.in the shadows of the past.

The blood of maharajas, sultans and kings flows in Lancaster’s veins.  For thousands of years his ancestors bred only with the bravest men, the most beautiful women, the noblest warriors, the wisest mystics, and the highest castes.  Then, when the British imperialists came, they bred too with the best of the white men.  His people respected power; they respected the virtues, and they respected strength.

In the Tiger Wars, his family was almost entirely wiped out.  Khan and kin alike perished, caught on the losing end of the Sultan Nagda’s eclipse massacre.  One young girl of eleven escaped, and only one – a distant, kinfolk grandniece of the head of the family.  Her name was Jvalita.  She was small and frightened, but resourceful and strong, and she knew at once her only hope was to lose herself in the masses.

So into the masses she went, vanishing into the backstreets of India’s largest cities.  Disguising herself as the penniless orphan she had become, she begged for alms and for work, and eventually settled herself as a maid to the daughter of a minor lord.

Years passed.  Jvalita grew more beautiful by the day.  Though she wore cast-off rags and kept her head bowed and her eyes downcast, none could miss the nobility implicit in her features, the grace of her gestures, the beauty of her smooth cheek and her slender form.  Young noblemen for leagues around came under the pretense of courting the lord’s daughter in hopes of catching a glimpse of her beautiful maid; penniless youths, apprentices to their father’s trades, came under the pretense of selling their wares and services in hopes of the same.  A few brave souls proposed marriage, and then a few more, until floods and floods of youths thronged the lord’s doorstep on Jvalita’s fifteenth birthday, begging him not for his daughter’s hand, but for his daughter’s maid’s.

The daughter saw this and went petulantly crying to her father.  The lord was furious.  His daughter had been scorned, and his own pride was trampled by the dignity of the girl who passed before his eyes day in, day out.  He knew in his heart of hearts that he would never draw the admiration Jvalita did – not if he lived to be a thousand; not if he wore gold and walked on silver; not if he became the sultan of all the known world.  In his rage and his jealousy, a madness overtook him and he ravished his daughter’s maid.

When he came to his senses, the lord knew shame such that he could no longer bear to look upon Jvalita.  He banished her from his household and barred the door behind her, then spread slander so terrible that none would take her in.  Desperate, Jvalita fled into the jungle.  Deeper and deeper she went, blind and lost, wishing to die, until exhaustion overtook her and she fell senseless to the wet earth.

A dream filled her then, in which a silver voice spoke to her of many things.  It spoke to her of survival in the jungle; what she must do, what she could eat and what she could not, where she could find shelter, where she could find peace.  It spoke to her of the legacy she bore in her veins, which was at once her burden, her pride and her responsibility.  Lastly, it spoke to her of the child she bore now in her womb, who would against all odds be trueborn, and who would avenge his mother and his people.  It spoke to her of what she must teach him, where she must raise him, and how she must be prepared to let him go to face his fate when the day came.

Jvalita awoke, and she obeyed the voice who spoke to her, knowing in her heart that it was one of the great gods her people had honored, and had been honored by.  Months passed, then years; she delivered her son and raised him true, telling him daily of his great ancestors, of the tribe of Khan, of the balance between those born of man and those born of beast, of the vengeance that was his to bear through.

This trueborn son of Tiger, delivered of woman and raised by the jungle, was Avanindra He-Who-Came-from-the-Wilderness.  As a boy of eight he had his First Change; as a youth of fourteen, he was already as strong as a grown man, and wiser.  On the night of his fifteenth birthday the silver voice spoke to him, telling him the time had come, telling him to walk south and never look back.  When morning came, Jvalita found him already gone with only a lock of his hair to remember him by.

It is said Jvalita walked into the jungle, into a bottomless pool where the moon was reflected.  It is said she was embraced by Seline who had spoken to her and taken home.

Avanindra walked for eighteen days and eighteen nights, never tiring, never hesitating.  South and south he walked with nothing in his hands and nothing on his body, and as he walked he became a tiger, and then the sabertoothed killing-form that meant no mercy for his foes.  On the dawn of the nineteen day, he saw the village rise before him, and though he had never seen such a thing, his mother’s recollections steadied his nerves and hardened his resolve.

As Chatro he paced the streets, and all who saw him knew terror.  Some ran, some wept, and some pressed their bodies to the ground, overcome.  Avanindra walked on, walked to the door of the lord who had shamed his mother, and with one great blow of his paw struck it asunder.  Servants ran screaming, and he let them go.  Nobles ran as well, but Avanindra stood at the gates and devoured them one by one – all save two.

The lord himself he tore limb from limb, for his flesh would have curdled in Avanindra’s belly.  The lord’s granddaughter he took as his mate, for the line of Khan must go on.

And so Avanindra became Lord Avanindra, and in his home there were only ever two laws.  First, every trueborn child is sent to the jungle to be raised as predator, not as man.  Second, on the fifteen birthday of every child, Khan or kin, a prophetic dream would come upon them.  What is spoken is theirs alone; what is commanded of them must be obeyed without question, without hesitation, without fear.

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