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Dark Moon Child

Lucius was born under the dark moon.

He blames this for most, if not all, of his weaknesses. For it is commonly known among werewolves (even as it is commonly known among vampires that garlic is not suitable flavoring for blood) that those born under the dark moon are least gifted with strength and prowess. They are born while the moon has turned her face away.

In some Packs the dark-moon cub was killed at birth. In others he was merely scorned and bullied out of any share of mother's milk or warm fresh kill, and died that way. But the lines of those who walk the Secret Paths have always been strange, and among those who Keep the secrets of the werewolves, dark-moon cubs were a gift, symbol of the moon at her most mysterious. Lucius's mother claimed to have willed her body to keep the child until the dark moon, and to this day this is the only thing he has resented her for.

In the best days, the Packs tempted Secret keepers to stay and share their stories by providing them choice take of the kill, and such mates and favors as they should not have by the rank their strength would buy.

In the worst days, the Packs chased those who walk the Secret Paths away, and stayed storyless, or dominated and bullied and tortured them until they cried out their secrets in pain and fear.

Lucius lives by his cunning and tells no one he walks the Secret Paths, nor that he was born under the dark moon. The thinness of his limbs and the smallness of his wolf-body might give him away, but he has become a thing of teeth and fury, of indominitable will, of force of sheer determination. No werewolf he has defeated would accuse him of the shame of a dark moon birth.

But each dark moon, in honor of his sire and dam, he takes to the most secreted place he can find, and sings the songs that his parents passed to him, last legacy of what he is.