.:|TITHE|:.

He was angry. He did not particularly like being angry, but the feelings that had welled up in his young body had become so intolerable that he needed to get away. For the first time in his very young life the cliffs and caves of Tinuvel did not bring him the secluded comfort that had been with him since he had been born. Instead the harsh and cold winds bit at his skin and continued to harden the coldness that had started to sink into his body. The chill formed a cold casing that mirrored the cold steel that covered his body. With every passing day the boy was tempered and shaped into what his mother wanted him to be.

I only give birth to kings. She spoke to him over and over again, the words becoming a mantra echo in his mind. It was today that she had told him more detail about his birth. He had a name, he had a place, and she had given him a purpose. Small, but feathering hooves carried him through the rough waters that separated Tinuvel from the Crossing. Barely a year old, and not grown enough to truly become part of the herd, he struck out to the borders of the Lagoon. The smell of the swamp filled his flared nostrils and he peered around the perimeter.

This was the world his sire was from. This was the place he had left to attack his mother a year ago. And so, this, he concluded, would be where he began his journey. His mother had pressed him, and he had made a promise. The young squire dared not step into the territory just yet, worried that he would be chased away because of his youth. But for a while he stood at the edge, tufting grey locks falling into matching grey eyes.

This would be his home soon, and he had promised his mother that he would be king.