that shifted with the breeze like rippling water. Small stones marked old borderlines, long forgotten, half-swallowed by grass.
Near the far edge ran a shallow, winding stream — no deeper than a child's shin — its banks soft and muddy, perfect for small, harmless mischief. It was a place where young Tragúls gathered to practice their first shifts, mock duels, and soul-weaving games. In the long grass, you could lose yourself in seconds and reappear with a war cry.
The elders called it Soulgrass Meadow, but to the us it was just the Low Fields — a place where rules thinned and freedom felt like breath in out lungs.
Beyond the Low Fields, the land rose sharply, curving into jagged, narrow Cliff Paths — pale stone ridges that hugged the outer rim of the valley. The paths were treacherous even for skilled Tragúls. Loose shale slipped underfoot, and the wind howled constant there, carrying the scent of salt from the distant sea.
Sheer drops vanished into mist-choked ravines, their depths unknown, and the cliff faces were marked by deep scars in the rock, as though something enormous had once clawed its way down toward the valley.
The paths were forbidden to children — not out of superstition, but because too many eager souls had slipped into the gray and never returned.
The old stories whispered that at night, the shadows beneath the cliffs moved on their own. No one spoke of what lived in them.
Esmond was already halfway down the trail before she finished, a fistful of berries pilfered from the kitchen clutched in one hand.
Jim jogged after him, the sun warm against his shoulders, the scent of dew-soaked soil thick in the air.
They crossed the stone path that curved around the outer edge of the Garden Tiers and down into the village's broad communal field — a patch of soft grass and wildflowers, edged by the thin silver thread of a shallow stream. There, a half-dozen other children waited, their voices rising in a familiar, eager clamor.
Small shapes darted through the grass — some fully animals, others half-formed and awkward in that way young Tragúls often were. A girl with furred ears and a bristled wolf tail chased after a boy who'd managed to shift into a sleek, black-furred panther cub, his paws too big for his legs, his movements unsteady but eager. Another pair tumbled together in stubby hawk forms, their wings mostly downy fuzz.
Full-body shifting was easier for the young. They lacked the fine control older Tragúls needed to mix aspects, but their soul-threads ran clean and wild, and becoming a creature entirely was instinctive once you'd seen one up close or tasted its blood.
Jim slowed as he reached the edge of the clearing. A few of the others looked up, one or two stiffening — not with hostility, but with the quiet awareness that came from knowing where someone stood in the unspoken pecking order.
He wasn't a noble. Not even a yeoman.
And yet… something about him had always unsettled them.
Esmond either didn't notice or didn't care. He barreled toward the others, dropping into a crouch mid-run — and with a burst of flickering soul-light, his form blurred, reshaping. When it cleared, a lean, bronze-furred jackal cub stood grinning back at them, teeth too big for his small snout.
A few of the others laughed.
"About time you two showed up!" one called — a girl in a cloud-gray fox cub form.
Jim grinned, crouched low, and called the shift. It came slower than his brother's, but not for lack of skill. He held it, savoring the pulse of soul-thread slipping loose from its bindings, then let it surge.
Where most would shape into something they'd hunted or studied, Jim's forms carried a sharpness, a sense of age, as though the creatures remembered more than they should.
His body shrank, bones shifting, muscles twisting. Dark fur rippled across his skin, and in seconds a wiry, sharp-eyed wolf cub stood in his place — his eyes the same storm-washed amber as before.
A few of the others exchanged wary looks.
One of the older cubs muttered "Something's off about his scent."
"Doesn't matter," the jackal-Esmond growled . "Tag's still tag."
And with a burst of eager yips and growls, the children scattered into the long grass, the game beginning the same way it always did — with the world wide and simple, and the day stretched endlessly ahead.
The grass swallowed them up.
Little streaks of fur, pawprints, and soft growls vanished into the long, sun-warmed blades as the game began — a wild tangle of chase, dodge, and mock-pounce. Jim bolted after a hawk cub that half-leapt, half-fluttered above the grassline, then veered as a panther cub lunged from the side.
The rules of Chaser were simple:
Tag with your teeth or claws. No full strikes. No aspect mixing. First one to five wins.
But for Tragúls, it wasn't just about speed.
It was about soul-threads.
They were invisible cords, sensed rather than seen — threads that shimmered faintly in the world's weave. In beast form, the threads felt clearer, like a tingle in the chest or a warmth in the air. They marked where life brushed against life.
Jim felt them now — soft pulses around him, quick and bright like fireflies flitting through tall grass. Esmond's thread was near, wild and restless, darting between the others. The panther cub's thread ahead flickered sharp, darting left. A fox cub's thread hummed a giddy note of excitement to his right.
He turned after the jackal-cub that was Esmond, his brother's thread like a burst of sun-warmth that tugged the air around it.
"You're slow!" Esmond yipped as he bolted past.
Jim gave a short, wolfish growl in reply and chased after, feeling the threads shimmer faintly in his awareness — there, but untouchable, as much a part of the world as wind and scent.
And that was how it stayed.
The chase raged on, with cries and yips and the pounding of small paws, the world wide and simple, and the day stretched endlessly ahead.
By the time the sun dipped low, the air had taken on that soft, gold-drenched hue that made the grass seem to glow. The game slowed in fits and starts — cubs pausing to pant, tongues lolling, ears flicking lazily in the breeze.
One by one, they let their beast-shapes fall away.
It happened like a slow ripple through the field. A shimmer of faint, silvery light around each body, followed by the soft crack of bone, the stretch of sinew, and the quiet exhale as fur gave way to skin.
Esmond was among the first to shift back, rising to his feet in a tangle of limbs, brushing dirt and grass from his bronze-hued arms. His hair stuck up in wild tufts, sweat-darkened at the edges, and his antler nubs caught the last rays of sun.
Jim followed, letting the wolf fall from his bones.
The shift came easy — instinctive now — and as the fur receded and his body straightened, the soul-thread tug in his chest dimmed to a low hum. When the light faded, Jim stood in the evening grass, breath coming steady.
He was tall for his age, with lean shoulders and long limbs, the wiry build of someone born to run. His skin was burnished bronze, kissed by sun and wind, and faint scars marked his forearms — old cuts from wild climbs and reckless dares.
His hair, an untamed mess of dark brown, hung down to his brow in shaggy waves, the kind of hair that never lay flat no matter how it was cut. In certain light, it shimmered with faint undertones of deep auburn, a shade that caught only when the sun was angled just so.
But it was his eyes that marked him most.
Storm-washed amber, sharp and unsettling. They didn't shine like the eyes of the noble bloodlines, nor glow like the Royals — but they held a clarity, a depth that unsettled strangers and made even seasoned traders glance twice.
A soul born of wildness.
And in that moment, with the sun burning low and the fields humming with the last warmth of the day, it made him look older than he was. Older, and somehow… not quite ordinary.
Esmond elbowed him in the ribs. "Beat you to three tags."
Jim snorted, a grin breaking through. "You tripped over your own tail."
"Did not."
"Did too."
The cubs laughed, the last scraps of the day falling around them like dry leaves. And for a little while longer, the world was exactly the way it was supposed to be.