At eight, Tanmayoh began to construct his garden. There was a dual purpose to his work, first he was homesick for a country he had never seen and he thought to replicate it from his mother's description. Second it was to house a pet, gifted to him by his mother’s father at his fifth birthday. The egg had arrived, dusty but secure from its long travels, brought to him in the hands of a long legged runner with the same brown eyes and dark skin of his mother. His father had been north, at the court of Lirn, attending the king's parliament and, with the other barons and dukes, helping him rule the northern kingdom. At first the gift had baffled the court, the seneschal, Lichsten, completely pre-occupied with running the great manse in his barons absence, had ignored it completely. Only his mother knew how to tend to the egg and she placed it under a window with a northerly aspect, that it may be fed well by the sun. Here it sat unmolested, for a time short enough to maintain the interest of a patient six year old. Tanmayoh would inspect the egg regularly, at break of dawn and again at noon.

The Manse of Lonnavale, currently occupied by Tanmayohs father Baron Anastasius, was of peculiar strategic importance to the northern kingdom. It was perched above a deep valley of lush wilderness, home to a few petty barons, outlaw clans and strange predators that wafted over the nearby border of the Southern kingdom. To the north traditional woodland of the North kingdom reigned, elms, alder, willow and oak reigned over pockets of ivy, clover and hawthorn. No uncanny creatures existed in these woodlands, only deer, rabbit and the noble wolf, sigil of his father's home. To the east was the magical demi-ocean of Thirr (translated to east), crystal clear and tranquil compared to its salty, angry cousins, any man, woman or child could drink from it and find the water pure and holy. It rushed over into the valley as scintillating waterfall, casting a great rainbow, before running through into the south kingdom as a great river. This difficult and elevated position was the first line against invaders from the south.

A tenuous truth had kept the tribal invaders at bay, a pact from which Tanmayoh had been born. United, briefly, under a single chieftain, the barbarians had sought peace. The chieftain’s lone daughter had been tutored in the language of steel by a ghost.

A cutthroat seeking to escape a petty Baron had fled from valley of Lonnavale, across the border into the south kingdom. Haunted by strange sounds and a fever invoked from drinking foriegn water he had quickly gone mad, been apprehended by tribal warriors on a hunt and delivered to the Chieftain. Skewered and roasted alive his vapor had been drawn into a fetish. It was by provoking this fetish that Tanmayoh mother had gained enough fluency to hope to broker a peace. Sent forward with a small band of warriors, it was by pure chance that when this envoy arrived the king's court was being held at Manse Lonnavale.

Baron Anastasius, a tall, cold man, arms frothing with sinew and vein, had made his reckless might felt all over the Northern Kingdom. His quick and complete routing of the horned invaders from across the ocean Yirr (translates to west) had demonstrated his military prowess. While his successful incursion into the barbarians lands had yielded fascinating stories of long plains and strange people dancing to the moonlight, their only music the thudding of heels and the crackle of the fire, loud under the void of the cosmos. Stories of strange beasts that flocked huge grasslands in large herds and dense jungles where predators waited in mottled pits of vines and leaf litter. These stories and the brown slaves he gifted won Anastasius the favor of the soft but rich nobles of the far north. Thusly the king had decreed the next court would be held at manse Lonnavale, where he could watch Anastasius closely and possibly undermine his growing influence. And so he had resided, with the rest of the arch barons and dukes, inside the great stone walls of manse Lonnavale when the tiny party lead by Tanmayoh’s mother arrived.

Anastasius had immediately ordered the tiny band of interlopers dispatched with a volley of arrows, their bodies flayed and hung on the border to discourage further disruptions to his court. The king, eager to subvert Anastasius will, rescinded the order before the captain of guard had left the room.

“Is this behavior of the barbarians common?” The king asked. “The barbarians behavior, as dictated by the meaning barbarian, is always erratic. I suggest we immediately quell this invasion” Anastasius replied. “I feel perhaps invasion is too strong a word, how many was in the party again?” The king asked. “12” Damian, the head of guard, replied.
“Does curiosity not grip any other member of this court? Perhaps the barbarians, nervous due to Anastasius dainty raids, have come to parlay.” The king continued, nodding to the aristocracy. “Indeed it does, I thought diplomacy to abstract for the southern savages, I say we hear them out, there is no urgency to have them removed, surely they pose no threat” Arch-Duke Vivilade said. “Oh indeed I am intrigued by their motive, but how to communicate?” Arch-Duke Desilav. “I have some slaves on hand that can perhaps translate. Damian, do they have arms?” “Spears and leather shields only” “Have their spears broken, and shields discarded. Give order that the three slave girls be gathered from the kitchen, beaten to make compliance swift and presented to us at the stable. Who will join me for this inquisition?” The king, Arch-Duke Vivilade, Arch-Duke Desilav, Duke Yordan, Arch-Baroness Justien, Baron Fredstien and Baron Kalin all nodded. Only Arch-Baron Semislev and Duke Justin signified their boredom of the event.

With the horses prepared, the scared slave girls properly mortified the small group of aristocracy awaited the report of Damian. “When we approached the invaders they quickly surrounded the girl that traveled with them. She spoke our language and implored us that they possessed no hostility. That they wished only to talk. We disarmed the men, breaking the hands of any who resisted too adamantly. We suffered a single casualty, a footman impaled when he approached the girl. The man who dealt the blow has been executed. They await your audience now”.